From kolb@ucla.edu Fri Mar 10 01:27:03 2000
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Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 01:27:34 -0800
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: Jack Kolb <kolb@ucla.edu>
Subject: Re: Art and Literature we've *learned* to love
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A wonderul topic, and one whose responses have been wonderful.  Again, I'm
an interloper here, so my responses won't be classical (except that I've
had the chance to reread the Odyssey--in the Penguin translation: I don't
remember the translator, alas--some years ago).

I went through a period of reaction against Matthew Arnold, having had him
set up as the ideal of my father's (though not of my father) generation.
He's a narrow-minded academic.  But I guess he's not guilty on other
scores.  I've grown to love more and more Johnson and other 18th century
writers, simply for their common sense.  By contrast my Victorians seem
more and more doctrinaire and "enthusiastic," especially about matters
moral and religious.  

I can't teach D. H. Lawrence any more, except for Lady Chatterley's Lover
(and not because it's so explicit, but because it's relatively free of
Lawrence's pompous deliverances about human beings).  I've thought about
teaching Women in Love (which I taught many years ago), but when I begin to
read its first pages, I simply can't stop laughing.  This is not a good sign.

Fortunately I don't have to teach much of any author I don't like;
fortunately I like most, on their own merits  (and demerits).

Jack Kolb
Dept. of English, UCLA
kolb@ucla.edu

.