Why How We Read Trumps What We Read

The assumption that the quality of the texts we assign determines the educational value of studying those texts seems so self-evident as to be beyond question. It seems obvious that the higher the quality of a text, the more educationally rewarding reading it will be. The most influen tial modern statement of this view is Matthew Arnold's 1888 essay "The Study of Poetry," in which Arnold argued that with the waning of popular religious faith, poetry had to step in and assume the burden of provid ing spiritual comfort and meaning to an emerging mass democratic so ciety. But Arnold stresses that for poetry to fulfill this new responsibil ity, only poetry of the highest literary quality would suffice. As Arnold puts it, we must "set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be ca pable of fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of