29. Odysseus and I Agree
If it were solely up to me, this quote would appear on all of our English department promotional literature. I realize what students and parents want to know when they consider a college major is far more utilitarian, and I can probable make some reasonable claims about the utility and uses of literature, but for me, the reason to choose an English major has far more more to do with pleasure than with anything else."My Lord Alcinous, what could be finer
Than listening to a singer of tales
Such as Demodocus, with a voice like a God's?
Nothing we do is sweeter than this--
A cheerful gathering of all the people
Sitting side by side throughout the halls,
Feasting and listening to a singer of tales,
The tables filled with food and drink,
The server drawing wine from the bowl
And bringing it around to fill our cups.
For me, this is the finest thing in the world."
-Odysseus, Odyssey Book 9
Let's play Jeopardy.
A = "So what are you going to do with that?"
Q = What is the question an English major gets any time they tell someone their major.
One good answer to the question is "whatever I would have done otherwise, only better." Another good response deconstructs the question and its reductionistically utilitarian assumptions about a college major and about college education, and reveals the bankrupt theological anthropology of the questioner.
For instance, maybe a college major is about considerably more than training for some job. And maybe a college education is, too. Maybe the most important outcome of an education is most significantly a more educated person. Isn't it better to be educated than not? Shouldn't a good education in the liberal arts--especially one that is robustly Christian--enrich the whole person and serve as a catalyst for human flourishing? Shouldn't that kind of education have a way of deepening all life experiences? And even if a college education and a college major does prepare a person for a lifetime of work, it is quite likely that most of us will do a lot of different sorts of things with our lives after college and after majoring in English. And maybe, and most significantly, people are created in the image of God as human beings rather than mere human "doers" as the question implies. And maybe a major in English--the study of the theory, history, consumption, and production of literature--teaches how to bear God's image and to be like God as creator (as sub-creators) as well as almost anything one could spend her time studying in college. Maybe spending significant time for four years developing one's Christian imagination--significantly what reading and writing literature at a place like Bethel can do for us--can serve one for a lifetime.
But my best answer is still Odysseus' appeal to the pleasure we get from literature. Call me a hedonist. I'm in good company, I think. Not just the company of Odysseus, but the company of the authors of the Bible, who created beautiful things, and intended not merely to edify us, but to delight us. Consider Ecclesiastes 12:9-10 (ESV).
"Besides being wise, <sup class="xref" value="(C)">the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging <sup class="xref" value="(D)">many proverbs with great care. 10 <sup class="xref" value="(E)">The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth."
Why so much poetry? Why so much story? Why so many delightful stories? The Bible could have come to us as a series of inelegant propositional claims. But it doesn't, thank God. Instead, these author's reflected their Creator and made lovely things for us to enjoy, stories and songs that would enchant us. Surely there was some of the pleasure in the composition of the pieces that make up this great anthology of literature we now call the Bible that we note in God's words when he paused and called his grand creation "very good."
"For me, this is the finest thing in the world." Me too.