No PhD Needed to Understand Lit

Delphin Enjoiras, Woman Reading by a Window

Delphin Enjoiras, Woman Reading by a Window

In today’s post I direct your attention to an article in yesterday’s New York Times entitled “In Defense of Naïve Reading.” It affirms the kind of literary interpretation this website specializes in.

Author Robert Pippin, a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, is concerned that, because university literature departments have tried to emulate the research methods of science, they have devalued “naïve reading”—by which he means (if I understand him right) the subjective experiences that one has while engaging with a work.

The first part of the article focuses on how we came to this state of affairs, providing a summation of the rise of literary studies as a discipline. Pippin points out that only relatively recently have we begun studying vernacular works, which is to say works in our own language as opposed to Greek and Latin.  Then he gets to the heart of the matter.

We must honor our individual aesthetic experience with a work because, after all, that is why we read. Furthermore, these experiences deliver to us “a kind of practical knowledge and self-understanding” that isn’t generalizable to everyone. We draw our own wisdom from it and apply it to our own particular instances.

The resistance of our personal interactions to generalization is a problem for those who want to turn the study of literature (or of music, art, and the other arts) into a science. After all, how can we have the objective truth that science demands if  I am moved to tears by Beowulf’s battle with Grendel’s mother while, say, a feminist reader is put off by what she sees as warrior anxieties over being emasculated by a powerful female (and let’s say this strikes a chord in her personal life)?  Pippin says that the scientific impulse wants to move literature from the personal realm to an objective system but notes that much of what we most value about the arts is our personal experiences with it.

Pippin is particularly critical, as I have been, of those who try to turn literary criticism into an actual science. Check out my two critiques of neuro-lit here and here.

When he defends naïve reading, by the way, Pippin doesn’t mean unintelligent reading. As he puts it,

there is . . . no reason to dismiss the “naïve” approach as mere amateurish “belle lettrism.” Naïve reading can be very hard; it can be done well or poorly; people can get better at it. And it doesn’t have to be “formalist” or purely textual criticism. Knowing as much as possible about the social world it was written for, about the author’s other works, his or her contemporaries, and so forth, can be very helpful.

I couldn’t agree more, and I point to readers of this website as evidence that naive reading can go deep.  Even though many of you are not “literature experts,” you are intelligent readers who often have profound aesthetic experiences and arrive at significant insights. Some of you have shared your insights with me, enriching my own understanding.

I hope it is clear that, when I post about a work, I do not consider myself to be a final authority furnishing a definitive interpretation. Rather I am modeling a kind of practice. If I talk about my literary experiences and how they help me negotiate different issues in my life, it is to empower you to do the same with your own works. Because I think about literature all the time and because I have spent my entire life collecting reading stories, I may have a broader view of literature’s potential than you do. But what I want most of all is for you to honor those works that have intrigued you or disturbed you or shaken you to the core and to try to figure out what your experiences mean.

There will be certain works that I have special insight into because, to use Pippin’s words, I know about “the social world it was written for, about the author’s other works, his or her contemporaries, and so forth.” On the other hand, when I’m writing about an author that I don’t know much about, I turn for help to scholars who have studied him or her. But that’s very different from saying that a non-expert can’t have an intelligent and soulful interaction with a work.

So what does this say about literary theory and the attempts to formalize the study of literature?  I’ve said previously that I don’t entirely dismiss literary theory. Formalist criticism, feminist theory, new historicism, Freudian and Jungian approaches, and (especially) reader response or reception theory have enriched my readings. But they are always secondary to my aesthetic engagement, helping me consolidate observations rather than being the source of them.

“Naïve reading,” I suppose, is as good a description of the foundational experience as any. Medieval Anglo-Saxon warriors, Elizabethan theatergoers, and 19th century British governesses may not have had PhD’s in English, but that didn’t prevent them from being moved and shaped by Beowulf, Hamlet and Jane Eyre. So if an English professor tells you that you can’t read intelligently without him, tell him to go soak his head.

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