Untried and Prejudiced
What’s the first word that comes into your mind when you think about classic literature?
The apparent consensus is that ancient, timeless novels are viewed in an extraordinarily negative light: they are outdated; irrelevant; dull. It is much preferred to read books published in the last decade: entertaining oneself with anything from an earlier age than the 1950s is only pathetic or, worse, threatening.
Yet why is this? Elements of such works can be brilliantly compelling: whoever can forget Gregor Samsa’s transformation into an insect, for instance, or Macbeth’s manic and brutal murders? The language is beautiful and funny; characters are lovable; themes touch aspects of our everyday lives. However, in general, the readership is low.
Perhaps part of the problem is the anti-intellectualism rife in our society. Intellectualism is not a dirty term: it refers to the exercising of our minds, not being ostracised as a ‘know-it-all’. In fact, the whole point of intellectualism is that one can never know everything: it is a constant developmental activity. Is someone truly so menacing when they only wish to understand as much about our radiant, diverse world as they possibly can? In our modern age, it is easy to ascertain an anti-intellectualist attitude which is growing and growing: nobody wants to be a ‘nerd’ or a ‘geek’; comprehending a greater view of the world than necessity allows is a social faux pas. Yet, to take one, close-to-home example, we are all in school; we are all learning. Each day we must absorb masses of new knowledge across all subjects, including titbits of extra general information (I will give you one for free: the word ‘disgruntled’ is the contrary of the word ‘gruntled’, which means content). So why is extending our study in a variety of different ways seen as an undesirable trait?
Richard Hofstadter defines intellectualism as “the greater part of the public…[being] infused with enough ambivalence about intellect and intellectuals to be swayed now this way and now that on current cultural issues”. For example, the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables has become a colossus of a cultural sensation: many have been to the cinema to watch it two, three, four times; film memorabilia is still flying off the shelves; and a vast number claim that it is the best film ever produced.
But what of the 1000-page, classic novel? Is still too far down the intellectualist route to peruse? Yes, we may have more knowledge of the plot, and songs from the musical slip off the tongue — but evidently there is still some reluctance to submit fully to intellectualism.
What is this replaced with? In reality, we are not totally ambivalent creatures, condemned to an existence learning wherever the tide takes us. We are constructed from social influences; from parents, and neighbours, and friends. Through our lives, outside authorities teach us our priorities, by subjecting us to dismissal if we choose to refuse the status quo. It is happening to all of us, whether we recognise it or not. Would you bother to watch a film that was given one star? If your friends declared a song was not worth listening to, is there any chance you would rebel against their opinion? Do you ever resist fashion trends? Maybe it is truly the case that every situation we are in is wallpapered with a host of methods of controlling the activities we pursue: Barbara Kerr even claims that “if the first thing [guests to a school] see is a …trophy case filled with athletic championships…[not] displays of academic awards… [this provides] considerable insight into the “place” that academics and the arts hold relative to athletics”; our own conclusions can be drawn from this in terms of the typical group acceptance and popularity of those who excel in the preferred fields. It is easy, then, to see how a narrow-minded viewpoint of learning can build up.
Of course, this is not to say that going along with the crowd is a terrible idea. Far from it: society could not exist without some organisation to behaviour. The French school system, for example, takes into account student preference of academic or vocational study: at age 16, there is a split between the Lycée (High School), which focuses on the national curriculum, and the Lycée Professionnel, which allows young people to learn a non-academic syllabus, to further knowledge of clerical or manual work. This structure, to me, seems absolutely more encouraging and viable to students growing up in the modern world: why should anyone be forced into following a general education path they are already adamantly against? But it is at this point that influence over knowledge has to end.
We should and must treat study with as open-minded a perspective as we can. To live the most brilliant and exciting lives in the future, it is crucial to form our own existences from the infinitely broad buffet of thought. This does not mean that an instant dismissal of stereotypically ‘boring’ intellectualist literature or culture is warranted, just because we cannot see ourselves exploring or even, God forbid, enjoying such ideas. We have to embrace everything: from the traditional and ancient to the absurdly modern, through the storms of controversy, past the gore, and sex, and repulsion. It all absolutely matters.
The publishing company Penguin has compiled a list of ‘The 10 Essential Penguin Classics’ which are as follows:
1. Of Mice and Men , John Steinbeck
2. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brönte
3. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
4. The Odyssey, Homer
5. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
6. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
7. Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
8. Oedipus-Rex, Sophocles
9. Walden, Henry David Thoreau
10. Inferno, Dante
How many of these can you say you have read? Perhaps a couple as class readers; one or two through curiosity. But can you say there is anything really repelling you from attempting to read the whole list? So, next time you are looking for something to read, do consider classic literature; it may not be modern, popular or even easy, but it might just gruntle you.
