In Defense of Naïve Reading
By ROBERT PIPPINExcerpt"But just as clearly, the teaching of literature in universities ─ especially after the 19th-century research model of Humboldt University of Berlin was widely copied ─ needed a justification consistent with the aims of that academic setting: that fact alone has always shaped the way vernacular literature has been taught.
The main aim was research: the creating and accumulation and transmission of knowledge. And the main model was the natural science model of collaborative research: define problems, break them down into manageable parts, create sub-disciplines and sub-sub-disciplines for the study of these, train students for such research specialties and share everything. With that model, what literature and all the arts needed was something like a general “science of meaning” that could eventually fit that sort of aspiration."
1 comment:
Mr. Pippin makes an interesting correlation between science and literature, through the connection of research. I write historical fiction as well, so a large part of my writing prep does incorporate a scientific-style approach to history: asking questions, then 'answering' them through fiction. However, when I sit down to actually write the story, the science disappears into the background and the 'art' of literature ascends.
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