A Little Less Brit Lit

As the new sophomore advising system signals the start of the semester in which I will make my concentration choice, I remember stopping by the English Department’s open house with my fellow pre-frosh over a year ago, only beginning to know what a concentration was. Amid the flyers and pamphlets, I wondered aloud to a department member why so much British fiction was required, and if that would be changing anytime soon. Her smile suddenly disappeared. “Well, it is English and American Literature…” she replied.

Technically and judging by name alone, she was right. But this technicality is no reason to allow the department to continue stagnating along traditional lines. Harvard’s concentration in English and American Literature and Language currently limits students unacceptably with its almost-exclusive focus on British literature, leaving no place for those who want to study a wide range of English-language literature using the department’s rigorous methodology, as opposed to the Literature Department’s more modern, theoretical approach or History and Literature’s interdisciplinary one.

The English Department’s current concentration requirements, listed on the departmental website, call for the completion of two of 12 courses (14 for honors concentrators) on British literature and one on American literature. Further requirements, including those mandating one course in Shakespeare and two courses in other pre-1800 literature, are structured such that almost all eligible courses focus on British literature. In fact, half of the 100-level courses offered by the department this year are British literature courses while less than a third feature American literature specifically.

Some may argue that British literature is the logical foundation for study of any literature written in English, and that reading such a canon will inform the way concentrators approach other literature. While a thorough study of a particular country or region’s literature no doubt broadly prepares concentrators to study that of other countries, there is no reason that only the West’s English-language literature should be able to provide that larger context.

By setting up widely agreed upon “classics,” (“Beowulf,” “Paradise Lost,” and “Pride and Prejudice”) as an entrenched canon, the English department takes a political stance: It suggests that Western English-language literature is the foundation of all English-language literature, and upholds the West’s cultural output as a standard against which all English literature should be measured.

While it is difficult to dispute the impact of revered British writers such as Shakespeare, academic readers should learn to actively critique their work—not to idolize but to continually question their cultural value, as they would when reading any book. Even this slight change in approach would prevent the canon—and the department—from becoming stagnant, and would encourage students to think more creatively and intelligently about what constitutes a “great work.”

The English Department does its students a disservice by setting them up to measure a Gish Jen or Toni Morrison against the cultural standards of a Marlow or a Swift—while some Western European standards may inform their writing, the same literary tradition does not wholly apply to these authors, who descend from a canon remarkably distinct from that of old European or English works. Students will be even less equipped to approach works of authors such as Tsitsi Dangarembga, who writes in English, but whose national and cultural experiences are informed by situations far different from those of canonical writers.

The department needs to shake off its narrow perspective, and allow for a broader definition of the canon and its place in undergraduate education. Not only would this move it away from an old-fashioned, West-centric viewpoint; it would also teach English concentrators to think critically about the canon itself as a cultural artifact, rather than a set of literary scriptures.



Weslie M. W. Turner ’10, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Lowell House.