Shot out of the canon

After I finished reading Lennard J. Davis' "The Value of Teaching from a Racist Classic" at the CoHE, I found myself temporarily at a loss for the right adjective to describe my mental state.  Baffled? Puzzled? Exasperated? Bemused? Lost? Part of my disorientation derives from the essay itself, which is more a meditation on a series of anecdotes than an actual argument.  The other part, however, derives from my perhaps misguided attempt to imagine how a working understanding of literary history could emerge from what might be Davis' suggestion that we forget, rather than preserve, the less appetizing elements of the American and European literary tradition.  I say "might" because it's not clear if he is inviting such acts of cultural amnesia, or merely describing them (perhaps this section of his essay made more sense to other readers).  In either case, though, some group (professors, the keepers of the canon?) will choose which texts land on the discard heap:

As a culture, we have granted certain books immortality and permit them to teach us new lessons across the ages. We've given that privilege to the works of Homer, Shakespeare, Shelley (Mary), Defoe, Swift, Austen, Dickens, Flaubert, and more recently Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Silko, and others. But we can rescind that immortality and consign certain books to the back shelves of our consciousness.

Here and elsewhere in the essay, Davis deliberately or inadvertently confuses professional academic culture and a more general educated culture.  Moreover, as in so many discussions of the canon, Davis briefly gestures towards specifics ("certain books") but keeps collapsing back into authors.  Certainly, most of us do omit the nastiest materials from our undergraduate syllabi.  Taking introductory surveys like British Literature I and II as cases in point, for example, you'll probably find that it's the rare medievalist who teaches Chaucer's "Prioress' Tale" and the rare Victorianist who teaches Carlyle's "Shooting Niagara--And After?"  But one hardly needs to rely on PC to explain such decisions.  From a literary-historical point of view, the "General Prologue," the "Wife of Bath's Tale," and so on, are far more important than the "Prioress' Tale."  Similarly, no sane Victorianist (I think) would argue that "Shooting Niagara" really takes precedent over, say, Past & Present or Sartor Resartus.   From a pedagogical standpoint, if one is trying to interest students in pursuing literary studies, give them a broad-brush overview of major authors in the English literary tradition, and teach them how to read works written in unfamiliar literary styles--all at once!--then some brutally offensive texts may turn out to be stumbling blocks instead of useful provocations. 

But, but, but.  Teaching different Chaucer or Carlyle is not the same as teaching no Chaucer or Carlyle.  Moreover, teaching different and significant Chaucer or Carlyle is not the same as teaching relatively insignificant Chaucer or Carlyle.  And undergraduates and graduate students are not the same species.  Here's where Davis' essay starts crumbling at the edges.  It may be the case that educated readers, defined in the broadest sense possible, may choose to forget Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.  It is not the case, under any circumstances, that a responsible academic can choose to forget The Merchant of Venice, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, or any other now-offensive text.  This has nothing to do with resisting the evil tides of PC, or some similar nonsense, and everything to do with intellectual honesty--and, indeed, basic competence. 

Whether or not a reader, even an academic reader, chooses to revisit a work that s/he finds morally repugnant is quite one thing.   But literary history doesn't function in detachable segments; a competent critical reader has to recognize the web of allusions and revisions present in even the most lowbrow of texts.    As the reader has no doubt gathered, I sympathize far more with the instructor who declares that "he will never stop teaching books just because students want a book to be a particular way or portray a particular reality," as opposed to the one who "had stopped teaching Hemingway, Ovid, and Boccaccio because their works disgusted her with their overt misogyny."  I'm trying to imagine an academic setting in which Ovid and Boccaccio are nowhere to be found, and failing signally.  (Bear in mind that at a smaller college, the professor who teaches Ovid and Boccaccio may be the only stop for all your Ovid and Boccaccio needs.)  Like history more generally, literary history is frequently inconvenient. 

Comments

[Bob]

I'm surprised at your reaction to this. I think Davis makes his case pretty well, though not perfectly. I haven't avoided teaching Heart of Darkness or Merchant of Venice, and I've recently taught the Prioress's Tale. But the distress these works cause some students is worth taking seriously. Why not, after all?

[Jonathan]

Seems to me like this would find a great home over at the other place.

[Miriam]

Of course we should help students deal with offensive material. But is it intellectually responsible to stop teaching it, as the essay may or may not be suggesting? (Sorry, I thought the argument was confused, which is my main objection to the piece.)

[DavidE]

Well, how bizarre to go on and on about how rewarding and enlightening "Heart of Darkness" had been to him and be unable to express to his class who the intended audience was.

The danger in this kind of PC criticism is that it will soon result in every writer from the past being removed from the shelf for being born in another time & another place.

I read an essay by a lecturer discussing the post-colonial racism of "Curious George" and comparing it to "Heart of Darkness". But I had a hard time taking her seriously when she said she didn't know if the author of "Curious George" was racist or not as so little was known about him. Curious, what?

[William Wend]

Well said in the original post. I remember having this discussion at dinner quite often a few years back while taking a class that used Huckleberry Finn & Tom Sawyer.

Of course everyone should help others deal with offensive material. I find it intellectually irresponsible to not teach works like Sawyer and just sweep them under the rug.

PS-When I took Chaucer I believe we did read The Prioress's Tale.

[gina c]

Marlowe? I thought it was MARLOW. Or has that changed too in the prism of contemporary interpretation?

[antirealist]

Gina, I believe it was always Marlowe. In fact I attended the same British public school as Raymond Chandler (not contemporaneously) which has a house called Marlowe (and others called Spenser, Raleigh, Sidney, Drake and Grenville). Though I have read that Chandler took his protagonist's name from Christopher Marlowe, AFAIK no one seems to have made the connection to his school experiences.

[gina c]

"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth."

I checked the Norton Critical, the Everyman, the Signet and the University of Virginia online edition, and I have to reiterate, its spelled Marlow in the Heart of Darkness.

[delagar]

I teach the Prioress's tale every time I teach Chaucer, which is every spring. Honestly (and I chose the word carefully), how could I avoid it?

Also, it teaches so beautifully. It's a brilliant bit of work, and there's so much that can be done with it.

[Texter]

I know I'm a bit late to this post, but I was glad to find it. I was similarly confused, and wrote about it at my blog: (post address here:
http://textualife.com/blog/?p=46).

I study and teach postcolonial and African literatures, and can sympathize with Davis' predicament, but he would have to lay out a much more extensive set of criteria etc if his argument is that we should only read ennobling or morally tasteful works.

I wondered why this article was not taken up at the valve.

[Ophelia Benson]

Well, I'm way too late to say this, but I want to know - what does he mean "Shelley (Mary)"? Has the other one been denied "that privilege"? Not at my house!