- Nonilon V. Queano
This
paper will explore basic issues on practices and approaches used in the
teaching of literature/literary studies in a typical English Department such as,
for instance, our Department of English and Comparative Literature in UP. It
will demonstrate, as well, how the globalized project of neoliberal education
which English literature and language teaching services can be subverted or
superceded using pedagogic strategies and practices geared towards advancing
the goal of freedom and liberation for the disadvantaged Third World. The
period covered extends from the sixties up to the present.
Apart
from the introduction of new courses in Asian and
In
his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
Paulo Freire wrote that, consistent with the ideology of capitalism, the
‘banking concept’ of education has been the pedagogical approach implemented
globally:
Education… becomes an act of depositing in which the students are the
depositories and the teacher is the depositor.
Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes
deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. (Ways of
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. . . . .
….The banking concept regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the
deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which
result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive
role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is
and to the fragmented view of reality deposited on them. (Ibid.,
209)
Freire
proposes the adoption of what he terms as “problem-posing” method of or
approach to education.
However,
we can look at how the scenario appears in actual practice. The processing and distribution of knowledge,
so to speak, have been doubly complicated by material realities – not to speak
of the politics of interventions and maneuverings by global capitalist forces
and institutions as a whole – specifically obtaining in Third World countries
such as the
As
it is, especially in our case, there are specific conditions that should be
recognized, including the following:
1. Most,
if not all, of our textbooks and teaching materials are imported or foreign;
2. Consciously or unconsciously, most English
and literature teachers have stuck to the habit of simply reproducing – or
doing an inventory of – western narrative texts and perspectives, probably,
even in courses that purportedly deal with local writing;
3. Most teachers who handle English and
literature courses either have not had any chance or have had their minds so addled
by capitalist propaganda to admit of ideological re-education, re-orientation,
and refashioning, if only to enable them to adapt their teaching styles and
make course content relevant to the needs of Filipino students; and
4. Our language problem, particularly, the use
of English as medium of instruction is inherently and inevitably alienating for
all – students from teachers, the texts taught from our “actual life processes”
and practices, the academe from the masses, etc. – that without self-knowledge
and consciousness, the educational system, as a whole, will only perpetuate our
neocolonial, neoliberal attitudes of submission and surrender to neoliberal
practices that dovetail the project of global capitalism and imperialism.
Obviously, and
given the above conditions, the pedagogical practice of a typical Department of
English and Comparative Literature, reproduces or mimics even in Third World
situations, those of the hegemonic
The latter part of
the sixties saw the introduction of new critical approaches starting with
structuralism through feminism and gender, post structuralism, Marxism, and
deconstruction which rendered inadequate and strange the ideas and theories of
New Criticism.
The advent of new
critical theories and approaches has certainly opened up a whole new arena of
possibilities for literary reading and interpretation. Most of the theoreticians and proponents of
these new critical approaches were coming from the West but no matter, literary
pedagogy could have attained to a new ideological dimension for us and the
Be that as it may,
let us turn to specific instances of how literature is taught inside the
classroom. The syllabi, as earlier
pointed out, mainly consist of a reading list probably based on or modeled
after the contents of a textbook, if available.
Needless to say, textbooks in English and Comparative Literature are
invariably imported, i.e., authored by foreign authors and published in the
Instead of mere
inventory, a teacher of literature should learn to recognize signs and
signifiers that reveal the literary text for what it is, viz., a carrier of the
ideology either of capitalist domination and control or, seen from the other
side, of its antithesis of proletarian struggle . It should be pointed out that
every literary text in whatever genre reproduces the consciousness of its
creator and it will be the task of the literature teacher to show what sort of
consciousness apparently flows from it.
As it is, most syllabi in English and Comparative Literature courses
either shows a mere rundown of authors and titles – e.g., the period courses
recognize chronology but does not “historicize” or locate the work within its
specific societal order and consciousness, but instead refers to a metaphysical
or abstract one labeled as humanity or the universal order (similar to the
current term, global). Perhaps more than
any of the other areas of knowledge, the issue of relevance is strongest in the
study and teaching of literature, especially considering the tendency to
mystify or conceal at the pretext of artistic license. Obviously this issue or criterion is further
problematized by other misplaced conceptions of art and the aesthetic
experience as irrational or something lodged in some undefined interior space.
