Is Literature Relevant?

I am reading a book by Rev. Douglas Wilson: A Call for Classical Christian Education. He has no hesitation in saying Christians should pull their children from public schools. For the Christian teacher in a public school, he has these words:
For Christian teachers in secular schools: “...he or she is either going to be constantly exasperated – or fired. If the teacher fails to reach those around him, he or she will be exasperated. If the teacher succeeds, he or she will be fired. All in all, those gifted in teaching should seek out classical Christian academies in which to teach – even if salary and retirement benefits are lower.”

I also read an article, "The Decline and Fall of Literature," by Andrew Delbanco, (linked to the blog title above) on the failure of English Departments at colleges. Some of the facts included were how the number of students that major in English in college and the number of PhD programs and students have decreased. It is not encouraging to someone who would consider teaching English. The article’s main thrust was that English departments have become “laughing stocks” of colleges across America because of the variety of things studied, which are really just items of pop culture, such as comic books, advertising, movies, pornography, etc. I would add their political slants and social experiments in the classroom have depleted the number of students interested.

In another essay, ”Dynamics of Scholarly and Essayistic Writing,” by Rainer Schulte, (Literature Interpretation Theory, 16: 389–395, 2005. Copyright # Taylor & Francis Inc,)I read the question: why aren’t scholarly journals read? He pointed out their obscurity, mainly in language. But these essays are also obscure in subject matter. They’re really only written for peers. Who is going to read “Jane Austen and the masturbating girl,” a miscellaneous essay I just picked off of the internet, except for other English scholars who think such things are important, and some Freudians who look for justification for their sexual obsession by supposing everyone else has the same?

Secular schools wouldn’t like it, nor allow it, but a moralistic approach to literature, the way to teach prior to the 20th century, taught about wisdom. Secular schools cannot teach wisdom, nor do they care to.* That is why students will doubt the relevance of literature. As much as academics may look down on churches, they could learn something from Bible study. It was Bible study that started my interest in literature, that complemented it, and then study of literature complemented Bible study. Bible study is about applying the Word.

*C.S. Lewis brought up a good point: teachers can’t give their students what they don’t have themselves. He was writing of expecting secular teachers to teach with the Christian perspective.

Mention of C.S. Lewis Discarded Image and Pilgrim's Regress

Quick review of The Discarded Image:

A very good introduction to medieval and Renaissance literature, constructing the Model of the Universe that was popularly held at that time. Lewis builds the Model by citing a substantial number of works that address cosmology, astronomy, medicine, rhetoric, etc. Subjects referred to by medieval authors are compiled, such as the characteristics of people described by the planet they were born under or the balance of their humours; the inhabitants of earth, aether, and the sky; daemons, angels and faeries; the separation of body and soul. A very good reference, and the beginning of a very long reading list, most of which may be found online.


Quick review of Pilgrim’s Regress:

A book that is as useful for understanding Lewis's personal experience as his autobiography, Surprised by Joy. He takes up some of the same themes, this time defining his desire for God as Romanticism, which he later calls Joy. The story is of the journey of the character John, as he searches for something to fulfill that desire for something he can't yet define. He meets a variety of characters who reflect philosophies that Lewis considered before becoming a Christian. For example, there are characters who represent Freudians, Epicureans, Classicists. Through the adventure John realizes that things such as sex, knowledge, aesthetic beauty, do not fulfill that desire.

The story is told as an allegory, modeled after John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, because, as Lewis writes in the Afterword: "But in fact all good allegory exists not to hide but reveal; to make the inner world more palpable by giving it an (imagined) concrete embodiment.... For when allegory is at its best, it approaches myth, which must be grasped with the imagination, not with the intellect." (208) Nonetheless, it is engages the intellect too.

A Medieval Approach to Modernity

One good book leads to another, and another, and another, like a bus tour, and along the way you note places to come back to. I’ve bought C. S. Lewis’s Allegory of Love, after searching for a copy for less than fifty dollars over the past several years. I was quite anxious to read the out of print book. (Incidentally, I don’t know why it is out of print since it is often referred to by contemporary essayists. In medieval studies the book from 1936 is an important reference.) The book is a history of medieval literature, specifically works on the subject of courtly love in the form of allegory. Within the bibliography Lewis reviews (more than critiques) the central works of The Romance of the Rose, Chaucer’s Troilus and Cressida, and Spenser’s Faery Queene.

