kind of work argue that to treat literature in this way is to run the risk of students
perceiving books of fiction and poetry as little more than alternative textbooks.
The utilitarian approach is also evident in the separation of content and form, which
devalues work with older students. They may find themselves in the hands of teachers
who focus exclusively on content, seizing on novels as pretexts for the discussion of issues
which might just as readily arise in humanities lessons. Characters in novels are
sometimes discussed as if they were people with fully developed personalities and lives
‘off the page’; equally, other students might be taught poetry with a concentration on
form and technique which precludes discussion of the experiences of the students
alongside those of the poet.
There are also divisions among teachers who might, ironically, all subscribe to
Arnold’s faith in literature’s humanising powers. Perhaps the most enduring of these is
the tension between those who see literature as a means of handing down a culture from
generation to generation and those who believe that literature can foster the emotional
and intellectual growth of the individual in a changing society. Those who favour the
‘transmission of a cultural heritage’ model often wish to promote a canon of texts or
authors which all should share. The unsurprising difficulty with this notion is that no
two readers can agree upon a canon. Those concerned with the individual reader’s
growth believe that teaching must start with the student’s interests, whatever they may
be; the task is then to draw them into reading which both expands and reflects their
growing concerns.
The ‘canon debate’ resurfaces so frequently partly because it is often political rather
than purely literary in its impulsion. Is literature to be taught because of its power to
provoke, to disturb, to nurture individuals, with the possible consequence that they
might become agents of change? Or should literature reinforce established authority—
even to promote a view of a past which, though it may never have existed, is supportive
of a regime in the present? Various groups have seen themselves as excluded by
attempts to impose specific books or authors upon schools: women have noted how
often reading lists are dominated by male writers; ethnic minorities (who may feel their
very identities are under attack by the dominant culture) believe constant vigilance is
needed to ensure their literature retains a place in classrooms.
In its most extreme forms, control by authority in the twentieth century may have
been most evident in the burning of books in Nazi Germany or Bible Belt America. But
authoritarian periods of government in Britain have usually been reflected by more
muted forms of censorship. There have been parental objections to specific titles (even
those as seemingly innocuous as Barry Hines’s Kes (1968) or Raymond Briggs’s Father
Christmas (1973) with its hero’s deeply satisfying visit to his outside lavatory); and, more
recently, there has been the heavy-handed attempt of government to impose prescribed
reading lists and the 1993 anthology of extracts for examination work including,
notoriously, an extract from Johnson’s Rasselas (1759) for the consideration of the
nation’s 13-year-olds.
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