Re: A Sensibility of Worth

Yeah...I knew I was inviting that response when I wrote it. When I talk
about Shakespeare being "worth more attention" than television ads
because of his use of language, I have a few specific things in mind.

I like to think of language as being something like a toolbox. Open up
pretty much any toolbox and you'll see a variety of tools, most of them
serving somewhat different purposes, some of them serving one, specific
purpose. The best toolboxes are the biggest, then -- they have more
tools, allowing you to perform more different tasks more effectively.
Shakespeare's toolbox is much bigger and more varied than the toolbox
used for most television ads.

In particular, if I want _to teach students what language can do_, I'm
better off having them read Shakespeare than watch pretty much anything
on television.

So all of a sudden I've introduced a specific context -- teaching
language. Or, for that matter, my own learning about language. I could
extend this to the "pleasure" of reading a well turned phrase --
something I'm more likely to get out of Shakespeare than a television
ad, though I admit the ads can come through for me sometimes on this
one. We could go further -- the range and depth of feelings I'm exposed
to in a Shakespearean play is much wider than the range and depth of
feelings I'm exposed to in a television ad -- all of which is
communicated to me using language, so again I can look to Shakespeare to
teach me about language more effectively than I can look to a television
ad.

The value judgments implicit in everything I've written above could be
summed up this way. Everything that's valued or "good" is listed below:

facility in language (ability to use language to communicate emotion and
ideas. The more effectively one can do this, the better)
range of feeling
depth of feeling
the tonal qualities of the words strung together

All this is following a pedagogical model, I think...esp. one directed
toward teaching writing. I know this is a limited context. But I think
it's fair to define worth within specific contexts.

Jim

Omlor@aol.com wrote:

> Jim, you write:
>
> "We can learn about the human condition from advertisements on
> television and in magazines. But we'd rather study Shakespeare or
> Beowulf (I really liked Lucy Ruth's post about this too) instead,
> because their use of language is worth more attention than the
> language in television ads."
>
> And as soon as you invoke the phrase "worth more attention," you fall
> back into all the same problems you cite concerning Robbie's old stuff
> about worth and "the human condition." The vagaries and slogans and
> difficulties reappear.
>
> And the same thing starts all over again.
>
> I think OutKast said it best,
>
> "When I move, you move
> Just like that
> Hell, yeah,
> DJ bring that back."
>
> In any case, I'd just as soon study both. And have.
>
> All the best,
>
> --John
>
>
>

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Received on Mon Dec 15 11:22:29 2003