Dr Philip Holden (email: ellhpj@nus.edu.sg)
[ Introduction and Description | Schedule and Readings | Assessment and Policies | Related Resources ]You'll probably find the Peter Barry extract more difficult, so I suggest that you read the Jhumpa Lahiri stories first. Enjoy them, but think also how you would go about discussing the theme of either story, and what evidence from the story you'd use to support your argument.
The Peter Barry chapter is very ambitious, in that it attempts to give you a history of the evolution of English studies, and to demonstrate how the manner in which English first was taught at university has had a long-lasting influence on the discipline, and influenced wider social perceptions of the value of literature. While the influence of theory has perhaps changed these perceptions within the university itself and among many writers, popular accounts of literature are still very much marked by what Barry characterises as "liberal humanism." Think, for instance, of the following statement by Asad Latif in a Straits Times editorial:
WHAT do terrorists read? I doubt that it is literature. This is because literature is too subversive for them. Unlike terrorism, which can destroy human lives but cannot build anything in their place, literature destroys comfortable ways of thinking but builds an alternative world of the imagination for humans to inhabit. That imaginative world is far more powerful than the destruction which terrorists wreak. (19 Nov. 2001)
This may be a rather extreme point of view, but notions of the humanising possibilities of literature and its imaginative and moral force are frequently brought out in discussions about literature and education in Singapore. These views are not necessarily wrong, and indeed we'll see that they often influence other theoretical positions (the distinction between "liberal humanism" and "theory" is less clear than Barry might suggest), but for now give Barry a run for his money--let him show you how some of these ideas came to be formed.
The crucial parts of the Barry chapter are pp 11-21, and pp 31-36. The central section of the chapter, "Literary theorising from Aristotle to Leavis" is useful, but you can skim it, and should not feel the need to study in great depth. Make sure that you read the Poe story, understand Barry's analysis of it , and why such analysis is, in his terms, "liberal humanist." And make sure that you are clear about the different ways of seeing literature that theory brings. Be ready to ask questions in the lecture!
Last updated: 9 October, 2007