I’ve been thinking lately about what drove me away from serious study of literature as a student: my professors dragged literature into the present and tortured it with interrogations, putting 21st-century words and concepts in the mouths of long-dead authors.
It's not unlike what Mormons do, which is to baptize long dead ancestors as members of the church regardless of that dead person's faith. It's ridiculous and offensive to other faiths and family members.
As always, thoughtful and well expressed. When it comes to literature, there seems to have been many schisms between modes of perception - not all of them historical. My father studied under Leavis at Cambridge but my brother was taught about structuralism when his turn came in the 70's. I deliberately avoided the subject; choosing what I thought of as 'practical' studies, acting and then digital design; and I'm kinda glad I did. I've always intended to be a writer from my childhood onwards and I still try to approach other writer's work with the same openness I had then.
As for the reinventions of a 'trans history', everything I read is coloured by the knowledge that these distortions are the result of a carefully engineered campaign set in motion by wealthy individuals and companies many years ago that is finally bearing fruit. Sue Donym's substack, another straight talker, is very informative on this: https://suedonym.substack.com/p/inauthentic-selves-the-modern-lgbtq
It's not unlike what Mormons do, which is to baptize long dead ancestors as members of the church regardless of that dead person's faith. It's ridiculous and offensive to other faiths and family members.
As always, thoughtful and well expressed. When it comes to literature, there seems to have been many schisms between modes of perception - not all of them historical. My father studied under Leavis at Cambridge but my brother was taught about structuralism when his turn came in the 70's. I deliberately avoided the subject; choosing what I thought of as 'practical' studies, acting and then digital design; and I'm kinda glad I did. I've always intended to be a writer from my childhood onwards and I still try to approach other writer's work with the same openness I had then.
As for the reinventions of a 'trans history', everything I read is coloured by the knowledge that these distortions are the result of a carefully engineered campaign set in motion by wealthy individuals and companies many years ago that is finally bearing fruit. Sue Donym's substack, another straight talker, is very informative on this: https://suedonym.substack.com/p/inauthentic-selves-the-modern-lgbtq
How very true. Really well expressed - thanks!