Reading this book of literary criticism prompted me to search for many titles of medieval works referred to. I am extremely happy that many of the works, in their entirety, are available online at Luminarium.org, Project Gutenberg, and TEAMS Middle English Texts. I no longer must resort to checking out large anthologies that only offer extracts. I am reading John Lydgate’s poetry (an author hardly known and usually categorized as one of a Chaucerian school, but who produced twice as much as his idol). He models himself after Chaucer, but he lacks his predecessor’s originality and diversity. His work is enjoyable, however, especially for expressing the courtly ideal of love. I am also reading The Romance of the Rose, which, as I read more commentaries, was a very influential book during the medieval period.

I must have a subject to the essay, besides a little criticism. I need to have something of an issue, don’t I? The one that comes to mind first is one of self-analysis, one to answer if I hope to have any success in the blogosphere: why read medieval literature?

While I have said in the past that I am an anachronism, not at all modern in thought or lifestyle, there is the exception of the computer and internet that I use daily. With the spread of technology comes the spread of information, which is more accessible than ever before. With this information we have the wider diversity of cultures to learn from, and we may customize our lifestyles. We are not limited to the culture that is common around us, except for those that choose to prohibit the technology. You are able to study religions you had little access to before the information revolution; you can study other countries and could even plan down to the details of moving there; you can complete college courses at home; you can correspond with people around the world easier than ever.

My point in all this is you can choose your lifestyle, or what I would call your own culture. I have built something of a culture of my own in my home. If I can choose my lifestyle from all the cultures I can learn of, without the limitations of space, (for instance, I can love English culture as much as American without living there), why limit myself in time? The spread of information includes a great treasure of history. With all that history offers, why must I be modern? This is why I am a Conservative. It’s not that I necessarily want to prevent change, but change for change’s sake is not a good reason. The phrase ‘change is good’ can only be proven after it is the past. I think the desire of people, en masse, for something novel is juvenile.

So I study history, so I read literature of past times, for good ideas to build my lifestyle, my own culture. Here are a few ideas I have recently discovered that I want to include.

“Be courteous and approachable, speaking gently and reasonably to high and low alike, and when you go along the streets, be sure to make it your habit to be the first to greet other people. And if someone should greet you first, do not remain dumb, but take care to return the greeting at once, and without delay. Next, be sure never to use rude words or coarse expressions: your mouth should never be opened to pronounce the name of anything base.”
Guillame de Lorris. The Romance of the Rose. (New York: Oxford University Press 1994) 32-33.

It would be foolish of me to dispel wisdom given from the past, or to think it wise only for one culture, one situation, one time. If it was it would have been only a novel thought.

Rational Religion

From June, 2005
It is interesting to reflect on how reading coincides with events of life, affecting my perspective, even my actions. A few months ago I was reading the Augustan poets. The Augustan period in English literature, late 17th-early 18th centuries, is marked by Neoclassicism. Authors like John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift translated the Greek and Roman authors into English, and added their own writings in similar style, such as their satires. One of the English authors, Joseph Addison, inspired me to start ZED by his version of a newsletter, The Tatler, which he and Richard Steele published and distributed through coffee houses, (yes, the trend in America of reading poetry in coffee houses is not at all new). These English authors worked to improve the ideas, language, and form of English. Works like Pope’s The Rape of the Lock epitomized ‘high’ style in English.

These authors also praised Reason, or rationality. Deism, the belief in God but not his participation in our world, arose as a rational religion. People of intellect taught religious tolerance, avoidance of extreme thinking, and discouraged personal revelation of God. Suspicion and doubt of any knowledge not gained from empirical evidence led to disbelief in miracles and the supernatural. Thus developed the belief – to put it simply for this overview – that God created the world, then withdrew, no longer interacting with mankind. By removing the miraculous, Christianity became a code of ethics, the Bible became a book of wisdom, or a book of manners, but not the truth of God. Christ’s divinity and his redemption of mankind were nullified.

This is still the problem of Christianity for intellectuals; they must decide whether to face towards a supernatural God, one not seen by empirical evidence. This problem, throughout the centuries, has prompted people to search. At the same time I read the Augustans, I also proofread Edwin Abbott’s collected letters, The Kernal and the Husk, (1886). He accounts of his search for rational religion. Following Descarte’s example, he discarded the teachings of others and sought self-tested truths. While reading a work like his I was reminded of C. S. Lewis, who was a rational atheist turned rational Christian.

Some characterize this kind of search as doubt, and handily offer, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” Matthew 4:7. But for those who question, if they do not search, they will always have doubt. I understand their desire for reason.

Yet I also understand that God does not reach the heart by empirical evidence. Such evidence would still leave many unpersuaded. Unfortunately, many will not witness the miracles they hope will convince them. How many would like to believe, but at some time in their lives they gave God a great opportunity to do a miracle and he did not? The truth is miracles, by definition, are rare.