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.