IL DIPARTIMENTO
high brow vs.
low brow
by rowena ball & sahar zivan
The University of Bristol is fortunate to have Italian lecturers
with a wide range of expertise, from Dante and Boccaccio to
sport and low-brow cinema. Here, two of our students debate
the academic merit of high and low-brow culture.
What do you think?
High-brow:
Rowena BalL
British philosopher Jeremy Bentham is often quoted as having
said, “Push-pin is as good as poetry.” (What he actually said was,
“Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with
the arts and sciences of music and poetry,” but that’s something
of a mouthful.) Push-pin, for those of you who aren’t familiar
with 16th century children’s activities, was a game similar to
tiddlywinks that involved flicking pins over each other from a
hat-brim. According to Bentham, its entertainment value is the
same as that of the arts and so therefore its overall value is too.
John Stuart Mill, who is responsible for Bentham’s misquotation, disagrees with him, and so do I.
Cinema, literature and music can certainly be very entertaining
but it can also be used to aid our understanding of a culture and
a language. Learning about what’s currently popular doesn’t
necessarily fall into that. Twilight is one of the most popular
books of the current century but, let’s be honest, it doesn’t teach
us anything more substantial than “teenage girls like vampire
romances”. Sure, Twilight has its place in the world. I just don’t
think that place is in a classroom. Can you imagine taking a 12
week Stephanie Meyer course and having to write a commentary
on the passage in which Edward Cullen steps into direct sunlight
for the first time and it turns out his dark secret is that he’s
glittery?