Erica Steinhauser
1) What are the key points Eagleton is making?
· Literature is an ideology and it has a close relationship to issues of social authority
· Late 19th century—dramatic decline of religion
· Since decline of religion, there was no more ideological power to slightly “unite” the social classes
· English literature was now the replacement for religion, namely for the middle-class
· Middle class, which was the majority at this point in time, should use English literatures ideology to strengthen their economic and political influence
· Middle class must be educated to shape the lower and higher classes
· English literature was to be used to encourage compassion amongst all the classes and help them realize that other people had views on issues too
· English literature would distribute moral values to the masses
· English literature would promote patriotism
· Use English literature to see how other people of other races and classes experience
· “Literature should convey timeless truths…distracting the masses…nurturing in them a spirit of tolerance and generosity…ensuring the survival of private property.”
· Experience is the “homeland” of ideology
· You can experience something unreachable by reading a novel concerning the unreachable experience
· English literature was a way to supply inexpensive “liberal” education to people without access to public schools or universities
· Says that literature “is moral ideology for the modern age”
· English literature was aimed to an even more oppressed society than the middle and lower class—women
· English literature would support the “’organic’ community of Elizabethan England in which nobles and groundlings found a common meeting place in the Shakespearian theater”
· After the Great War, England embraced English literature even more so; Sir Walter Raleigh was finally able to write about something manly—war propaganda, along with “more strident forms of chauvinism on which English had previously thrived”
· English was something that would provide refuge and common ground for people who had experienced the horrors of the war and wished to escape from it
· People who studied English were the same people who had led Britain into war
· English then became “the spiritual essence of social formation”
· Life’s important questions were addressed in English
· Scrutiny—critical journal created in 1932 by the “Leavises”
· Leavises said you must concentrate on the “words on the page”
· Literature represented the inspired use of language—the quality of one’s language reflected upon the quality of their society, culture, and personal life
· English is superior to all other subjects
· Scrutiny was the focal point of a “moral and cultural crusade”
· Scrutiny only wanted to change education, not society
· English made people into better people
· “Literature was in a sense an organic society all of its own: it was important because it was nothing less than a whole social ideology.”
2) What are your questions and insights about Eagleton’s points?
· I don’t think literature could be used as a mean to “unify” social classes or anything like that. Unless it’s a book every single person in that society is forced to read and interpret, then it can’t exactly unify anything.
· “…you can vicariously fulfill someone’s desire for a fuller life by handing them Pride and Prejudice”—I don’t agree with this idea. Granted I have never read Pride and Prejudice or even seen the movie, I don’t think reading a book can fulfill someone’s desire to live a fuller life. It would just show you all the things you are missing out on, or give you ideas about what you could do in your own life.
· I thought it was funny that English literature was used to satisfy women entering universities because they were excluded from every other subject.
· Page 53, second sentence of first full paragraph: the sentence makes absolutely no sense to me. Perhaps I am just reading it wrong, but I’ve read it over and over and I still have no idea what its saying.
· “In the early 1920s it was desperately unclear why English was worth studying at all; by the early 1930s it had become a question of why it was worth wasting your time on anything else.” I still feel like this statement is true. For me it is, anyway.
· I disagreed with the statement where Eagleton said that literature “[makes] you a better person.” In some ways it could, but what if some person reads Mein Kampf and feels that Hitler was indeed correct, and then goes and starts a cult devoted to eliminating everyone but the Germans? History sometimes does repeat itself, so not all books can be a good influence on a person.
3) What questions do you have for your facilitator and your peers?
· Did anyone else feel like Eagleton got off subject when he started discussing Scrutiny?
· Did anyone enjoy this piece? If so, what was your favorite part?
· Is there a statement in the book you disagree with? Why?
