Why Literature Matters - Unife

Why Literature Matters Author(s): Tim Gillespie Reviewed work(s): Source: The English Journal, Vol. 83, No. 8, Literature, Queen of the Curriculum (Dec., 1994), pp. 16-21 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: . Accessed: 01/10/2012 19:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@. .

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Why Literature Matters

TimGillespie

hy should we teach literature?"is otherEnglishteacherschallengeher:"Waita

the questionon the floor.Theprag- minute!Whose culture?Which books?"We

matists,clear-eyedand realistic,are quarrelabout the literarycanon, tradition,

unsure literature has sufficient exclusion, multiculturalism.Meanwhile, I

value. I'mattendinga before-school notice, the pragmatists,everorientedto the

staffmeeting of teachersfrom vari- future,are looking at the clock and rolling

ous disciplines to discuss restruc- their eyes skyward. See? I imagine them

turing the high school; morning thinking,thesebookloverswillendlesslyargue

light sifts through the classroom aboutwhichliteraryangelsfit on theheadof a

windows. Here as elsewhere,prag- pin;meanwhilet,he realbusinessof theworld

maticdemandsof the workplacedi- goes on unaffected. So, our own in-family

rect much of the discussion about school English teacher disagreement scuttles the

reform.Literaturei,t strikesme, has a hard discussion.The meetingwinds down with a

time adaptingitselfto this languageof "job- shuffleof dissatisfactionT. he issue of the lit-

forcHeleitreeriascyth."e pragmatists'argument:No

erary canon, though critically important, nonetheless eclipses the larger question,

one needsliterature to be a productive withoutwhich it appearstrivial:Who really,

worker,competitivein the global economy in this modern world of commerce,needs

In fact, one can be highly successfulin the literatureof anykind?

marketplacewith no knowledgewhatsoever

Thequestionstayson the floor.Teachers

of literature;real-worldexamplesareplenti- startto leave.The firstperiodbell rings,and

ful. The importantreadingmatterof the fu- students pour in. One drops her eight-

ture will be information,and the main pound literatureanthologyat my feetwith a

readingskillsinformation-gatherianngdinfor- clunk.

mation-processinLg.iteratureis more rightly

regarded as something like opera-an ar-

Practically

cane art form, a spice of life, to be sure; a seasoning.But not a main course. So, since

speaking, literatureis not essential,why should it be doesanyone such a majorpartof the curriculum?

need

My friend Gloriawonders how she is

literature? goingto revampherliteraturecurriculumto

Theauthor saysyes.

fitone of the school'snewly-stipulatedcareer pathways."Ifthe theme aroundwhich I am to organizeall my curriculumis Traveland

Tourism,"she asks, "howam I supposed to

get literaturein? What happens to Romeo

andJuliet?"

"Maybeyourkids canmakea travelbro-

chure for Verona?"a colleague tentatively

suggests.

"The question is," says a pragmatist, "who really needs to know about Shakespearethese days?This is an enthusiasm,a leisure-time pursuit, but not a necessary

skill forthe twenty-firstcentury"

AnotherEnglish teacherearnestlytries

to make a claim for literatureas partof our culturalheritage.Asshe talks,the wordsculturalliteracyleakfromherlips. Immediately,

WHO NEEDS LITERATURE?

In the months since that earlymorning meeting, these questions stick with me: Who really does need literature,anyway? What'sit for?How do wejustifyits centrality to the Englishcurriculum?Theyarereasonable questions, I think. Next to claims for helping studentslearnwhat it takesto get a job anddo meaningfullife-longwork,literature can appearextraneous.The discussion pressed me to re-examinemy belief in the importanceof literature.I want to havesensible answersto offerthe pragmatists.

Aftermuch reflection,I decidedthatthe

most traditionalclaimsforliteraturearethe

ones I am most eagerto defend. PrimarilyI, believeliteratureis justifiablein the modern curriculumforits contributionsto the culti-

vationof imaginationandof empathyTomy way of thinking, these are crucialskills for the twenty-first century, essential for our thriving,pragmaticto the core.

Why, then, is literatureso easily devalued in the conversationabout communica-

tions skills of the future?Clearly,traditional claims for the functions of literatureneed

16

December1994

reassertingand updating.Moreimportantly, though, I worry that, in the words of the literarycharacterPogo Possum, "Wehave met the enemy,and he is us."Thatis, I fear we too often neglect to addressin the contemporaryEnglishclassroomthose habitsof imaginingand empathizingthatseem to me literature'gsreatestbenefitand value.

