Video Games And English Literature; Suck On That Boris Johnson!
Wanna feel smart and prove to people that not all gamers are idiots? Here’s how to accomplish both:
1. Immerse yourself in Jonathan Freedland’s outstanding The Long View on BBC Radio. Listen to his comparison between the scandal surrounding the novel Pamela: Or Vitue Rewarded and the current debate surrounding videogames.
Fears over the dangers of video games have been raised in Parliament and there is an ongoing debate as to whether they lead to irresponsible copycat behaviour and deprive the young of an active lifestyle. In the 1740’s similar concerns were raised when Samuel Richardson’s novel ‘Pamela’ took the public imagination by storm. For the first time readers were entering a hyper-realistic world – one where a servant girl being pursued by her master – and the line between reality and fiction became blurred; the novel’s arrival also coincided with the introduction of the sofa to the nation’s reading rooms giving birth to the first ‘couch potatoes’.
2. Ensure a couple of your friends do the same.
3. Go to some snooty coffee shop and engage in a lively debate using examples from Freedland’s show. Bonus points if you can bring The Tale of Genji into the argument, as well.
The Long View homepage [BBC Radio]
[via GamePolitics]
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to on 10 January 2007
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: bbc, boris johnson, english literature, jonathan freedland, pamela, radio
narf. true enough, and it works with almost any book! “ulysses” in particular went a good way toward corrupting the youth (and women) of america.
and don’t get me started on d. h. lawrence.
yup, i’m a gamer pursuing a doctorate in english literature. i’m a real catch.
Ironically, I just gave a friend of mine a copy of “Clarissa” for christmas…
I recently read Pamala…
I really haven’t much of use to add beyond that, but I was so pleased to see it mentioned here that I felt I ought to comment.
I don’t see what kind of copy-cat behaviour it was meant to have inspired though, because the point is that the rakish master pursues Pamala and acts like a massive rotter right up until his capacity for naughtyness simply implodes and he, with no provocation at all, becomes a lovely reformed man. The reasoning in the book is that Pamala’s stoicism in the face of his naughtyness reformed him – but basically all she did was fall over and try to kill herself.
I suppose you could say that the book might inspire people who knew they were rotters to kidnap virtuous maids and be naughty with them until the maid’s stoicism spontaniously reformes them… I might have to go and listen to the program.