Monday, October 22, 2007
"Who Lost Sight of Everything He'd Achieved"
by Ken Houghton
Now, I'm as fond of the next person, and probably fonder than most, of the idea that you should compare literary characters to other literary characters. And I might suggest that Fish is blowing smoke when he talks about comparisons with Iago ("I am a villain" is not something Ahab would ever say) or Faust (though his search for knowledge led to mercury poisoning of his patients, that was, effectively, before the play starts).[2]
And let's leave aside for the moment that possibly the best character comparative for George W. Bush—John Ford's Perkin Warbeck—isn't even suggested by Fish.
The question is: if you are trying to teach literary texts to undergraduate students, do you only make references to other texts, or do you try to teach them by relating things to their experiences?
If you're Stanley Fish, who may not have seen an undergraduate since early in his days at Duke, you might try to keep the references all to other texts. But you would be doing yourself and your students a disservice. You're making it unnecessarily difficult to communicate with them. They may not know who Atticus Finch is, but they certainly know who George W. Bush is.
Also, let us consider the GWB/Ahab comparative a bit more. In a world not quite so black-and-white as Fish's, characters are robust. In Fish's world, by contrast:
I'm happy to see that (1) Fish is able to understand motivation so completely and (2) academics are not that much different from 63% to just under 70% of those polled by FoxNews, not to mention 75% in a poll actually taken this month.
Sarcasm aside,[3] there are many reasons to compare Ahab and GWB. Let's do a short list:
That's my very short, top of the head list of Four Questions that are perfectly reasonable, without fear or favor, comparatives, each of which can expand our understanding of the text of Moby-Dick, none of which requires a negative interpretation of GWB as either person or president.
It's a pity Stanley Fish is too busy building straw men and seeing conspiracies.
He clearly has read extensively, and has some decent interpretive skills. It's just a pity he doesn't think about literature as a living, breathing entity that is enriched by reader responses to the text as much as by the original text itself: a Self-Consuming Artifact, as it were, that reinvents itself with each new discovery.
For instance, here's Andy Serkis on the character of Iago:
That seems much more interesting than Fish's declaring him a parallel to the "inflexible, monomaniacal, demonic, rigid, obsessed and dictatorial" Ahab.
[1]Let us graciously assume the copyeditors at the NYT, not Fish himself, do not know that the actual title is Moby-Dick.
[2]My Marlowe and Goethe texts are stored in the garage as the basement gets finished; I'm working from memory, and can vouch only that the mercury poisoning is explicitly in the Goethe; it may not be in the Marlowe.
[3]Well, as much I can put sarcasm aside when dealing with cardboard characterization and arbitrary, unsubstantiated declarations of omniscience.
[4] YMMV as to whether the energy was optimally used in either case—but that's for the discussion, not the declaration.
Stanley Fish stares at his navel, and confuses lint therein for discussion:
But with what motive would the teacher initiate such a discussion? If you look at commentaries on “Moby Dick [sic],”[1] you will find Ahab characterized as inflexible, monomaniacal, demonic, rigid, obsessed and dictatorial. What you don’t find are words like generous, kind, caring, cosmopolitan, tolerant, far-seeing and wise. Thus the invitation to consider parallels between Ahab and Bush is really an invitation to introduce into the classroom (and by the back door) the negative views of George Bush held by many academics.
If the intention were, as claimed, to produce insight into Melville’s character, there are plenty of candidates in literature for possible parallels – Milton’s Satan, Marlowe’s Faust, Byron’s Cain, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Shakespeare’s Iago, Jack London’s Wolf Larsen, to name a few. Nor would it have been any better if an instructor had invited students to find parallels between George Bush and Aeneas, or Henry the Fifth, or Atticus Finch, for then the effect would have been to politicize teaching from the other (pro-Bush) direction.
Now, I'm as fond of the next person, and probably fonder than most, of the idea that you should compare literary characters to other literary characters. And I might suggest that Fish is blowing smoke when he talks about comparisons with Iago ("I am a villain" is not something Ahab would ever say) or Faust (though his search for knowledge led to mercury poisoning of his patients, that was, effectively, before the play starts).[2]
And let's leave aside for the moment that possibly the best character comparative for George W. Bush—John Ford's Perkin Warbeck—isn't even suggested by Fish.
