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Separating Art from Artist
Some of the most renowned authors have been horribly problematic people. Salinger was an adulterer and has been accused of pedophilia. Anne Perry murdered her mother. T.S. Eliot was a raging anti-Semite – as were Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway. So why is it that we study these author’s texts with such fervent admiration in our English classes, fawn over their prose in our book clubs, and read their works on our own time? The simple answer is that bad people sometimes create great art. Yet the problem with putting so much importance on works by problematic people is that the things they’ve done and said become forgotten…
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Erotic Literature; A Platform for Feminism
Recently I took to re-watching the TV show Mad Men, which takes place primarily in the ‘60’s in Manhattan. One aspect of the show that makes it so enjoyable – but often so difficult – to watch is the way it calls out the sexism of the time period by portraying strong female leads being held back by the strongly patriarchal environment. In one scene in the third episode of the first season, titled “Marriage of Figaro”, two female leads, Joan and Peggy, as well as two other female receptionist characters discuss D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. As Joan hands the book over to one of the secretaries she borrowed…
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Lyricism as Literature
A couple months ago Bob Dylan accepted a Nobel Prize for literature. This might strike some as odd, because of the stigma of grouping lyricism with literature. People may argue, if one lyricist’s work is considered literature, where do we draw the line? Can the work of Miley Cyrus or Drake be looped in with Bob Dylan and the like? Can Desiigner’s “Panda”, of which the chorus reads “Panda, Panda Panda, Panda, Panda, Panda, Panda, I got broads in Atlanta, Twistin’ dope, lean, and the Fanta” be considered literature? How do we make the distinction between music and literature? Yet on the other side of the debate we must consider…
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The Place of Women in Autobiography and Memoir
At the end of every school term, we get pestered with email after email requesting the same thing: please fill out your course evaluations! Usually, unless allotted time during lectures, I do not take the ten minutes required to fill out the online survey filled with boring “scale of one to ten” questions. I’m all for making a change – voting, for example, is very important to me – but I generally don’t find enough faults within a class to prioritize the evaluation of it over end-of-term essays or exam revision that occupies my mind and my time during the evaluation window. Be that as it may, there is one…
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On The Power of Words
As English students, we know how powerful words can be. They can transport us to different eras and locations. They can make fantasy seem to be reality. They can inspire us, teach us, and create worlds, emotions, and futures. They can even get us an A+ on our exam papers, if we use them well… or possibly land us a position of power. To quote the United States of America’s President-elect Trump, “I’m very highly educated. I know words. I have the best words!” Yet what are these words, these ‘best’ words, that Donald Trump has? Where do they transport us and what do they create? As many of us…