Let me elaborate on these themes of

imagination, empathy, and teaching practices.

IMAGINATIONAND EMPATHY

PresidentBill Clinton often uses a line

thatregisterswith me as a teacher:"Children can't be expected to live a life they can't imagine." We rightly worry that many youngsters'lives are circumscribedby poverty,discrimination,low expectations,cultural insularity,and other conditions that may renderthem unable to see beyond the limits of their immediate horizons. Litera-

ture does offer-inexpensively?a vision of otherlivesandothervistas.One of itspotential benefits is to enlarge a reader'ssense about the many possible ways to live. This enlargedsense seems to me an important partof our traditionalnationalethos. Hope fora betterworldandbeliefin thepossibility of re-makingoneselforimprovingone'ssituation breed optimism and elbow grease. (Need I point out that these qualitieshave economic implications?)We have rich testimony aboutthis imaginativefunctionof literature.

In the lovely essay,"Ghostsand Voices: WritingfromObsession"(1990), for example, SandraCisneroswritesof her childhood, of checking out from her neighborhoodlibraryVirginiaLee Burton'sclassic TheLittle Houseseven times in a row, of being entranced by books such as Island of the Blue Dolphins and Alice in Wonderland.Through those books, she says, she was transported to other worlds, instructed about other people and possibilities, offered hopefulness, and inspired to be a writer herself.

RichardWright tells in BlackBoy (1945) of being forced to pretend he was checking out books for a white co-worker, since Jim

Crow laws didn't permit him to borrow the books himself. In these forbidden works,

Wright found himself electrified by the fiery writing of H. L. Mencken, which gave him the idea that words could be effectively used

asweapons.Menckenled him to SinclairLewis' MainStreetand Babbitt,then to Theo-

dore Dreiser'sfiction, then to novel after

novel that revealed to him new ways of thinkingabout his own circumstancesand the widerworld:

I hungeredforbooks,newwaysof lookingandseeing.Itwasnota matterofbelievingordisbelievinwg hatI read,butof feelingsomethingnew,of beingaffectedby somethingthatmade the look of the world different. . . it wasnothinglessthana senseof lifeitself.(272-74)

In a speech made at last year'sInternational ReadingAssociationconferenceand reported in ReadingToday(1994), editor WalterAnderson,who grewup in a violent, impoverished environment, said his place of solace and retreat was the library: "I could open a book, and I could be anything. I could be anywhere.I could be anyone... I readmyself out of poverty long before I workedmyselfout of poverty"(1).

Thisis the firstargumentI would like to offer for literature,its capacityto stimulate the imagination,to offer differentperspectivesand widerworldsthatthe young reader can wander at leisure and experience in safety, without pressure or judgment. We readourselvesimaginativelyinto otherlives andby thisactexpandthe pagesof ourown.

If we keep following the track of our imaginativeresponse, other argumentsfor literatureemerge.Asa reader,I readnot only to find myself, I also read to lose myself. Sweptalongby the magicof narrativeI, give myselfoverto otherlives,landscapes,points of view. In this experienceis the cultivation of a deeper formof imagination,the empathetic identification with other humans,

often people quite unlike ourselves.

Through literature, readers travel to different

locales, to the past and to the future, and learn during their travels about other cultures and peoples. Literatureoffers students

diversity that their neighborhood may not. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has said, "No human culture is inaccessible to someone who

makes the effort to understand, to learn, to

inhabit another world" (1991, 1). And lit-

erature can be a form of this habitation.

