Teaching Literature

A week age, Professor Howard Mumford Jones, speaking before a conference of English teacher, accused college literature instruction of "sentimentality." By this he meant that there was too much "ah!" and "oh!" worship, and too little at tempt to place works in their historical contexts. He might also have objected to the lack of critical interpretation in courses, a lack which is equally conspicuous on the undergraduate level in the Harvard English Department.

Broadly speaking there are two angles to literature instruction--historical and critical--and while both are necessary for a complete view of the subject, they are only occasionally combined in undergraduate English courses. Instead, too many courses fall into sheer "appreciation" of the kind Professor Jones criticized. This is the least adequate instruction, for it never tells a student why he likes or does not like a certain piece of literature.

First of the two angles is literary history; it places greatest emphasis on the subject's environment, considering contemporary social, economic, and political influences. The Department of History and Literature was created for this purpose. There is an extreme, however: the field of American literature is often ridiculed for over-emphasizing historical background to obscure the scarcity of works worthy of careful consideration in them selves.

Second is the "work of art" school, and its, members are those who cast accusations at the literary historians. They iso'..te a work from its context and appraise its intrinsic value. Frequently these crities throw up a maze of technical jargon which only dampens the student's enthusiasm. They do, however, give him the tools with which he may articulate his opinions-the basis for genuine appreciation.

The General Education report stressed the need of achieving both a "golden mean" between these historical and critical methods, and a combination of them in one study. Such is the aim of Humanities 2 and 3. But the presence of that combination in general Education courses does not make it any less necessary in the English Department.

English 1, because of its historical sweep, is widely attacked for superficiality. It could only be justified if the more advanced courses introduced the critical approach that it lacks. Such courses are few indeed. "Criticism of Poetry," given last year, testifies to this, for it aimed to give the student criteria which he could apply to reading in other courses. But criticism cannot be boxed up in one course and ignored in many others.

The individual instructor has to adopt the historical-critical method of teaching literature him self; the Department cannot prescribe how a professor shall teach. Many of the younger men are following the spirit of the General education recommendation. The older teachers, whose interest lies in either criticism or history, should revise their methods to give the student a fuller picture of literature.