On 'The World Republic of Letters'

In this chapter, Casanova writes controversially that, contrary to the widespread perception that the literary world is pure and peaceful, in reality it is a world of ‘incessant struggle and competition’. Her writing is also controversial because of her choice of language to describe interactions in the literary world. Instead of the poetic language that she says is preferred, she uses the language of economy. She asserts that interactions in the world of literature are like a ‘spiritual economy’, in that different players have certain amounts of capital, that is the respect or value that is ascribed to them. Casanova then outlines her theory of what contributes to literary capital, including age, name, language and critics. That is, the value of a literary tradition increases with age, such that older texts have more literary capital. The name of an author, when established can also bestow literary capital, as evidenced by the prestige that comes with the winning of literary prizes. Casanova also writes that certain languages are considered more literary, with their capital being influenced by other books that have been written in that language, as well as the number of speakers of the language and the number of people able to transfer books from this language to other languages to enable the continuation of circulation. Casanova argues as well that critics are very influential in determining literary capital, as, if their authority is recognised, the judgement that they make of books has objective effects, causing the books’ perceived values to rise or fall.

Casanova also outlines the role that geography and nationality can play in the world of letters. She says that this world ‘creates its own geography’, giving the example of Paris and how it became the literary world’s capital. She writes that the very fact of a belief in the universality of Paris produced real effects, making it a universal city and attracting artists from all over the world. Casanova goes on to write that literature is ‘inherently national’, that it played a role in the formation of European nations by distinguishing nations from other nations, and so endowing them with a national identity. She says that though literature over time freed itself from this close connection with the political life of the nation, for a writer their place within their national literature, and indeed the place of their national literature within international literature, remains important for characterising their work.

I found this article to be very interesting and thought provoking. As might be expected from the fact that Casanova’s book is controversial, I really hadn’t thought much about ‘literary capital’ before studying this course, nor had heard these ideas discussed in any other English course. Yet upon reading this chapter, it seems quite intuitive that the literary world functions according to ‘cultural capital’, and that the factors she outlines, and perhaps others, would be very influential in the formation of this capital. This has made me see the literary world in a new light, and it’s something I’d like to think and read more about.

On Edmunson’s Against Readings:

I set out to write this blog entry on all of the readings for week four, Edmunson, Felski and Warner, but as I was re-reading the Edmunson article I found that a lot in it that I wanted to write about, so I’ll restrict this entry to that reading only. In the article, similarly to Felski and Warners’ articles, Edmunson seeks to outline some of the problems with the way of doing literary criticism that is currently accepted within the literary establishment. He takes issue with a certain way of applying sceptical frameworks, for example, Marxian or Foucauldian, when analysing literary works of art, arguing that this is insensitive and misses the point of what we should get from studying literature. Edmunson asserts that readers of literary texts should be striving for an ‘experience of change’, that is, to be transformed in some kind of moral way through the reading of literature, and so sensitive reading - involving ‘befriending’ a text before asking questions of it’ -  is very important. Edmunson’s article, published in Profession is addressed particularly at teachers of literature and he asserts that the primary role of a teacher is to inspire change in their students through the reading of literature, and that this may particularly be important for those people who don’t fit the kind of mould that society imposes upon us.

The reason I was particularly interested in this article is that I disagree with much of Edmunson’s argument. His assertion that the ‘proper business’ of a teacher is change seems to me to be unfounded, and, frankly, sounds a little bit Disney. While I don’t deny that teachers can play an important role in shaping the ideologies of their students and so can inspire them and move them along in their life journey to be a better person (paraphrase of Edmunson), I don’t see that this moral guidance role is necessarily the primary role of a university professor. Edmunson’s argument in support of the assertion is that a teacher’s role is to educate, and that it is this kind of transformative process through literature that is true education. To me this understanding of education seems to be too narrow. Edmunson concedes that many things can be learned from reading literature, for example, to express oneself better, and I may add such things as to understand different perspectives of the world and to be familiar with literary works that have shaped our culture. Edmunson’s appreciation of the merits of literature seems to be too limited, as an example, take the statement:  ‘when a teacher admires an author enough to teach his work, then it stands to reason that the teacher’s initial objective ought to be framing a reading that the author would approve’. Here he assumes that if a teacher admires a certain work of literature he/she must approve of that author’s notion of how life should be lived and so should attempt to be sensitive to the work in such a way that would allow these ideas about life to be transmitted to his students. But this may not be the case. There can be many reasons that a work of literature may be admired, for example, mastery of language or an experimental style, without requiring the teacher to admire as well the author’s vision of the world. In sum, although Edmunson may be right in some of his ideas: that teachers and works of literature may have significant impacts on students’ lives and that texts should be read sensitively without simply applying readings thoughtlessly, I think he goes too far in his assertion that transformation is the primary role of teaching.

Bayard: How to Read…

I really enjoyed reading these excerpts, both for the interesting ideas Bayard discusses and for the way he writes. His language is accessible and quite witty in a subtle way, for example: ‘there is more than one way not to read, the most radical of which is not to open a book at all’. In regards to the content of the book, non-reading wasn’t really something I had thought about a lot previously, I suppose in part because it isn’t something that is talked about very much. Bayard refers to non-reading as a ‘forbidden subject’, one of the reasons for which he suggests is that in literary circles particular texts are ‘worshipped’. In this sense, it may be seen as sacrilege to be a non-reader of them. I certainly have experienced (along with lots of other people in the course, judging from class discussions and blogs) some sense of guilt for not having read certain ‘essential’ canonical texts, as well as an awareness of my mortality which means that I will miss out on reading a lot of wonderful books.

