what do you think?
Answer the following BOLD questions. Answer does not need to exceed more than a couple of paragraphs.
What do you think of Chinua Achebe’s claim that the racism of works like Heart of Darkness precludes us from considering them great works of literary art? Note that there are several ways of addressing Achebe’s claim. One might agree with it, and then explore its implications for our evaluation of other works in the traditional canon. One might agree with it, and then explore its implications for other “isms,” like sexism, heterocentrism, etc. Or one might contest Achebe’s claim, for example by arguing that the artistic merit of a work’s “technical” qualities can outweigh any moral/ethical problems with its plot/characters (as, for example, is sometimes argued on behalf of Nabokov’s novel Lolita), or even that our literary judgement should not depend on moral/ethical considerations at all.
Whichever way you choose to answer, your essay should at least mention the arguments of Edgar Allan Poe in “The Poetic Principle” and Walter Pater in Studies in the History of the Renaissance.
