Yesterday, whilst reading a letter from a correspondent to the Sydney Morning Herald, I came across a particularly amusing offering. It is a good thing perhaps that I had time to pre-read the missive before committing it live to air, because I had to suppress a laugh, rather unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

I should have kept the letter, but it was committed to the recycling without thought at the time. However, it being short, I have a reasonable recall of its contents and style, so here goes.

"My grand daughter has now completed Year 12 at a good school and as far as I can see, has not read any literature. There is no teaching of Shakespeare and precious little else in the way of novels, plays and poems.

I asked her recently what she thought about Keats and she replied, "What is a Keat?"

And so she will go on to do a "Bachelor of Protestation" or something like it, blissfully unaware of the literary jewels of her native tongue."

Of course, the writer is surely exaggerating to make a perfectly valid point - the quality of texts suffers when English becomes a more tertiary-style communications-based subject with the objective of unearthing supposed 'deeper meanings.' I don't doubt that many of the texts (by men) I have read and loved were written by patriarchs or misogynists or colonialists or even outright bastards, but I would prefer that the art spoke for itself, without the heavy hand of dogma interposing.

Perhaps such a reading though is impossible. Our interactions with the world, our perceptions, the structure of language means that getting at any text in a "real way" is fraught with difficulty and contradiction. Still, I'd like to think that we can.

Keats




Keets