Stephen Fry on the value of education, reading English

[lauradi7dw]

A clip from an episode of the QI show that (apparently) wasn't aired
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EakdDE7SAyo&feature=channel

I will be taking the literature phase of Freshman English this semester, feeling that I can't really put it off much longer. It looks like it's going to be pretty grim - "Catch 22," some short stories, some poetry, ending with "Othello." I was about to tell the professor that I have found it unwatchable (left at the interval when I saw it at the Globe in London because I knew what was coming and didn't want to see it) but that might be TMI.

Comments

[ichseke.livejournal.com]

Best of luck with Freshman Angst, and all the 18-year-olds that go with it.

I'm starting my foray into adult ed next week -- "History of Christianity II, 1000-1900", the only class of interest that I could work into my schedule without making my boss's head explode. Sadly, my own interest will fail right about the Reformation, but I guess it will be good discipline to stick it out to the end.

BTW I emailed something to the professor about how long it had been since I'd sat in a university classroom and he said "You should have no problem doing the work. Strange but returning students never seem to have the problems of 20-somethings with getting to class and doing homework." Heh.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

But the Great Awakening (at least the first one) could be really interesting. Give it a chance.
Professors, as far as I can tell, love having middle aged ladies in their classes. This is not just true of me but of a variety of women of my acquaintance (all across the US) who have gone back to school. Particularly useful for English classes, we have bigger vocabularies and have read lots more books. It doesn't mean I'll be able to write any decent criticism, though. My usual example of why I never took that sort of English class is my opinion that "The Old Man and the Sea" is about a guy and a fish.

[ichseke.livejournal.com]

Yeh, Hemingway & I were never what you'd call a couple. IMHO he's vastly overrated, and TOM&TS was waaaaay too long for its story content. Maybe if I were a guy.

The prof didn't seem at all put off by the prospect of a middle aged lady. He's a Dominican, though, and they're considered to be very broad-minded ;-)

[okosut.livejournal.com]

There's something about that clip that I find a bit odd. Let's accept that the kids who ask "what is the point of all this?" shouldn't be making fun of the kids who appreciate knowledge for it's own sake, because in fact the ones who need to ask the question are less likely to succeed in life, whatever that means. But it seems to me that there's no real answer to the question, because the very fact that you're asking already means that you don't know the answer, so you don't appreciate knowledge for it's own sake, so you're doomed to failure. It's like studying something itself doesn't determine whether you will succeed or fail, it just acts as a test by which we can find out who will succeed and who will fail.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

There's a line in the Dorothy Sayers novel "Gaudy Night" in which Harriet Vane in essence says to the student she's advising that one's major doesn't matter - learning to work diligently at a subject *is* the takeaway lesson. That's how I interpreted her remark anyway.
I suspect that Fry was actually just ranting about kids who don't like knowledge for its own sake, but he should just get over that, as he's pretty intolerant of intolerance of other types.