Literature vs. Composition

            Reading Elbow’s essay, “The Cultures of Literature and Composition,” brought up a lot of conflicting feelings in me. He starts off by saying that there is a conflicted relationship between literature and composition, one that I have, apparently, been unaware of for the past 17+ years I’ve been in the educational system. I’m not saying that his claims are untrue. I don’t work within an English department, so I can’t make any claims on how people act toward literature and composition. I suppose in my undergrad, especially as I got into my higher division courses, I never made a distinction in my head between literature and composition; it was inevitable that I would be writing in a literature class, and the times I took creative writing courses, we still read (though whether it would be considered “classic literature” could be debatable). I suppose that’s why I became and English major; I love to read, I love to write, and this is the place where those two things come together. I knew that no matter what class I took in English, I would be reading and writing. Even though at the end of part one, he does list out what he wants each section of English to learn from the other, I did feel that he was one setting me up to believe that composition teachers are better than literature teachers because the composition teachers aren’t as snooty. He was the one introducing the bias to me, someone who was unaware the battle existed between the two.

            One of the problems I had with Elbow is that he did not clearly explain what he meant by “composition.” It sounds silly to say that I needed this explained, but up until the third page, I believed he was referring to composition as any student writing, including essays and academic prose. However, I reached a point where it became evident that, when he says composition, he is only talking about creative, imaginary works.  Even with the distinction made that composition means creative work, I still don’t see how Elbow can make the statement that “the literary tradition neglect the teaching of the imaginative writing , it also neglects teaching us to read in such a way as to help bring powerful imaginative texts most palpably into our lives” (470). He talks about literature as if every person in the entire world teaches it in the same way. I disagree completely. I’ve personally had teachers that go out of their way to make sure students see connections between what we’re reading and our lives. I’ve had teachers ask us for our reading of a text and then ask us to go back again and read it “against the grain” so that we can understand a different argument or a different point of view. Just because you’re reading literature does not mean there is no creativity going on. Critical ideas can be creative and imaginative, I feel like he is overlooking that.

            It’s no surprise that his statement of a dissenting voice in his own head at the start of part two is exactly what I was thinking of him by this point in the article: “‘But your only use for literature is in fact to use it- for personal therapy. You want everything to be utilitarian and pragmatic . You’re just a cornball” (472). He goes on to say that his problem with the sophistication of literature is that it breeds snobbery, but if I’m to read him as a composition teacher, I find him incredibly snobby as well. Elbow does say that he feels that “training in literary study is not just learning knowledge and skills but learning to stop being ‘ordinary’ or ‘regular’ and instead be more sophisticated and even oblique” (473). I think a lot of people would jump on his band-wagon, and I will say that I’ve met people in this area of study who do believe that, but as far as I’m concerned, every field of study lends to this perception, whether in English or not. Every form of higher education is a stepping stone to becoming somehow “more” than you were, and possibly “more” than the other applicant you’re up against in the job market. Is that not why such a significant number of people attend college?

            Ultimately, I disagree with Elbow’s article, not because it is badly written or inaccessible. In fact, it is the opposite; he writes well, and I never found myself struggling to get through overly theoretical language. I disagree with him because I see literature and composition, whatever form you wish to view composition, as one in the same. The field of English is a cycle: we read creative work of others, we discuss it, we learn how to develop creative ideas (though they may be creative-critical ideas), we write them down, and now we have creative ideas for others to read. This will continue as long as people are excited about text and literature, and I don’t think there should be a line drawn in the sand and someone saying “Composition people over here, literature people over here.”