I don’t know what brought this to mind lo these great many years later, but I hated the way they taught literature when I was a high school student. (That was in the Mesozoic Era. The pedagogy might have changed since then.)
The accepted literature pedagogy then was to analyze every word and phrase on every page. The intent was to expose the myriad enigmatic, yet profound hidden meanings that the teacher assured us the author planted there.
I have no doubt that, in many cases, the author would be astonished to learn that those meanings existed in his or her work.
Long-dead Author*: “Who put those damned metaphors, inferences and connotations in there? Sure as hell not me. Authors just wanna have fun. At least, I did.”
Meaning. In. Every. Word. Or not.
“In the first sentence of the third paragraph on page 232, why,” the teacher would ask, “did the author have his protagonist eat chicken for dinner?” The class often admitted to being stumped. When we did, the teacher launched into a half-hour dissertation.
She told us that chickens are particularly stupid, but curious birds. The book’s protagonist was of the common folk. The chicken was a metaphor serving to condemn the ignorance of the masses and their refusal to educate themselves despite their professed curiosity about the workings of life and the universe.
It probably wouldn’t have taken me quite so many years to get over my distain for literature if the teacher stopped there and just let us finish reading the damned book. But, no. She went on to discuss the weighty subtext underlying the protagonist’s accidental use of his salad fork when he should have used his dinner fork in the second sentence of the third paragraph on page 232.
Sometimes the whole class wasn’t stumped. Occasionally, a faux-bright kid raised his or her hand. The student then spouted an answer equally as asinine as the teachers gave.
The teacher would either affirm the answer or dispute it. I think the teacher made that choice randomly. To be honest, I don’t think they had a clue. I’m convinced they made it up as they went along.
Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar
I couldn’t help thinking that if the author had been in the room with us he or she would have said, “Well, I thought a meal moved the story along nicely. And I happen to enjoy chicken. As to the use of the wrong fork, I always inadvertently do that. Always. The pretentious people I hang around with mock me for it. I thought it was cute to put it in there.”
It reminds me of Woody Allen’s film, Stardust Memories. In a scene at the end of the film, two attendees are leaving after a screening at a film festival. One says to the other, ”What do you think was the significance of the Rolls-Royce?” The other responds, ”I think it represented his car.” I think the latter character was right.
To probably misquote Sigmund Freud, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Including when it’s a cigar in literature, not in a dream.
Long-dead Author*: Can’t you people just enjoy reading? I mean, just enjoy it purely for enjoyment’s sake? I regret I ever wrote a word for you soporific, supercilious pseudo-intellectuals.
Foreshadowing a Tale of Two Cities
One book I did enjoy studying in high school was A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. It was terrific because I could sleep through class without a care in the world. When the teacher called on me to explain the cryptic connotation of an obscure passage, I woke up just long enough to babble, “it foreshadows The French Revolution.” In that teacher’s mind, I had a 99% chance of being right. At least, that was all she ever asked about.
What I want to know is who was the sadistic child-hater who wrote the teachers’ guides for English literature back in my high school days? If there’s justice in the world, the authorities found and jailed him or her long ago.
Then again, judging from much of the writing by the general public I’ve seen on the internet, I suspect that literature courses—or even just basic English classes—are not compulsory these days.
For the sake of literature, and for the sake of kids, and the adults they grow up to be, I hope literature pedagogy is better these days. Hopefully, teachers now make it a little, oh, I don’t know. Maybe a little fun. Not too enjoyable, mind you. Heaven forbid. We wouldn’t, after all, want students to miss the abstruse trope represented by the ping pong ball in the fourth sentence of the fifty-third page of the unapologetically comedic novel they’re studying.
* As far as I know, no author, long-dead or otherwise, said either of those pull quotes. Jeez. Can’t you people just have fun with it?