The question is: if you are trying to teach literary texts to undergraduate students, do you only make references to other texts, or do you try to teach them by relating things to their experiences?
If you're Stanley Fish, who may not have seen an undergraduate since early in his days at Duke, you might try to keep the references all to other texts. But you would be doing yourself and your students a disservice. You're making it unnecessarily difficult to communicate with them. They may not know who Atticus Finch is, but they certainly know who George W. Bush is.
Also, let us consider the GWB/Ahab comparative a bit more. In a world not quite so black-and-white as Fish's, characters are robust. In Fish's world, by contrast:
But with what motive would the teacher initiate such a discussion? If you look at commentaries on “Moby Dick,” you will find Ahab characterized as inflexible, monomaniacal, demonic, rigid, obsessed and dictatorial. What you don’t find are words like generous, kind, caring, cosmopolitan, tolerant, far-seeing and wise. Thus the invitation to consider parallels between Ahab and Bush is really an invitation to introduce into the classroom (and by the back door) the negative views of George Bush held by many academics.
I'm happy to see that (1) Fish is able to understand motivation so completely and (2) academics are not that much different from 63% to just under 70% of those polled by FoxNews, not to mention 75% in a poll actually taken this month.
Sarcasm aside,[3] there are many reasons to compare Ahab and GWB. Let's do a short list:
- Each took on what may appear to be an impossible quest (The White Whale, The GWOT), and showed a dedicated energy toward that goal.[4]
- Ahab was motivated in his search for Moby-Dick by having had a previous ship under his command destroyed, and having lost a leg in the process; George W. Bush's most reasonable explanation for the war in Iraq was and remains, "He tried to kill my dad."
- Ahab "stayed the course"; GWB is doing the same, with the ending still to be written.
- Ahab's quest is chronicled by Ishmael, who may not be reliable in his narration. GWB has been chronicled across the spectrum. What does this tell us about perspective on the two characters?
That's my very short, top of the head list of Four Questions that are perfectly reasonable, without fear or favor, comparatives, each of which can expand our understanding of the text of Moby-Dick, none of which requires a negative interpretation of GWB as either person or president.
It's a pity Stanley Fish is too busy building straw men and seeing conspiracies.
He clearly has read extensively, and has some decent interpretive skills. It's just a pity he doesn't think about literature as a living, breathing entity that is enriched by reader responses to the text as much as by the original text itself: a Self-Consuming Artifact, as it were, that reinvents itself with each new discovery.
For instance, here's Andy Serkis on the character of Iago:
There are a milion theories to Iago's motivations, but I believed that Iago was once a good soldier, a great man's man to have around, a bit of a laugh, who feels betrayed, gets jealous of his friend, wants to mess it up for him, enjoys causing him pain, makes a choice to channel all his creative energy into the destruction of this human being, and becomes completely addicted to the power he wields over him. I didn't want to play him as initially malevolent. He's not the devil. He's you or me feeling jealous and not being able to control our feelings.
That seems much more interesting than Fish's declaring him a parallel to the "inflexible, monomaniacal, demonic, rigid, obsessed and dictatorial" Ahab.
[1]Let us graciously assume the copyeditors at the NYT, not Fish himself, do not know that the actual title is Moby-Dick.
[2]My Marlowe and Goethe texts are stored in the garage as the basement gets finished; I'm working from memory, and can vouch only that the mercury poisoning is explicitly in the Goethe; it may not be in the Marlowe.
[3]Well, as much I can put sarcasm aside when dealing with cardboard characterization and arbitrary, unsubstantiated declarations of omniscience.
[4] YMMV as to whether the energy was optimally used in either case—but that's for the discussion, not the declaration.
Labels: Academia, literature, Politics, teaching
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excellent, yes, but you should add 9/11 as the parallel to Ahab losing a previous ship to the whale in your point number 2...
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