Edmundson and Against Readings

Reading Edmundson’s article, I am reminded of the Christian Humanist and Marxist readings that I was forced to apply King Lear in Year 12. Whilst it is incredibly clichéd to criticize the HSC syllabus, it is worth restating that it was incredibly absurd to expect students to apply such complex readings to an equally complex play, when none of us had a comfortable grasp of either, teacher included. I can emphathise with Edmundson’s position, as I wish King Lear had been taught to me in the way he suggests it should have. I do, however, take issue with aspects of his argument.

To an extent, I agree with the sentiment that Edmundson expresses. The literary education as the “great second chance” (57) through “the experience of change” (59) is an appealing notion, and a validating one for all of us who’ve ever experienced that moment where we feel we’ve created what we’ve only heard (58). At the heart of Edmundson’s argument about this “great second chance” is a belief in the importance of providing society with the opportunity to attain cultural capital and to be “socialised” (57). So to the extent that his article is about cultural capital, I also agree that providing students with the greatest opportunity to connect with literature is important. The greatest lessons we learn are those we feel we knew all along.

I also agree with Edmundson’s implicit questioning of the distinction between lay-reading and critical reading, because such a distinction is potentially fallacious. We must ask what the fundamental purpose of reading is, and whether, based on that, we can truly state that one type of reading is more valuable than another in that it is more capable of highlighting the true meaning of a text. Literature is rarely written for critics, and I agree with Edmundson that there is a certain arrogance based on exclusivity that governs some academic and intellectual practice, which runs counter to the very principles of teaching literature.

On the surface, I agree with dismantling the barriers of analytic vocabulary when they are barriers. Edmundson reserves room for his argument amongst the practices of “interpretation” and “criticism”, and suggests that either of those practices are fine when they involve engagement with the text on its own terms, not on those of an externally imposed vocabulary. However, I believe that literature is largely a continuum of work, a process of dialogue where each text is affected by and in turn affects works that precede and succeed it. As such, I believe that constructing debate between ideas and texts, such as the example of applying Marx to Blake that Edmundson gives (61), can be beneficial and productive in certain cases.

I do take issue with Edmundson’s belief that the teacher and student should be able to locate the author’s true motive beneath the text, and remain as true to that as possible. It relies on two assumptions, both of which are shaky foundations for such an argument. The first is that the author’s intention is discernible, and the second is that, assuming the first, the intention is continuous and coherent throughout the creation of the text.

Putting to the side the well-worn epistemic and metaphysical responses to the idea of an author’s “intention”, it is arguable that the result of discerning the “intention” of the author may be as arbitrary as the application of an external vocabulary that one believes highlights crucial aspects of the text. At the heart of both practices is an enourmous subjectivity, and it is a flawed argument to suggest that a true motive is somehow discernible, because it inevitably involves a personal and subjective response. Such an argument becomes dangerous when a pedagogical theory is based on it, as allowing subjectivity to reign supreme may eliminate any framework for criticism, which is not what Edmundson advocates.

Perhaps the most fundamental question asked by Edmundson is what the role of the teacher actually is, and in light of that we must remember to whom Edmundon is addressing this paper – the academic fraternity. This is first and foremost a theory of pedagogy. I am inclined to take his argument less literally, then, and rather to see it as gentle encouragement in a certain direction – that of nurturing individual responses, and cultivating in students a true love of the humanities and of literature, and love that can only be truly established through the partial removal of the partitions that are analytic vocabularies.

Works Cited

Edmundson, Mark. "Against Readings." Profession (2009): 56-65.