Readable Reading
When TS Eliot wrote “The Wasteland” in 1922, he wrote for an exceptionally elite readership. The lengthy poem is interspersed with German, Latin and French, with numerous references to other poetic works with which his contemporaries would be familiar. He made no apologies for the notion that his work was written for a small, elite audience. He would have denied anyone who challenged him on this matter, saying that it is not he, Eliot the poet, who is represented by the work. It is simply a combination of “impressions and experiences combine[d] in peculiar and unexpected ways” and his own personality is taken up by the medium. Two years earlier he wrote that:
The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a ‘personality’ to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. (from ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent,’ 1920)
Eighty five years later I think that we see things very differently. For one thing, people have endeavoured to translate those bits in other languages in case some of the readers don’t have time to learn four or five languages just to access work like this one. That is a big deal. It expands the franchise of who can understand what Eliot is saying, not interpretively, but literally.
And the learned sector is growing as well. While there was a 30% illiteracy rate in England 100 years ago, it is in the single digits today. Since the reading audience has grown, writing has become something else as well. While there was at one time a more unified school of thought about Literature, with the leading minds sitting in coffee shops regularly. Today the school of thought is much more diverse, seperate, and if I may say so, accessible to anyone who takes an interest.
I think of a trip into a major book selling conglomorate. There are thousands upon thousands of titles that practically anyone can read and understand. There is a small section, often including a lot of pulp fiction, that includes what is known as “classic Literature” but for the most part, writing and books have become something else. I think that the world is better off now that quality works by a diverse authorship are readily available, not too expensive, and are predominantly readable. But I still hold a place in my heart (a fairly substantial place if I’m honest) for the cream of Literature that has risen to the top over the years.
September 29th, 2005 at 7:04 am
“I think that the world is better off now that quality works by a diverse authorship are readily available, not too expensive, and are predominantly readable.”
I do think it is important to step back a bit here and think about what we mean by ‘readable’. While you’re right that Elliot wrote for an elite audience, his contemporaries (as you point out) would understand his references. I think many reader in 2080 will find today’s literature just as unreadable. Current literature has become so intertextual, especially in its’ references to pop culture, that it will also be relatively ‘unreadable’ in the future. The classics will very likely maintain their place in the canon of literature (although the canon is not, and never should be, a static entity), but it remains to be see how we’ll study today’s popular culture in the future.
September 29th, 2005 at 11:45 am
JeroenR, you make a good point. Pop-Culture infiltrates art, and these days more than ever (how’s that for vast assumption) is often considered art.
I think you are correct in saying that culture will be vastly different in 2080, and what we are reading today will not speak to that culture in the same way. I suppose that my hope is that some literature will transcend the notion of ‘context as king’ and continue speaking. This is what I envision for the body of ‘classic literature’. And as you say, that body is not static, but growing.
I love reading Eliot, I particularly enjoy “the Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock”, and that certainly was written for a different culture than the one I find myself planted in. But it speaks to me all the same, and that is good.
October 1st, 2005 at 12:48 pm
Eliot was one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, in my view. As for readability by a modern audience, well, who would have understood the reference to the Fire Sermon even then, except a Buddhist scholar? Great writer plough their own furrow. We just have to follow them.