The effort to understand advances what

Percy Bysshe Shelley called the "moral imagination," a capacity to occupy another

EnglishJournal

17

mind and feel the emotionalpulse of an- valueofreadinlgiteratureS.o,evenwhenthe

otherheart."Morali"s a trickywordhere; contestwasover,I keptluggingaroundthat

peoplesuchasformerU.S.SecretaroyfEdu- box.

cationWilliamBennettarespeakingmuch

Therewasmuchtoadmirein those121

latelyaboutthemoralvalueof stories,butI stories,particularltyheampledisplayofso-

hope the moralopportunitieosf literature phisticatedwritingcraft.Lotsof theyoung

aren'toversimplifiedL. iteraturedoes not authorshadmasteredthetrickofwritingat-

teachmoralsin a didacticway;rather,it tention-gettingleads, high-impactbegin-

givesus a chanceto experiencmeoraldilem- nings thatgrabreadersby the collarand

mas.And qualityliteraturedoes not over- yankthemintothestoryM. anystorieswere

simplifythe dilemmasof theworld.Unlike ripewith sensoryimagesand detailedde-

the glib,materialisticq,uick-solutionvision scriptions. Manyhad snappy dialogue.

otrfalyifseliovfefsetrheadtohnamveuccohmTpVli,cliatteerdaptruorbepleomr-s

Someone,I thought,hasbeentalkingwith thesestudentsaboutliterarytechnique.

andtoughchoices,andinvitesus to engage

Yetin allthisexerciseof writerlycraft,I

withthem,toimaginelivingoutlife'svexing felta kindofemptinessW. hatseemedmiss-

dilemmas along with the characterswe ing fromtoo manyof the storieswas that

meet.Byits truthfupl ortrayaolf life'scom- rareexperienceof gettinginsidetheskinof

plex moralchoices,literaturedrawsus in, anotherhumanbeing.WhenI thinkof the

submergeussintoastorya, ndsummonsour fictionI love, I thinkof vivid characters,

imaginativpe owerto identifywith charac- fromJaneEyreto MarieKashpawY,uryZhi-

ters.Literaturtehusmightbeoneantidoteto vagoto HuckFinnto WillTweedyS,coutto

the diseaseof disconnectionthatafflictsus. SethetoJuneWoo.ThesearepeopleI have

Assaultingsomeone, tagginga wall with come to knowwell. In theirengagingsto-

spraypaint,sexuallyharassinganother,or ries, I learnsomethingaboutthem, and,

yellinga racialslurareallactsthatshowan throughthem,othersandmyself.Ahandful

incapacityto empathize,to imaginean- of thestudentswhoenteredthecontestdid

other'sdeepestresponses,to considerthe createsuchabsorbincgharacterisn theirsto-

realconsequencesof actionson others.In ries.I won'tsoonforgetthedyingfarmerin

thefractiouws orldwe inhabite, mpathyis a onestudent'sstorywholeaveshishomeand

much-neededskill,andliteraturies a form startshitchhikingwith his dog to see the

in whichwe canpracticethisskill.

countryin springtimebloomone lasttime.

CONNECTIONTSOTHECLASSROOM

Thefuzzyrelationshipbetweenmy beliefin thisempatheticfunctionof literature and my classroominstructioncame into clearerfocusformelastfall.AfterI agreedto helpjudgea fiction-writincgontestforexceptionalhighschoolwritersin my state,I foundon my frontporcha cardboardbox

filledwith 121 manuscripts,averagingabout

ten pages apiece. For the next two weeks, I

kept the box in my car. WhereverI went,

whenever I could, I read stories: during lunch break,in the quiet of late night, wait-

ing forsoccerpracticeto finish.

Readingall this student fiction offered

equal me to

pasakrtmsdyesleilgfhatgaanindodniesmofatyh,eanfidrsctaquuseesd-

tions of the educationalendeavor:Why are

we doing this?Whaton earthis the valueof

having students write fiction, or poetry,or

any form of literature?And this, of course,

sent me back to my ruminationsabout the

And I won'tsoon forgetthe younggirlin anotherstory,livinga constrictedlife as a servanton a turn-of-the-centurOy regon ranch,dreamingof escapeto the nearby townto theonlylifethatseemsa liberation, thatofabarmaidF. orthegiftofallowingme to cometo knowandunderstantdheselives, I wasexceedinglygratefutlo thesestudents; thiswasthedelightofjudgingthecontest.

