Introduction to Literature

Cultural literacy

Cultural literacy is the ability to converse fluently in the idioms, allusions and informal
content which creates and constitutes a dominant culture. From being familiar with street
signs to knowing historical reference to understanding the most recent slang, literacy
demands interaction with the culture and reflection of it. A knowledge of a canonical set of
literature is not valuable when engaging with others in a society if the knowledge stops at the end
of the text — as life is interwoven with art, expression, history and experience, cultural literacy
requires the broad range of trivia and the use of that trivia in the creation of a communal language
and a "groupthink." Cultural literacy stresses the knowledge of those pieces of information
which content creators will assume the audience already possesses.

The Theory Behind Cultural Literacy and Education

By E. D. Hirsch (reprinted by permission from The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy)

Reading and writing are not simply acts of decoding and encoding but rather acts of
communication. The literal words we speak and read and write are just the tip of the iceberg in
communication. An active understanding of the written word requires far more than the ability to
call out words from a page or the possession of basic vocabulary, syntax, grammar, and
inferencing techniques. We have learned that successful reading also requires a knowledge
of shared, taken-for-granted information that is not set down on the page.

The true measure of reading ability is the ease and accuracy with which a person can
understand diverse kinds of writing.

It should now be clear why reading ability and learning ability are so closely allied. They both
depend on a diversity of prior knowledge. You can easily read a range of new texts if you
already know a lot; so too you can easily learn a broad range of new knowledge if you already
know a lot. It should not surprise us, therefore, that back in the 1950s the College Board found
out that the best predictor of how well students would perform in school was their performance on
a general knowledge test. “Reading, writing, and arithmetic” and the general ability to learn new
things all show a high correlation with broad background knowledge.

Reading and learning ability depend on something more definite than broad, unspecified
knowledge. To a significant degree, learning and reading depend on specific broad
knowledge. The reason for this goes back to my earlier point that reading is not just a technical
skill but also an act of communication. When somebody is reading with understanding,
communication is taking place between writer and reader. Conversely, if communication isn’t
taking place, the reader isn’t accurately understanding what he or she is reading. Successful
communication depends on understanding both the text’s literal meanings and its implied
meanings. These all-important implied meanings can only be constructed out of specific
knowledge shared between writer and reader.

Reading ability, then, depends not only on broad knowledge but also on shared
knowledge. Communication between writer and reader always depends on implications that
remain unsaid, and that must be shared by writer and reader if the communication is to proceed
effectively.

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We know from the history of Europe that national schools can achieve high literacy for
everyone in a multicultural population. France did so with a population that, up to the
eighteenth century, spoke at least four different languages. The French school system turned
illiterate “peasants into Frenchmen,” to use Eugene Weber’s phrase, and it was the school
system, not the peasant home, that accomplished this miracle. Viewed in a long historical
perspective, it has been the school, not the home, that has been the decisive factor in achieving
mass literacy. Literate national language and culture are what Ernest Gellner aptly calls school-
transmitted cultures. He observes that the chief makers of the modern nation have been
schoolteachers. They helped create the modern nation-state, and they alone can
perpetuate it and make it thrive. When the schools of a nation fail adequately to transmit
the literate national language and culture, the unity and effectiveness of the nation will
necessarily decline.

…a good definition of literacy: the ability to communicate effectively with strangers.

Cultural literacy is a necessary but not sufficient attainment of an educated person. Cultural
literacy is shallow; true education is deep. But our analysis of reading and learning
suggests the paradox that broad, shallow knowledge is the best route to deep knowledge.

Knowledge about the basic character and meaning of life is not inherently progressive, as
science is. The ancients had just as much evidence as we do about the basic facts of
human existence. In fact, truths understood by the ancients sometimes are forgotten and
have to be rediscovered. [Important for encouraging study of the Bible.]

No one in the English-speaking world can be considered literate without a basic

knowledge of the Bible.

The Bible is also essential for understanding many of the moral and spiritual values of our culture,
whatever our religious beliefs.

No person in the modern world can be considered educated without a basic knowledge of
all the great religions of the world—Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Judaism, and Christianity. But our knowledge of Judaism and Christianity needs to be more
detailed than that of other great religions, if only because the Bible is embedded in our thought
and language.

For purposes of communication and solidarity in a culture, myths are just as important as
history. And unless history achieves the vividness and memorableness of myth, it will not be very
useful to shared culture. We should indeed try to discriminate between history and myth; but true
or false, the stories that we share provide us with our values, goals, and traditions. The
tales we tell our children define what kind of people we shall be.