This problematic
thus leads us to the need for a framework that recognizes not just the general
goals of literary study or the study of form and content that most syllabi lay
down as course objectives but also the societal situations, realities, and
practices that determine reading and interpretation of texts. In short, some ideological framing may be set
or drawn up, preferably at the very outset, which would thus lead the student
towards a true and fruitful engagement with the literary text. To illustrate, I would like to draw from my
own experience of teaching a course entiltled, CL 133 which carries the
description, “masterpieces or major works of medieval and renaissance
CL 133 includes Beowulf, The Song of Roland, Marie de France’s lais (Yonec and Bisclavret),
Dante’s La Vita Nuova and Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), Petrarch’s Sonnets,
Cervantes’s Don Quixote (Parts 1 and
2), and Goethe’s Faust.
At first sight,
the content and narratives told in these great works of European tradition seem
quite remote to bear any relevance to our native lives and experiences. Apart from being read and taught in English
translation, the setting and time in each seem unimaginably foreign so that, as
with most, if not all, of the period courses taught, the course could easily go
the usual formalist route – i.e., where the works are discussed in themselves
as formally constituted by the basic elements of plot, theme, conflict, time,
setting, character, formal devices, etc..
The greatness or importance of each of the works would then be traced to
the manner by which each one treats of the timeless, human themes of love,
constant striving, exhaustion or impoverishment of the human spirit, longing
and desire, moral crisis, struggle in the abstract sense, and death. Aesthetic design would be appreciated in
terms of language, imagery, and the poetry that inhere in the work appreciated
not in terms of their practical usefulness to “actual life processes” but in
terms of how they elevate the mind, lift up the human spirit, fulfill desire,
as if these processes happen in the abstract, outside of material life. Often,
the literary work is valued more for its undecidability, shiftiness, and even
its lack of closure.
The paradox, of
course, is that most often mere explication and exploration of the literary
texts produce enough excitement (we recall that at one point, Marx compares it
to child’s play) that, in the end, indeed, the study of literature produces the
same effect as play.
If it were a
different world that we inhabit, such as some utopia where no class
contradictions abide, then perhaps aesthetic pleasure per se would suffice to
serve the end of literary study and interpretation. The fact, however, is that, again, aesthetic
inebriation and non-commitment are bourgeois and inconsistent with the whole
order of impoverished, exploited
societies like the
We shall propose,
then, at this point, a way of reading which does not spin away or detach itself
from the literary text (the originary point of study) but anchors itself on it
even as it explores the parallel or similar contradictions obtaining in the
lives and habitats of its readers. As
with every human endeavor, the end point of exploration and imagining is the
realization of material value. Although we
recognize that the starting point of interpretation is still the literary text,
the need to make the work significant and relevant especially, to the “actual life processes,” of the masses is an imperative of pedagogical
practice and for the proper functioning of the social order.
In the case of CL
133, there are points that quite apparently represent a reigning consciousness
throughout which goes beyond the traditionally identified norms of conduct of
the Middle Ages, particularly, chivalry. For one, the dominant tradition of
Catholicism and Christianity is a recurrent theme which underscores, of course,
the power attributed to the Pope, especially during the Middle Ages.
The theme of
conversion and devotion to the Christian God occurs in every work from Beowulf to Faust and it does not require deep sensitivity to recognize
it. Coupled with this assertion of the
power of the Church and of the function that Christianity performs in colonization
and conquest is the hate campaign waged against Saracens or Moslems who are the
imperialist’s greatest enemy. The full
scale attack on Islam is the most central, overpowering theme of The Song of Roland, rendered redundantly
in lines such as, “He (the Saracen, Marsillion) would have been a great man,
had he been a Christian,” apart from the fact that the strongest warrior
besides Roland is a leader of the church, Archbishop Turpin. The three Christian soldiers of Charlemagne’s
are seen battling and scaring away a huge Saracen army of 20,000 men. The whole
spectacle grows even more awesome with the intervention of the Angels who at
some point descend to help Charlemagne’s rear guard drive away King Marsillion
and his big army who scramble away in fear or defeat despite their huge
number. The narrative, of course, ends
with the conversion and baptism of the Queen of Zaragosa, King Marsillion’s
wife, who is brought to
The point that we
wish to stress here is that if the teacher recognizes this ubiquitous presence
of the church in the beginning, he or she could tie up the various works with
this motif as fulcrum and point out its significance, especially in light of
current events, for instance, the U.S. invasion of Iraq which does not appear
different from Charlemagne’s decimation of the Saracens in the Song of Roland. The theme of Christian conversion that
dovetails colonization – and in the modern era, imperialism – is pursued in
every narrative or poetic text of the Middle Ages, so that following this line,
the course almost naturally leads to a full, integrated discourse on the
narrative of western hegemony and power—and subsequently, modern day
imperialism and global capitalism—to which is traced the root cause of the
crises of the disadvantaged, impoverished societies of the Third World.
