Finally getting to the BTT topic today!  As a fifteen year veteran of teaching literature, this one strikes close to the bone…

Question suggested by Barbara H:

My husband is not an avid reader, and he used to get very frustrated in college when teachers would insist discussing symbolism in a literary work when there didn’t seem to him to be any. He felt that writers often just wrote the story for the story’s sake and other people read symbolism into it.

It does seem like modern fiction just “tells the story” without much symbolism. Is symbolism an older literary device, like excessive description, that is not used much any more? Do you think there was as much symbolism as English teachers seemed to think? What are some examples of symbolism from your reading?

I have spent so much time discussing Barbara’s husband’s question with adolescents — especially 9th graders.  But I loved meeting many of those 9th graders 3 years later in Advanced Placement English and seeing the conversation become moot.  I always wondered why students had such a hard time believing in the complexity and artistry of Dickens or Shakespeare or Hawthorne… and then become so darn resentful of it!?  Complex literature is supposed to make us think!!  Horror!!

But, on to the question before us:  Is symbolism dead in modern literature?  This depends on what we’re reading, doesn’t it?  We forget that while Dickens embraced symbolism, Jane Austen did not.  In other words, we quickly get in trouble whenever we try to make blanket statements regarding great art.  Some writers embrace symbolism and others do not — and this has been true since Sophocles first directed Oedipus to blind himself!

In addition, I think we forget that what we are taught in school is pretty much the best of the best, as dictated by time and countless readers through the years (which doesn’t mean students necessarily LIKE it, of course). 

So, the better question would be — are you drawn to symbolic writing?  Do you try to read complex literature from time-to-time?  Do you make a point of reading the literary award winners each year? 

I am and have found, not surprisingly or exclusively, that the more complex the writer, the more symbolism we may find (Toni Morrison, anyone?).   However, complexity does not always mean best, does it?  A poorly wrought symbol is obviously worse than no symbol at all…

 So what do you all think?  Is symbolism dead?  Should it be?

Welcome back!