Dumb Ventures Promote Dumb Lectures

...dumb is the new smart...

There was an article in The Independent on Tuesday 28th August 2007 called 'The Comic-Book Bard'. Here's how the first paragraph reads: 'Depending on your point of view, these pictures either mark a bold attempt to bring Shakespeare to the masses, or the latest sad example of dumbing down in the British education system.'


'These pictures' refers to the atrocious sketches of the three witches in Macbeth which Classical Comics publishing in early 2008. As you've probably guessed, I agree with the latter part of the introductory paragraph. This move to turn great pieces of literature into comics is sad, very sad, and I'll tell you why.

It's the idea behind the publisher's comics that dooms the venture from the start. What they are trying to do, is make famous works of literature available to the masses, which is fair enough, but the way in which they're going about it is questionable. They're actually re-writing books like Frankenstein, Jane Eyre and Great Expectation in 'bite-size chunks of quick text'. This is not just abridging, but completely minimising, changing the format, turning into cartoons (and not even sophisticated ones like The Simpsons!)

Somehow, the publishers seem to think that 'Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage: Then lend the eye a terrible aspect...' is translatable into 'Get a fierce look in your eyes.' BUT IT'S NOT.

Call me whatever name you like, but learning is supposed to be aspirational. Not to say it needs always to be difficult, but the reason for education is to attain something higher than we currently posses. If everything is constantly brought down to basic levels, then it makes mockery of mental discipline, intellectual curiousity, creative enquiry. How are people ever going to learn new ways of expression or thought if even their prescribed reading is handed to them all perfectly pureéd? It's perfectly stupid. It's sacrilege.

For me, one of the attractions of reading the old literary classics is the language. I mean, take the quote above: 'lend the eye a terrible aspect' - it's beautiful, and so gallant. Because English has evolved so much since the time Macbeth (for example) was written, we get the pleasure of engaging with familiar words in unfamiliar usage. The language in which the old classics were written is also a massive key to understanding the dominant modes of thought at the time, from which the work itself is likely to have sprung. Take that away, and you rob the work of its context. What depth/meaning/importance does artistic or literary work have, without context?

That said, I'm glad it's a pokey little press, and not one of the larger publishing houses that has decided to desecrate literature - that gives me a little hope. But next time a kid tells me they got an A in literature in this country, I'll just smirk. If all it takes to pass exams is flick through comics, then...

People can't keep complaining that the education system is suffering, and then endorse ventures like this. Microwaved Macbeth, greatly reduced Great Expectations, and barely there Jane Eyre are adding to the problem of people who've been through school and still don't know a damn thing.

In my first week of university, my literature prof gave me a D on my first paper, a literary appreciation of Caedmon's Hymn. Her reason was that she 'couldn't believe that a child born and bred in Africa could write this well, and demonstrate such a strong understanding of literary techniques.' She concluded that I must have plagiarised, and threatened to report me to the disciplinary board. According to her, 'even the kids in her class who went through the Canadian school system, had never come up with such promising stuff in a first assignment, so how could someone from Africa possibly do it?' She said that if she weren't so sure I had plagiarised, she would have given me an A*. She also found it hard to believe that I had heard of Chaucer and and enjoyed Metaphysical poetry so much that I had commited a couple to memory. Did you notice I was quoting? This is all true and I won't waste time telling you that I didn't plagiarise, because I'm sure you know that already.

But I'd like to answer her question now - the reason 'a child born and bred in Africa' could excel at her homework is because we still hold education in the highest regard. You may look at satellite pictures of the world, and find that Africa's still the dark continent because we have energy issues. You may judge us by our politicians. You may judge us for the state of our economies. But at the end of the day, through everything, we would never compromise the integrity of works that we learn from or en masse, discredit handed down wisdom. I don't anticipate the day when the works of Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Leopold Senghor, Lenrie Peters, J. P. Clark, Kwesi Brew, Lesley Lokko, Alan Paton, Camara Laye, Beverly Naidoo, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, and others would be mutilated into comicery. It's because we still recognise that knowledge is power, and superior knowledge is superior power.

While we commit verse after verse of tedious text to memory, in another part of the world, the authorities are pre-chewing the very same text and feeding it to kids through a rubber teet. Is it any surprise then, that when I came out tops in a class execrise, I got insulted for it?

The National Association for the Teaching of English, who is backing this trivialisation project, could learn a few things or two from our perspective of learning. Making it incredibly easy doesn't guarantee that the masses will latch on. In fact, their minds may yet wonder because it holds nothing solid enough to intrigue them...

Wow, I didn't mean to get all venty, that just came out at the end, but it is what it is. As usual, comments and contributions are very welcome, whether you happen to agree or disagree. xx