Fiction_L Archives The Depraved Habit of Reading Novels. Dates: 2/20/04,2:22 PM  through  2/26/04,9:51 AM  (8 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2011-current     2009-2010     2004-2008    1995-2003    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to February 2004 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: David Wright <[removed]@yahoo.com>
REC'D: 2/20/04, 2:22 PM

"There is reason to believe that in reading
the class of novels which most attract cultivated
and refined natures, where the fascination
consists in the graphic representation of human
nature in its dealings with not unnatural, but
unreal circumstances and characters, the finer
emotions of our being are often aroused and
worthy interests are stimulated. But these
having no real object to act upon are barren of
direct good to others, and in the end often
produce sentimentalism or obstruseness of feeling
in the reader.
....Those who give themselves up to this
desultory occupation of their thoughts are the
more ready to satisfy their desires for mental
entertainment with theatrical performances, and
thus subject themselves to their corrupting
associations. Upon the female mind especially
does the habit of novel reading lead to most
injurious results, and to this source may be
fairly traced a large proportion of the domestic
wretchedness which now abounds."

-An Address on Some Growing Evils of the
Day, especially Demoralizing Literature and Art,
from the Representatives of The Religious Society
of Friends, for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and
Delaware... (Philadelphia, 1882), 10-11.

=====
David Wright - Seattle Public Library Fiction Dept.

"Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity."
-G.K. Chesterton

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools

FROM: Kathleen Stipek <[removed]@exchange.acld.lib.fl.us>
REC'D: 2/23/04, 7:56 AM

I love it, I absolutely love it. I always thought I was leading a life of
the most tedious respectability, and now I find out that by reading novels I
am quite wicked. What a delicious way to start a Monday!

Kathleen Stipek, Alachua County Library District (FMG), 401 East University
Avenue, Gainesville, Florida 32601 (352-334-3939; fax 352-334-3948)

"Non, merci."
--Cyrano de Bergerac

-----Original Message-----
From: David Wright [[removed]@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 3:19 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: The Depraved Habit of Reading Novels.

"There is reason to believe that in reading
the class of novels which most attract cultivated
and refined natures, where the fascination
consists in the graphic representation of human
nature in its dealings with not unnatural, but
unreal circumstances and characters, the finer
emotions of our being are often aroused and
worthy interests are stimulated. But these
having no real object to act upon are barren of
direct good to others, and in the end often
produce sentimentalism or obstruseness of feeling
in the reader.
....Those who give themselves up to this
desultory occupation of their thoughts are the
more ready to satisfy their desires for mental
entertainment with theatrical performances, and
thus subject themselves to their corrupting
associations. Upon the female mind especially
does the habit of novel reading lead to most
injurious results, and to this source may be
fairly traced a large proportion of the domestic
wretchedness which now abounds."

-An Address on Some Growing Evils of the
Day, especially Demoralizing Literature and Art,
from the Representatives of The Religious Society
of Friends, for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and
Delaware... (Philadelphia, 1882), 10-11.

=====
David Wright - Seattle Public Library Fiction Dept.

"Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity."
-G.K. Chesterton

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools

FROM: "Smith, Jeff" <[removed]@marshall.usc.edu>
REC'D: 2/23/04, 9:35 AM

FYI, novel-reading was regularly denounced in the nineteenth century, as playgoing had been for a long time before that. Particularly alarming to the moralists of the day was the fact that novels were a favorite pastime of women, which meant -- somewhat contradictorily -- that they both reflected the frivolous sentimentality of "the female mind" and also threatened to corrupt it. The last thing reading novels did, it was thought, was enlighten or otherwise improve their readers. Along with this, novels were not thought fit for study in schools or colleges; the field we know today as "English" didn't appear until the end of the century. After all, why would English-speakers need to STUDY English? Isn't that what they already knew? It would no more have occurred to nineteenth-century educators to require students to read novels in English, or to insist that educational "standards" include some knowledge of such literature, than it would occur to schools today to require students to play popular (and morally suspect) games like "Grand Theft Auto" or to insist that the standards include knowledge of, say, music videos. School is where you learn about stuff you're not already doing for fun on your own.

It's ironic that within just a generation or two, this state of affairs gave way to the one we take for granted today -- in which the scandal lies in schools' not emphasizing "English," including novel-reading, enough. For anyone who's interested in all this, the history is laid out in Ann Douglas' The Feminization of American Culture and Gerald Graff's Professing English, among other books.

Jeff Smith


-----Original Message-----
From: Kathleen Stipek [[removed]@exchange.acld.lib.fl.us]
Sent: Mon 2/23/2004 5:49 AM
To: Fiction_L
Cc:
Subject: RE: The Depraved Habit of Reading Novels.

