A Checklist for Literary Study

So whenever we approach literature with a studious attitude, there's always a sense that we ought to be getting specific information out of it.  In my experience in advanced literary study, this can lead to strenuous contortions of a work in the attempt to "trouble" or "pressure" the text for its hidden or secret meanings. 

As an instructor and also a lover of literature, I think we can dispense with the idea that there's a uniquely right answer to search for as we read.  The problem with this approach is that - ironically - it stifles students' interpretive capacity.  At the very least it dillutes their inclination to construct meaning. In the artificial pressure to make the text "mean something" students will often overly complicate the simple and overlook the significant.  But instead, we should teach our students to regard the literary work as a complex of meaning that's both constructed and dynamic: we make meaning out of the written words that lie in the wake of some authorial intent which we may never fully recover, but which we should strive to. 

Let me say here that I reject what is called the Intentional Fallacy as both critically out of date and a fallacy in its own right.  The Intentional Fallacy was a concept that appeared in the mid 20th century to describe a flawed theory implicit in literary criticism. Essentially, the argument is that if you use an idea of what the author intended to perform in the work, you would arrive at a simplistic, reductivist - and as some critics thought, a simply wrong - interpretation. The fact that we're beyond notions of right and wrong as it applies to interpreting literature suggests this notion is no longer critically useful. (Consider the huge range of significance we can see in a work like The Lord of the Rings if we know that the Catholic faith was one of Tolkien's most important sources of comfort and personal value.)  The Fallacy's fallacy lies in the fact that the early critics who propounded this as a problem "received" their objects for study within a context that imputed to an author a fixed "authority" to make meaning.  Follow me here - by reacting against this tradition, critics neglected an important sample of evidence for producing meaning out of a literary work and thus disproportionately emphasized close reading over potentially more informed reading. There are historical implications to this argument that we needn't go into now. But we should never reject a source of information that has direct relevance to our text - especially when, as teachers and students, we place so high a premium on logic and evidence-based argument. (Close reading was one very good spinoff of this period of critical elitism, one that we ought not discard. But the idea that we can determine a "right" understanding of a text seems to me erroneous.)

My view is that we should always use our knowledge of historical and biographical information in our attempts to open up a work for discussion, though we shouldn't limit our range of inquiry to fidelity to such authorial intentions. 

So, while there's no single "correct" thing to read for, there're a few worthwhile things to pay attention to as we read. 

Below is a checklist for unpacking literary texts, which you may find useful to guide your reading and structure your critical impulses.  It's designed to be general enough for use on just about any literary text out there, while also being specific enough (which, admittedly, isn't very) to give you some important things to say about a literary work.

1.  What major themes or ideas appear throughout the work?

* are there any ideas that show up several times in the work? If so, you can bet these are important. 

* pay special attention to the way works are titled. Titles are privileged spaces, which means they carry much interpretive weight. As we see in James's "Daisy Miller: A Study," this practice can animate an entire class period with interpretive inquiry. 

2.  What prominent imagery emerges in the text?

* remember that prominent includes not just repeated use, but also extended meditation on. A speaker who lingers over his description of dark, shadowy places may be cluing us in to something important about his tone or thematic project. 

3.  What role does Gender/Race/Class play in the work?

* often these topics become used to structure a work and introduce important ideas. 

4. What is significant about the work's structure?  How does it reinforce meaning?

* structure is the way that a text is organized or put together.  Subtle writers will often arrange elements in such a way as to enhance ideas that may be implicit.  This requires some abstract consideration, since we don't normally think of writing as possessing "shape" or "form". But in literary studies, these are trigger words, and they refer to very specific things in poetry. 

* related to structure is a work's style. This refers to the way an author chooses to present specific parts of the work, at the level of words and sentences. Hemingway had a distinctive style which avoided complex sentences; some have argued that this enhanced his work with a sense of "force" or directness. 

5.  What historical knowledge can we use to explore the work?

* historical knowledge extends to the author's personal life, publication reception, the time of a work's publication, as well as the time in which the work is set.  For instance, knowing that Tolkien's major works were all drafted during the World Wars is perhaps useful for analogizing Sauron's aggression against the backdrop of Nazi Germany's aggressive international policies. 

* we can also extract meaning from a work based on information that is conspicuously absent; just remember that when we do this, our logic must be very tight and our evidence very compelling - it's difficult to convince critical readers of a point without evidence, or that a lack of evidence is itself evidence of something important. 

