A problem of training: reflections on literature, reading and teaching

Abstract

This article discusses the question of reading at school, under the point of view of the formation of the literature reader. Assuming that the interference of the professor in the process (of choices and decisions that each individual carries in accordance with their interests) goes against the notion of freedom and free choice that should guide the formation of a critical reader, master of his/her choices, this work tries to recognize that literature, as it addresses the reader, turns to him with a proper voice which has more to say than it is possible to foresee in the limits of a pre -configured didactics. So an attitude of suspicion is recommendable, because it can show us, perhaps, more about that voice than much of what is speculated today – by suggestion of the modern schools of criticism and theory – concerning the relations between literature, society and culture, determinative in the act of reading, beyond eventual conjectures about its purpose, utility or “otherness” in the universe of culture.