Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Five
Dear Reader,
Today’s collection of thoughts on reading will come from thinkers from the deeper and more recent past.
I had to open with this quote, as not a few of those who’ve suffered through my tutelage have found themselves reading not just William Shakespeare but also Ben Jonson:
The peculiarity of Shakespeare's genius was that it reached far beyond his time; it makes him modern today, when the best work of his contemporaries, like Ben Jonson, Marlowe and Ford, are unreadable. Any theatrical manager of our time who should have the hardihood to put on the stage Jonson's The Silent Woman or Marlowe's Tamburlaine would court disaster.
George Hamlin Fitch. Comfort Found in Good Old Books. 1911.
That is a harsh judgment on Jonson and company, but I must admit that I’m mostly sympathetic, especially when it comes to staging their plays. That said, at least one of Jonson’s poems remains delightfully readable. (A few readers of both this newsletter and that poem may beg to differ.) And I’ve seen Tamburlaine performed quite capably, near a hundred years after this harsh judgment. I do, however, much prefer Shakespeare’s plays.
The next quote offers a sort of reading lens, but one once again of harsh judgment:
Perhaps the only literature of poverty (I use the word 'literature' in a purely courteous sense) which was ever written for the poor is that amazing issue of tracts, Village Politics, Tales for the Common People, and scores of similar productions, which a hundred years ago were let loose upon rural England. The moral in all of them is the same, and is expressed with engaging simplicity: 'Don't give trouble to people better off than yourself.'
Agnes Repplier. “Our Lady Poverty.” 1916.
Whew. And whew. That’s such a judgment on the ‘literature’. Every time I read that quote I’m sent in several directions of questioning, and none of them are pleasant. (It’s been frequently noted that many of the early twentieth-century Marxist intellectuals could never converse with the very working-class people they were supposedly trying to help, a phenomenon not dissimilar in many ways to what Repplier highlights above. That similarity noted, Repplier’s point is deeper rooted and predating any Marxist sentiments…)
Next is a quote that I’m inclined to agree with, but the last sentence is one that I’d certainly not follow as a universal rule. It’s a defeasible one, and the exceptions are mightier than the rule in this instance. Of course, that last sentence’s argument is part of a perennial debate:
First of all, remember that what you want from books is the information in them, and the stimulus they give to you, and the amusement for your recreation. You do not read for the poor pleasure of saying you have read them. You are reading for the subject, much more than for the particular book, and if you find that you have exhausted all the book has on your subject, then you are to leave that book, whether you have read it through or not.
Edward E. Hale. How to Do It. 1870s.
Turning to our next selection, I must admit that I’m in danger of becoming a “stale” tutor, as I don’t tear up my notes for many of my teaching materials. In fact, I like reading alongside my old notes, much of the time. I do, however, teach over half my materials with zero notes, trusting memory and the conversation to elicit whatever’s pertinent to the work. (To those who imagine my analysis or instruction must be impoverished by my lack of notes of any kind, I simply say, “bring it.” My piece on the performative nature of classroom annotation is coming, never fear, but I’ve been tested on this topic before. And I know the nature of notes.)
And yet, returning to the topic of materials I have taken notes on, I am reminded that perhaps I should tear up my Aristotle and Plato notes each year, as other professors I know do. Something holds me back—I think it’s perhaps plural things—even though I do read those texts anew each summer. Still, when I read the following excerpt from the vibrant life of a master teacher, I reconsidered my approach once more:
Father Schroth also refused to become a “stale” professor.
Dwyer recalled one summer when he returned to campus and found Father Schroth in his room in Martyrs’ Court, shredding sheets of handwritten looseleaf notes.
“I’m tearing up my notes for the books I’m teaching this semester,” Father Schroth explained.
“Why on Earth would you do that if you’re going to be teaching them in a couple weeks?” Dwyer asked.
“To force myself to read the books anew, so I don’t become stale,” Father Schroth replied.
I almost ended on that quotation. I find it perfectly lovely. Perhaps if Father Schroth had been one of my own university instructors I would have. But my introduction to him was in the article I linked to above. And when I saw this next quote, I couldn’t resist including it now, as it fits so beautifully with the harsh judgments today’s piece opened with:
Unbounded gratitude is due to those authors, old and new, who, with learning and grace, with care and patience, have put the world in possession of thoughts which are real additions to its knowledge—and corresponding should be the contempt of those whose high-sounding and pretending books seduce readers to wade through them only to find in them the millioneth echo of some commonplace idea.
G.J. Holyoake. A Logic of Facts. 1866.
And this is why I fear to write.
May your reading be that which fills you with gratitude,
Kreigh
P.S. For those of you with younger readers at home, I stumbled across a piece in Image Journal titled “Reading Together: Recommendations for Parents and Children.” And if your voices are tiring from reading out loud, it even includes some recs for good audiobooks!