Daisy Miller: A Study of the Study

   James is one of the illustrious men of American letters.  His literary and critical writings contributed to the shape and identity of American literature at the turn of the twentieth century.  But I want to focus specifically on the text of "Daisy Miller: A Study," asking a few probing questions.  First, what is the effect of the subtitle, "A Study"?  Second, how does this story participate in literary realism?  Third, and finally, what historical connections exist in the text that might make it more accessible for students?  In other words, what framing questions can we ask up front to help structure reading and lead to a discussion that will produce understanding sufficient to answer our first two questions?

   Published in 1878, DM describes how a wealthy young American collides with the rigid social dictums of Old World Europe and her subsequent demise.  Told through a limited third person narrator seated near Winterbourne's consciousness, the narrative charts first Daisy's unwitting transgressions of polite society's rules, then her conscious disregard for them.

   But despite the title's apparent focus on Daisy Miller, we can soon discern that the story itself is not about Daisy at all.  In fact, recalling that this is a Realist text, we might even think of the subtitle - remember, titles are important, prompting spaces - as a cue for us.  The study in the subtitle links to Winterbourne's introduction and his conclusion in the narrative.  We're told early that he is in Geneva "studying" (328), and at the close of the story that he is "studying hard" (365).  This begs two corollary questions: if Winterbourne is studying, and Daisy Miller is herself "a study," what's the text really about?

   True, so much of the story appears to show Daisy in various states of blissful ignorance regarding the mores of polite European society.  But in almost every single case where the narrator asserts this ignorance, we witness a mental tug-of-war inside Winterbourne's head.  The first time is the most obvious example of a disjunction between their two realms of expectation:

      The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked straight at her brother...It seemed to  
      Winderbourne that he had been in a manner presented...He wondered whether he had gone too
      far...He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive that sh was not in the least
      embarrassed herself.  (330-1)

   On first glance, the embarrassment would seem only to address the potential awkwardness of failing to observe superficial pleasantries - something like when we go to shake or hug someone who is totally unprepared for such a gesture.  Here, Winterbourne's styled manners ("in a tone of great respect" (330)) contrast sharply against Daisy's simplicity.  Winterbourne oscillates between thinking her an insipid, naif and imputing to her knowledge of scandalous behavior.  The narrator tells us further that Winterbourne becomes charmed with Daisy's behavior, conflating it with flirtatious indiscretion: "Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed.  He had never yet heard a girl express herself in just this fashion; never, at least, save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment" (333).  In other words, he's enticed by the presumption of Daisy's loose social behavior, which is polite cipher for waywardly sexual conduct.  Basically, he's intrigued because he thinks she's a hussy, an "easy lay."

  We witness Daisy slowly becoming aware of her transgressions after she reaches Rome, when Mrs. Walker approaches Daisy in her carriage.  But here we witness a transformation in Winterbourne, at least in his demeanor towards her.  But this coincides with the advent of a second male figure, Giovanelli.  For Winterbourne, this represents the perfect pretext to intervene in Daisy's affairs.  He has grounds: as a fellow American, he is obligated to inform his countrywoman; as a self-styled "gentleman," he has a chivalric duty to maintain her virtue - both social and sexual.  But Daisy complicates things through her awareness of Winterbourne's interest and her own tendency to flirt.  (We should, perhaps, not whitewash Miss Miller in our attentions for Winterbourne: she's no saint, to be sure, but at least she's authentic, true to herself throughout the story.)

   We can identify the text as realist in at least two ways.  First, it fits the "standard" checklist of traditional realist texts by invoking true-to-life characters, actual or realistically-described settings, behaviors in the range of experience an educated, upper-middle-class reader might share.  Second, and more interestingly, "Daisy Miller" advances the range of literary realism by developing a psychological drama, faithfully depicting the unattractive and self-centered attitudes of a social rake.   The central male figure experiences entirely believable paroxysms of self-doubt and self-assurance common to the hormone-animated high school adolescent of our own times.  The intricacy of the psychological maneuvering which Winterbourne performs becomes apparent when he tacitly compares himself to Giovanelli.  The latter, the narrator suggests is a "spurious gentleman" not "a real one" (351).  But the irony is that Winterbourne has been content to perform exactly the same indiscretions with Daisy when they were in Vevey: they both visited the Chateau du Chillon without any supervision, yet this same kind of behavior comes sharply under the criticism of Mrs. Walker as one of the things that's simply "not done here...[f]lirting with any  man she could pick up" (353).  In effect, Winterbourne is his own psychological mirror of the character he ascribes to Giovanelli.  The Italian doesn't hesitate to involve himself with a pretty young foreigner without regard to her social standing or the whispers their involvement will certainly arouse.  Giovanelli is, perhaps, doubly odious to Winterbourne because he receives privileged access to Daisy, where he, an American, remains outside her social affections.