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Literature and “literature” – a distinction

The word "literature" as a common noun can refer to any form of writing, such as essays;
"Literature" as a proper noun refers to a whole body of literary work, often relating to a specific
culture.

"Literature", with emphasis on the uppercase L, is a subset of the more general "literature".
"Literature" refers to written work of exceptional intellectual caliber, whereas "literature"
can be anything written.

What is intellectual or meaningful, though, is subjective and often controversial. Many would
argue about what marks a work as "Literature",

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Thoughts on Literature

“My view is that literature is first an important cultural activity—that is, that it communicates in a
particular way within and between individuals and communities, past as well as present. Its
writing and reception can be variously cohesive, constructive or disruptive. It may be conceived
as a leisure activity, as play, or as a practice of high moral or religious significance. It has a real if
limited power to affect people.” Pooley, DR., p. 16
“9
Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying
and arranging many proverbs with great care. 10 The Preacher sought to find words of delight,
and uprightly he wrote words of truth.” Ecclesiastes 12:9-10 ESV

“Literature enacts rather than states, shows rather than tells.”

“Several corollaries follow from the incarnational nature of literature. One is that literature
conveys its meanings by a certain indirectness and therefore calls for interpretation.”

“Literary texts do not come right out and state their themes. They embody them.”

“This means, in addition, that literary texts are irreducible to propositional statements and single
meanings. The whole story or the whole poem is the meaning.”

“With a literary text, form is meaning. This implies that we cannot grasp the truth of story or
poem, for example, without first interacting with the story qualities or poetic images.”
CLGB, p. 17

“A second identifying trait of literature is its self-conscious artistry….literature is the result of

conscious composition, careful patterning, and an awareness of literary conventions prevalent at
the time of writing and subsequently.” CLGB, p. 18

“The word ‘literature’ has many meanings. When scholars, for example, speak of the literature of
a subject, what they are referring to is the vast bibliography of criticism, interpretation, and
polemic that has attached itself over the years to every field of study, humanistic and scientific.
Such material rarely has any claim to literary distinction; some of it, in fact, especially of recent
years, is barely intelligible. Campaign ‘literature,’ distributed by political parties, though
intelligible, has even less claim to literary merit. When, however, we use such phrases as
‘American literature,’ or ‘French literature,’ we have something quite different in mind: a written
tradition, available to a large literate public, preserving a canon of great works that define the
identity of a civilization, proclaim its ideals but also brood over its problems and defects, and set a
standard against which later writers measure their own achievement as they strive to adapt,
reject, or surpass them. The first such literature in the history of the West is that of Greece.”
NBCL, p. 23

CLGB Ryken, L. And T. Longman III, Eds. A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible. Zondervan,
1993.
DR Barratt, D. et. al. Eds. The Discerning Reader: Christian Perspectives on Literature and
Theory. Baker books, 1995.
NBCL Knox, B. Ed. The Norton Book of Classical Literature. W.W. Norton & Co., 1993.

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 TOWARD APPRECIATING THE LITERARY ASPECT OF THE BIBLE

Language: “A human system of communication which uses structured vocal sounds and can be
embodied in other media such as writing, print, and physical signs.” OCEL. p. 571
Narrative: “The general or inclusive term for a story or account of any events or experiences, fact
or fiction, long or short, detailed or plain.” OCEL. p. 680
Story: “A narrative, spoken or written, in prose or in verse, true or fictitious, related so as to
inform, entertain, or instruct the listener or reader. A story has a structure that may be
more or less formal, unfolds as a sequence of events and descriptions (…), and
concerns one or more characters in one or more settings.” OCEL. p. 987
Literature: “Artistic creation through language and its products.” OCEL. p. 619
“… the subject matter of literature is human experience. The approach to human
experience, moreover, is concrete rather than abstract. Literature does not, for
example, discourse about virtue but instead shows a virtuous person acting….
A working definition of literature…is that it is an interpretive presentation of experience
in an artistic form. This means that there are two criteria that must be insisted on if we
are to distinguish between the literary and nonliterary parts of the Bible: (1) literature is
experiential rather than abstract, and (2) literature is artistic, manifesting elements of
artistic form.” LB. pp. 13-4
“We assume that literature is a complex language, not necessarily unique, not without
significant overlaps with other kinds of language, but distinctive nevertheless, and that
the constructive critic will in one way or another direct otherwise wandering attention to
the operations of this language. Its syntax, grammar, and vocabulary involve a highly
heterogeneous concord of codes, devices, and linguistic properties. These include
genre, convention, technique, contexts of allusion, style, structure, thematic
organization, point of view for the narratives, voice for the poetry, imagery and diction
for both, and much else.” LGB. p. 5
Biblical Literature: “By refusing to allow reality to be conceived solely in terms of known,
observable experience, biblical literature transforms the mundane into something with
sacred significance and evokes a sense of the mystery of the divine.” LB. pp. 17-8

STORY: An account of God working in a life so as to affect it!

