Literature Professors Unleashed

I believe Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables to be a modern, updated, french epic in the model of The Iliad, The Aeneid, and Paradise Lost.  I also contend that Dostoyevsky intended the same with The Brothers Karamazov.  Their chief innovation, of course, was to write in prose rather than in poetic form.  But it doesn't end there.  While The Aenied and The Iliad captured the deeds of some hero past in order to exalt and establish a national identity, Hugo and Dostoyevsky wrote aspirationally.  They created modern heroes Jean Valjean and Alyosha Karamazov to embody the principles each author believed France and Russia respectively needed in order to promote and protect national interests and identity going forward.  Both authors hit their target, for few characters have moved me more than Valjean and Alyosha.

I believe Hugo and Karamazov patterned their epic novels after epic poems purposefully, not incidentally.  For example, some argue that myth theory exists because we all come divinely pre-programmed with the essential elements of myth, and that each of our filaments, à la T.S. Eliot, require no outside training or influence to drum the beats of myth.  It's just part of us.  Others argue that we are all exposed to so much myth theory at such an early age that we are all just parroting it.  While I personally subscribe to the divine interpretation of myth theory, I believe that both Hugo and Dostoyevsky deliberately mined the epic poems for themes, patterns, and constructions to model in their signature novels.  How many pages did Hugo spend in the Paris sewers again?  That's an underworld montage if we've ever seen one.  

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My best evidence is that Crime and Punishment, as well as The Hunchback of Notre Dame can both be considered modern approximations of a Greek tragedy (especially Hunchback, where every character of worth dies, and every wretch wins).  Dostoyevsky and Hugo each wrote their tragedy, and they each wrote their epic.  I believe there is significant intrinsic evidence within the texts, as well as extrinsic evidence from the authors' lives, to support my thesis, but frankly I don't have the time or expertise to find them all.  Someone who speaks Greek, Latin, French, Russian, or some combination of the same, is far better qualified to make these arguments.  Furthermore, there is absolutely no incentive for anyone to engage in such an endeavor, unless you are a Comp Lit professor stuck in the messed-up world of academic publishing in literary departments.  So, in truth this post is part "punt" and part critique.  

I've never understood the point of academic writing by Lit professors.  Why aren't they all writing novels and poetry?  As an English major, I read fabulous novels from great minds, only to pick them apart in essays that were completely different in style and purpose from the books they vivisected.  Writing about novels is not necessarily good training for writing novels.  People who are good at writing about novels are not necessarily good at writing novels.  Therefore, Lit professors are not generally novelists.  What a waste.  At its highest level, Literature departments reward regurgitative research instead of creation.  Currently, Lit professors must publish rarely-read scholarly articles to remain employed.

"Publish or perish" is a popular saying in academia.  Natural science professors write papers about ideas and discoveries that actually move scientific thought forward.  Social science professors write articles that can and do effect public policy.  English professors write about how a particular author's childhood experiences manifest in his or her writing.  *Yawn*  How does that move society forward?  No doubt there are Lit professors who disagree and can marshall points in support of such articles, but the simple truth is: Their articles do not get read, even within the field.

The Inklings was the name of the writing club J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis belonged to while on the faculty at Oxford.  Western civilization owes a lot to the Inklings—especially Orlando Bloom.  Why aren't humanities departments modeled after the Inklings?  I can only think of two English academic papers that have significantly contributed to society.  One was about Jane Austen's early life and led to the movie Becoming Jane.  The other was about Beatrix Potter and led to the movie Miss Potter.  Both are great films and both no doubt owe their existence to some Lit professor's academic paper. Thank you, wherever you are.  But how many trees had to die for humanities academic journals so that the world could enjoy these two movies?  Does anyone else read these articles besides aspiring screenwriters?  

I believe every Literature department should be like the Inklings, savage feedback and all.  Unfortunately, such change is unlikely to come from within.  Lit department heads were granted advance degrees not based on their creative works, but rather based on their textual analysis.  Why are we applying the scientific method to Literature?  Even Descartes would be offended.  My English degree was fabulous preparation . . . for my law degree.  Law journals are an entirely different animal from academic Lit publishing.  Attorneys (and even judges) routinely cite legal articles by law professors.  Even published legal articles by law students (called "notes") find their way into the holdings of legal opinions.  Every student in every law school is trained to research legal articles by law professors as ways to learn innovative arguments to support their clients' claims and defenses.  Like scientific journals, legal journals can and do change the world. 

Great novels change the world as well, one beautiful life at a time.  Literature departments should be petri dishes of creativity, fomenting great writing through local, regional, national, and university presses.  What benefit to a university does all the current academic Lit froth create?  Every university president should covet the benefits of even one marginally successful novel every five years from the university's literature faculty.  Publicity like that is a game changer.  Universities should not only encourage creative works, but also receive a (fair) share of the profits created thereby.

Obviously, this turns the academic Lit world on its head.  How would universities determine tenure?  Each university Inklings group would peer review the works of its faculty, and perhaps that of other university faculties.  Short story magazines and journals would proliferate, to the benefit of all (if you haven't read E.B. White's short stories, you are really missing out).   Submissions granted publication would carry significant weight, of course.  As it stands, Lit professor contracts are tied only to academic publishing.  In most instances, these contracts expressly state that creative works, submissions, and even publications will not impact tenure determination.  That is scandalous and soul crushing.

There is, of course, benefit to learning how to write and defend a thesis based on textual analysis.  Every scientist learns how to do this first in high school English before using those skills to immortalize their proven scientific hypotheses.  This instruction should be available and enforced in general, required writing courses, not beaten to death in the world of humanities academia.  Effective writing can and should be taught as part of every discipline, but there is no real-world need for the hyper-trained literary analysts that Lit professors become.        

From Blankets by Craig Thompson

The world's Literature professors, they who have the great works of the western world distilled upon their minds like the dews of Milton's highest heaven, are today sitting in their offices straining at gnats.  We should not tolerate this waste of the human spirit.  Universities should encourage and incentivize Literature professors to contribute to the body of creative works they have spent their lives studying.  Sometimes, those who teach can also do.  

Let's give them a shot.