The dismay came from the shortageof such vivid charactersand what I feltwas an

insufficient exploration in many of the pieces of characters'motives, complexities, and changes.WhatI mostlyfoundwas nonstop action,specialeffects,and greatgobs of violence in many forms.Charactersin various storieswere:shot, knifed,hit by a truck, killed in an earthquake,attackedby killer midgets, beaten with an ax and fireplace poker, bashed with a sledgehammer, stabbedwith a broomstick,eaten by crocodiles, conked on the head with a gravestone, rippedup by a grizzlybear,and on and on. I

18

December1994

knowwe live in a violence-drenchecdul- just hintson techniquewhentheyareex-

ture,andI believewritershaveto confront perimentinwg ithfiction.Tipson writinga

thegivenworldanddealwiththeirdeepest catchylead,usingsensorydetailso, r"show-

fearsanddesiresb, utI wasstilltakenaback inginsteadof telling"maybelessimportant

by all the violence.My surprisewas less to young fictionwritersthansupportfor

aboutthe quantitythanaboutthe poorly- imaginingwhat mightbe motivatinganimaginedqualityof muchof it. Mostof the otherperson,payingcloserattentionto humayhemin thesestorieswas unnecessary, maninteractionsa,ndportrayinlgife in its

Unlike theglib,

unearned,emotionallyflat, painless,and fullcomplexityI.needto focuson thepeo- materialistic,

lackingconsequencel,ikewhatwe seein so manymoviesandTVshows.

Readingthisworkfromsomeofthebest writersin mystatecausedmeto re-thinkmy claimthatliteraturceanenlargeourcapacity forempathyt,hatreadingfiction-and writ-

plein mystudentsf'ictionn, otjuston technique.

Don'tgetmewrong;I lovethecraft-talk of writinga, ndI enjoysharingauthorsl'ore withstudentsY. oungwritersareinterested in colorfullanguaged, ialoguer, ichdescrip-

quick-solution voifsfieorneodofnlife mlituercahTtuVre,

ing it-offers us a chanceto imaginehow anotherhumanmightlive, think,dream,

tion,invitingleads,all thatgoodstuff.Yet craftin writingmust servecontent;tech-

portrayslives thathave

andfeel.Believingfictionto be a meansfor niqueoughttobe employednotforitsown practicingmoralengagementI, was con- sakebut in the serviceof some truththe cernedafterreadingthissmallsampleofsto- writeris pursuingW. hena fictionwriteris ries.I wishedmoreof theseyoungwriters' usingflashytricksbut lacksfeelingforthe

pctoorumogbphlcelihmcoaasitcneedds.

imaginativaendempathetisckillswereasre- charactersit, feelslikemanipulatiotno the

finedastheirtechnicaslkills.

readera, lackof commitments,tylewithout

TECHNICALPERFECTIOVNS. MORALINSIGHT

substanceW. emissmuchin ourteachingif we don'taddressdeeperreasonsbehindthe

Mythinkingon theseissueswasdeepened when I re-readRalphEllison'sessay "TwentietCh enturyFictionand the Black Maskof Humanity("1964)notlongafterhe died.IntheessayE, llisoncriticizems odernist writerswho seek"atechnicapl erfection ratherthana moralinsight"(38) andfrets about excessiveabsorptionwith literary techniqueandwhatheseesin moderncriticismas a confusionof technicaslophistication with significanceT. his intriguedme, comingfromthepenofa greatliterarytechnicianandinnovatora,uthorof thesophisticatedandexperimentaIlnvisiblMe an.Yet,I mused,Ellison'ns ovelspeakseloquentlyto menotbecauseofhismasteryof innovative

devicesofwritingF. orexampleI, havetold studentsin pastclassesto "describceharacters using lavishdetails,"as if this were merelya ruleto followoranotherrhetorical devicefor the writer'sbag of tricks.It is more,of course.Offeringcharacterisn their fully-detailecdomplexitiysnotjuststraining foreffecti,t is tenderingrespectT. otreatour characterrsespectfulliys tomakeagenerous effortto get to knowthemwell, the same way we show respectin our nonfictional walking-arounlidfe.

WhatI wantto learnasa teacherof fiction-writingt, hen, is how to help young authorscultivatethisspiritof generosityInsteadofjustteachingcraft,I needto talkto

form and technique,but ratherbecause of the movingly-renderedhuman being who calls out fromhis invisibility,tryingdesperatelyto be known.

