Back in 2015, I started a little ad hoc Favourite Quotes series but so far have only written four posts. This is not because I have a dearth of favourite quotes but because I don’t find time to share them. However, in the program for the most recent Musica Viva concert we attended, I came across a reference to a quote that intrigued me – and I just had to find who said it, which I did:
“How much do you know about Shakespeare?” I once asked a friend who has committed much of her life to studying the Bard. She replied, ”Not as much as he knows about me”. Remember this the next time someone tells you literature is useless.” (Arnold Weinstein, in The New York Times)
”Not as much as he knows about me”. Don’t you just love this understanding of how meaningful literature can be?
In the Musica Viva program, this was part of an interview question put to the performer – mezzo-soprano Anna Dowsley. I’d like to say that the question led to an engagement with this point, but it didn’t really. The interviewer didn’t include the “Remember this …” bit in her question, but asked instead, “How are you relating to these songs personally?” Dowsley went on to talk about the timelessness and relatability of the songs, rather than engage with Weinstein’s point. I’m not criticising the singer, here, because the way the question was put doesn’t seem to really invite the discussion I’d love to have heard.
However, the statement certainly spoke to me, because Shakespeare often comes to my mind at significant moments in my life, as do other writers, like Jane Austen. So, I went digging to find out who this Arnold Weinstein was. He has a Wikipedia article, which told me that he was born in 1940, and was (maybe still is) the Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University. More usefully, I found an opinion piece in the Brown Daily Herald written by him in April 2022. It is titled “The case for studying literature at Brown”, and is a response to falling enrolments in literature courses. He discusses why students should choose to study literature. It’s brief but makes its point. He says, for example, that “it will sound loopy, but I believe we read literature to become other”, which is an idea that he knows will be rejected by current trends which favour “objectivity” and distance” over “reader identification”. I like his thinking, though I think “reader identification” is a broad church and can be misapplied, so I do get the concern about focusing on this.
Anyhow, to conclude, he ends with the quote above, which is clearly a favourite anecdote of his, but here frames it this way:
What makes it [studying literature] worth doing? I’ll answer that with a question I asked a friend who had devoted her entire life to doing programs on Shakespeare. My question: How much do you know about Shakespeare? Her answer: not as much as he knows about me. Not as much as he knows about me. Chew on this a little. We go to literature, not because we’re professors or students, but because important books shine a unique beam on human behavior, thought and feeling. Reading these books adds something unique not only to our database but to our actual identity. For we’re never through discovering who we are.
Today is World Poetry Day. How better to commemorate it than with this reference to the Bard – and with thoughts about why we read him and literature in general?
What do you think about Weinstein’s view?
Whispering Gums 
My aunt’s bad eyesight went undetected until her early twenties. Once fitted with glasses she became a voracious reader. And after almost every book, she would muse, “I wonder what I would have done in that situation?”
Oh, I love that Gwendoline.
BTW, On a different matter, how do you pronounce the “line” part of your name?
As in Lyn. But I’ve been meaning to tell you most people just call me Gwen. It was a mark of my exuberance when setting up the blog I put my full name. But Garrulous Gwen didn’t quite have the same rhythm.
I guessed that … ie that you’d be Gwen. My grandmother was too but if pronounced it was as in “lyn”. I ask because my American friend is Carolyn, but many people think it’s Caroline and pronounce it “line” whereas I feel I’ve known several “Caroline’s” pronounced “lyn”. And it made me think of your and my grandmother’s name. That was long winded wasn’t it!
I had a kind of second mum who had part-time care of me from a little baby. She wasn’t partial to Gwen, Gwenny, Gwendoline – so she called me Lyn. Very special to me. And later a South American boyfriend called me Lina. (G and W together is almost impossible in most languages).
This discussion reminds me of the quip, “Call me anything – just don’t call me late for dinner.”
Anyway, must away now, or I’ll be late for my dreams. And I’m trying to read Cloud Cuckoo Land – which should be a good lead in to them. I wonder who or what will turn up tonight?
I replied to this last night but it clearly went poof somewhere… I was thinking of that “call me” saying the other day but it was the variation of “call me anything … just call me”!
Hope you are enjoying Cloud Cuckoo Land.
I was about 100 pages in when I broke my rule (again) and read a review. It was on Goodreads, by a Will Byrnes. Fabulous analysis. So now I am switched on and very intrigued about where this book will take me.
Rules are meant to be broken. I guess I loved this book from the start because of the librarian references!!!
