Despite negative popular opinion, Natasha Whitton, English instructor of the Special Topics class, gave one of the last “Then and Now” lectures on Oct. 23 in Pottle Auditorium titled “Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare and Meyer (Oh My!).”  Whitton explored deeper into the “Twilight” series, past the sparkling vampires and compared them to great older works.
“It kind of caught me off guard because I never compared “Twilight” to something like that, but then after the point sets she made I was like, ‘Oh wow, that really is a good point.’  So it actually made sense,” said Megan Bonch, an education senior, who came for extra credit.
Many students immediately respond similarly to Bonch’s original reaction.  Whitton quickly realized that students did not see “Twilight” as strong literature. They felt the series definitely should not be the topic of a class.  
Whitton teaches “Twilight” as the Special Topics course this semester.  Previous Special Topics included “Harry Potter” and “The Hobbit.”
“Most were complaining that ‘Twilight’ was such a lame series that it shouldn’t be the basis for a college class.  The issue here seemed to be plain, old-fashioned, intellectual snobbery,” said Whitton in her lecture about the issue.
Whitton further explained how it became socially unacceptable to read “Twilight” and how many of the series’ lovers went underground.
Whitton first blamed this on the poor quality of the low budget film adaptations.  Also, the “actor overlap” of Robert Patterson first playing Cedric Diggory was one of the beginning problems.  Even more, was Kristen Stewart’s often criticized performance as Bella.
Despite the movies increasing negative opinion towards the books, Whitton found it strange how quickly everyone began to trash the series and look down on it.
“I didn’t find it discouraging.  I found it strange.   I have pretty thick skin so it doesn’t bother me when someone says, ‘You liked that book, but I don’t like it.’  What worried me was that a lot of young teenage girls really enjoyed the ‘Twilight’ series. I watched them almost wilt under the pressure that you should not like the book.  So that to me raised interesting questions about reading and censorship and what that really meant,” said Whitton.
In this regard, Whitton explained during her lecture how “Twilight” is similar to older works such as “Pride and Prejudice” and others besides the purposeful content similarities.  During the older literature’s early publication years, there was also much negative backlash.  
Whitton compared the characters and plot to “Romeo and Juliet,” “Wuthering Heights” “Pride and Prejudice” and more. According to Whitton, Meyer purposefully made connections between her works and other older works.  Edward even quotes Romeo at one point, furthering this connection.  
“She was very intentional to the point where by the time the last book came out she felt she couldn’t talk about the influences because people would know how the book ended,” said Whitton.
Due to these reasons and that “Twilight” fit into gothic literature genre, Whitton chose it for her Special Topics class.
“I’m not going to nominate Meyer for a place in the literary canon, but I do enjoy teaching her work.  I don’t think Stephanie Meyer is as strong a writer as Shakespeare.  I see the weaknesses in her writing, but only time will tell.”