Week 1 Readings

Parker

Parker's description of English as the child of speech and linguistics is interesting, and certainly makes it easy to remember the history he is detailing, but it seems to me that he takes it a little too far – although he only writes about this for a couple of pages, by the time he moves on the metaphor seems a little tired. However, if he is using this metaphor to convey the hostility, or at least suspicion, between departments of speech, linguistics, and English, he has certainly done that well. I believe the reason the metaphor bothers me so much is that it conveys so much negativity.

I did enjoy his history of the teaching of English. I never considered that so much of literary criticism (even of English works) was conducted in Latin. It is also interesting that poetry was considered separately from other forms of literature. He makes a good point in showing how the increase in the number of universities was a reaction against elitism and exclusiveness, and that this same reaction caused an increase in the study of modern literature and language as opposed to only the classics.

It is somewhat ironic that freshman composition, the course no English professor seems to want to teach, is what finally enabled English professors and departments to become fully entrenched in the university structure. What is perhaps least important to English professors is the very thing that enabled their continued existence. This seems like a good parallel to the metaphor of English as the ungrateful child of speech and linguistics.

Horner

Horner makes a very interesting point in relating how religion affected the development of education in Britain. However, I did find it odd that the educational institutions that were exempt from religious edicts were the first to teach in English – it seems it would be important for future clerics to learn in English, since they would be trying to reach the English people with their message and the common people would be much more likely to relate to someone who was well versed in their various dialects and colloquialisms (however, I can also easily see how an association with religion would tie education to Latin).

I have to wonder what the purpose was for women to attend a university when they were (at first) not allowed to obtain a degree. Of course learning for its own sake is an admirable pursuit, but it doesn’t seem that a lot of women would have been able to take advantage of the availability of higher education since they would be incurring cost but would not receive any kind of degree or ability to advance. Was this just a way to warehouse women (I would assume upper-class) for a few years?