The Scope of Imagination
I heard the tail end of an interview about the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables. I had never read the book, so I found it at the library, and I am reading it now. The young orphan Anne cares a great deal about the “scope of imagination”—as she relates in this early scene:
Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everyting, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?
I love that idea: The Scope of Imagination.
As I enter into a new academic year, I think about imagination and how hard it is to get some students to realize its power. Anne of Green Gables —such an old-fashioned book—and my students are nothing close to old-fashioned with their cell phones, their text messages, their i-pods, and their computers.
But imagination and its scope—that’s not old fashioned, is it? After all…someone had to imagine an i-pod before inventing it, yes?
Comments
Yes. I suppose I am drawn to any character who sees the extraordinary within the ordinary. And perhaps that ability is the essence—or part of the essence—of imagination.
Jan Aug 30, 02:39 pm
Commenting is closed for this article.
I read all of AoGG as a child and loved Anne and the series. What I recall most is the deep pleasure in the quotidian. Is that what gave me pleasure as a child, too? Now I wonder if it’s what you refer to, Anne’s imagination. Or both.
Anyway, I hope that this semester you will return in this journal to your question about imagination. It seems as though you’ll try to “get some students to realize its power.”
Jane Kokernak Aug 27, 03:11 pm