Opinion: We Must Save English Literature Degrees [1]

 

Thank you for your timely reminder about the crises of English literature and the humanities in our universities, including my own (Editorial, 5 December). The closure of the English literature degree at Canterbury Christ Church – the city of Chaucer and Marlowe – is a symptom of a deep malaise across universities and our whole culture.

We should look beyond the actions of particular institutions to an unsustainable financial model and the death cult of economic utility shaping what is studied. We are in a deepening mess – think the state of universities, the climate crisis, the despoliation of nature, fragile representative democracy, war and the slaughter of innocents, and the rise, yet again, of the strong, fascistic leader to bring supposed order into chaos.

Then think Wordsworth and the sense of awe and wellbeing in the presence of vibrant nature. Think Freud in wrestling with the darker sides of humanity and how he turned to myth and Shakespeare to illuminate the murky depths of human sexuality and destructiveness. Think Hamlet and dysfunctional families and government. Think The Winter’s Tale and the character Leontes to illuminate dangerous, hubristic masculinity. And, yes, think Our Mutual Friend and the dustheaps of money and the river to symbolise avarice, predation, death and struggles for integrity. The novel’s social themes of money worship and the treatment of poor people and education could hardly be more resonant today.

Author: Professor Emeritus Linden West  (Canterbury Christ Church University)

- The Guardian