LB Ryken, L. The Literature of the Bible. 1974.

LGB Alter and Kermode, eds., The Literary Guide to the Bible. 1987.
OCEL McArthur, T., ed., The Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1992.

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 Hebrew Poetry

Form of Hebrew Poetry, from the briefest to the longest units:

1) Single Word a) old roots or inflections

b) descriptive substitutions

2) Rhythm—the number of syllables and perhaps words per beat, metrical foot. Rhythm is the
result of grouping of syllables, plus speed (In Hebrew, as many syllables may
precede or follow the accent as may be pronounced within a given time.)

3) Line (stich, row)—composed of a group of accents, most frequently 3.

4) Verse—several lines making 1 sentence.

5) Strophe—a group of verses forming a distinct sub-unit within one song.

6) Song—the unit of most of the Psalms.

7) Poem—songs forming a unit (Job, Song of Solomon)

Parallelism—the relationship to each other of the lines within a verse. This is the most
characteristic feature of Hebrew poetry. The relationship is one of logic or thought.

Type Relation of 2nd line to 1st Example

1. Synonymous “and” Repeats Psalm 2:4

2. Antithetic “but” Reverses Psalm 1:6
3. Comparative “as…so” Illustrates Psalm 103:12
4. Progressive “furthermore” Elaborates Psalm 1:2
5. Climactic “furthermore” Compares Psalm 29:1
6. Synthetic “for” Explains, etc. Psalm 4:8

J. Barton Payne

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 Introduction to the Psalms
Notes from Lee Ryken, Wheaton College, 1979

What kind of book is the Psalter?

1. The Psalms are literature.
Designed to be read; written record of human experience; creative; imaginative.

2. The Psalms are lyric poems.

A lyric is a short poem expressing the thought and especially the feelings of a speaker.
The traits of lyric include these:
a. Lyrics are often intended for music.
b. Lyrics are subjective or personal.
c. Lyrics tend to be emotional, but may be reflective.
d. Lyrics are brief.
Lyrics tend to fall into a 3-part structure:
1) statement of theme, or presentation of the stimulus to the poem;
2) development of the theme;
3) some type of resolution or concluding thought.
Some miscellaneous observations about lyrics:
1) they are usually a response to something or someone;
2) they are moments of epiphany—high points of human insight or feeling;
3) they capture a moment and do not cover a topic with logical thoroughness;
4) although the writer displays his feelings, these are not what we should
primarily look at; we must ‘look with the poet’s eyes, not at him….; the lyric
poet is a man who says ‘look at that’ and points” (C.S. Lewis);
5) so do not be surprised by abrupt shifts within a lyric.
Good questions to ask when analyzing a lyric include these:
1) What is the exact topic or experience presented in the poem? Exactly what is
the poet looking at?
2) What are the responses of the poet to the stimulus?
3) How is the poem structured?

3. The Psalms are poetry. Poets speak in their own peculiar idiom: that idiom relies heavily
on images and figures of speech. Such an idiom places a burden of interpretation on
the reader. The poetic idiom often relies on analogy—on the comparison of one thing to
another.

Lyric poem: does not tell a story

is self-contained
centers on one theme and everything relates to it
limited scope of subjects

Putting emotions into words

Symbols
Exclamations
Repetition
Hyperbole—conscious exaggeration
Making the emotion the subject of the poem
Emotional vocabulary

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8
“Why Literature?”

When I was a graduate student, I received a letter from my father that I will never forget. A career
military man, he wrote in his typically clipped prose: “Explain terminal objectives of the Ph.D. in
English.’

The question is not as hostile as it sounds. My father just wanted to understand why I was willing
to endure a five-year diet of Ramen noodles. But the assumptions behind his question struck me.
How could I explain to him that the study of literature exists, in part, to remind us that life is more
than what can be measured by ‘terminal objectives’?

This truth has become central to my research concerns in recent years. Technologically
advanced nations dazzle their citizens with dreams of genetically engineering children, escaping
into virtual reality, perfecting the body, and even attaining immortality. Anyone who has followed
the biotech and nanotech revolutions knows that these goals are not the stuff of science fiction
only. And technocratic futurists like Ray Kurzweil try to make the desirability of these goals a
given. What could be wrong with wanting children who are born without a genetic predisposition
to cancer, they ask? Why not pursue the science of perpetually renewing, wrinkle-free skin? And
if life is good, shouldn’t we all want to live longer, healthier lives?

