(Australian) Elite girls' school 'kills the study of literature' (Shakespeare goes Marxist)

The Australian ^ | April 15, 2006 | Justine Ferrari

[beef]

I think the reason fictions fascinates people is that often they reveal something about a world which most readers would have never experienced in

 

I think you are probably right, but the quality of that experience is highly questionable.  In order to determine if that information is valid, you still need to consult non-fiction.

It is not easy for someone growing up in a newly developed places like Hong Kong to vision what life was like for the upper class aristocrats in pre-WWII Britain was like. And reading Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time achieves precisely that.

Seriously, how do you know that?   It might be accurate, and then it might not.  Maybe it's a little of both, but you'll never know which is which.  After all, it's all made up.  Don't get me wrong, I like a good story as much as the next guy. What I object to is such questionable information going into public policy.

[NZerFromHK]

As I sais on the last post, it really depends on the individual authors. Anthony Powell's descriptions of the pre-war British upper classes are more credible than had the work been written by Red Ken because Powell was one of them himself.

And it also depends on whether authors had creeped his biases into the works. Angles are often unavoidable (not even in engineering) surrounding issues that can't be easily quantified. The only thing is to analyse and see if the judgment is justified or not. And this will involve background research, and perhaps a reading of some history or travelogues works of the corresponding period and/or place.

[pointsal]

LOL, I could have so much fun completing this assignment.

Perhaps, you should go ahead and post a response for the young ladies to consider. They may need so sane guidance on the top...

Just a suggestion, mate.

[RepoGirl]

Two of my brothers have degrees in the hard sciences: one in math and computers, the other in physics. They encountered a lot less of the political indoctrination during their school years than I did. (Although, on the other hand--some of the biggest leftists were some of the scientists at MIT I socialized with.)

Mostly because you can't play around with the absolutes of math and physics, there's no room for interpretation--so a prof can't explain a math theorum or something within marxist or radical terms. However, in the humanities, weak minds abound. More and more, students just skate by on feelings and unfounded observations.

In the Creative Writing department of my school, there were only TWO deeply closeted conservatives (myself, and my best friend). Our fiction was one thing--we could actually float by some really subversive, libertarian ideas amid the standard, liberal drek, but we found it very difficult to stand out and make our own statements in the literature classes that were part of our 'foundation' courses.

Still, and I say this with a great amount of shame, there was such a hatred of anything conservative, that we often just kept our mouths shut in class, at the department cocktail parties, etc.. The surest way to kill a book deal or a possible meeting with an agent or editor is to say, "Ronald Reagan was the GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER!" or something.

[Burkean]

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with using these approaches to study literature. But I think they have erred in forcing the students to only consider those three approaches. It indicates an obvious agenda.

[winner3000]

I bet that witch will never ask her students to interpret Shakespeare from a free market perspective.

[Dumb_Ox]

Bloom's lectures on Shakespeare, "What a piece of Work is Man," are available for about $40 at Barnes and Noble. Cheaper than Yale.

The best humanities professors I had were foreigners, who weren't so eager to adore the latest French theory, like their native colleagues. On the other hand, my worst math professor was a Romanian who had only six weeks' experience in the English language.

[wildcatf4f3]

Naturalism as defined by each character having near equal significance as opposed to protagonist and supporting cast, was the direction Shakespeare was headed. Compare his early works to Lear. By the time of Lear, Edmund/Edgar, Regan Goneril et al have as much stage time as the king. Checkov picked up on this. Compare Trepleff in The Seagull (protagonist) to the myriad interesting characters in The Cherry Orchard. It is a more Godlike view of humanity, in all its classes and types. All art is fiction. The painting is not a photograph and a photograph is not reality. Imagine the dearth of knowledge about ourselves without this "fiction" Include the Mona Lisa and Monet while you're at it. Shake introduced "blank" verse, non rhyming. Verse traditionally has been in rhyming couplets as a mnemomic device for illiterate societies. It has been a joy to this thread. Remember that the Left kills its own. Meyerhold, the original Trepleff at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1896 and later the head of the Bolshevik theatre was shot in the back of the head at Stalin's command. I HATE the Left.

[AmishDude]

In the accelerate classes junior students in such classes would have already finished senior materials at the end of their junior school, so what are they to learn in their senior year?

Calculus.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

LOL, I could have so much fun completing this assignment.

It could be like how Michael Savage does the Michael Un-Savage routine on his radio show sometimes...

[beef]

I think we basically agree. My point is that fiction should be regarded as entertainment, and not a cryptic method of communicating opinions. If someone wants to give me their opinion, fine, let them state it and give their supporting FACTS. And don't charge me to hear it.

Many otherwise objective people are conditioned to suspend disbelief and allow themselves to be emotionally manipulated in the presence of fiction. This has consequences in the real world. For instance, I firmly believe that the homeless problem of the last 25 years can be laid at the feet of the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

[beef]

I guess we live in different worlds. To me, comparing literary devices is like comparing copper and PVC plumbing. They are just different ways of accomplishing something, and it is interesting only to practitioners. As long as the toilet flushes, who else cares?

[NZerFromHK]

I quite enjoy ripping a novel to shreds in order to reveal what the author's bias is like. Some authors' biases are justifiable such as Tom Clancy or William Golding, while others are juicy targets for debunking/fisking such as John le Carre.

[SupplySider]

It amazes me that parents pay huge premiums at elite institutions to indoctrinate their own children. I can only conclude that they are not interested in their children's actual education, just in getting the budding airhead's ticket punched at a name brand college or school. Not a very loving attitude, in my opinion.

[beef]

I really get annoyed by blatant attempts at manipulation, and the assumption that I am stupid enough to fall for it. I try to ignore it and get others to do the same. It sounds like you enjoy fighting back.

[Blind Eye Jones]

"My point is that fiction should be regarded as entertainment, and not a cryptic method of communicating opinions."

Fiction is entertainment but it can also give a person greater insight into his own character. Shakespeare held a mirror up to nature so that we see can glimpse human nature all the more throughly. In that sense he is very relevant today because human nature has not changed.

[Caleb1411]

Meanwhile, closer to home . . .

[LexBaird]

i remember hearing (although i don't know if it is true) that shakespeare wrote his portrayal of the evil Richard III in part to curry favor with the House of Tudor.

Quite true. Henry Tudor, hero to Richard's villainy, was Elizabeth's grandfather. To portray RIII as anything else would have been tantamount to accusing the Tudors of Regicide and usurping the throne.

[LexBaird]

(Who Killed Kennewick Man?)

Probably having to live across from Pasco was enough to do him in.

[LexBaird]

so a prof can't explain a math theorum or something within marxist or radical terms.

Ever heard of Lysenkoism? Crippled Soviet science for decades.