Although this idea that ‘even a prodigious reader never has access to more than a infinitesimal fraction of the books that exist’ was not so new to me, I really hadn’t thought very much about the conflict that Bayard goes on to develop in the example of Musil’s librarian. That is, the conflict between reading books and at the same time not losing perspective, rather being able to situate a book within the whole ‘collective library’ that exists. Bayard states that for the ‘true reader’ the totality of books counts, not individual books, and it is a little difficult to know whether he is serious at this point. Although certainly one of his key ideas is that having perspective is important, I don’t think that he is advocating a complete non-reading stance, as can be seen in his satirical approach to Valery’s non-reading. For examples, he writes of a section of Valery’s work that it ‘is devoted to Proust, whom it is difficult to avoid mentioning entirely’, hinting at the ridiculous consequences that may arise from trying to write of topics one doesn’t know in depth. Regardless of what exactly is Bayard’s intention, I think what I have taken away from this work is that perspective is important. But also, from my reaction to the suggestion that books perhaps shouldn’t be read, that I think books are really great, often for very different reasons, and it would be such a pity to have missed out on some of the books that I love.

Lastly, this book challenged my understanding of the process of reading, particularly when Bayard points out that reading a book in its entirety is rare. This made me think, when I read, do I read every word? Do I even read every sentence? I guess this made me realise that the line between reading and not reading is not as clear as I thought before.

What Maisie Knew - Presentation

What Maisie Knew¬ ¬– Reading and Interpretation


I’m writing this post just after the seminar presentation, so while I intend to write about the notes I had made on the novel in preparation for the presentation I will sometimes refer to points that came out in the discussion. What I found particularly interesting in the novel was that the novel is written from the perspective of Maisie, the young girl pulled back and forth between warring parents, and finally abandoned by both. The narrative is quite unique in that (aside from the initial prologue-type section) the narrator only sees, or at least only relates, what Maisie sees and what occurs in Maisie’s consciousness. We don’t have access to the mental states of the adult characters beyond what can be inferred from the actions to which Maisie is privy. The nature of this style of narrative is that it draws attention to the processes of reading and interpretation, firstly, we witness Maisie’s struggle to understand the situation she is in. Secondly, the process of reading the novel itself is that the reader must read between the lines to understand what is happening.

I gave the example in class of the section in Chapter 1, when Maisie is being teased by her father’s friends, who:

“...pinched the calves of her leg till she shrieked...and reproached them with being toothpicks. The word stuck in her mind and contributed to her feeling from this time that she was deficient in something that would meet the general desire. She found out what it was: it was a congential tendency to the production of a substance to which Moddle, her nurse, gave a short ugly name, a name painfully associated at dinner with the part of the joint that she didn’t like."

After reading this example the first time I didn’t know what the word was that Maisie was referring to, and had to re-read the passage to work it out. I spoke in class a little about how I thought that the book was one that required careful reading, with attention to suggestion and subtle clues, and this passage seems to be an example of that, as, I think fairly uniquely (amongst the books I have read at least),the reader is put into the position of a confused child, seeing only what Maisie sees, have trying to make sense of pieces of disjointed information.

The other example I gave that illustrates the practice of reading as it is portrayed in the novel occurs in chapter 17,

"The only shadow in such bright intervals was that, as Maisie put it to herself, she could get nothing by questions. It was in the nature of things to be none of a small child’s business, even when a small child had from the first been deluded into a fear that she might be only too much initiated. Things then were in Maisie’s experience so true to their nature that questions were almost always improper; but she learned on the other hand soon to recognise how at last, sometimes, patient little silences and intelligent little looks could be rewarded by delightful little glimpses. There had been years at Beale Farange’s when the monosyllable ‘he’always meant, meant almost violently, the master, but all that was changed at a period at which Sir Claude’s merits were of themselves so much in the air that it scare took every two letter to name him. ‘He keeps me up splendidly – he does, my own precious..."



In this example, Maisie is a little older than in the previous example, which is evident in her increased understanding. She realises now that asking questions is not necessarily the most useful means of gaining knowledge, rather she has become a more skilled reader, now attuned to ‘patient little silences and intelligent little looks’, and able to interpret pronouns, when the name of the object is not stated explicitly.

I referred to an article I had read in which the writer, Adele Brebner, argues that an important question to ask of the text is, ‘what does Maisie actually know?’. Brebner concludes that we really cannot judge this, as we are not given this information in the text, and she cites the blurring of time periods in the narrative as evidence that the actual level of knowledge Maisie has at certain ages is unclear. I spoke a little about how I thought that this was in some ways correct (e.g. in the final scene we don’t really have access to Maisie’s reasoning for the wager she makes, and how much she understands of the implications), however, I said that we certainly know some of what she has come to understand, for example the ‘amour’ passage. However, what Dr Hardie pointed out at this moment in the discussion was that the interest in knowledge in the novel is more nuanced that just what facts about the adult relationships etc. Maisie understands. Rather, the interest is in different modes of knowing, just as above I wrote about the way the novel portrays different reading practices. I think this idea certainly fits with what James writes in the preface about why he chose to write the novel from the perspective of the child, for her ‘undestroyed freshness’ and ‘vivacity of intelligence’. James is interested in Maisie’s psychology, her thought process, and so the way she conceptualises her experience – the way that she, a child (and the particular type of child that she is) ‘knows’ it – is what James dwells on, and is facilitated by having the narrative from her perspective. In this last paragraph I’ve been mostly just writing as I think, so I’d love to hear if this makes sense and what anyone else thinks of this... or anything else I’ve written =).

Reference: Adele Brebner, “How to Know Maisie,” College English, 17.5, 1956, 283-285.