While some might say that our rapidly changing biotech culture proves that the study of literature
can only be an ivory tower indulgence, I believe that problems like these prove that we cannot
afford not to study literature. Literature trains the moral imagination—that faculty that is
uniquely able to challenge culture’s cherished assumptions. The moral imagination sees
more broadly. It sees motives. It sees into the future—and into the past. It sees the
potential for unintended consequences. It cautions us.

For example, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story ‘The Birth-Mark’ teaches us that behind the desire for
beauty there may lurk a narcissism that is disdainful of real people. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New
World teaches us that a social utopian’s vision of the good life might be, in-fact, quite ugly.
Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake teaches us how our culture is shaping young people who, in
the name of ‘progress,’ see no problem with sacrificing humanity to attain it. Literary fiction can
shock us into seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly—and the real difference between
them. As Flannery O’Conner puts it, ‘I’m always highly irritated by people who imply that writing
fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.’

Why study literature? Because in some ways it has never been more important for us to know
who we are—and where we are really going.

Wheaton, Winter, 2007, p. 58

Faculty Voice by Christina Bieber Lake, Associate Professor of English

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10
4 questions for Sir James Galway
By Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News
February 21, 2007

Flute's royal couple returns to Boettcher Hall tonight when the Colorado Symphony hosts Sir
James Galway and his wife (and former flute student), Lady Jeanne. Having sold more than 30
million records and been knighted by the queen, Sir James shares his view of success with
Rocky music writer Marc Shulgold.

1 You're a stickler for technical perfection. How do you maintain that high standard?

"Practice! I love to practice. You know, some people just stop practicing. Not me. It's like
praying: As a kid, you pray to God for a puppy. And when you get a dog, that's the first step. It
gives you a reason to keep praying all your life. For me, practicing is a way to find out how to
play a piece. And it really pays off."

(In an earlier interview, Galway talked about a practice marathon he'd just completed. "I can
now play scales better than anyone in the world," he had bragged.)

2 With pop hits such as John Denver's Annie's Song, you've established a strong
crossover reputation. Are you comfortable with that?

"I don't do crossover. There's only one style musicians should play - communication. Look at
Pavarotti. He just sings his heart out, whatever it is. Some flutists don't know how to express
themselves. They just play what's on the page. But you have to reach out to your listeners."

[So with literature]

3 In addition to playing the classics, you've encouraged contemporary composers to

write flute music. John Corigliano and Lowell Liebermann have dedicated concertos to
you. Talk about the genesis of that collaboration.

• On Corigliano's Pied Piper Fantasy, written in 1982: "I had asked John to write something.
Neither of us had a clue what it should be. Then, he got the idea (to set Robert Browning's The
Pied Piper of Hamelin to music), and he started it right there in my studio when he was visiting
me in Switzerland."

• On Liebermann's Concerto, written in 1992: "I'd played a flute-piano piece of his (the Sonata,
Opus 23) and I thought, 'I've got to get him to write a concerto.' This is a true story: I was talking
about it with my manager as we walked along a New York street. And he says to me, 'Well,
here comes Lowell now - why don't you ask him?' And sure enough, there he was, heading in
our direction!" (Liebermann would also later dedicate a flute-harp concerto to Sir James.)

"There's another fellow I'm hoping to work with - (British composer/flutist) Ian Clarke. I met him
at a flute players party, and asked him to write a concerto. He writes very entertaining music."

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4 Your Denver fans may recall a playful scolding you gave them for coughing
excessively during one of your concerts here. You seem to have a close relationship
with your fans. You could probably fill the hall even if you just read from a phone book.

(Chuckles) "Hey, maybe I'll try that. I could have (minimalist composer) Philip Glass write a
concerto using the Dublin phone directory. He'd be an ideal choice - there are a lot of Murphys
in Dublin, you know."

Marc Shulgold is the music and dance writer. Shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-

954-5296

Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

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 Dictionary for Introduction to Literature

Denouement: 1) the final unraveling of a plot or complicated situation

2) the final scene in a play, novel, etc., in which the plot is resolved

Inflection: change the pitch of (a voice, a musical note, etc.)

Grammar: change the form of a (word) to express tense, gender, number, mood, etc.

Periphrastic: roundabout, circumlocution

Grammar: (of a case, tense, etc.) formed by combination of words rather than by
inflection

Prosody: 1) the theory and practice of versification; the laws of meter

2) the study of speech rhythms

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