Harkness: The Death of Structuralism

Courtesy of Ava Zhang via Midjourney

by JINMIN LEE ‘26

"We shouldn't be questioning what the author actually meant or intended. Rather, we should focus on what effect the writing has on us because it is impossible to verify the author's true ideas," said my English 220 teacher. At first glance, this idea seemed to make sense; if we cannot really understand the author's purpose in adding certain details or writing the story, why should we waste time questioning it? This idea was perpetuated throughout Exeter English; my English 220 syllabus stated that "researching the author is recognized as academic dishonesty." When thinking about it further, I realized that Exeter English was actively shunning the use of structuralism: the idea that readers should understand authors' intentions for their writing and are capable of comprehending the author's original message through the research of the authors' private lives and their writing’s historical contexts. The curriculum at Exeter rejected structuralism because it assumed that the author was irrelevant in understanding literature. I disagreed and believed that structuralism was perhaps the best and only way to fully understand literature. The rejection of structuralism is problematic because many works of literature were reactions to specific historical contexts or other preceding ideas and the purpose of writing was defeated once the original meaning became no longer important. Exeter's English program ultimately made it difficult to not only fully understand each piece of writing and its relevance, but also removed the importance of concise literature, thus leading to a school that no longer valued the proper conveyance of ideas.

Structuralism in More Detail

Structuralism is a way to analyze literature, where the reader actively researches the author and the historical context that surrounds the work. Structuralists believe that the main reason why people write is to disseminate their ideas. This ideology gave birth to the structuralist lens, which encourages people to actually understand why authors would write and what their message is. For instance, when reading George Orwell's 1984, I applied the structuralist lens of searching Orwell's personal life and the context of his time. Orwell wrote post-World War II in a society with the growing consensus that democracy was threatened by many other ideologies, such as fascism or communism. This analysis allowed me to understand Orwell's purpose in writing 1984: defending democracy and freedom of thought. If I did not comprehend this context, I wouldn't have been able to fully comprehend his work. 

Issues With Exeter's Rejection of Structuralism

Structuralism stresses the historical context of each piece of work, which enables the reader to comprehend the work by understanding the circumstances which prompted the author to create the work. These factors are mainly previous ideas and historical events that the authors are responding to or the authors' private lives that contribute to the ideas behind the writing, which become precursors to the examined literature. In fact, it is nearly impossible to understand many works without these precursors.. For instance, how could people understand Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, a book that elaborates on finding purpose and hope, even in Auschwitz, without researching Frankl's life and understanding the Holocaust? Or how could one ever fathom Dante's Divine Comedy, a story about a man's journey to heaven with the help of an angel, without researching and understanding the Bible? How could one understand the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels without researching the working conditions of the working class in the 19th century? How could one possibly understand any literature, without knowing its historical context and the ideas that led to its inception in the first place? The authors' private lives also contribute immensely to how their pieces are written. For instance, in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche argues that, in life, one must accept the problems and hardships and actually grow to not resent them by overcoming them. This idea originated from his growing mental illness he says that he has grown to not hate, but thank others for being the fodder that allowed his character and philosophy to grow. It would be difficult to fully grasp the author's true intentions and reasoning when the readers are completely blind to their private lives. Another example can be Van Gogh's famous Starry Night painting, where the supernatural effect of showing the paintbrush's every line is known to be a reflection of Gogh's mental state, which made him see the world like his paintings. Without knowing this fact about the author, it would be very difficult to grasp the true reason why art is the way it is. At Exeter, students are encouraged to ignore such important indicators that actually allow them to understand literature. 

Not only does rejecting structuralism make it impossible to properly grasp literature, but it also makes it difficult for students to create proper literature; removing the importance of an author's original intentions annihilates meritocracy and the very purpose of writing. There are two purposes of writing: to convey meaning and impact the reader using style and aesthetics. Exeter English disapproves of the former and focuses too heavily on simply appreciating the writing, thus allowing writers to get away without a real ideology behind their literature. The aesthetics and stylizations should only improve and help understand the main content better, not replace the content. What is the purpose of having a rhyme scheme if it does not contribute to the main message of the poem? Meritocracy is lost because, under the English department's philosophy, it should be completely valid to pepper stylizations without proper reason. In fact, I have written a poem to help visualize this issue:

Oranges are purple

They are sweeter than whirlpools

Water is like sugar

It is healthier than a cigar

A computer has many parts

They all work together

This is the spirit

Of truly egregious writing

This poem took me 1 minute and 27 seconds to write (I timed it). It does not have meaning because I assigned no meaning to it. However, if I gave this poem to any English class, ranging from ENG110 to ENG550, the class would easily spend hours "appreciating" its aesthetics and slant rhymes. This phenomenon destroys meritocracy because the quality and message of the writing do not matter in Exeter English. The purpose of writing is also lost because the original meaning is not important anymore. Although perhaps extreme, it is not impossible to think that Exeter students could read excerpts from books with pernicious meaning, such as Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf, and start lauding it for its "stylistic choices" because they don't bother researching the historical context. Because Exeter's literature program does not encourage students to question the true intentions of authors, it leads to the possibility of blindly accepting the content by not knowing—or caring—what it means.

“It leads to the possibility of blindly accepting the content by not knowing—or caring—what it means.”

This idea of rejecting the actual meaning of literature is especially poor given that Exeter's writing rubrics promote "clear writing with concise details," which contradicts its philosophy for analyzing literature. If we are encouraged to make our message clear and concise when writing our own narratives, why shouldn't we have the same expectations for other authors' writing? The English department should quickly fix this logical inconsistency in its approach to analyzing literature and embrace structuralism in discussions to avoid the problems mentioned above. 

Understanding Exeter English's Perspective?

The main argument that Exeter's English Department makes with its non-structuralist approach to Harkness is that students are able to personally connect more with the writing and come up with their own creative theories or understanding of the piece. Also, Exeter's philosophy on literature implies that there is no real way to confirm what authors truly intended as they are often deceased or difficult to contact and ask. 

However, the English Department makes the assumption that it is impossible to come up with personal interpretations if students already understand what the author meant. This premise is fallacious because it is not only still possible to come up with personal understandings of the text after knowing what the author really intended, but it makes it substantially easier to do so because students would be able to pinpoint exactly when they are going off the original message versus covering new ground. To make the analogy: a farmer is on the highway when he sees that he could take another road on the dirt, which could be faster. When the farmer goes on the dirt, he knows that he is no longer on the highway, but can use the highway as a reference to where he is going. However, imagine if the highway itself never existed. There is no reference: in fact, it is impossible to know if you're on the official path or not. This idea is parallel to Exeter English because there is no way for students to know if they are on the author's path or creating their own interpretations. Of course, it might be true that it is difficult to confirm the author's true message for each book or poem. Nevertheless, people should still strive to understand the message because they would never remotely comprehend the literature and the essential purpose of writing would be lost if we continue Exeter's English program in this way.