Is literature necessary?

I'm listening to a bit on the radio show the Takeaway this morning that asks this question. They haven't posted the program yet, but the link will be here: Is Literature Necessary? - The Takeaway

The basic premise is this: the Common Core State Standards (which many states are adopting) state that 70% of a high school senior's reading load across all disciplines should be nonfiction. So what place does literature have in the modern high school?

How do you feel about this? What role has literature played in your life? What books do you view as important in your life?

Working in a school at the 8th grade level, I see how much nonfiction reading students do in the OTHER disciplines outside of the language arts class I observe, so I feel like it would be almost easy to reach that 70% mark. Personally, if I were teaching a 12th grade English class, I probably would not explicitly assign nonfiction work. However, I am a New Historicist, which means putting literature in context, and I could see myself encouraging my students to do this; this would mean that they would read nonfiction work that helps them to understand the fiction work at hand.

Obviously, because I want to teach English/Language Arts, literature has played a rather large role in my life. I think literature is important, although I think we need to reexamine "the canon" used in schools in order to introduce works that may be more relevant and interesting.

One of the books I dislike the most is also one of the books I view as one of the most important in my life: Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. It's depressing. It showed me that not all books have happy endings, and opened up a world of realism and naturalism for me. It made the 16-year-old me feel very thoughtful, and my English teacher went on to recommend the book I love that blew my mind just as much: Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.

Literature has opened up worlds for me--Victorian England, Middle Earth, Renaissance Italy, etc. It's taken me to the past, the present, and the future. While I understand the necessity of making sure that students understand the implications of the real-life information presented in nonfiction, I also believe literature is important in how it transports people, brings people together, and starts important conversations.

So where does literature belong in the modern school?

 

The first thing I thought of here is does a work need to be fiction to qualify as literature?
I've read some biographies that are well written, using a lot of literary "devices" developing plots and using different points of view, etc.
I'm working through Vol. 2 of William Manchester's "The Last Lion" a weighty 3 volume bio of Winston Churchill. Excellent writing.

Should a work be excluded from literature because it is nonfiction?
I don't think so, but I'm open to being convinced.

Good nonfiction could certainly be effective in teaching writing skills.

How about Nabokov's "Speak, Memory" which the author calls "a systematically correlated assemblage of personal recollections..." Is it fiction or non-fiction?

I guess I have not enough time to think about this right now.

Lindy

 

That's an interesting point, Lindy. In the context of the conversation on the radio show, they were speaking of literature as being exclusively works of fiction, but if I think about it, I can name lots of different works that I read in my college lit classes that certainly weren't fiction, like the essays of Montaigne or the philosophical works of Michel Foucault or Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous speech, "The American Scholar."

 

I won't get into nonfiction vs. fiction (both are important). I will look at this as a question of where fiction & poetry fit.

What are the advantages of studying either? Well, the answer to this varies, so I'll just throw out a bunch of things.

Reading fiction has many advantages, but those that interest me are based on recent studies that suggest fiction has an impact on how we think about and interact with people.

Toronto scientists determine that fiction can change personalities | Quill & Quire

Ultimately, fiction is a reflection of life. It allows us to contemplate life through art. This is the case whether it's realism or fantasy. When a young reader engages with a novel, they see parts of themselves reflected in the characters; they relate to them. It allows readers to examine moral questions in a safe environment: the imagination. Teenagers especially are resistant to authority and walls will go up if you try to moralize them directly. Instead, fiction can take up this role, and it does so wonderfully, especially when paired with a meaningful, interesting, and engaging study.

As for poetry, the effects are different, and it should be included for different reasons. I like to view poetry along the same lines as music and mathematics. This is because it is something that is measured logically as well as phonetically and linguistically, etc. This is also why many shy away from it or feel it is inaccessible. (It doesn't need to be, and there are ways to "ween" students onto poetry.)

Poetry stands on its own as something that should be included in any curriculum. But why? Well, it expands the mind. It's like exercise. The one definition of poetry I like is "the longest distance between Point A and Point B." Poetry is about language, it's about meaning. The poet doesn't just come out and say what he or she means, because it's not just communication; it's a conversation, it's a game, it's a challenge, etc.

I think both fiction and poetry are essential for these reasons, but they are essential for other reasons as well.

If you wonder whether fiction and/or poetry are truly necessary, perhaps it would also be worthwhile to examine those cultures that produced none.

 

Books. Stories. Fantasy. Adventure. Oh my goodness how literature has shaped my life. Memories of my childhood revolve around books. One book after the next, our home was crowded with books. Shelves overflowing with stories, and frequent trips to the library - it was a short walk away, just on the fringes of our neighborhood - we visited nearly every day in the summers.