  The significance of the story's subtitle becomes clear when we consider this, not as a simple tale invoking the tragedy that befalls naive Americans when they attempt to integrate with Old World culture, but as a psychoanalytical case study for the expatriate American.  For Winterbourne, estranged from his native land and people, finds himself doubly ostracized by the story's end.  In the story's ubiquitous present tense, he returns to Geneva to resume his "studies" of a mysterious foreign lady.  He is neither American nor European in his allegiance, and as a consequence he fails to establish any lasting social or sexual liaison between the various women who snare his interest.  Winterbourne, then, as a permanent expatriate, assumes the character of a bastard hybrid, belonging with no one and to nowhere.

Works Cited

James, Henry.  "Daisy Miller: A Study," 1878.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. 

                         

                          Vol. 2. New York: WW. Norton, 2013. 327-65. Print.

   So with this brief investigation behind us, we can now turn to a list of prompts in brief that will prime the pump for similar discussions.  Below are a few which may prove useful for addressing issues raised above, but also for directing discussion along other avenues.

1. What does the subtitle ask us to consider as we read the story?  How does it structure our understanding of the characters?
2. Describe the story's realist conventions.  Consider also the way the narrative perspective informs the story.  How does this participate in/advance/modify our understanding of realism?
3. Consider Winterbourne's constant inability to "figure out" Daisy.  How does this tension animate the story?
4. What role does gender play in "Daisy Miller"?  What role does class play?  Use examples from the text to illustrate your answer.
5. Examine Daisy's behavior in any of her several interactions with Winterbourne.  What do we learn from those interactions about her character?
6. What contrasts or oppositions does James draw between European and American characters and ideals? What rules are implied here for the behavior of young girls and married women in each culture?
7. To what extent is Daisy responsible for her own fate, and to what extent is she an innocent crushed beneath a corrupt civilization? Discuss Daisy’s character in detail. Did you find her a sympathetic character or an irritating one? What points of European civilization does she fail to understand? 
8. James uses language carefully in this novella as in all his works; certain words (“pretty”) and images (flowers, for example) are repeated with variations throughout. Choose a few of the most important examples that you have seen in this work and present them to the class.
9. In what way might it be said that this is Winterbourne’s story rather than Daisy’s? What do we learn about him in the course of the story? Is he responsible for her death? Look closely at the ways in which he assesses her and interprets—or misinterprets—her language and behavior.
10. James uses places and place names carefully in this work. Discuss the significance of the various places alluded to here, such as the gardens, the Castle of Chillon, the Palace of the Caesars, the Colosseum, St. Peter’s, and so on. 
11. Two of the most crucial words in this story are “innocent” and “intimate,” especially because the characters define them in various ways and apply them to Daisy’s relations with others. Find the places in which these words are used and discuss the ways in which these loaded terms help to create tension (and misunderstandings) in the story.
12. Several of the secondary characters play an important role in “Daisy Miller,” among them Randolph, Mr. Giovanelli, and three American ladies: Mrs. Costello, Mrs. Miller, and Mrs. Walker. Explain the function of each character in the story.
13. The theme of illness is significant here; explain its function in the story. 
14. What does it mean to be an American in this story?

Another Semester Begun

  So here we are, at the start of another semester.  I find myself in a curious position this year, which is similar in kind, though not in existential "space," to the environment I rejected back in March of 2013: juggling the responsibilities of study, teaching, and work.

  We near the end of week 2 in the spring semester, for which I've taken a temporary assignment teaching American Literature for the College of Southern Maryland.  (Probably there needs to be a legal disclaimer here about these views not reflecting those of the College, etc, etc.)  This is a fantastic opportunity for me to keep the dust off, the edge sharp, or the proverbial muscles of the teaching skills warm: it's part time and fits neatly with my work and school schedule.  (Yes, by strange fate, I've managed to compile full-time work with six credits of graduate study while simultaneously assuming responsibility for a reading-intensive survey course.  I am unafraid.)  On the bright side, my athletic schedule has screeched to a halt as I survey a six week (minimum) recovery period from abdominal surgery.

  The first week went as well as could be expected with two meetings conducted virtually.  Thank God for web enhancements that enable distance learning!  I was able to facilitate online discussion of the first two works on the syllabus and am pleased with the tone the students have struck in the early stages of the semester.  It's always at the point at which instructors get the first writing responses that we either cringe or rejoice at the writing competency of the group.  In this instance, I was pleasantly surprised that the first written artifacts from this session were - though very informal - mostly incisive and pithy.  These folks seem to have a good idea of what I wanted in that first assignment.  And they did even better on the second set, after I modeled some analytical responses to the proposed questions.

