(Cover by: Kylie Teoh)
When you attend your first English Literature class and your lecturer asks you what novels or poetry you have read before, you should impress them about the works of John Milton and William Wordsworth. If you name Harry Potter or the Song of Ice and Fire in class, you will find yourself having a hard time with your lecturer.
In every Literature class, the first thing they will introduce you to is the works of the dead white people in which the contents are mostly outdated for centuries. Most of the time you would be wondering about the complicated syntax and being asked to interpret its meanings based on modern interpretations. These are known as the classics in which the general public and the academics expected a Literature student to know at least 20 people from the Western Canon's hall of fame. You could not just go on and tell people that you have not read a play from Shakespeare, or understand why Oscar Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Other than literary fiction, you will find yourself not getting touched in any of the popular fiction. Although they have more appeal to the general public, the world of academia has a low opinion on these mainstream fictions, which they refuse to classify them as literature. If you wish to apply the Psychoanalysis theory onto Stephen King's The Shining, Literature class is not the best platform for you.
This type of discourse was further emphasized in one of my Creative Writing classes I had last year. On the first day of class, they instantly addressed their disdain on having fantasy elements or dystopian themes in our works as they do not have the value to be included in literary works. I found their statement ridiculous as the earliest works of literature like Epic of Gilgamesh and ancient mythologies included phantasmal creatures and supernatural elements. Even Charles Dickens employed spirits and ghosts in some of his stories. Besides that, this lecturer is being vocal about their rejection of Insta-poetry as a form of poetry. I admit that poetry writing is not my forte and they are a well-known poet with competent skills. It was their arrogant attitude that looked down upon the innovative form of postmodern poetry which limited us to refer to the modernist period poetry which not everyone would enjoy or relate to.
Most of the students were having a hard time in their class; we were pretty stressed from their confusing yet paradoxical demands. This was the period in which I had lost my motivation and energy to write anything. How can they expect us to get creative in a Creative Writing class when they already bind us with strict rules and regulations?
Let us take a look at what caused the build-up of the elitism culture in the literary community to the point lecturers have to gatekeep on what students should or should not read or write.
If you refer to Pierre Bourdieu's work Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, those who have a high volume of cultural capital would determine the value of taste in society. The idea of 'good' taste is instilled within children so they would know which items are considered high-quality. Hence, the normalization of taste caused people to stop questioning or challenging but to follow what is deemed to be appropriate and worthy. In terms of Literature, people categorized intellectual-appeal literary fiction as highbrow literature while the mass-appealed genre/popular fiction as lowbrow. Even if a person has a different taste, it is hard to challenge the dominant ideology as cultural hegemony maintains this high-class taste.
Escapist fiction like Sci-fi or fantasy brings the reader into an unfamiliar world, diverting the readers away from the mundane life with wonders and imaginary worlds; they could be romance or thrillers that evoke excitement and anticipation within readers. However, critics pointed out that such a genre refrains the readers from thinking critically about the subject and its simplistic plot usually ends with a happy ending. On the other hand, literary fiction has depth and is more complicated in terms of the characters and plot. It also explores social condition and human experience with the writer's elegant use of words and style. The latter would be viewed as real literature due to the content's depth and the complexity of language, and this concept is conditioned since youth through education.
So does this mean that popular fiction does not have any value at all?
Everyone says William Shakespeare is the greatest writer of all time and praises him for his contribution to the English language and his witty quotes, including the ones who have never read a Shakespeare play or poem in their life. Not many people knew that many of his plays were performed to the mass in public theatres rather than in court, as opposed to the previous and consequent English dynasties in which literary art and drama were only available to the higher social class and the clergy. Besides, the content of his works has a mix of lowbrow and highbrow humor of his time. As centuries passed by, the shift of language patterns and use made it difficult for casual readers to understand certain phrases. Hence, the complexity of the content and its availability after more than 500 years shaped Shakespeare's works as highbrow literature today.
From Shakespeare, you get philosophical quotes like: “To be, or not to be” (Hamlet) and insults like: “What, you egg!” (Macbeth).
Genre fiction is commonly disdained by academia. However, there are cases when genre fiction is valued and awarded as literature-worthy. The science fiction writers H. G. Wells and Jules Verne who work are viewed to influence society. Jane Austen's romance novels are considered as literature for portraying middle-class society through realism, senses of humor, and social commentaries. George Orwell's dystopian fiction 1984 draws upon society under totalitarian regime and mass surveillance, which has a significant cultural impact and a reflection on the current totalitarian government. Maybe in the next 100 or 200 years, people might see the Hunger Games as a highbrow fiction which means to criticize the social distinction between the working and ruling class. Who knows?
One should be aware that it is hard to find a conclusion for this ongoing highbrow versus lowbrow culture debate. I am not arguing that academia should disregard the classics and move on to genre fiction. Of course, the classics from the Western canon are the ancestors to our contemporary English literature which form the base of the literary world and they have proved themselves to stand the test of time. However, people should not overlook the value of mass fiction but to examine how they shape and contribute to the current popular culture and what are the elements that appeal to the public. Even in the subject of writing, any writer is entitled to write literary and genre fiction; as well as traditional and contemporary poetry.
Completed on: 15 June 2020