Moral values and aesthetic value

Moreover, the conflict between moral value and aesthetic value also emerged from their feedback in interview. First, literature with morally

offensive viewsand the author’s moral quality would ill-dispose the students from becoming engaged in the work.

Group 4

Jessica: I get very angry if the author expresses monstrous moral views. Why should I torture myself by carrying on?

Group 4

Cora: I find certain things quite unacceptable,such as paedophilia, I just couldn’t read anything like that. And some writers disgust me. I don’t want to read their works.

The two interviewees might not be using ethical criteria to evaluate literature, however it seems they could only enjoy (which is the opposite of ‘torture’) works that meet their ethical standards.

Second, some students also mentioned that aesthetic value can make them temporarily suspend their moral standards; and that aesthetic value couldeven affect their understanding of the moral issues in the work.

Group 4

Wendy:Good writers invite you to get involved in their stories, sometimes I start to understand the characters without even realising it.

Group 5

Nicole: I usually distance myself during reading, but good writers can make you feel what the characters feel. I may not change my mind, but I would understand them more.

The two answers above both mention the understanding of someone else’s feelings and life, which is one of the edifying school’s (Nussbaum, 1990; 1995; Booth, 1988) main points about literature’s contribution to moral capacity, and the depiction of humanity in literature may echo the reader’s understanding. If we integrate the two answers, we may

conclude that the students believed that the edifying function of literature works alongside its aesthetic value, especially in the way that it helps us appreciate what it means to be human.

However, the disinterested view of enjoying the form of literature for pure aesthetic pleasure, derived from the Kantian tradition,was hardly

mentioned in the feedback. Only one student that I interviewed clearly said that if the literary work contains unacceptable moral views, she might still appreciate the form of the work.

Group 4

Cora: I could only appreciate the writing techniques, like the structure and the language; the reading only stays on the surface. Her answer reveals two things: firstly she only gives a brief

understanding of ‘form’ - the structure and the language, which is quite limited; secondly, she thinks the study of form ‘only stays on the surface’.

It is possible that her understanding of form was not well explained in a short interview, but the word ‘surface’ obviously suggests that she regards content as more superior than form. In addition, the same student had talked about two writers that she particularly disliked – Vladimir Nabokov and Charles Dickens, because ‘one writes about paedophilia, the other is a hypocrite’. Putting her moral accusations aside, both Nabokov and Dickens have unquestionable aesthetic merit in English writing but could not be appreciated in her case for moral

reasons. Her response makes me doubt whether she could ever really appreciate form when she felt morally offended.

In Chapter One and Two, I mentioned that the study of form or poetics may have been overlooked or at least underestimated in Chinese literary education. I also referred to the analysis of Hamlet’s language style in the teacher’s book, which is presented in a brief, hasty and summarized way, to exemplify my point. Cora’s response suggests that the lack of education in studying form may possibly militate against students’ ability to appreciate aesthetic values, because their understanding of form may be limited to basic rhetorical skills and fancy prose. From this

perspective, such a superficial approach would leave them short of a set of strategiesto help them understand the artistry of narrative, discourse and the rhetoric of fiction.

Group 5

Ariel: The author’s moral opinion expressed in the work may not be

his real opinion.

Liz: How do you know? Who knows? Who can find out? Everyone thinks their own interpretation is right.

Ariel points out acommon sense yet pertinent aspect of fiction writing, whereas Liz’s challenge shows that she believes a work can be

interpreted in many different ways. In one sense, the challenge makes sense, Abrams and reception theory have similar arguments (See Ch.2); on the other hand, however, the glib nature of her responsealso reveals a lack of basic understanding of literary poetics. Studies of some very basic literary devices such as point of view, irony, the unreliable narrator and the intrusive author can readily help the reader deduce whether the moral view being expressed is the author’s real opinion. Due to a lack of knowledge, this participant addsan unnecessary layer of mystery to literary understanding and displays a certain contempt for authorial intent.

6.6 Literary Education

In the feedback of the questionnaire, 41% of the total of 78 students agreed with the statement‘the literary education I got at school was boring’. However, the percentage varies among the five groups quite significantly (Group 1: 50%; Group 2: 18%; Group 3: 68.8%, Group 4: 30%; Group 5 41.7%). And although almost one third of students (32% in total) chose to disagree, the

numbers here also varied widely among the five groups (Group 1: 22%; Group 2: 50%; Group 3: 18.8%, Group 4: 30%; Group 5 33.3%).

The students’ educational background cannot be easily taken into account to explain the variations of response here. Although Groups 4 and 5 consisted of postgraduate students at Warwick University and share similar responses, Groups 1 and 2, students in the same college and majoring in the same course, present the most significant difference. As there is no consistent pattern in the data, it may suggest that both teaching and students’ learning preferences vary.