There was a never-ending supply of books in my childhood. They shaped my view of the world and the tone of my fantasies. I could escape into a world of my choosing by simply opening a book. In junior high and high school I volunteered for the young literacy program at our local library where I helped out with story time and also tracked how much reading the kids had done each week based on how many books they had checked out from the library (and encouraged them to be honest about what they actually read by providing me with a brief verbal description of each story). I also sat down with some of the kids and helped them to sound out words as they cracked open a new book.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of my brother reading me the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The stories I heard broadened my mind and gave me ample ammo for make-believe play and daydreams. From books, I learned what was required to take the imagery written and transform it into a world of my own. This creativity has served me well in all areas of life, helping me to take in a set of variables, capture a vision of what needs to be done, and make it happen.

When my mother would read to me, she would read a paragraph then have me read the next, eventually she just had me read to her. Each character had their own voice and I tried to read dramatically, to keep her interest. Those skills have come in handy throughout life. I am shocked when I have my college students read something aloud in class and they stumble over words. How did they somehow skip this crucial skill? Is it a generational thing?

Then I look at my sister's kids. Her 4-year-old reading at the second grade level, her 12-year-olds easily digesting books I wouldn't give to my college students. Every wall of their home is adorned by bookshelves, every nook and cranny crowded by stuff to read. There are still bibliophiles in the young generations...


Knowing how literature shaped my life, I wonder - what studies have been done to understand how fiction shapes the developing mind? I've spent the past 20 minutes or so looking for sources on the topic to satiate my curiosity... but I have experienced little success finding appropriate keywords. This is where reference librarians come in handy. Still, I stumbled on this little tidbit, which is pretty fun and worth sharing:

 

Here is some recent research similar to what I posted about above that looked at how reading fiction can change personalities.

In this new research (conducted by some of the same people as the above study at U of T), they found that reading literary fiction, specifically, alters one's perception of ambiguity. This was in comparison to those who read essays. Essentially, it found that open-mindedness can result from an exposure to literary fiction (in this case, short stories).

Study: Reading novels makes us better thinkers - Salon.com

Follow the link to find out what the researchers think of their findings.

It's difficult to be fully conclusive about such findings, but I believe this is, at least, further evidence that reading literary fiction is important, and that it has a place in a comprehensive academic curriculum.

It would also help explain why I get unnerved whenever I hear about anything that takes away from the writing, publishing, and reading of this kind of literature.

I believe that literary fiction and other art forms act as a cornerstone of civilization. The thought of not giving it adequate support is frustrating to say the least.

 

Short stories don't get anywhere near enough attention. They're fun and quick to read.

 

Actually, academically, they get quite a bit of attention for just that reason. It's easy to get through The Most Dangerous Game or The Tell-Tale Heart and instruct students about literary elements and literary devices, plus they're hooked because they're interesting.

My favorite is The Cask of Amontillado.

 

The press I work for publishes at least one short story collection a season, sometimes two. This means two to three collections published a year, which makes up as much as a tenth of our list. This despite the challenges of dealing with short story collections commercially (though not as bad as poetry). Most of the books we do are by first-time authors, which makes it more difficult. Others are by established authors who write from the margins. Again, difficult.

Why do we do it? These writers have unique voices. They have stories to tell. Damn it, they just write purdy.

But you're right. They don't get enough attention. Readers tend to look at fiction and want the longer more engaging stories. Short stories end too quickly for them. However, I'd say if that's the case, they're missing the point. (See below.)

It's not the only reason. (Though I'm sure you're fully aware of this.) There are also the elements that typically make a short story what it is. Works of short fiction require an astounding economy of language. Word choice, narratives, etc., are carefully constructed in short stories, given that there are much fewer words compared to novels, the latter which many would agree tend to be more forgiving in terms of being allowed to be more "sloppy." As with poetry (especially with poetry), each word, each phrase, has that much more weight behind it because of the short story format.

Consider how short stories often abide by a more limited structure not unlike the three unities: the unities of action, place, and time. In Aristotle's Poetics, he argued that a play should have one main action, a single physical place, and a time frame of no more than a day. Of course, these aren't hard rules, and it makes sense to break them depending on the story, but it's a good guideline for both drama and short fiction, given the limitations of the formats.

Working within that framework, it becomes abundantly clear that short stories aren't merely novels rendered diminutive, nor are they novelistic fragments, as they have to stand alone as a narrative. They are their own art form, and the best examples will reveal themselves as their own aesthetic force that could never be the same if they were made into a work such as a novel.

But, yes, their small size also makes them great for study. The same goes for poetry. But I won't go into poetry, or I'll just go on and on.

 

Unf. Yeah. Poetry.