The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 [Paperback]

David Gershom Myers (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226554546 | ISBN-13: 978-0226554549 | Publication Date: June 1, 2006

When Vladimir Nabokov was up for a chair in literature at Harvard, the linguist Roman Jakobson protested: “What’s next? Shall we appoint elephants to teach zoology?” That anecdote, with which D. G. Myers begins The Elephants Teach, perfectly frames the issues this book tackles.  

Myers explores more than a century of debate over how writing should be taught and whether it can or should be taught in a classroom at all. Along the way, he incorporates insights from a host of poets and teachers, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, John Berryman, John Dewey, Lionel Trilling, Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound, and Saul Bellow. And from his exhaustive research, Myers extracts relevant background information on nineteenth-century educational theory; shifts in technology, publishing, and marketing; the growth of critical theory in this country; and the politics of higher education. While he shows how creative writing has become a machine for creating more creative writing programs, Myers also suggests that its history supplies a precedent for something different—a way for creativity and criticism, poetry and scholarship, to join together to produce not just writing programs but good writers. 

Updated with fresh commentary on what’s happened to creative writing in the academy since the first edition was published ten years ago, The Elephants Teach will be indispensable for students and teachers of writing, literature, and literary history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The Elephants Teach is an astonishing piece of work. . . . Under the author’s magic it becomes the story of a great part of our culture since the turn of the century.”

(from the Foreword by Jacques Barzun )

“In clear prose and careful scholarship, David Myers . . . tells the story of how what was supposed to free English literature from the trap of academic disciplines became itself an academic discipline.”<First Things>

(First Things )

“Myers is thorough, his writing is clear, and the history he has to tell will be to most, if not all, current teachers of creative writing little short of a revelation. . . . This is a book all teachers of creative writing should read.”<History of Education Quarterly>

(Roger Mitchell History of Education Quarterly )

"This material I think should be required for anyone who intends to teach creative writing on the college or university level."—Patrick Bizzaro, College Composition and Communication

(Patrick Bizzaro College Composition and Communication )

From the Publisher

Prentice Hall Studies in Writing and Culture captures the excitement of an emerging discipline. The writers in this series are challenging basic assumptions, asking new questions, and trying to broaden inquiry about writing and the teaching of writing. These writers raise challenging questions about how we teach and how we build communities of writers. They also investigate subjects as far-ranging as the nature of knowledge and the role that culture plays in shaping pedagogy. The series is particularly concerned with the interplay between language and culture, and about how gender considerations, race, and audience shape our writing and our teaching. Early volumes will be devoted to the essay, audience, autobiography, and how writers teach writing. Other studies will explore matters that are critical to teaching writing. The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 traces the development of "creative" writing as (1) a classroom subject, the teaching of fiction- and verse-writing; and (2) a national system for the employment of fiction writers and poets to teach the subject. It answers the questions, "Why has fiction and verse writing come to be called creative?" and "When and why was this term first used?" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226554546
• ISBN-13: 978-0226554549
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for writing teachers, January 10, 2000

By 

Bev (Beverly, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 (Paperback)

Despite (or perhaps because of) its controversial conclusions, The Elephants Teach is a must-read for anyone involved in teaching writing. This fascinating and detailed analysis of the rise and development of "Creative Writing" in America raises important questions about the purpose of teaching writing, and if the answers are sometimes uncomfortable they are nevertheless thought-provoking. Though he asserts that after the Second World War "Creative Writing programs became a machine for creating more creative writing programs" (146), Myers is not ready to pull the plug; instead, he gently urges breaching the wall separating creative writing and scholarship in order to improve both disciplines. In an illuminating passage, he quotes poet Robert Pinsky on how the distinction between creative writing and scholarship works to the detriment of both: "On one side there is 'an immense elaboration of the techniques of composition' accompanied by 'a fatal ignorance of the past'; on the other side an 'elaborate sophistication regarding poetic theory' that goes with 'a fatal ignorance of composition.' The consequence, he said, is 'rhetorical pedantry in the poets; and arid nihilism in the critics.' Technique had been divorced from theory--composition from the past--as each section of the English deparment sought to perfect its own specialty" (168). It is clear that Myers would like to see creativity and criticism, poetry and scholarship join hands, enabling the Academy to produce not just writing programs but writers.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hasn't left my mind for two years, July 26, 2003

By 

foundpoem - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 (Paperback)

I have a masters degree in writng and this book was assigned during the intro-to-the-writing-program course. It changed my perspective, entirely, about what I'd planned to do after graduating. It changed my opinion of writing programs and of masters degrees in writing. The book makes a valid point.

That said, the real world hasn't caught up to this little gem. We still need our degrees, unless we get lucky and publish something best selling, lavishly reviewed, become famous some other way, or some such thing.

But this notion that MFAs in Writing beget teachers in MFA programs in Writing is a powerful one. Academia is insular; we knew this already (this isn't my first advanced degree), but somehow that the most important element of my degree is that it's the qualification to teach in my own program is a powerful lesson. We teach writers to become teachers who teach writers to become teachers who teach writers to become teachers...

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Clear, Systematic History of Creative Writing, November 2, 2006

By 

MaryClaire (Chicago Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 (Paperback)

As a teacher of writing, I found this book extremely interesting and clear. Myers provides a lucid, organized history of the evolution of the teaching of creative writing in this country. While the book will likely not appeal to a layperson, anyone who plans to teach creative writing or enroll in an expensive creative writing program has a stake in what Myers is saying. I am surprised by other reviewers' comments about Myers' view of creative writing (MFA) programs. Unlike other reviewers, I did not find Myers' remarks venomous or even especially harsh; rather, I found them even-handed and common-sensical.