Luiseach

????

Luiseach

Certainly...I'll wait to see what you and others suggest we look at. I like the idea about reader-response theory getting involved here, by the way.

Well I think Phaedrus discusses quite nicely:

I agree with this approach to the question you pose. As I said before, no two sets of critical eyes are the same, which affects readings of texts. Phaedrus takes it further - postmodernism and deconstruction are useful tools to make us think outside the margins of our own experiences and subjectivity. This is a good thing...an antidote for dogma, perhaps?

An 'impartial unravelling'. I would like to see one of those. I haven't seen one yet.

I like this question. I think the author can attempt to construct his text in such a way that guides the reader towards certain interpretations and conclusions. However, I don't think the author can manipulate all of his readers in the same way; and, he can't always predict all of the potential readings. Indeed, some authors are mightily surprised about what their critics 'see'. As for 'should you do so,' I don't know...it's up to the author, I guess. Whatever he writes, though, will be read from too many critical angles for him to predict.

Ah. Yes, I agree (I tried to disagree, but I don't, sorry...we need some authoritative readers in this discussion to create a debate, I guess). I would argue that the desire for closure of any kind is an indication of inflexibility, insecurity, fear, amongst other things. In my humblest ickle opinion, of course.... ;-)

Luiseach

Why do you think all romantic literature begs to be read to the 'genetic reader'? Who is the genetic reader? Why should any readers be excluded from the interpretation process, in your opinion?

Re Browning: An interesting observation, and highly significant. You say that the 'established ivory tower critics' are 'drenched with contradictions that they attributed to writing style and irony.' Do you think your reading of the poem is the 'right' one, then? Don't you think that the disagreements amongst the critics might be based on the fact that they are all different readers of the poem, and they are honestly acknowledging the impossibility of coming to a monolithic reading that we can all agree on?

You seem to be attempting a combined psychological and religious reading of Stephen's epiphany. Am I right? I just want to clarify this before offering my own interpretation of the excerpt you provide.

John Page

So would I! Perhaps the best we have is "unraveling by committee".

I wonder who the ideal reader of an impartial unravelling would be?

Cheers, John

Luiseach

God, of course! If he existed, that is...since he doesn't, we're stuck with the committee idea.

Rorty rules! ;-)

Hugo Holbling

Would you indeed?! There's not much i can add to the quote from Olsen's study that i posted above:

What convinces us, then? Strong rhetoric, says Fish. Olsen explains:

Moving on, Fish says:

Fish, however, does not expect much support for his role of rhetoric:

He concludes:

How do you read Fish?

We've been over this in the relativism thread, but my response (and i'd guess Putnam's too...) would be that a God's-eye view isn't necessary to make the statement in the first place.

Must you? I'll wager you can offer some good suggestions, given your studies. :notworthy

Agreed, but does a global skepticism take the tool too far, or too far to be useful at any rate? This seems to be the trouble - "question x and y, but don't touch z: i need that."

Well, that's what i was asking...

So the authorial power is limited by the reader? I think the implied symbiosis is interesting: the author as guide and the reader as adventurer...

But of course...

Now will you permit me to move to a question i had intended to pose after my last post to you, only for things to speed up and leave me behind before i had the chance. I want to ask you about this passage, from Derrida's afterword to Deconstruction And Pragmatism, which i've posted elsewhere:

How do you read Derrida here? For my part, i can't make up my mind. Is he saying that a critique of presence is unavoidable, that a rhetorical or social function is somehow inherent (and this is related to our discussion of satire, previously), that a psychological critique will prove the most powerful in a radical toolbox of such (*nods to the professor* ), or all of these and more? I think the piece is fascinating and want to ask your opinion.

I realize i've been asking alot of you lately... :notworthy

In this regard at least, it would appear so.

Amos

Because Romantic is spelled with a capital R! We ourselves are the romantics looking for intimacy wherever we can find it and this includes literature. This kind of means that at heart we are all Romantics and are looking for love until we find ourselves.

Of course, everybody can be a critic and everybody can read. We can read Shakespeare because we love his lines and they seem to grow on us even if we don't understand much of what he writes. We can read the bible for the same reason and it, too, can grow on us because we seek to identify with it. Notice that this works better if we have been 'supercharged."

The term "genetic reader" is new to me so I hope I did not abuse it. The genetic reader is a deconstructionist who's critical theory follows, or seeks to find, the expression of archetypes.

