Tag: pedagogy

Balzac in English pedagogy

I’m developing a course for student at GSU who have not been successful at English courses. I thought this proem from Balzac’s ‘Lost Illusions’ (1847) to be helpful in inspiring poetic literacy.

““Oh, my Lord,” the poet replied, hoping to knock these thick heads with his golden sceptre, “But ordinary people have neither your intelligence nor your charity. Our sorrows are ignored, and nobody know our labours. It is easier for the miner to dig gold from the rocks than to draw poetic images from the entrails of the most unrewarding of languages. If it is the function of poetry to state ideas so that everybody can feel and understand them, the poet must constantly run the gamut of every type of human mind, so as to be capable of satisfying all; he must conceal logic and feeling, those conflicting powers, under the brightest colours; he must condense a whole world of thought into a single word, sum up whole philosophies in an image; indeed, his poems are the seed whose flowers must blossom in all hearts, growing there in soil made receptive by personal experience. How can you state everything unless you have felt everything? And to feel deeply, is not that to suffer? Poems are born only after difficult explorations of the vast regions of the mind, and of the world as well.” (96-97) (Modern Library edition; translated by Kathleen Raine)

I often use classic 19th century literature in my pedagogy. This is a method that has yielded mixed results. Some students are turned on, but for others, it’s irrelevant. I’m interested to know how other instructors have used old books for pedagogy. Thoughts? 🙂

I’m happy to field comments from any subscribers…

American Lit (classically)

I’m teaching American Lit this fall, and I’m trying to rack my brain. I need the spirit of the ages to complete the thing. I spent the week trying to assemble a reading list for my students, and frankly, I’m still reeling with the challenge.

Mainly, the issue that is confronting many classrooms is that some canonical texts are considered to be racist. But I concur with the notion that these works have stood the test of time for reasons unrelated to their inherent racism. We can still get a lot out of reading these texts, even though we don’t necessarily think the same way that they did.

This is also part of the internal zeitgeist of the American literary canon. Some have suggested that like Delillo’s Underworld, American literary icons produce these cultural artefacts that tell us more about the age that they were written in than anything about the “warm-blooded” individuals that make up a society.

I’ve got a pretty good handle on the subject matter, but I want to inspire my students. I want to make sure that all the bases are covered. If I drop the ball, it won’t be because I haven’t prepared a lot. I need a lot of encouragement, and frankly, it’s coming from the bottom up.

I’m looking to cover the antebellum period with reference to Transcendentalism (Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau) and a peek into Henry James in the post-bellum period. What seems less opaque is the transbellum period (1860-1865). The journalism of Whitman is always helpful, but may need some scaffolding to truly understand.

I think the main thing that I’m wrestling with is how to present the literary period without too much historical background, and yet to couch it in terms of literary movements that defined the period. I love Henry Adams ‘The Education of Henry Adams,’ but am not sure that my students would take well to it.

It is important not to overload the students with text. They have a significant reading load and get behind easily. So the main issue might to be to contextualize the text that they are reading instead of introducing new text as a rule. Georgia State can be a place where students feel a little lost, so it’s good not to impose too much upon them.

What is paramount is to imaginatively transport students to the time period in which this piece was written. To do this, I often imaginatively ‘reenact’ the literature, especially to pique their interest. In this way, we are able to ‘walk a mile in the shoes’ of the writer, and get a better handle on the material.