Then maybe you will love that I spent my last year of primary school hiding in the library every lunchtime. Mrs Cluff was having a baby that year and was so appreciative of my help that I was awarded a special prize on speech night!
And she taught me the Dewey cataloguing system.
We exchanged letters about ten years ago and she still remembered me. Sweet!
I sure would. For me it was my high school library and librarian …
🙂
Okay, back to Cloud Cuckoo Land now.
Don’t remember much about last night’s dreams except that I was doing sign language – not sure if correctly – as I definitely do not know how. No when I’m awake, at any rate.
Love it … doing sign language. Good for you!!!
I have to say, no one has *ever* said to me that literature is useless.
Maybe it’s just the people I hang out with!
I’m not sure I have either Lisa …. At least not directly but I have been aware of the sentiment more than once.
I was once introduced to a friend’s boyfriend as a graduate student in English. “Haven’t you learned it yet?” he asked. But…no. There’s always more to learn about human nature.
Exactly! Thanks Jeanne.
This sounds awful, I’m sure, but the older I get, the more I wonder what a degree in English is for (assuming you don’t go on to grad school to study law, library sciences, etc). Tuition at a public university sets you back about $100,000 these days. While I think the study of literature is an obvious worthwhile endeavor, I’m starting to feel iffy about it’s role as a major that we cross our fingers and hope to turn into a career.
It does sound a bit awful to me Melanie but I understand why you are saying it. All I can say is that both my kids got jobs on the basis of their humanities degrees- our son, English and Media Studies (not practical media) and our daughter (English and Sociology). Our son, after four years, did his postgraduate teaching qualifications and is now a teacher while our daughter, now mid-30s, ended up in high-level management and strategy in a start-up but was also headhunted by a multi-national corporation. Exceptions? I don’t think so, but perhaps? Of course literature was my major too, but I immediately followed up with post graduate librarianship qualifications.
I also became an adult in 2008 when the economy crashed, so I’m not sure if that had anything to do with it. There was a very clear message in the economy that workers were utterly replaceable, a dime a dozen. Oh, how times have changed.
Oh that could certainly affect your feelings Melanie. They were tough times.
That’s a witty response! I suppose you’re correct in thinking that the idea of reading so that we are equipped to understand other perspectives might be unpopular with today’s readers but, at the same time, isn’t the idea of always having to read oneself into the SAME other perspectives exactly what’s been so frustrating or disappointing or boring or damaging for readers with those objections. Reading about and experiencing a variety of perspectives that are different from our own, while still resonating with our own understanding or emotions or memories in some way, is what’s made me such a passionate reader from a young age (reading about a city when I lived in a very small town/village, for instance, and learning that that could be a good place to grow up too).
Oh no, Marcie, I think you misread me. You don’t have to justify your view about reading to help us understand others here!
I have no idea whether “reading so that we are equipped to understand other perspectives” is unpopular with today’s readers. Weinstein says that he thinks his view that this is an important part of reading will be shot down by today’s critics who don’t like the idea of “reader identification”. I like HIS thinking as I said. My little qualification was that I understand some critics being concerned about “reader identification” when readers are so keen on identifying with characters, that they don’t like books when they can’t identify with the characters. (This is what I meant by ‘“reader identification” is a broad church and can be misapplied”. Readers rejecting books because they can’t identify with unlikable characters drives me a bit batty. So, I was thinking that while I agree with Weinstein overall, bit of objectivity might get some of these readers over the line! It’s not either/or, is how I feel, but a bit of both.)
I’m sorry, I should have been more clear! I was responding to his critics in terms of how I believe there’s been a tendency to splinter two stances where it seems there should be more agreement than disagreement. Once there’s agreement about the power of stories to change minds, it makes no sense (to me, and seemingly to you and to him as well?) to draw lines around which ones can change them, while complaining about how others have drawn their lines, when we just need cross all the lines to read (or, experience, when it comes to other art forms) enough of a variety to challenge ourselves while being mindful of context.
“Not as much as he knows about me.” That is such a clever, deep response! I am currently 600 pages in to Middlemarch and feel this quote is extremely apt. Eliot gives us such a good look inside every character, and seems to reach inside her readers as well. I have the same confronting but wonderful sensation when I read Patrick White.
I thought so too Elizabeth … so glad it resonates with you – and your reading of those authors.
Haha, thanks Marcie … I understand now. This writing for clarity isn’t as easy as it looks is it!! Or, maybe it’s just my aged brain’s poor understanding!