I loved Porphyria's Lover because it fit my preconceived idea of reality like a glove (I was a mature student and my ideas were my own). My interpretation was in many ways just opposite to the lecture material and the prof was much offended by my response. Of course he wins the argument but changed the course for the next year (I still have the calendars to prove this). What really was wrong is that the same prof taught "analytic criticism" and "critical theory" (as they called it). To me this is impossible because both cannot be right (religious boards kick me off for the same reason).

'My right' does not have to be the same as 'your right' but if there is such a thing as an archetypal reality it will provoke anger and that is why ivory towers come tumbling down. Mary, is the Tower of Ivory (I am a litany man).

No, there is no in between.That is exactly what I am doing and there is about one hundred pages leading up to this event. It was a major life changing epiphany and therefore his Beatific Vision. "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead" were his last words before he left his rational world behind ("home" here) to find favor with "Life" itself . . . which would have been Chapter 6 (yet one more archetypal reality).

Yes, I understand. Stephen left his mother, his family, his faith, and even left the comfort of his own world to welcome the "un-created" conscience of his own world: he was a free man now in charge of his own destiny.

There are hundreds of foreshadows for this, such as: "yes, yes, yes, he would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer who's name he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable."

Luiseach

You seem to be linking the meaning of 'romantic' and 'Romantic' to the relatively modern idea of 'love.' Romantic (with a capital 'R') is not limited to ideas about 'love,' for the self or for others.

I'm sorry...I don't know what you mean by the word 'supercharged.' At first glance, it seems to suggest some form of heightened awareness? If I'm right in my interpretation of this term, then how do we reach this state of mind? And how does it help us to analyse literature?

Ah. Jung. Applying his theory of archetypes to our understanding of literature. I've always found this particular methodology rather restrictive. What is it about the scouring of texts for archetypal traces that you find interesting?

In which ways was he offended? What was it about your interpretation of the poem that he may have found objectionable?

Why should emotions come into literary criticism at all? In which ways do emotions/feelings help us to understand literary texts, in your opinion?

Luiseach

Sheesh! All this flattery...I feel quite dizzy. ;-)

I think Amos's text of choice, James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is appropriate. Amos seems very taken with its potential for a psychological reading. I'm more apt to tackle the text with a mind to expose its inherent contradictions. But that's me.

Is everybody agreed, then? About the text I mean...not my initial assessment of it. ;-) If someone else has one they would prefer, just shout it out. :-D

Are you tying this thread in with the one on relativism? Not that I mind, but I just want to be clear before I attempt a response to this question.

That's a good analogy to use. I would make one minor modification, though, and would appreciate your views on this: if the author is the 'guide' and the reader the 'adventurer,' then is the text is an uncharted jungle or a well-delineated map of a jungle?

I'm going to provide a stream-of-consciousness response to the extract above, and see where it leads...

The use of the word 'messianic' is the key which unlocks the meaning of this excerpt. The connotations of messiah are obvious...the so-called 'Voice of God,' the conduit between the human world and the celestial realm of Truth...the Transcendental Signified, the metaphysical reality beyond the text. The messiah is our ticket to salvation, when all will be revealed, closure will be achieved, the Omega to the Alpha, the promise of Genesis: 'In the beginning was the word and the word was with God.' The messianic promise of language...what is the word of God? What does He mean? The messiah promises to lead us out of the mire of language and towards the signifieds - the realities - beyond it, which are 'with God'. Language, then, as having this 'messianic structure,' this dimension of 'promise' and faith, is inherently a persuasive force...rhetorical. Messiahs always make promises: do this or do that, and you will be saved. Believe me, follow me, agree with me, and you will be rewarded with answers to your prayers. There is coersion at work in the messianic nature of language, then. The words we use are not empty of manipulation; we speak/write in order to affect our listeners/readers, to bring them over to our point of view. Further, and this is an interesting aspect of the excerpt you have posted - we cannot speak or write anything at all without contradicting ourselves. Saying 'I don't believe in God' involves a plea for the listener to believe the statement, to accept it as true. The statement 'I don't believe in God' can be taken as follows: 1. I don't believe God exists, and 2. I don't have faith in God. The statement can erase God and inscribe him at the same time. So here is the sneaky meaning in 'messianic': messiahs are rhetoricians, we are all rhetoricians because we use language in the messianic sense...we make promises rather than factual observations about reality. Meaning is always deferred as a result. We never reach the Signified/God/metaphysical realm/Salvation/Closure. We just reach towards it.

Geez. What a ramble. I'm going to leave it as it is though. Let someone else tear it to pieces!

John Page

I enjoyed reading it and, at the risk of becoming a Derridean messianic, your expurgation prompted me to imagine that his ideal reader is one that believes his promise and unravels his texts ad infinitum.

Keep up the good work! Cheers, John