Interleaved:
Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> Until you get some
> > actual feedback on the day-to-day life of the
> mind
> > at a place like that, it may be impossible to
> > grasp how intellectually bankrupt the general
> > sensibility there can be.
>
>
> As C. S. Lewis said of the majority of critics of
> his day (when it came to science fiction), "the
> whole present dynasty has got to die and rot."
>
> [
www.unzcloud.net]-
> 1965mar/63-67//
>
> Today's academic hostility to the canon of
> standard literary works can be astonishing. And
> the emphasis on literary theory is dismaying. As
> an example, one might check the award-winning
> essay “‘Aggressive Disintegration in the
> Individual’: A Lacanian Study of Signification
> and the Destruction of Self in Shakespeare’s
> King Learâ€
> here:
>
> [
www.winthrop.edu]
> search/AMullerArticle.pdf
>
> "Lear’s dependency on the phallus-as-language is
> seen throughout the play....the great problem with
> the psychoanalytic perspective is that it views
> the female as the blank canvas on which the
> Symbolic Order of patriarchy imposes meaning...."
>
> Even if one grants, for the sake of argument, that
> Lacanian theory is valid (which I do not grant)
> and that it is used appropriately here, I would
> still object, because time spent studying theory
> is time that can't be invested in reading the
> literary works themselves. It's dreadful, how
> literary study on the one hand increases the time
> the student spends on theory (usually of a
> strongly leftist bent) while, at the same time,
> students arrive in college having read fewer works
> of literature than was the case formerly with
> those who were going to study literature; or so I
> suspect. It would be interesting to see -- but no
> English Department is likely to do it -- a list of
> the standard literary works that the students
> taking bachelor's degrees read during their time
> in college -- or that they failed to read.
> Students are not likely to be reading them on
> their own, outside of class, while in college,
> since so many hold jobs, socialize, spend time
> online, watch movies, and so on.....
For what little it's worth, I largely agree with what you're saying.
I'd allow as how deeply studying literary theory can help illuminate *why* a given writer has created certain works, but personally I'm far more interested in *how* he/she achieves his/her goals. Techniques, and even external ***stylistic*** influences. Philosophical/political/ideological not so much, unless it can be demonstrated that these affected the stylistic palette used (and how).
So I guess I come at this from the perspective of an appreciation of a superior piece of craftsmanship that can often express higher artistic goals (those works that can generate a sort of transcendent feeling of aesthetic or emotional enjoyment), rather than from a theoretical direction.
>
> I've gotten some things off my chest here (and
> there's a link to real Machen rarity!):
>
> [
wormwoodiana.blogspot.com]
> t-machens-glitter-of-brook-and.html
>
> As I note in that piece, the academic talk about
> critical "lenses" for reading "texts" seems to me
> questionable. Rather than "lenses," a better
> metaphor for the emphasis on literary theory
> (feminist, queer, postcolonial, etc.) might be
> urban light pollution. You might have to go off
> by yourself in order to see the stars.....
Hah! An excellent metaphor, Dale!
>
> In the meantime, literary discussion can go on in
> other places.
Here. Perhaps now's the time to share where I'm coming from as an appreciator of literature.
I graduated in the mid-70s (had to stop studying and work, intermittently) from one of the Cal State schools, Cal Poly SLO, which is sort of like Texas A&M in that it's a technical school primarily. However, my major was English, Creative Writing emphasis, and my thesis was a longish short story bordering on novella length. I realized that I really had no talent as a creative writer, and hence made my living in SW development. Nor did I really enjoy certain aspects of the creative process in that I recognized that to write my best stuff (still objectively mediocre), I had to "open up" much more than I was comfortable in doing to achieve a degree of honesty and verisimilitude--which were probably my strongest points.
But the major had lots of enjoyable survey classes, and I got tremendous pleasure in reading as much of the stuff as I could--and as you said earlier, it's doubtful that I'd have read any of it on my own, were they not assigned. Subsequently, I've re-read a lot of this stuff, to my greater understanding.
But I'm definitely the better for it.
Now combine this with the idea that I see no honest attempts at art as unworthy or unacceptable purely on an assessment of the moral messages contained therein. To this end I've read some effective artistic expressions that represented just hideous attitudes and worldviews, but nevertheless were *art*. Practically speaking, what this means is that I'll likely not read very much by this particular writer--their views are too repellant for me, personally (or too vapid, or too arrogant, etc.)--but neither would I ridicule or derogate their works as being unartistic, if, indeed, it was an effective piece of communication and stylistically interesting.
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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