The cover illustration of critic George Steiner’s No Passion Spent depicts a learned-looking man deep in concentration over a weighty tome. Originally painted in the eighteenth century by Chardin, the image still remains a pervasive representation of the literary scholar: absorbed, alone, engaged in high-minded pursuits and receiving stimulation only from the printed word.
While the image of the literary critic engaging only with the printed text is a seductive one, it is perhaps not the most fruitful identity to adopt for the literary intellectual operating within today’s universities. Electronic material, whether on CD-ROM or the Internet, offers literature teachers a richer range of resources than those relying solely on the printed word.
The computer is increasingly becoming a valuable tool for finding fresh stimulation in literary scholarship and pedagogy. The computer has its critics, of course. Some assume that computers introduce a quantitative aspect to a subject that is essentially qualitative in nature. Others fear that computers may replace teachers and, on the Internet, offer students an excess of information without this information being presented in an intellectually coherent fashion.
However, electronic resources in the past few years have evolved with these worries in mind. One excellent example is provided by the Virtual Seminars for Teaching Literature, designed by the Humanities Computing Unit at the University of Oxford. The Virtual Seminars' site hosts four seminars allowing students to investigate specific aspects of World War One poetry. The third seminar is perhaps the most inventive part of the resource, allowing students to contrast the four extant manuscripts of Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum est.' Previously, the opportunity to view the manuscripts had been restricted to senior researchers with access to the relevant archives. This seminar allows undergraduates the opportunity to investigate the manuscripts at close quarters, and to examine the hesitations and incertitudes involved in the creation of Owen’s most noted poem. Students, more often presented with edited and printed copies of poetry, can develop a fuller understanding of the ambiguous nature of a work of art.
These seminars exist to add an extra dimension to students’ factual awareness and critical skills, not to supplant the lecturer. One of the Virtual Seminars’ creators stipulated that the seminars 'are not designed to replace a course or teaching time, but to supplement an existing one, providing students and staff with new, freely accessible resources'. Evaluation carried out on the Virtual Seminars confirms this. Teachers did not leave students alone to do the course, but the students’ opinions garnered from the website were introduced into traditional roundtable seminars, essays and even written dissertations.
The Shakespearean resource, Hamlet on the Ramparts, is another resource which places the emphasis firmly on the qualitative study of literature. Exploiting the multi-media capabilities of the Internet, it allows students to explore the many different interpretations of Act One, Scenes Four and Five of Hamlet, in which the protagonist meets his ghostly father. Interpretations available for viewing on the website include not only modern textual editions, engravings and film, but also highly divergent printed editions from Shakespeare’s own time. Students following the related tutorials are therefore made aware of the richness of the original play, its interpretative openness and the enthusiasm with which centuries of readers have embraced this openness. While there is nothing revolutionary in this method (literary critics have long established the technique of studying a text through its manifold interpretations), it is the availability of this content that demands notice. Having such a wide variety of materials at one’s fingertips opens up a whole new perspective on the teaching of literature.
All this is not to suggest that the computer is introducing a brave new world of literary studies. The computer is not replacing existing teaching skills or research methods. Instead, it is meant to point out how the tasks of the teacher of literature, perhaps even the reader in the Chardin painting, can be enhanced by the use of electronic resources. A well-designed electronic resource is something that can be integrated into existing academic method, enriching rather than replacing traditional resources.
