As you may have noticed, I have altered the home page of English Champion just a bit. At the beginning of each month, I will add a new message that hopefully not only catches your eye, but also defines the mentality of a true English Champion and inspires others to embrace that title.
This month’s message comes from renowned literary critic and author Lionel Trilling. Trilling was an influential thinker during the modernist period of American literature, and his analyses of the cultural and political implications in literature remained prominent throughout the twentieth century. His books The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society (1950) and Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning (1965) were helpful for a great deal of my own doctoral research, and his works represent an understanding of the place of individuals in society like few others of his time.
The quote above is one I love for its contrarian view of reading, its embrace of an honest assessment of one’s own intellect almost to the point of self-deprecation. For readers of any age, it is important to evaluate one’s place in the world of art, and to avoid default grumblings about whether a text is “boring” or “too difficult” or some other label that discourages our acceptance of it. Perhaps, Trilling points out, it is we—the readers—who have not prepared ourselves for new texts, not made ourselves interesting enough to be able to understand what a piece of literature is trying to tell us about the world. It is our job as readers and thinkers to make ourselves worthy of the challenges that books present. Set a goal for yourself today to make sure you are interesting enough for the books you are reading.
This month’s message comes from renowned literary critic and author Lionel Trilling. Trilling was an influential thinker during the modernist period of American literature, and his analyses of the cultural and political implications in literature remained prominent throughout the twentieth century. His books The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society (1950) and Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning (1965) were helpful for a great deal of my own doctoral research, and his works represent an understanding of the place of individuals in society like few others of his time.
The quote above is one I love for its contrarian view of reading, its embrace of an honest assessment of one’s own intellect almost to the point of self-deprecation. For readers of any age, it is important to evaluate one’s place in the world of art, and to avoid default grumblings about whether a text is “boring” or “too difficult” or some other label that discourages our acceptance of it. Perhaps, Trilling points out, it is we—the readers—who have not prepared ourselves for new texts, not made ourselves interesting enough to be able to understand what a piece of literature is trying to tell us about the world. It is our job as readers and thinkers to make ourselves worthy of the challenges that books present. Set a goal for yourself today to make sure you are interesting enough for the books you are reading.