I love it, I absolutely love it. I always thought I was leading a life of
the most tedious respectability, and now I find out that by reading novels I
am quite wicked. What a delicious way to start a Monday!

Kathleen Stipek, Alachua County Library District (FMG), 401 East University
Avenue, Gainesville, Florida 32601 (352-334-3939; fax 352-334-3948)

"Non, merci."
--Cyrano de Bergerac


-----Original Message-----
From: David Wright [[removed]@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 3:19 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: The Depraved Habit of Reading Novels.



"There is reason to believe that in reading
the class of novels which most attract cultivated
and refined natures, where the fascination
consists in the graphic representation of human
nature in its dealings with not unnatural, but
unreal circumstances and characters, the finer
emotions of our being are often aroused and
worthy interests are stimulated. But these
having no real object to act upon are barren of
direct good to others, and in the end often
produce sentimentalism or obstruseness of feeling
in the reader.
....Those who give themselves up to this
desultory occupation of their thoughts are the
more ready to satisfy their desires for mental
entertainment with theatrical performances, and
thus subject themselves to their corrupting
associations. Upon the female mind especially
does the habit of novel reading lead to most
injurious results, and to this source may be
fairly traced a large proportion of the domestic
wretchedness which now abounds."

-An Address on Some Growing Evils of the
Day, especially Demoralizing Literature and Art,
from the Representatives of The Religious Society
of Friends, for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and
Delaware... (Philadelphia, 1882), 10-11.



=====
David Wright - Seattle Public Library Fiction Dept.

"Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity."
-G.K. Chesterton



5睶�.n�+����˛���m�j�!����b�������X��*'.m��߉�b�ypy�گ*+

FROM: "christine jeffords" <[removed]@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 2/23/04, 7:54 PM

>From: "Smith, Jeff" <[removed]@marshall.usc.edu>
>Reply-To: "Fiction_L" <[removed]@maillist.webrary.org>
>To: Fiction_L <[removed]@maillist.webrary.org>
>Subject: RE: The Depraved Habit of Reading Novels.
>Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 07:31:49 -0800
>
>
>FYI, novel-reading was regularly denounced in the nineteenth century, as
>playgoing had been for a long time before that. Particularly alarming to
>the moralists of the day was the fact that novels were a favorite pastime
>of women, which meant -- somewhat contradictorily -- that they both
>reflected the frivolous sentimentality of "the female mind" and also
>threatened to corrupt it.

That's right. This "female mind"--especially if the female was a young
girl--was popularly supposed to be so frail and vulnerable that it could
literally be "ruined" (just as the girl herself could be "ruined" by
premarital sex) by the wrong kind of book. This is why Sir Walter Scott was
held in such high esteem. Even families (including the families of
preachers, Harriet Beecher Stowe's among them, if I recall correctly) that
didn't ordinarily read novels read Scott, because he "wrote about history"
and maintained a "high moral tone." Other authors took note of this, and
for many years--well into the 1920's--historical "romances" (not what we
mean today when we say "romance") were the commonest and most popular of the
fictional genres.

>The last thing reading novels did, it was thought, was enlighten or
>otherwise improve their readers. Along with this, novels were not thought
>fit for study in schools or colleges; the field we know today as "English"
>didn't appear until the end of the century. After all, why would
>English-speakers need to STUDY English? Isn't that what they already knew?
>It would no more have occurred to nineteenth-century educators to require
>students to read novels in English, or to insist that educational
>"standards" include some knowledge of such literature, than it would occur
>to schools today to require students to play popular (and morally suspect)
>games like "Grand Theft Auto" or to insist that the standards include
>knowledge of, say, music videos. School is where you learn about stuff
>you're not already doing for fun on your own.

On the other hand, if you find an old McGuffey's Reader, about Third or
Fourth through Sixth, you'll see that it includes poetry *and* excerpts from
novels and plays for the students to read.

_________________________________________________________________
Store more e-mails with MSN Hotmail Extra Storage � 4 plans to choose from!
http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/

FROM: "Smith, Jeff" <[removed]@marshall.usc.edu>
REC'D: 2/24/04, 6:02 PM

>On the other hand, if you find an old McGuffey's Reader, about
>Third or
>Fourth through Sixth, you'll see that it includes poetry *and*
>excerpts from
>novels and plays for the students to read.

True, and I may be unfairly stereotyping 19th-century educators. However, the little tales and excerpts in McGuffey's Readers were chosen to teach -- in addition to "correct" pronunciation and spelling -- straightforward moral lessons like "Don't be lazy" or "Vengefulness is wrong." The modern idea that McGuffeyites would have found strange is the notion that one should "lose oneself" in a great novel, experiencing different worlds and developing new sympathies altogether. That is, McGuffey-ism was about reinforcing the received value system, while it's not unusual today to hear that the point of literature is to *dislodge* received wisdom and free the mind to range beyond it. How often that actually happens I don't know, but I think it's the fact that schools -- and libraries? -- see it as a valid goal that makes them seem to some on the right like hotbeds of social/political subversion.