Thisthreadof thoughtled me to consider my own teaching.I looked at some of the writingresourcebooks on my shelf, and I lookedatmy own habitsas a teacherof creative writing. The sight was striking:both tendedto stress,in Ellison'swords,technical

perfectionovermoralinsight.Thatis, more time was spent on writingtechniquesthan

them in ways that challengethem to learn more about their characters:Why did that characterdo that?What'smotivatingher? What do we know about her background, her dreams,her fears,her wishes?I would

like to discipline myself so my first responsesto a piece of fictionwould centeron the qualitiesof empathyandunderstanding: What'sat the heart of this human you are workingto portray?Andif you do decideto knock aroundor kill off this characterh, ow

will you makeit so we all feelthe truehurt?

on the human issues in students'stories. I

realized that my students need more than

EnglishJournal

19

LITERATUREAND HUMAN EXPERIENCE

All this thinking about writing finally

broughtme back around to literature.I'm

readyto talk to the pragmatistsnow. Here's

A skillat whatI will say:

ormal

Thecallingof literatureis to explorehu-

iterary analysismay beusefuflor a

man experience in all its dimensions and possibilities.Literaturedeals with our most

pressing concerns-family, death, religion, love, good and evil, destiny, will, justice,

few college characterc,ourage-issues not oftencovered

coursesb, utit in an AppliedCommunicationsor Business

is nota highly marketable skill,nora

cornerstonoef

Writingunit. Informationmost often representshumanexperiencein abstractandgeneralized forms: facts, statistics, data.

Literaturerepresentshuman experiencein the very specificindividualtermsof a story

workplace or poem.

competence, Furthermorel,iteratureoffersa different

norsmomosetftohlkinsg

form of learningthanjust processinginformation;it requiresus to experience,to par-

needas theywalk aroundin theiradult

ticipate. Works of literature are not just abouthumanissues;the power of literature is that it makes issues come alive for the

reader. Think of the experience so many young readershave with Anne Frank'sdiary.

lives. Whatis learnedof theHolocaustin thatlittle

book is learnedin a powerful,moving,profoundlyintimateway.Withchillinglyevil insight, Hitler's propaganda minister Josef Goebbelssaidthata singledeathis a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic. We must, of

course, confront the statistics about the

Holocaust, we must knowthe information

thatmillionsof livesweretaken.Butto fully understand,we alsomustfeel the tragedyof single deaths, experiencethe loss in a way we can shed a tearover,put faceson those numbers.Thatis the functionof literature.

Manyyoungerreaders,it seems to me,

already know this. As a parent and some-

time teacher of elementary schoolers, I am

often amazed to see what can happen when avid young readers plunge into literature.

They may cry when the dogs die in Where

theRedFernGrowsor the fathercomes home

in Sounder. They feel in their marrowbones

the awful injustice of racism when they read

Roll of

HearMy Cry.They share pio-

neer hTarhdusnhdipers, with Laura Ingalls Wilder

and rehearse the demands of friendship with

Katherine Paterson. They care desperately

about the fate of characters, laugh out loud, gasp, sigh, get scared, or shiver as they read.

This is the way we want studentsto experience literature,a way that allows them to exercisetheirempatheticimaginations.

Think, then, about how literature is

oftentaughtin highschool:Outlinetheplot. Identify the theme. Detail the setting. List main charactersand supportingcharacters. Commenton thestructureof thework.Note

descriptiveand supportingdetails.Analyze the mood. Look for certain literarytechniques:irony,symbolism,author'ssignature style. Considerthe narrativepoint of view. Definethisworkin termsof theSevenMajor Plots, the Seven Formsof Ambiguity,Four Universal Themes, Kohlberg's Stages, Bloom'sTaxonomyw, hateverW. riteup some biographicalinfo on the author.Answerthe questionsat the end of the selection.Makea list of new vocabularywords. And on and on. I am as guiltyas anyone.

Jumpingtoo quicklyinto thesekindsof follow-up activities, we miss the boat, I think. Certainlythere are formaland aestheticissuesto explorein all worksof literature, and I want my students to have a vocabularyof literaryanalysis.Butif that is my primaryor only instructionalconcern, the pragmatistsare completelyjustified in questioningthe value of the literaturecurriculum, their criticismcorrectlyaimed. A skillat formalliteraryanalysismaybe useful for a few college courses, but it is not a highlymarketableskill,nor a cornerstoneof workplacecompetence,nor somethingmost folksneed as theywalkaroundin theiradult lives.

