Reflections on Autonomy and Literary Experience

1.   "Toward" or "towards":
I always figured that if I could get through 13.5 years of Berkeley higher ed without knowing the exact rule, then there must not be an exact rule and I would let euphony be my guide.

2.  Trying to teach the mix of discipline and independence -- necessary and resolute discipline in thought and knowledge, boneheaded and clear-eyed independence of thought and knowledge -- that I absorbed before, during, and after my years at UCB . . . that's hard.  I've modeled it as much as possible, but I still have not quite found a way.

I don't always live up to my model either, though I do try.

I sometimes think crucial key components include a repressive childhood, strong individualistic modeling (thanks, mom & dad), and lucky genetics (the boneheadedness, for example).  At other times, I think a devotion to the idea (and ideal) of literary apprenticeship is necessary.

Of course, in my main teaching duties, my focus is on awakening and honing the skills of critical reading, critical writing, and critical thinking, which is a different path than the literary one I referred to above.  Such awakening and honing is a joyous thing, too, by the way.

3.  What depressed me the most during my long years of graduate study was what seemed to me to be the suppression of the original text and, more so, the actual literary experience in favor of something decidedly secondary.  Ideally, and practically, such study enhances the ability to experience literature in the fullest sense -- and I give credit and thanks to certain professors and colleagues to this day for their part in the true way (or ways, for there are different paths to explore) -- but I also watched other professors and other colleagues who turned away from literary truth toward something -- or some things -- not so worthy . . . .

Shadows of the Past: Advice

"Think harder; write better."
--from one of my favorite professors to the English 47B class as a whole; he was a tad frustrated with the first essays we had handed in . . . .

"Don't indulge your natural diffidence."
--from a professor after a mock-interview back in the graduate school days; spot on, by the way.

"Be wary of that tendency to idealize, to see the best qualities and to be oblivious to all others."
--note to self, echoed by a therapist

I'm finding myself reflecting on the advice, the possible wisdom or useful statements, that I've encountered or confronted.  These three stand out, though I have no doubt forgotten even better advice that I have failed to benefit from; to those advisers who meant well for me, I wish I'd been paying closer attention.

(I think that last piece of advice was/is meant to be applied to myself by myself too.)


P.S.  A good friend who was there corrects me:
'And, I think it was: "Think harder, write better, be smarter."'