In responding to works of literature or film, what responsibilities arise for readers, critics, students and teachers?
For a few years I’ve been teaching a class in the English Department called Shakespeare Now and Then: Versions of The Winter’s Tale. The class begins with a slow read through Shakespeare’s late romance, act by act, scene by scene. Since it is a tragicomedy, we also explore the comic and tragic paths which it mixes and transforms within Shakespeare’s own canon. The rest of the class is taken up with other novels and films that I call versions of The Winter’s Tale. Some are overt homages to the play (Eric Rohmer’s Conte d’hiver); some allude to or incorporate the famous statue scene into themselves (George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda); some resonantly explore the resurrections, returns, hauntings, and revivals of the play (Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk to Her, and Volver); some explore the theme of childhood (the Dardennes Brothers’ L’enfant). All overtly—or in my imagination—are haunted by Shakespeare’s late play and its profound examination of the second chance, the second life of forgiveness.
One ambition for this course is that students slow down, stop scrolling and start reading, re-reading and meditating with attention on our shared materials. The repetition and reversion, the constant returns of the material (thematized in the texts themselves) aid this endeavour. Another ambition for this course is that students learn to think not merely about art but through it, and that’s why it is also important that each of these versions, including The Winter’s Tale itself, meditates on the role and power of art.
I’m often full of trepidation when I begin this course. I tend to teach materials I love as I am more patient and attentive with them. And I love and am moved and inspired by all these materials which so enrich each other and The Winter’s Tale so profoundly. What happens if the students just don’t get these materials, or miss what they have to offer? Will I ever be able to share them again? What kind of obstacles might there be—is it wise to teach an 800-odd-page novel towards the end of a busy term? Will students understand the Dardennes Brothers’ utterly marginalized post-industrialised communities? Will they be cynical or skeptical in the face of the wonder that the play’s ending invokes? Have I given them too much material? Is it too sophisticated or ethically demanding?
What kind of demand do we make of others when we ask them to share an experience of reading or viewing what we care about? It’s not like asking them to like the same wine we do or the same food our gastronomic tastes demand. When Kant differentiated a taste for wine from an aesthetic appreciation of art or nature, he used the term “subjective universality.” Our aesthetic judgments are necessarily subjective, but in expressing them we make claims for universality. I see this. Do you see it too? We make ourselves vulnerable in such claims, and so the classroom has to be a place of trust and shared attention. We have to use our own responses but also take responsibility for them.
This term I offered this class again with the sustained help, attention, and pedagogic wisdom of Dr. Jennifer Ahern-Dodson who led our group, and my delightful colleagues. Jennifer and my fellow fellows pushed me to articulate my pedagogical aims more precisely than ever before, and to think more clearly about the very concrete and practical steps to work on these aims.
What I wanted, I came to realise, was for my students to learn to think THROUGH literature, to learn from it, not merely about it. Instead of learning theories that can be externally applied to the play, we begin with concepts indigenous to the play itself.
I had the delight of meeting in fellowship every month for a year with other colleagues with precise, well-articulated pedagogical ambitions and problems. I also learnt some very useful techniques which allowed me to increase students’ sense of responsibility towards the class and the materials. I learnt the “gallery walk.” Here students are encouraged to share their reflections on post it notes that we then post up around the room. I also asked my students some questions at the beginning of the class: What do you want out of this class? What are you going to contribute? Three answers each! At the end of the class I brought in their reflections from the first class and asked them two more questions: What three things would you advise me to do when I teach this class again? And what three pieces of advice would you give to students who might take this class again?
I found this one of the most useful exercises. I learnt to encourage the students to make that crucial link between responsiveness and responsibility that was a central aim. How do they become more and more articulate about their responsiveness to works of literature or film? What kinds of responsibilities does this entail as readers, critics, students and teachers?
The Bacca fellowship is a unique space to continue learning as a teacher in solidarity with others.
IMAGE CREDIT: William Hamilton, “Scene from Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale,” Birmingham Museums Trust, Public domain: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/scene-from-shakespeares-a-winters-tale-33346
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sarah Beckwith
