Reflecting on Purves and Vendler

Upon reading Alan Purves’ “Telling Our Story about Teaching Literature” and Helen Vendler’s “What We Have Loved, Others Will Love,” I was compelled to think of my early experiences with written language. Though I found Vendler’s essay to be convoluted in the sense that it often became wordier than it should have been, it shed light on some areas which are deeply connected to my experiences with reading and writing.

I spent much of my childhood immersed in books. It was to the point that my mom felt as though I had life issues and had to resort to taking my books away from me. My childhood memories are mostly associated with mile-long walks to and from the library each week, hauling twenty books with me. I read anything I could get my hands on and reading may have been a way to fill enormous gaps of time, but the effects it has had upon me have been more far-reaching than that. In many ways, it carried me beyond myself. It made me aware of ideas that were worth my attention, thus broadening my perspective. For me, the experience can best be described in terms of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quote in The Great Gatsby: “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” This “inexhaustible variety” is what books filled my mind with.

Having been so intimately exposed to written language from an early age, I often find that writing comes to me as second-nature (though the placement of commas tends to be problematic at times). This is precisely what Vendler describes in her essay. She describes that “writers—easy and natural writers—have always been, first of all, readers. Just as spoken language is absorbed by the ear, so written language has to be learned from the pages of writers.” The great thing about writing is that there is always room for improvement, and so I find that the more I read, the better I am able to write.

Throughout high school, the English classes I took consisted of a form of literary analysis which was more along the lines of dissecting literature; it oftentimes involved forcing symbols out of the text, leading to over-interpretation and in turn, depreciation of the text’s value. Nonetheless, the act of thoughtfully reading which came with the often mechanical act of analyzing literature allowed me to extrapolate meaning from much of what I read. However, there have been several Great Books which I have found to be no more than a bore as a result of such over-interpretation which as Purves insists, strays from focusing on the more important aspects of literature: the content, form and “the spaces between words in the text.” Nonetheless, according to Purves, “it’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a mental discipline.” The idea sounds altogether motivating! Shouldn’t we all be mentally disciplined in some way or another?

On a side note, since we can already ascertain that the sense of being connected makes literature altogether more appealing, I would like to note that I appreciate Purves’ comment in which he states that “there is no reason why students should read Shakespeare; he wrote not to be read but to be performed in a noisy amphitheater with no scenery and few seats for the audience.” Though I don’t completely agree, I can relate, as in spite of my keen interest in the study of literature, I’ve found that I have very neutral feelings regarding Shakespeare’s works. I thought nearly everyone involved in this pursuit was in love with Shakespeare. Though I don’t think that reading Shakespeare is altogether useless, I don’t think his works are exceptional. Therefore, I can certainly appreciate someone thinking along the lines of how I think.

Finally, I am pursuing an English major in spite of being on the premed track because I’ve learned over time that this is what will prevent me from becoming a regurgitating science textbook. The fact that Vendler received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry is encouraging to me. It goes to show that no matter what one’s interests are, everyone has something to gain from literature. It is in an analytical state of mind that I have been able to learn more about myself through the study of various nonrelated disciplines.