"Sensitivity Readers"

My guess is that the literary value of these works wasn't so high as to carry any risk of anything being damaged. Still, the value of literature lies less in affirming things that are easy and comfortable to believe, and more in forcing confrontations with the difficult and unpleasant. MacBeth doesn't get its value out of its expressions of patriotism, after all.
MACBETH
The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties; and our duties
Are to your throne and state children and servants,
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour.

DUNCAN
Welcome hither:
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing.
Stop there, and you have a kind of Confucian model of easy flourishing by knowing one's place and submitting to the lawful order. The real value comes in confronting the legitimacy of ambition and objections to this model of being ruled, and yet also confronting the perils and stains that come with acting on those things.

The real value in 'sensitivity readers' might be in marking out the parts of the book that are worth further exploration and emphasis.

3 comments:

E Hines said...

Alas, it's already being dumbed down, and not even out of any PC sewage--just the insult that folks are too mentally challenged to understand the man or his characters.

http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_26.html

Eric Hines

MikeD said...

Alas, it's already being dumbed down

Grrr... unless this LITERALLY is the "MacBeth for 8-year-olds" version, whoever wrote that should be ashamed.

Ymar Sakar said...

Obeying human kings is a fool's errand.

All that is mortal yet lives, will perish. They glorify their own works, the idol of their pride and arrogance, while oppressing the weak and their clan enemies.