"Out of all the texts that we have read in our Survey of Spanish literature course, which one did you like the most?" I ask my students.
"The short story by Unamuno," they respond unanimously.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because it has a happy ending!" they say completely seriously.
Now I'm wondering what I have done wrong in this course to get such a result.
25 comments:
Maybe they answered as ordinary readers not as researchers.
Sure enough. But then what's the point of my entire course?
Liking isn't the same as appreciating though-- maybe you were asking the wrong question for them? When someone asks me if I liked a book, I answer based on my enjoyment. When they ask me if it's a good books, my answer might be totally different.
Still, even as a reason for enjoyment that one sounds kind of sad.
If every other text was gloomy and depressing, they might have been relieved to have one bright spot in the semester.
I wanted to teach my students to appreciate art beyond the silly concepts they have been brainwashed with by Hollywood. No luck so far, apparently.
I confess that I do not like literature that leaves me depressed and unable to function for days or weeks after I finish it. Intellectual detachment is not readily possible for me when it comes to literature. I identify too strongly with what is happening.
I don't think we read anything as bad as all that in class. :-)
I've never actually said I liked a book that didn't provide some enjoyment. But I have said that I loved books that don't necessarily produce warm fuzzy feelings. It's the power that goes with the emotions, and the ability to compel me to read more, that counts.
My definition of like is especially positive, though. Maybe I might like something silly like Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Trilogy. It's light and silly, and sometimes I need that. But I never love it unless it resounds, and to do that a book has no need to portray a happy ending. I think The Devil's Arithmetic did that for me, and (a much more recent example) The Things They Carry (of which I read an excerpt). Neither ends happily--quite the contrary. But they are both very powerful.
I hope that made sense, and was even remotely connected to the topic at hand.
Pen: I agree completely. "And they lived happily ever after" type of ending isn't likely to provoke powerful emotions in readers. But this is precisely what my students chose.
Yours words "which one did you like the most" are adressed to the feels, they don`t appeal to brain.
Happy ending gives a positive and, therefore, likes.
Imho if you will ask "which one is more interessting (affect, topical etc.) you`ll get another answers.
Ok, it didn't let me post the first time, sorry if it's repeated:
I don't know exactly what texts you are teaching (or are required to teach, not the same thing), but sometimes I've found out that happy vs. depressing is a false dichotomy. It happens to me when I teach my Latin American civilization courses. A colleague of mine teaches similar courses, and all the students complain that it's a succession of depressing events after depressing events. For my colleague, the course is a compilation of how Latin Americans have been oppressed, tortured and have suffered over the centuries: the Spaniards, the United States, the military dictatorships, etc, etc, etc. As one student said to me, "After a while, I lost all empathy, I felt desensitize, and I just didn't care what is happening". I don't brainwash history, make a point of teaching them about structures of power in place in Latin America, abuses, etc. But somehow, students enjoy the course more. Of course, in a civilization course, I mix sociological and historical texts, essays, movies, documentaries, short fiction stories, etc. You can't do that in a Literature course, at least not to that extent. But a good balance is always good.
That being said, I love XIXth century Spanish Literature (Galdos, Clarin), and I really suffered through my grad course "Spanish Literature in Franco's Spain". It was a question of personal preference, style, topics, etc.
After reading a Thomas Hardy novel in high school, I was so depressed that I did not read any more nineteenth century novels until I took a Victorian Novel class in college. I have not read any more nineteenth century novels except for some Mark Twain since I was an undergrad, I think, in spite of my friends frequently recommending assorted Russian, Engglish, and other authors.
OOPS!! Make that 'English.'
And, I made another (much more common, sadly) grammatical error in the above post: friends should have instead been friends', since in English a gerund needs a possessive/genitive modifier, NOT a subject!
Really? You need an ' there? In case of "my friends' frequent recommendations" you definitely do need it. But you say it's also needed with "friends' recommending"?
Interesting.
That is how we were taught when I was in school in the 1950's. Usage may have changed, of course, but it bothers me when I see it otherwise. After all, a gerund is a participle used as a noun. I can say "My eating potatoes could cause me to have health problems; your eating them would not."
I'm glad you told me that this is the traditional usage. I prefer to follow the traditional rules of grammar to accepting these new-fangled rules of usage that have led some people to argue that double and triple infinitives in English are now acceptable. Brrrr!!
I do not know what a double or triple infinitive is.
I have been told since I was an adult that a split infinitive ("To boldly go...") was wrong, but I was never taught that in school.
I'm sorry, I meant double and triple negatives, of course. This is what happens when you respond to comments at a bus stop.
Double negatives cancelling each other out is a mathematical logic nicety. In my field, a continuum is indecomposable if it is not the union of two of its proper subcontinua (Latin plural, of course!) A continuum then is not indecomposable if it is a union of two of its proper subcontinua.
Of course, continua which are not indecomposable are sometimes called decomposable, a usage which I do not like.
I do understand that the linguistic custom is different in Slavic languages from what it is in English; the English usage is more strictly mathematical while the usage in Polish (the only Slavic language I am familiar with) is certainly more colorful. But I still think that "I don't have no money." means that I do have some money, since it is false that I have none.
In Spanish, you are supposed to use as many negatives as you can fit into a sentence. It is a mistake not to do that. My students, who are first told to avoid several negatives in English and then required to use them in Spanish, are very confused by all that. :-)
I didn't understand the math part of your comment at all. :-) I still have nightmares about having to take a course in math, so you can guess how hopeless I am in that area. :-)
Simple example: If it is false that a student is absent, then that student is present. Of course, as to the specific mathematical terms I used, only a few hundred people in the world understand them.
Clarissa, you are good teacher, after all your students all to one have read up the book up to the end
Come to think of it, that's true! Thank you! :-)
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