Tory Young’s very useful Studying English Literature: A Practical Guide could just as easily have been entitled ‘Teaching English Literature: A Practical Guide’. Described on its cover as an ’essential guide’ which ’provides the answers every first-year English student want to know about how to approach the subject’, it delivers much more than its slim 150-page format suggests it might, and could be used in a variety of ways: independently by students wishing to gain an overview of the subject they are embarking on in higher education; as a means of reinforcing key ideas and skills in undergraduate teaching; crucially, as a tool for reminding those of us engaged in introducing and developing these ideas and skills that we need regularly to re-evaluate and revise our own thinking and practices within teaching and assessment of English literature.
Young’s book is clearly structured into six sections, and the very straightforward headings: Introduction; Reading; Argument; Essays; Sentences; References, belie the complexity and intellectual depth of each chapter. This approach and the short subheaded sections in each chapter, punctuated with boxed direct questions and information, will help any reader to navigate their way through what is a vast and dynamic subject. Footnotes and endnotes are not used, but each chapter is concluded with a list of works cited and the text is clearly indexed, which makes its range of references easy to follow and therefore to use. Where this book differs from other texts aimed at this group of students, such as Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle’s Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (3rd ed, 2004), Peter Barry’s Beginning Theory ( 2nd ed, 1999) and Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory An Introduction (1983), all of which are mentioned, is in its concentration on the related activities of reading and the writing which is one of the products of this reading. In my own teaching of first-year students, I make use of all these texts, plus Jonathan Culler’s A Very Short Introduction to Literary Theory (1997) and Robert Eaglestone’s Doing English (2000), within modules covering an Introduction to Literary Studies and English Literature: History, Diversity and Change. While Eagleton’s Literary Theory has become, ironically, almost a ’canonical text in its own right’, as Young notes, and Bennett and Royle’s eclectic and interesting book can be difficult for a new student with its range of references and thematic approach to the subject, Young’s book succinctly draws together the key elements of these well-used texts without over simplifying or obscuring areas of fruitful complexity. Here, then, we find an overview of the historical development of our subject, a discussion of literacy and imaginative writing in contemporary society alongside advice on how and what to read, how to prepare for written responses to set questions about texts and directions towards useful reference texts and online resources.
The direction the text will take is neatly illustrated in its opening section:
This is a book for literature students. It seeks to answer some basic questions about the role of literature in society, the nature of literature as an academic subject, and the relationship between reading within and outside the university. It intends to provoke you into reconsidering the role of literature in your life, the ways in which you read stories, and the ways in which they have shaped you. Above all, through examination of these issues, it seeks to inspire your writing and your reading.
While Young’s guess that the choice of literature as a subject of study is based on a ’passion for reading’ provoked a snort of cynical laughter in this teacher, there is no doubt that all students can engage with the process outlined and encouraged above. Young reminds us that there are ways of developing critical thinking skills in students which involve them in an active and questioning engagement with reading which can then be translated/transformed into more successful writing. The use of a logbook to write informally, especially about early encounters with texts, and the ’folded paper’ exercise discussed in the chapter on ’Argument’ are useful ways of beginning a dialogue with the text and oneself. Descriptions of these kinds of activities are both reassuring on a personal level, in that I am trying to do very similar things with the students I see, but also remind me that students, in my experience, fail to take seriously any activity which is not formally assessed. Young raises important questions about the nature of assessment and the continued – changing? – emphasis on the assessed individual essay and it is right and proper that we should reflect on the value we place on certain forms of assessment practices in broader terms.
A recent English Subject Centre Conference at Northumbria University, ’Beyond the Essay’ addressed this issue, and Rob Pope, who endorses Young’s book, spoke illuminatingly about the need to collapse the rigid and prescriptive boundaries between so-called ’creative’ writing and conventional critical writing, boundaries which he sees as contrary to the material nature of the subject we are engaged with. Young suggests some practical ways that this may be achieved and established as a way of responding to literature from an early point in students’ studies.
Interestingly, Young’s own stylistic approach here is in a report-style format: bullet points, boxes, numbered subsections – all features that are discouraged in conventional university essays. I found myself interrogating this style, as I’m sure Young intended and expected. This did not detract from the impact of the text, although its cover – primary colours, images of stacks of books and pen and paper – suggests a kind of smart irony that may deter a less experienced reader: it looks pretty dull.
It is evident that Young is as much concerned with pedagogical issues as with the content and knowledge base of the modules we are designing and bringing to students. She reminds us that we are all students, continually learning and updating our knowledge, our skills and our approaches to reading. In encouraging students to be more creative in their criticism and their approaches to study, we should remember to apply this edict to our own practices too; Young’s fine and lucid book will be a source of support for student and teacher alike.
Suzanne Brierley
University Centre at Blackburn College
and The Open University
