The question of what we read

In class Professor Powers posed the question as to whether we have a responsibility to appreciate the things that we don't like, based on the thoughts of Wimsatt and Beardsley. It seems that a lot of college is spent sort of guiding our reading tastes. I've made my way through a good deal of stuff that I didn't like while at college because of its literary value. And truth be told, I have come to appreciate a lot of it (mostly because I'm proud that I got through it anyways and now at least understand it). Then I think about writers like Tennyson, who sounds just like the type of poet that an English major should read. But when I took Victorian Lit and had to read Tennyson, let's just say he wasn't my favorite. His writings embody so much of the Victorian era that I understand why his works are important, but I didn't enjoy some of them. Even though I didn't love them, I do appreciate them, but do I have a responsibility to do so? I've always wondered who decides what writers from each time period are the ones that we study in school and the ones that become most popular. Is it the public? The anthologies? Maybe my opinon differs from the decider of the main literary canon. Do I still have a responsibility to appreciate their selections?

Right now I'm taking Womens Literature, and it was interesting that when I first got the class book list, I realized that I had never heard of any of the authors on the list. In past literature classes I read names that everyone knows like Tennyson, Wordsworth, Twain, Hopkins, Eliot, and a whole slew of names that I always felt like I should read because I'm an English major, and those are the names I had always heard talked about. But in my current womens lit class, I'm reading books by women of different races and backgrounds, and I have never heard of any of them before.

A few other people have blogged about Barbara Christian's article "The Highs and Lows of Black Feminist Criticism." It's applicable to my thoughts because it discusses the need for us to look low, at the creations of those who are typically excluded from the main literary canon, because there we find suppressed voices that need to be heard so we can hear ourselves. Christian writes, "I wonder if we critics read stories and poems, or, if as our language indicates, our reading fare is primarily that of other critics and philosophers? . . . Why are we so riveted on male thinkers, preferably dead or European?" She asks some valuable questions because on entering into my womens lit class, I had the assumption that the writing would somehow be less valuable than more classic works I had read in other English classes. I guess I'm not sure if I should have to appreciate works that I don't particularly like. But I have to admit that my English education has taught me how to appreciate works that I don't like.