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“The
Gilded Age.” “Survival of the Fittest.” “The American Dream.” “The
Other Half.” “Uncle Sam Wants You.” “The New Deal.”
“The
Cold War.” “The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.” “Make Love Not
War.” “I have a dream.” “War on Drugs.” “Think Globally, Act
Locally.” “Google it.” “Truthiness.” “Black Lives Matter.” “MAGA.” “The
Green New Deal.”
When scholars consider the years 1865 through
today, these slogans and catch phrases immediately come to mind, acting
as a kind of linguistic shorthand for the economic, social, and
political events which shaped the period. Unpacking these
phrases
reveals an America experiencing both the rapid progress – rising
prosperity, territorial expansion, industrialism, and
technology
– and the growing pains – economic divisions, imperialism, and
scientific controversy – of a country in transition.
This
transition is illustrated in the shift from an antebellum agrarian to a
post Civil War industrial culture. Census data show that agricultural
work, the archetypal occupation of Americans, declined throughout this
period, from 50.1 percent of the workforce in 1880 to 31.6 percent by
1910 (Shifflett 54). This decline, and a
concomitant rise
in industrial employment, brought about a new, more urban middle class
along with their values of piety and provincialism, diligence and
optimism. Yet this shift in the cultural dynamic from rural
to
urban was challenged. Throughout the period, questions about
American identity lingered. While most recognized and
embraced
the prevailing middle class ethos, some, confronted with the reality of
an ascendant urban bourgeois, waxed nostalgic about a mythic America of
rugged individualists plowing their own homesteads. Others,
chafing under the prescriptive social rules and boundaries, objected to
the conventionalism of middle class values. Ultimately,
however,
the middle class, with its love of comfort and conformity, as the
historian Thomas Schlereth argues, “controlled the country’s political,
social, and cultural agendas” (xiii). (Note: the middle class as used
in America is more ideological than economic).
As the 20th
century advanced, particularly after WWI, the dual reaction noted above
continued: an embrace of materialism and conservatism and a rejection,
among intellectuals and artists, of what they saw as a toxic mix of
capitalism and power that had led to a meat-grinder war. The
great Depression moved the middle class out of their cocoons and saw a
rise in protests and activism (nothing like hunger to focus a person on
change). But
after WWII, America retreated to their suburban tract housing, added
fallout shelters, and worried that the cold war would turn
hot.
But the economy in the post war years -- everybody had to buy American:
the competition had been bombed out -- led again to a
middle class hegemony and the cementing of consumer culture as a
religion with TV as its altar (symbolized by the archetypal house in
the burbs with a white
picket fence and 2.5 children. And a dog). But the 1960s
(like
the 1920s earlier in the century) brought a challenge to the middle
class with empowerment movements (feminism, civil rights) and a growing
suspicion of capitalism (worker rights, environmentalism).
The
end of the century saw this suspicion come to fruition with the fall of
manufacturing and the rise of global capitalism. Politically, neoliberalism
reigned. This period also marked a rising embrace of
religiosity,
stiffening the backbone of the conservative nature of the middle class.
The digital age continues with the suspicion
noted above, and – because internet – allows ideas, some good, many
bad (fear
is a stronger emotion than joy), to spread like a thought virus. But even with a rising precariat,
Schlereth's observation about turn of century America holds true:
middle class ideology still rules. And artists and thinkers still push
against that rule. This capsule history of the last almost 200 years
provides a background for the kinds of ideas we'll be talking about in
class.
“Wait, isn't this a literature class?”
Of
course. And because literature engages with the world around
it,
the psychology and actions of the characters, the meanings of the plot,
the setting, symbolism of particular words -- all the usual literary
techniques used to create a work -- will be at the center of our
study. But art is not created in a vacuum.
Throughout the
course, we’ll be connecting it to the world at the time the work was
written.
Now
of course you're thinking “Like, I already know how to read – thanks.”
But the kind of close, analytical reading required to fully appreciate
literature (and to fully appreciate any written work) is a skill that's
faded in our media saturated age. Consider your computer for instance.