  Our first class period was taken mostly with syllabus review and a brief synopsis of the state of the US cultural and social developments in the latter 19th century.  I lingered over Whitman (and wanted to address Dickinson) as harbingers of change, both thematically and formally, for literature in the United States at this time.  I see Whitman as a synecdoche for the changing direction of American consciousness in the 19th century.  With his inclusivity - thematic, imagistic, linguistic - of the "range of life" for 19th century Americans, he participates in a dynamic period of sociocultural growth while also setting the tone for the literary awareness to come.  Both he and Dickinson can be thought of as forebears of the 20th century modernists, who experiment with form especially and whose disillusionment with traditional motifs and methods give force to that movement.  Several of the students expressed the - by this point - venerated frustration with Whitman and his "epic minusculinity" (a phrase of my own invention!): that habit of his by which he attempts to cram the entire universe of significance into a grain of sand, or an insect's antennae, or a black man's sweat, or the thinly-coded sex act.  The commonest reaction to our excerpted reading was, "Whaaaaat?!"

   And yet several students also clued in on this merger between the cosmic and the infinitesimal, and they were able to articulate it to a surprising degree.  Surprising both because it got at the pith of Whitman's project and originated in a 200-level English class.  Whitman is traditionally the most difficult poet to access in the first half of American literature, simply because he's all over the place.

  Our second "meeting" covered Bret Harte's "Luck of Roaring Camp" and Twain's "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."  We used these as an introduction to Realism and Regionalism, with heavy emphasis on the latter as a subset of the Realist mode.  (We'll crack into Realism more formally in "Daisy Miller: A Study" in a few short weeks' time.)  Again I observed a pleasant distribution of gusto when I didn't observe precision about the student responses.  Many were restricted to the standard first-time reflections on dialect as a regionalist motif: in Twain especially, there was much comment on Wheeler's crude southernisms.  But these were taken up by some others to speculate on the latent opposition between formal, educated elite (read: "polite") audiences.  A few enterprising students even observed this binary between the speaker and the character of Wheeler himself.  In my satellite comments via Blackboard, I observed that this was a hallmark of the regionalists' project in that they relied heavily on dialect and "local color" (to borrow a tired phrase) to express a specific "image" of a specific social "caste."  We noted some strains of class disparity between educated elites and the stereotypes of the rustic.  Some of these observations melded into our remarks on Harte's piece, but they were labored in most cases.  This is probably because Harte's use of dialect isn't as critical to the regionalist project - either that or he doesn't use it to such great effect as does Twain.  Harte, as I see it, relies more on specific imagery or description of community practice.  So much in "Jumping Frog" is spoken from Wheeler's perspective that the audience feels the idiosyncrasies Twain attempts to convey.  But in Harte, they're told rather than shown.  But at a time when this dictum hadn't yet entered into the discourse of American letters, it's no violation.  If Twain lampoons the rustic American and his tendency to inflate the insignificant to grandiose, Harte certainly lampoons that same figure's credulity and conformity to tradition.  After all, the roughnecks of Roaring Camp essentially reenact the Christian Nativity, Regeneration, the Flood, and Redemption in fictive space of several months.

  To craft a teaching opportunity, I synthesized the group's responses and elaborated on the points above while also added a few remarks on the regionalist's use of the frame narrative: the framing narrative is simply a device by which the author cultivates a point of access to enter the story: the introductory method, as it were.  We don't see that much in Harte or Jewett, for instance.  But Twain will take a lot of mileage out of it in his works.

  In our third iteration (and second virtual session), I dialed it back a bit and provided only a list of questions, any of which was fair game for the class to address.  And I have to say they took the modeled behavior and ran with it.  The difference in the commentary was drastic: where before it had been simple commentary tending towards summary, this second round of remarks incorporated the same distribution of incisiveness, but it also developed the citation-evidence-analysis texture that's so necessary in college writing.  It gives me a sense of ease about the impending semester, if only because I have a better view, and one earlier on, of each student's proficiency in the craft.

  In fact, this has inspired a major research project for my Technology for Instruction and Management course, which I'm taking through Notre Dame of Maryland.  That topic seeks to investigate - any takers? - blogging!  And how convenient that I took up the habit so recently!  That's a separate issue, one which I'll be writing on as the semester progresses (and time allows).  But for now, things "hasten into the midst of things," as Milton once said of his great work.

  More anon!