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The Comprehension of Literature

 

1. What does the reader bring to the study of his first literary work in a foreign language? (Its value to him is directly related to the background, the attitude, and the linguistic capacity with which he approaches it.) Acquaintance in the mother tongue with the plot, characters, atmosphere, and general significance of a story may well be an excellent preliminary step to the study of that story in the new language. This is comparable to the clarification of what the words stand for in an expression in the mother tongue before giving its equivalent in the language being learned. The relating of the two takes place at a psychological level that is for the most part preverbal, and is in no sense the same as translating, or matching one word with another.

2. By what steps may the language student gain what can be called knowledge on a literary level of a work of literature? By the same steps he presumably uses in reading a literary work in English. Reading between the lines - and this is most important in literary study - presupposes an accurate and comprehending reading of the lines themselves. In any story there will be first of all a plot in which something happens to someone, at some time and in some place. If answers to simple questions where and when are not immediately obvious, that is good reason for the teacher to bring them up. If nothing happens, but all is atmosphere, mood, introspection, or background detail, this too is important and calls for observation and comment. Who are the characters? In what terms does the author present and describe them? What do they do or say? What is the manner of their speech and dress, their conduct toward people and affairs? What is the problem with which the characters are to deal, and how soon and in what terms is it made explicit? How does the sequence of events move on to a climax and a conclusion? How does the character reveal itself or change as events proceed? In all this the author will naturally leave much to be inferred, but at the beginning it is of first importance to comprehend and restate, with whatever brevity and simplification seem appropriate, what the author says.

3. But there is a second step of even greater importance. The literary artist's word and statements will of course be disappointing to the reader who takes then merely at their face value. The author wished not only to demonstrate and to prove, but to impress and persuade, and he counts upon the power of metaphor to make his words convey much more than they actually say. It is this quality that distinguishes literary writing from scientific writing, and it is in this area, when conceptions are woven by the reader about the concepts which the words convey that the teacher plays a challenging and delicate role, one which calls for his full adherence to the author's intent and the student's need. His success is in no small measure dependent upon the care and thoroughness with which he has fulfilled his obligations in step one.



4. As a third step we may ask the question: "How well has the author accomplished what he set out to do?". No reader who has taken the first step and who has been encouraged and guided through the second is likely to remain entirely neutral when this question is asked. He will have enjoyed the experience of following the author's presentation or he will not, he will agree with the ideas set forth in the story or disagree, and he will have value judgments to give of the author's performance as an artist. Of course it is a prime responsibility of the teacher to provide the student with the means of making these criticism in the foreign language.

5. Are these steps to be taken without recourse to the mother tongue? Most emphatically, yes. For a wholesale reversion to English at this point is not only an inglorious admission of defeat on the part of the teacher but a betrayal of the very principles upon which the study of contemporary language is founded. Psychologically, it is the re-establishment of a compound system in the learner’s head, a short-circuiting of the bilingual process which the student has been in pains to develop. In a word, it is effectively, even though inadvertently, disloyal. If the student simply cannot understand, then it is not a destructive tidal wave of English that is called for but a revision by the teacher of the degree of difficulty, the pace and the minuteness of the literary study he proposes.

 


Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1322


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