Years ago we had to memorize a few text-based DOS commands such as
COPY, MOVE, etc. to make our computers work. Now? Move the mouse and
point on a . . . picture. And think of the internet. What draws you to
a web page – the eye-candy graphics or the rich and in-depth text which
stimulates deep thought? I thought so. . . . In fact, reading any text
online over a screen length is a cumbersome chore entailing much eye
squinting and scrolling down of screens (which is why many students
print out this material and read it offline).
This course is
designed to reacquaint you with the rigors and rewards of
reading.
First, the rigors. Reading closely means paying
attention to not only
the plot – or what happens in a story – but paying even more attention
to why it happened. This digging deeper, looking not just at the
surface of the story but the implications behind a word or phrase –
what is suggested by poem opening with fog? Why does a river run
through a novel? Why so many references to death -- and sex? – is what
reading well is all about. And this is where the rewards come in. As
you learn to attune your eye/ear to the more subtle gradations of
thought and feeling in literature, you're learning to look more closely
at the world around you – and I don't only mean the printed word. The
kind of reading that this class fosters will be used to interpret a
marketing report in your career as Assistant VP to the VP for Marketing
at Widget© Inc., and to see through the spin of a
political
advertisement that presents a candidate as populist, yet neglects to
mention he attended Stanford and Yale.
The skills you'll
learn in this class – paying attention to the connotations of words, an
awareness of how irony and point of view can affect meaning,
understanding how figurative language can express complex and abstract
ideas – will give you that edge you need to succeed in life – and to be
the life of the party. More importantly, learning to read analytically
gives shape to that endeavor we call life. It clarifies the world
around us, providing the language (and thus the thinking) we need to
move from grunting, mewling automatons ruled by the latest marketing
gimmick beamed to us via satellite from WeOwnTheWorld Inc., to
thoughtful, skeptical, reasoning – and above all alive and kicking
individuals. That “kick” is important because modern life, with its
consumerist, let's-satisfy-my-basic-urges-first attitude, results in
complacency and apathy.
Reading allows us to, as the poet and
critic Jay Pirani suggests, swing “a lantern ahead of us in the fog of
our lives.” I'll supply the lantern – great literature – you bring the
matches (more prosaically known as your brain and your interest).
Thus
the kind of thoughtful, reflective reading this course demands is meant
to reshape the way you perceive the world around you, allowing you to
glean new insights into human nature and behavior by reading about the
life of a runaway growing up in the antebellum South (Huck Finn), a woman trying to
“find” herself in turn of the century New Orleans (The Awakening), a writer trying to
make sense of the carnage of war ("Hugh Selwyn Mauberly"), a poet's view of the bitter end of
rampant capitalism (Howl) – and, to borrow a huckster's phrase – “a whole lot
more.”
To foster this kind of attentive reading, you should read
each work at least twice: if you're like me, the first time you read to
see what happens and the second time around, you read to see why it
happened. Remember, as well, to read with a pen or pencil in hand and
mark up your book copiously. Jot down questions to yourself,
note
where odd lines of dialogue or description, recurring images, or
tell-tale character descriptions/dialogue occur. Use a 3x5
index
card as a bookmark to keep track of these interesting/important
quotes.
How about quick list?
To prepare for class
- Consult the appropriate Lesson
Plan page
- come to class with the assigned text read twice and annotated.
Remember
brainstorming from your writing class? And planning? And working out
from quotes? And drafting? And revision? And back to quotes and
planning and drafting? And revision, revision, revision . . .
proofreading, proofreading, proofreading?
Good. You'll be doing that in this class as well.
For specific suggestions connected to this course, see the “Writing
Suggestions” section of the Course
Documents page of the course site.
If you've made it this far you might be wondering how all this
translates to what we'll be doing in our class meetings.
Easy. Discussing the assigned work. In other words,
serious fun.
Looking forward to fun.
Works Cited
Schlereth,
Thomas. Victorian America:
Transformations in Everyday Life 1876-1915. HarperCollins,
1991.
Shifflett,
Crandall. Victorian America,
1876-1913. Facts
on File, 1996.
© David Bordelon 2021
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