It is not a
far-fetched idea to see that contemporary realities of revolutions and
struggles against imperialist oppression are a narrative that may have
originated from the beginning of time
or, at least, from the Age of Feudalism.
Needless to say,
the same perspective and approach may be applied to the study of various literary
texts in the various period courses, for instance, in English Literature. The basic trick is simply to recognize that
the so-called human and universal themes and narratives are not abstractions of
a stable universe but specific instances of ideological contradiction and
metaphors of historicized consciousness occurring in the continuing dialectical
confrontation between the ruling class and wielders of power, on the one hand,
and the oppressed, dominated classes and societies, on the other. The moral and
the romantic sensibilities are not isolated poles that govern man’s conduct but
are part of a unified narrative that should be recognized as integral to the
grand narrative of classes in conflict.
In sum, the
perspective that a teacher of literature should adopt is one that covers real,
material human problems, especially those close to home, and as in any
narrative of human endeavor and conflict, no story or poem is strange and
foreign enough to escape the dialectics of history or skirt the framework of
class contradiction. The modern world is especially vulnerable and sensitive to
the theme of wholeness and interrelations not only because of new devices and
gadgets that facilitate negotiation and transmittal of what Moretti would call,
“signs taken for wonders,” but because the unstable consciousness is constantly
longing for freedom, and the oppressed and saddened multitude who are subjects
of literary narratives and poetic creations will not fade until fulfillment,
stability and full meaning are realized at the farthest end.
It is clear that,
unless there is conscious effort on the part of teachers to use the alternative
perspective of the downtrodden in literary studies, English literature teaching
– not to speak of the English Department as a whole – will always be made to
service the neoliberal project of global domination and imperialism.
(Attached is the
Syllabus for CL 133.)
SYLLABUS FOR CL 133
(The Literature of Medieval and Renaissance
2nd Semester, 2006-2007
TEXTBOOKS:
Wilkie, Brian and James Hurt. Literature of the Western World. Vol. 1, 4th Edition,
Mack Maynard, et al., eds. The
Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Vol.
1, 6th Edition.
The Song of Roland. Tr. By Frederick Goldin.
Alighieri, Dante. La Vita Nuova. Tr. by Barbara Reynolds.
_____________. The Divine Comedy: Inferno (Part 1),
Purgatorio (Part 2), and Paradiso (Part 3).
De Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel. Don Quixote (Parts 1 & 2). Tr. By M.M. Cohen.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust (Parts 1 & 2). Tr. By Philip Wayne.
REFERENCES:
Tierney, Brian. The Middle Ages:
Volume 1, Sources of Medieval History.
2nd Edition.
Elton, G.R. ed.. Renaissance and
Reformation: 1300 - 1648.
Freccero, John. Dante:
The Poetics of Conversion. Ed. by
Rachel Jacoff.
Barber, Richard. The
Knight and Chivalry.
Erler, Mary and Maryanne Kowaleski,
eds. Women and Power in the Middle
Ages.
Bloch, Ernst. The Utopian Function of Art and
Literature. Tr. By Jack Zipes and
Frank Mecklenburg.
Beowulf.
(Tr. By Edwin Morgan.
The Song of Roland.
Marie de France, “Bisclavret” (The Werewolf); “Yonec,” LWW,
1346; 1353.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Dante, La Vita Nuova.
_________, Divina Commedia (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso).
Francois Villon, “Ballade,” NAWM, 1622.
Francis Petrarch, “Sonnet 3" (“It
Was the Morning”); 61 (“Blest Be the Day”); 90 (“She Used to Let Her Golden
Hair Fly Free”); 292 (“The Eyes that Drew from Me”); and 333 (“Go Grieving Rimes of Mine”), NAWM,
1670 - 1679.
Everyman.
Cervantes, Don Quixote: Parts 1 & 2.
Goethe, Faust: Parts 1 & 2.
(Additional readings will be prescribed, if time allows.)
REQUIREMENTS:
4 Unit Exams
Final Exam (may be optional)
Term Paper
NVQUEANO/17November2006
