Sunday, February 13, 2011

asprynne for headaches

"42. I add also this postscript, because your responsibilities to whatever long-term benefits you derive from reading with insight and enhanced understanding some of the world's finest books do not end as you depart from Caius. When you read and sing to your young children at bed-time, and buy them picture-books for their early birthdays, remember how susceptible are those of tender years and how much your example will mean to them. If you read aloud to them with humour and truth, and prefer reading matter (choose it yourself) which is not slick child-fodder even when simple and direct and pitched right for young minds; and do not allow them to be drawn into a fear or scorn of poetry, and take them all to Christmas pantos which offer sparks of witty imagination, and give good book-presents to nieces and family because you shew that you care about them (both the recipients and the books); then part of the longer-term inwardness of your literary education, a far cry from writing essays and splitting critical hairs, approaches thus a fulfilment which will start to transmit deep values across the generations. That's called being human. Then later you can lure them into kids' libraries and bookshops, buy them writing-notebooks in which they can compose stories to read back to you, and songs to sing and little playlets for family festivals, and so make all this a natural part of their young lives; and of yours also."


A week spent reading early J.H. Prynne (off & on) with new-found enthusiasm, enjoyment and (even) comprehension. I also happened upon his site at Caius containing several superb texts aimed primarily at undergraduates but containing much that deserves a far wider readership. The above quotation is appended to his 'Tips on Reading' and confirms why Prynne should not be the preserve of his Cambridge acolytes. Their kind of in-grown theory-driven exegesis risks obscuring precisely what's "called being human" in his work.


Go to: http://babylon.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk/students/study/english/tips/readlist.pdf

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