This paper uses a Gwen Harwood poem to open up questions of "knowing" around the teaching of Literature. Following our own brief reading of the poem, we particularly discuss ways in which questions of knowing/knowledge have been considered in Literature teaching historically, such as: - the binary of "knowledge" and…

This autobiographical essay explores the significance that Marxist literary theory has had for me as an English educator. Marxist literary theorists have produced increasingly refined understandings of the formal complexities of literary works, but the reach of such criticism has been limited because they have failed to conceive it as part of a…