ENGL-118W-2: Literature & Cultural Analysis, “Reading the ‘Obscene’ Classics”
Professor Robert F. Barsky
MTWR 10:10 AM-12:30 PM 304 Buttrick Hall
robert.barsky@vanderbilt.edu
office hours: Monday-Thursday 12:30-1:30 FM227
Course description:
In this course we’ll discuss the complex relationship that has emerged between those ‘literary classics’ considered essential reading for any liberal arts student and the charges of obscenity that many of the authors who have written those texts have had to endure. This dilemma leads us to the fact that students are given required readings, in the Romantics, the Beat Generation or the genre of the novel, which describes acts that are specifically outlawed in their own culture, or which have been written by authors who would be considered ‘outlaws’ in the society that now reveres their work. A range of issues flow from these considerations, including the ways in which trials draw attention to texts and authors, providing them with the audiences and the notoriety to allow them, under certain circumstances, to become ‘classics’. Or the fact that the many contradictions of this tradition points to a deeper ambivalence in our society, indeed in all societies, in the consideration of the relationship between passion and reason. Employing a varied approach that allows students to consider these issues from historical, literary, legal, sociological and philosophical perspectives, and drawing from those texts most often cited in regards to ‘obscenity’ will provide students with ample ways to explore this challenging and creative realm of literary and cultural research.
Books: we will be making reference to a large number of texts for this course; students are encouraged to read as much as they can, in areas they find of special interest. We will discuss enough of each text in class to make it possible to follow the lectures even if the student hasn’t had time to peruse the text in question.
Baudelaire, selections from Les Fleurs du mal
Byron, Don Juan
De Grazia, Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of Obscenity and the Assault on Genius
Ginsberg, “Howl”
Griffin, Black Like Me
Ladenson, Dirt for Art’s Sake: Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita
Meyer, Philosophy and the Passions: Toward a History of Human Nature
Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Nabokov, Lolita
Rushdie, Satanic Verses
Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Writing requirements:
As per the rules in the college as set forth in AXLE, students in this First Year Writing Seminar shall be required to write a minimum of 20 typescript pages in the course of 4 writing assignments. A considerable portion of each student’s grade will be from written assignments, in addition to class participation. The four assignments will be graded at intervals during the semester, enabling the instructor to provide feedback that will enable students to improve their writing. Revision will be possible for each assignment, and students will be encouraged to complete all assignments in advance to allow for discussion with the professor before work is handed in.
Grading policies:
Assignments 1, 2 and 3 are worth 20% each; assignment 4 is worth 25%; attendance and participation 15%. The first two assignments MUST be revised, and the grade will be revised accordingly. All papers are due in class on the day indicated in this schedule (below), and all papers will be returned to the students one week after their due date.
Assignments
Assignment 1: choose one of the three topics and write (roughly) 5 pages (length depends upon the genre you employ and upon what you need to write to complete the task at hand).
option 1: Using Lord Byron's poetic method as set forth in his long poem "Don Juan", write a few stanzas about "passion". You can use his words to inspire you, since so much of his writing has to do with the 'problem' of being a passionate being, or you can go off in your own directions, borrowing only his rhyme scheme and his method of constructing the stanza throughout "Don Juan".
option 2: Write a manifesto or a long treatise or academic essay about the relationship between passion and reason. You may use any of the texts from this course to inspire your words, including of course Michel Meyer's book on this subject, or you can undertake the assignment from a personal perspective.
option 3: Imagine you or someone else meeting up with Lord Byron, and using whatever you have learned about him and his work, engage in a conversation with him. You can be yourself, you can be someone else, you can be his contemporary, or you can imagine him in the current era, whatever you wish, but try to be faithful to whatever you know about him in constructing your dialogue.
Assignment 2: Choose from one of the three following options and write a 5 page essay
option 1: Choose a poem from the collection "Les Fleurs du mal" and make a 'ruling', as though you were a judge, about its obscenity. You can be a judge either from the contemporary era or today.
option 2: You meet Henry Miller in a bar (of course), and he describes the novel he is writing.
option 3: Imagine you are Michel Meyer thinking about passion and reason, using the example of Lolita. They can meet, if you wish, or you can just add a few pages (in English or French!) to Meyer's book as though he were to use it as another case study.
Assignment 3: Choose from one of the three options below:
1. Write a defense of a "perversity", as Byron does of his candor, Humbert Humbert does of his interest in young girls, or Miller does of his sexuality. It can by any kind of perversity, invented or real, for whatever setting you wish.
2. Write the testimony by Lolita as to why Humbert Humbert should be deemed "innocent" for his actions in the court of law... or guilty!
3. Introduce Humbert Humbert to Henry Miller, in whatever genre you wish.
Assignment 4
1. Write your own "Howl", representing your generational angst, inspired by Allen Ginsberg.
2. Describe your meeting with the author of "black like me" as though you were one of the people he met while in New Orleans or Mississippi.
3. Write a "book review" of Dirt for Art's Sake, in the New York Times, as though you were a book review editor.
Calendar:
Tuesday July 8th, Introduction, “books on trial”.
Wednesday July 9th, Passion, Reason and Lord Byron
We will discuss the complex relationship between passion and reason, and various ways in which authors and philosophers have considered it, all with reference to Michel Meyer’s Philosophy and the Passions. The literary example will be Lord Byron’s “Don Juan”.
