Relationship of Literature to Language

1. Literature is wholly and inevitably rooted in language, and it is no surprise to rediscover in literature certain features that are peculiar to and basic in language. No more than language can literature separate itself from the speaker-hearer-situation trichotomy. As in simple dialogue, the intent - even though only latent - and the means of conveying a message must be assumed, and the message must be about something. A dream in itself cannot even be called language, though once verbalized, it might well become literature. As the speaker's behavior is inevitably conditioned by that of the hearer, so the artist's creative acts are influenced by the real or the presumed response evoked in his audience.

2. When science uses language, it does its utmost to minimize the difference between the concept which the verbal symbol may be counted upon to bring to all minds and the conception which the individual mind is prone to weave about that concept. In literature, quite the other way. In it, imagination, which comes into play as a concept expands into conception, is highly prized, and while the universality assured by concepts is an important value in literature, it is the flight of individual fancy which needs only to be rooted in concept that brings the greatest reward.

3. We may at this point consider the question: Why literature in the language class at all? Is it not better to give the student a thorough grounding in the language skills before he attempts the study of literature? Language classes can and indeed do flourish as if literature did not exist or had never existed. And there are many college teachers who bluntly say: "Let the language skills be taught and taught well in schools; we will provide the study of literature and all the more successfully for the natural companionship of the two". It is frequently said that formal education should prepare the student against the life he is later to lead no less than for it. Surely an aesthetic experience in literature is one in which the most universal participation may be expected. Everyone uses words: who will be Philistine enough to deny that everyone, at least according to his interests and capacity, should have some knowledge and experience of the fine art of words, as we find it expressed in literature?

4. There are language classes in which it is indeed assumed that one of the goals of learning is the appreciation of literature, but that the student is first of all and most of all to be provided with the skills and tools with which he may at some later date study literature. It is undoubtedly an error to take the eventual literary experience for granted. Rather, it is in class itself, in the traditional atmosphere of formal education and under the guidance of a trained teacher, that the study of literature should be launched. On no account should literary history be substituted for literature itself. These are two different things, the latter being a fine art and the former more nearly a science. In the language class, only an intimate acquaintance with works of literature is justifiable.

5. As language teachers introduce literature into their course they cannot be too careful about what they choose for their students to read. What passes for literature in a great many cases would be given short shrift by most competent critics. It is likely that many of the works frequently read as literature in the languages taught in our school today would be impossible to justify on any grounds other than crass expediency. One of the most serious professional obligations in our fields is the establishing of criteria that will relegate to the scrap heap a vast quantity of printed matter that masquerades as literature in language classes.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 844