Comment by everdrive
6 years ago
>And as a kid, you certainly can't say a classic author is not interesting. You can't say the text is boring, that you don't see talent in it, that you didn't learn anything from it. It has been validated by society, hence it's good. Now you have to say why you think it is, even if you don't. Actually you have to say what you know what the status quo is, which means repeating something you read elsewhere instead of forming a opinion from that and what you think. The opposite of what's school is supposed to teach.
I completely agree with this, but just want to note that it's possible to do this properly. Usually this happens in college. The societal approval must still be taught, but it ends up being a discussion unto itself. "This writing style was popular at the time, and people had the following social expectations for men and women of the upper class, and these were informed by the following social movements, etc, etc." A real discussion of why this work gained so much esteem allows for constructive criticism, or might even help a student to understand a work that would have otherwise been impenetrable.
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If anyone's read "The Rape of the Lock" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Lock), this is a great example of a work that would have been impossible for me to understand without a great literature teacher an some historical and contextual education. The social norms, expectations, and how someone would politely and indirectly talk around them would have been completely impossible for me to grasp if I were left to my own devices.
Why must societal approval still be taught? And who gets to decide what society approves of? Hint: "Society" isn't the answer.
Because it explains why the work gained popularity, and what the nature of that popularity was. Why are you reading it today instead of something else?
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There's no reason societal approval must be taught uncritically. Maybe I used a poor term. I just meant that some historical works are seen as great literature. And the values that society currently held at the time, and subsequently must be part of the staying power of a given work. Obviously other things come into play as well such as writing style and quality.
I agree with you and think the term should be "important." There are works most would agree are important but not everyone would agree are good or "great" in an approving sense, like Joyce, for example.
I'm all about teaching about societal approval as long as it's labelled as such and put in perspective. I think that actually it would have helped me a lot to have it labelled that way: I would have respected the teacher more, and learned about the way humans work sooner.