Teaching Primo Levi

Abstract

How and why might one choose to teach Holocaust literature in the context of other topics generally studied in the course of an English literature degree, such as the examination of a particular literary tradition, historical period, or theoretical approach? Does the inclusion of Holocaust testimony amongst predominantly fictional or imaginative texts weaken the impact of the testimony? Is the work of testimony dehistoricized or elevated to an iconic or mythic status as a result of being read in a literary context? Conversely, what advantages might be gained by studying testimony alongside literary fiction? To explore these questions, I would like to focus on my experience of teaching Primo Levi’s If This is a Man, as part of a third year, elective, undergraduate module about descents into the underworld, from Dante’s Inferno to contemporary film (Apocalypse Now), fiction (Alasdair Gray’s Lanark and other novels) and poetry (Peter Reading’s Perduta Gente and Alice Notley’s The Descent of Alette).¹ The module has evolved slowly over the period of a decade or more, but it has now acquired a more or less permanent shape, with Levi at the centre of the reading syllabus.