Wherefore Art Thou, Art?

Under the new proposal from the Task Force on General Education, English 10, “Major British Writers,” will not count for general education credit. Neither, for that matter, will Literature and Arts A-22, “Poems, Poets, Poetry.” And Literature and Arts B-63, “Bach in His Time and Through the Centuries,” will also fall by the wayside. Instead, the proposal recommends the absorption of what are now the Literature and Arts requirements into a category whose primary focus isn’t even on literature and art: “Cultural Traditions and Cultural Change.” Once rightfully a centerpiece of Harvard general education, the studies of literature and art are in jeopardy of becoming mere stewards in the service of an entirely different—and non-artistic—end.

An emphasis on art for the sake of art is essential, both for literary and other non-literary forms. For one thing, the study of literature and art has the power to illuminate the human experience in a way that no other mode of inquiry can. We agree with the Task Force on General Education’s general position that courses in general education should provide undergraduates with relevant instruction. But “relevant” does not necessarily mean “immediately practical,” especially at an institution of liberal arts. To treat literature and the arts as mere tools for the investigation of different societies—essentially, the philosophy of the “Cultural Traditions and Cultural Change” category—suppresses the innate value of novels, poems, symphonies, plays, paintings, and a host of other works of art. Surely, the appreciation of beauty, artistic achievement, and the richness of the human experience is just as relevant to an educated person in the modern world as is competence in analytical skills and basic scientific concepts.

It is not sufficient, furthermore, to combine both literature and art into one broad category. Although the study of either literature or art offers an avenue to understanding and appreciation of the human experience, each does so in a different way. Accordingly, the skill sets used in each artistic form are different and equally important. The study of literature teaches students to closely read texts and search for sub-literal significance, a critically important skill for any educated person. On the other hand, the study of paintings, music, and other non-textual forms involves the derivation of meaning from entirely non-literal works, which is a very different process from literary analysis, but valuable in its own right nonetheless. More importantly, these creative forms reflect unique ways of understanding and portraying humanity, so directly studying different forms of portrayals is as, if not more, important than learning the skills needed to analyze them.

Such a scheme will not be hard to implement; in fact, it already exists at the College. For all its faults, the current Core Curriculum casts a sharp and sensible distinction between the Literature and Arts A and B categories. Literature and Arts A courses are concerned with the analysis of literary texts, while Literature and Arts B courses examine non-literary forms of art. The best way to instruct undergraduates in literature and the arts is simply to retain the current Literature and Arts A and B categories as they stand in lieu of the proposed Cultural Traditions and Cultural Change category.

What should not be retained from the present system, however, is the general constraint that few departmental offerings satisfy Literature and Arts requirements. Any course—be it under a department or under some extra-departmental administration—should satisfy either requirement if it contains substantial engagement with that category’s subject matter. For instance, English 124d, “Shakespearean Tragedy,” should unreservedly satisfy the Literature and Arts A requirement, while Music 1a, “Introduction to Western Music from the Middle Ages to Mozart,” should likewise count for Literature and Arts B. Courses that contain both literary and non-literary components, such as the new Foreign Cultures 79, “Historical and Musical Paths on the Silk Road,” should be allowed to count for either category, but not both.

The goal of retaining the existing Literature and Arts categories in the place of the proposed Cultural Traditions and Cultural Change category is not to eliminate cultural inquiry from the general education framework. Cultural inquiry needs no designated category in the first place. Understanding and analyzing cultures are requisite components of a general education, but undergraduates will necessarily be exposed to different cultures simply by completing the rest of the proposed general education program. It seems inconceivable, for example, for a course to be taught under the proposed “The United States and the World” category without a component of cultural exploration in one, if not both, of that category’s required courses. The same could be said of courses in both Literature and Arts A and B: It is difficult, if not impossible, to study a creative work without studying the culture or cultures in which it was created. Whether culture is the lens through which history, literature, and art are studied, or the other way around, we are confident that students will gain a sufficient knowledge of cultures. But we believe that the current proposal, in which culture serves as a lens for literature and art, may give short thrift to the creative works themselves.

The current Core suffers, in part, from a saturation of irrelevant courses. And while we agree that relevance needs to be restored to general education, abandoning the autonomous study of literature and art would be counterproductive to that goal. The masterpieces of Shakespeare, Bach, and Picasso are just as relevant to today’s world as are genetics, history, and foreign cultures. The study of literature and art is its own justification.