Texts: “Don Juan”, Philosophy and the Passions (Introduction, chapter 1) and Dirt for Art’s Sake (preface and introduction).
Thursday July 10th Adultery
An overview of the issues raised in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and an introduction to Lady’ Chatterley’s Lover
Texts: “Don Juan”; Lady Chatterley’s Lover; “D.H. Lawrence” in Dirt for Art’s Sake
Monday July 14th, Obscenity Laws in France
Discussions of Les Fleurs du Mal
Text: Les Fleurs du Mal, Flaubert’s “defense” of Madame Bovary
Tuesday July 15th Literary Paris in the 3 republics
Text: Dirt for Art’s Sake chapters 1 and 2
Film: Madame Bovary
Wednesday July 16th Henry Miller Goes to Paris; continued discussion of obscenity laws in France
Text: Dirt for Art’s Sake chapter 6; Tropic of Cancer
Thursday July 17th Library day
You will meet with a librarian to discuss sources and approaches to writing your work: Rendez-vous at the reference desk, near the entrance to the Main Library.
Friday July 18th
Assignment 1 due (send by e-mail)
Monday July 21st Lolita
Discussion of the work of Nabokov, with consideration of his literary treatments of incest and pedophilia.
Film: Lolita
Text: Lolita, Philosophy and the Passions
Tuesday July 22nd Lolita, the films
Text: Lolita
Wednesday July 23rd:
Text: Lolita and Dirt for Art’s Sake Chapter 7.
Thursday July 24th Lolita
Text: Lolita; Girls Lean Back Everywhere
Friday July 25th: Assignment 2 due
Monday July 28th no class
Tuesday July 29th no class
Wednesday July 30th no class
Thursday July 31st Lolita; Black Like Me: What Happened to John Howard Griffin
Text: Black Like Me.
Friday August 1st Race and the Obscenity Law
Texts: Lolita; Black Like Me and Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Girls Lean Back Everywhere
Monday August 4th
Race and the Obscenity Law continued
Texts: Black Like Me and Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Girls Lean Back Everywhere
Assignment 3 due
Tuesday August 5th Ginsberg’s “Howl” and the Liberation of the Diary Writer
Text: “Howl” and films on the Beats
check out:
http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Periods_and_Movements/Beat/
Wednesday August 6th “The Beat Generation” and Obscenity
Text: “Howl”
Thursday August 7th Conclusions: Beyond Obscenity Laws
Friday August 8th, final assignment due
The Tribulations and Trials of Pedophilia: The Peter Pan Principle at Work in Literature and Popular Culture
By, the amazing class
In contemporary American culture, young men and women are depicted as healthy, happy, beautiful, -- indeed flawless (I’m thinking of, for example, Baby Gap stores and their accompanying advertisements) --, which shouldn’t be in any way problematic given that they are just emerging from childhood, but, more disturbingly, they are also shown as sexual beings, or sexualized individuals who may offer much more than pure innocence to the willing partaker. In the June issue of Vanity Fair, Miley Cyrus was the subject of a lavish photo spread, which in some photos included her own father, which depicted her not as the 15 year old starlet who attracts young children to her acting and her music, but as a voluptuous, or at least budding, young woman who is on the verge of full-blown sexuality. The ensuing fury suggests that the American public was ready to see her as young and sweet and cute, but not to find her naked beneath a blanket, and this in the same photo as the one that featured her leering father; the photographer, said hundreds of readers, had gone too far. The parade of stars and celebrities who have penchants, sometimes culturally acceptable sometimes not, for love interests hardly half their age is vast, and with different characteristics; one need only think of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson, Demi Moore, Roman Polanski, and Britney Spears, or the ways in which Madonna seems to look younger in each album or video she releases, to know that this is a real issue in America. But the cases of at least three individuals on this list suggest that there are real pitfalls and dangers in pursuing this route, particularly if done in Lolita-like fashion; Roman Polanski still has a judgment out on him in the US which prohibits him from, say, accepting an Academy Award for his wonderful 1988 film “Death and the Maiden”, Michael Jackson has been subjected to endless media attention, huge (backroom) payoffs and a ruined career, and, on the other side, Britney Spears (or Madonna) has clearly been unable to recover from the transition towards adulthood, dreaming instead of remaining the subject of the glowering dirty old man anxious to catch a glimpse up her (now underwearless) skirt.
Michel Meyer, in his celebrated book Philosophy and the Passions, describes the tormented relationship that exists between passions, which at times enliven individuals and provide them with their basic “human nature” but at others “impede our access to Goodness” (25), and reason, which dictates logical courses of action. This is an essential struggle within the exuberant, wonderful, terrifying, naïve, self aware creature we call human beings.
On account of the passions, I am unaware: it is therefore useful to search, but I know what I am looking for, since I know the nature of the obstacle that stands before me, and therefore I am able to overcome it. Reason, Logos, is at heart an anti-body, always already there, of which it is necessary to retake possession in the struggle against the sensible. (17)
In this essay, I will employ this distinction to describe, from both literary and (popular) cultural perspectives, the “peter pan principle” that seems so pervasive, and so destructive, ultimately, for so many in the spotlight, and beyond.
Based upon the reading in Meyer, it’s clear that being simply “aware” of the strange penchants you have will not save you from them, and Nabokov’s entire corpus, -- and Lolitai in particular, offer ample evidence for this. Humbert Humbert is…