If the heartof literatureis its exploration of human experience,considerationof the formaland aestheticpropertiesof a work of literature must be secondary to consid-

eration of the social values and ethical di-

lemmas presented by the work. Bertolt

Brecht once said he didn't want people to

leave his plays thinking about the theater,he

wanted them to leave his plays thinking

about the world. In like fashion, our stu-

dents want to use literature to think about the world, not just to think about the formal

aspects of literature. To explore the deepest

human concerns is why people read litera-

ture, and why they write it. That is what

enthusiastic younger readers know, and

that'swhat we don't want to stifle in our high

school students by focusing too soon or too

much on technical elements of literature.

20

December1994

The skill our studentsmostneed to learn

fromliteraturien thispragmatigco-getterof a societyis howto betterunderstandthemselvesandothers.

Itbehoovesus then,to startourdiscus-

"Sharinogf Storiesis CommonThreadinWideRangingLiteracyConference.1"994. ReadingToday11.5(April/May1).:

StotskyS, andra1. 989."LiteratuPrerogramasnd tlehte8D8e(1v)e:l1o7p-m21e.notfCivicIdentity.T"heLeaf-

sionof everyworkof literaturoepento the Wright,Richard.1945. BlackBoy.New York:

humanissues dramatizedin it. Our first

Harper& Row

questionsoughtn'tto be aboutform,vocabularyo,rliterarymoves.Wehaveto give studentsa chancefirstto chew over the quandarieosf the characterst,he questions

oTfimTeGaiclhleesrposifeEp, nasgtlpisrhaesniddceon-otdfitrheecOtoorref gthoenCOoruengocinl WritingProjecat t LewisandClarkColleget,eaches at LakeOswegoHighSchoolin Oregon.

of rightandwrongtheyface,justifiablaend unjustifiablaectionsa, dmirabloerantisocial

1.v1.I.E. . .$.A..O

qualities,choicesand limitations(.In this way,as both SandraStotskyand Robert

We...A...Xat~~ eflv

Coleshavepointedout,civicsandsocialinquirycanbecometheprovinceof literature

.................W... wi~othrl.d.. .w .de .$..... s

studyas muchas it is of the socialstudies

curriculum.I)n ourclassroomsw, e haveto

teflcttbhn.T~th0~$~h I~ss ~ X.

use literaturem'sainattractionst,he opportunityto tryoutotherlivesandconnectwith otherhumansthroughtheexerciseofimagi-

~oo~r~ye*s pbi~iXon

.........~T,.e.o.n..ys..~....np..~..t.4. 1

e wh

nationandempathy

Tosumup, themainclaimforliterature

thatIwanttooffertomyworkforce-oriented

colleagueiss this:Weneedliteraturteolearn

to getalong.Literaturaendlifeconvergein

thefieldofhumanrelationshipWs. hatcharacterizes quality literature-refusal to

tT~1ox

1NT~cON~ ....... E

stereotypeor generalize,fidelity to the wholecomplicatedtruthin all its breadth

.OE~tLO..........M ..$.........n9b....

andsubtletye,nergyandinventivenesse,lo-

quence,payingcarefual ttentiond, iscomfort atpatanswersa, nda generositayndsympa-

.Nahsi .6..t .......e

thywithothers-alsocharacteriztehsought-

fullife.Thegreatdangersof ourfindesiecle

period-nihilism,barbarismth, einabilityto

acknowledgtehehumanityofothersoutside one'sown tribe,cynicism,boredom-are

.N~WTxrh~~pmi~~b.a..er.(~.v.o.ws~.~eeIX.

perilsliteraturaettempttso combat.

So let'sbe clear-eyed,realistic,prag-

matic.Who needs literature?Weall do.

WorksCited CisnerosS,andra1.990."GhostasndVoicesW: rit-

ing fromObsession."MexicanAmericanLiteratureN. ewYorkH: arcouBrtracJeovanovich. Coles,Robert.1989.TheCallofStoriesT: eachinagnd theMoralImaginationB.oston:HoughtonMifflin.

Ellison,Ralph.1964. "TwentiethCenturyFiction aannddAthcte.NBelawckYMoraks:Rkaonf dHoummHaonuitsye.."Shadow

Gates,HenryLouis,Jr. 1991. "'Authenticityo,'r the Lesson of LittleTree."New YorkTimes

BookReview(24 November):1.

.9: eve, t~a ynti4g

ST......... ...t ........y T61801p,1e..r1.*hi.au~

Ui . na,

~ *

~i~

.........

EnglisJhournal

21

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