Jeff Smith

^y�h���r��z�칻�&ޱ�ray�܆+ްKޯ+a�x��b�r������*'�����

FROM: Kathleen Stipek <[removed]@exchange.acld.lib.fl.us>
REC'D: 2/25/04, 7:43 AM

Oh, dear, the moral angle of fiction again. As a fan of Oscar Wilde, I
recoil at the thought. I think that books are either well or badly written,
and that is all. Also, as I have proclaimed more than once on this list, it
is the tale that is important, and nothing else. Let us leave the moral,
social, ethical, political, and other aspects of fiction to the lit. crit.
set who lack the storyteller's gift but are very good at ferreting out their
personal prejudices for good or ill in a work of fiction and authors who
should be writing tracts but have discovered that it doesn't pay very well.
My view of such fiction is best said by quoting from Charles Whibley's A
Book of Scoundrels which I ran into on www.knowledgerush.com: ...a crime
passionel is a crime with a purpose which, like the novel with a purpose, is
conceived by a dullard and carried out for the gratification of the
middle-class.

Kathleen Stipek, Alachua County Library District (FMG), 401 East University
Avenue, Gainesville, Florida 32601 (352-334-3939; fax 352-334-3948)

"Non, merci."
--Cyrano de Bergerac

-----Original Message-----
From: Smith, Jeff [[removed]@marshall.usc.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 6:58 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: RE: The Depraved Habit of Reading Novels.

>On the other hand, if you find an old McGuffey's Reader, about
>Third or
>Fourth through Sixth, you'll see that it includes poetry *and*
>excerpts from
>novels and plays for the students to read.

True, and I may be unfairly stereotyping 19th-century educators. However,
the little tales and excerpts in McGuffey's Readers were chosen to teach --
in addition to "correct" pronunciation and spelling -- straightforward moral
lessons like "Don't be lazy" or "Vengefulness is wrong." The modern idea
that McGuffeyites would have found strange is the notion that one should
"lose oneself" in a great novel, experiencing different worlds and
developing new sympathies altogether. That is, McGuffey-ism was about
reinforcing the received value system, while it's not unusual today to hear
that the point of literature is to *dislodge* received wisdom and free the
mind to range beyond it. How often that actually happens I don't know, but I
think it's the fact that schools -- and libraries? -- see it as a valid goal
that makes them seem to some on the right like hotbeds of social/political
subversion.

Jeff Smith

5睶.n+ ˛
mj!6b==ীX*'.mb"ypyگ*+

FROM: "Warner, Deb" <[removed]@co.durham.nc.us>
REC'D: 2/25/04, 11:28 AM

i do hope that we are all allowed our own opinions and are willing to allow
others theirs, not to mention retaining our sense of humor. While it is not
strictly reader's advisory, the development of opinions on what we read and
the willingness to listen to those of others plays a part in that activity.
Below is my favorite quotation on the subject of reading:

"...nothing is more fatal to a maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a
good library" Robertson Davies

FROM: "christine jeffords" <[removed]@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 2/26/04, 9:51 AM

>From: "Warner, Deb" <[removed]@co.durham.nc.us>
>Reply-To: "Fiction_L" <[removed]@maillist.webrary.org>
>To: Fiction_L <[removed]@maillist.webrary.org>
>Subject: RE: The Depraved Habit of Reading Novels.
>Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 12:24:13 -0500
>
>
>
>i do hope that we are all allowed our own opinions and are willing to allow
>others theirs, not to mention retaining our sense of humor.

Oh, I think we are. It seems to me that what started this whole discussion
was the posting of a quote from the opinions of a person long dead. A
just-FYI thing, in effect.

_________________________________________________________________
Dream of owning a home? Find out how in the First-time Home Buying Guide.
http://special.msn.com/home/firsthome.armx

Return to February 2004 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

The Webrary® and Fiction_L are services of the Morton Grove Public Library "Webrary" is a registered trademark of the Morton Grove Public Library. All rights reserved. Copyright of Fiction_L postings belongs to their respective authors; postings may only be reused with the author's permission. Compiled lists (compilations of titles or authors from earlier postings on a particular topic) may not be reused for commercial purposes. To use a compiled list for non-commercial purposes, please credit "Subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." All other content is �2012 Morton Grove Public Library, 6140 Lincoln Ave., Morton Grove, IL 60053-2989, (847) 965-4220.