Neither of my parents went to college. Most of the reading material kept in the house was religious in nature. Once every other week, though, we went to the library, and I checked out stacks of books. I chose indiscriminately. I just wanted to read—what I was reading about didn’t matter much. In elementary school, I literally started at “A” and worked my way through the alphabet of the children’s collection of my library. As an adult, I’ve noticed patterns in my reading and study. I’m drawn to disenfranchised authors and those who write of a real, and sometimes gritty, world.
Some might argue my preferences are a result of the college literature classes I enrolled in, which texts the professors chose. To a degree I would agree, but I also believe my predilection for a certain type of text was set at a young age and without any sanction by authority figures. To establish my own personal “canon”, at least that of my middle and high school years, I recalled books I loved. I read these books over and over, most until the covers fell off:
The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Since I had never before sat down to list the books that shaped my love of and compulsion to read, I never realized how female centered my “canon” is. These primary texts and most of the second tier books I think of off the top of my head were written by women and focus on major female characters.
Most of the main female characters are alone, either as orphans or during difficult life situations. I can see how these texts modeled girls dealing with troubled lives that resonated with me. I am sure my reading background influenced my faith in reading for personal growth and comfort. In college, all of the expected literary analysis was just incidental to me while I worked on a major in English as an undergraduate and now as I work on a masters degree. My first thoughts and eventual analysis always develop from what is initially an emotional reaction and understanding.
I always thought my authentic responses to texts were wrong, at least not exactly “intellectual”. When I started studying naturalist novels, though, and African American writers, my emotional focus started working for me. I could “read” these texts, like Sister Carrie and Go Tell It On The Mountain, more thoroughly and insightfully than all the Wordsworths and Shakespeares put together. I think part of why I suddenly started receiving As on my papers is because professors were more tolerant of my type of analysis in conjunction with Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, or Dorothy Allison than they were in conjunction with Yeats, Pope or Milton. Why?
Was it because professors belittle margin texts to the point that they do not expect “high” level analysis like they do for traditional canon texts? Are the people who choose to specialize in margin literature, African American literature or feminist literature for example, naturally more open to my type of conversation? Have professors of traditional canon texts, who tend to be a little old school, learnt to accept only one mode of analysis as “right” and truly intellectual? And why, after four years of college and one year of graduate school, are my favorite female writers the ones I discovered in middle and high school?
With the notable exception of female poets like Rita Dove, Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni (thanks to my wonderful creative writing prof), I did not read many female writers in college, and the ones I did read bored me. I discovered a few female novelists outside the classroom, like A.S. Byatt, Zadie Smith and Jeanette Winterson, and thank god because if I had to read The Yellow Wallpaper one more time, I might throw up. Not only that, the poetry canon (as I’ve received it) feels distinctly different than the literature canon I received. Male and female poets, of different sexualities and races, coexist peacefully and equally in my mind, but writers of great literature in my mind are unfailingly male and mostly white.
(side note: I thought Walt Whitman was African American until I recently saw a picture of the man—how does knowledge of writer identity and image influence our experience with the text? In an African American literature class, groups and the prof brought in pictures of the authors we studied and class discussion often went to evaluating relative levels of skin tone. Should equitable inclusion of minority authors also attempt to include dark and light authors in equal portions? Why was the class so fascinated with this aspect of author biography? Was it useful to our discussion of the texts?)
The canon of my uninfluenced youth bares little resemblance to the canon I received in college. Some of the difference may be attributed to reading level, or complexity, but not all. My favorite works received in college work deal with some of the same themes and emotions, but none from female writers. I feel myself perpetuating the cycle as I choose books to teach to high school students. Female authors often write “girlie” books, and I catch myself feeling like these books are less worthy of study. I gravitate towards teaching male authors of male stories because of this value judgment and also because boys make more trouble in the classroom if they are bored. I want to keep them interested. But, what of the girls? I must think of them.
Recent Comments