Literary analysis (was Culture, speaking, choice)

[dicentra_spectabilis_alba]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "saintbacchus" <saintbacchus at y...> wrote:

> <<
> I believe not. I think this type of activity belongs
> either to science types lost in the humanities world
> and grasping at straws, or humanities types suffering
> from science-envy and trying to make their field
> 'scientific'. Concepts like class warfare and
> patriarchy can be very useful tools for understanding
> things, but allowed to become the defining principle
> of all analysis they are worse than nothing.
> >>
> 
> Science envy, hee! Doesn't it seem like humanities and
> science majors both think they got the raw deal? ^_^
> 
> Of ALL analysis, sure, but as I was taught, there are
> six basic ways of analyzing a novel: Biographical
> (based on the life of the author), Marxist
> (economics-based), classical (canon only), feminist,
> psychological (based on the thoughts of the characters)
> and um.... Well, you'll have to forgive me the last
> one, because it was three years ago and I don't have my
> notes. -_-
> 
Oh, there are more than six, and they're coming up with more.  [I 
spent five years in a lit crit program at Cornell (doctoral program), 
so I've had my fill.] There is also semiotic, deconstructionist, 
freudian, queer, reader-response, new historicism, structural... and 
whatever else they've come up with in the five years since I left. 

> Anyway, the point is to pick the approach that seems to
> best fit the work. James Joyce is often best read with
> a "Marxist" eye. A psychological approach to Hamlet
> would be interesting. And so on.

<rant>
If you're in the thick of lit crit, up in the highest reaches of the 
ivory tower, you most certainly do NOT pick the approach that seems 
to best fit the work. You choose one critical theory, much the same 
way you choose a major, and that theory becomes your personal 
religion for the rest of your natural life, and I'm not kidding when 
I say religion. 

If you choose feminism (and you must if you're female), everything 
you read becomes feminist commentary. You are required to twist the 
text any way you can to prove that it supports your religion, much 
the same way different denominations all claim that the Bible 
supports their take on it and none other.

As you might imagine, this technique leads to more absurdities than 
you can shake a stick at. The one that stuck in my craw was how 
Freudians would find Freudian imagery in pre-Freudian works (like Don 
Quixote). Or how Marxist saw all texts as definitive commentary on 
who's kicking whom. (The upshot being that all human relationships 
consist of oppressor and oppressed and nothing else.)

The corrollary to this is that your literary religion ultimately 
becomes your real-life religion too: what applies to texts also 
applies to life (because life is a text and "all knowledge is 
mediated through language" and guess who become the high priests of 
reality in this paradigm?).

I haven't been in contact with the lit crit world since HP became 
big, but I'm fairly sure it is not held in high regard for the 
following reasons:

It is popular
It is plot-oriented
Regular people like it
It is in the fantasy genre
The prose is a vessel for the subject matter, not a subject unto 
itself
It has made the author filthy rich
It is popular
Children like it
It was made into the second-highest grossing film in history
It is popular
It is not a commentary on the nature of fiction
It is not convoluted and incomprehensible
It is not boring
Did I mention that it's popular?

Lit crit types don't read anything that the average person can 
comprehend, let alone enjoy. I think I read maybe a half dozen books 
in my 7-year grad student career that I truly enjoyed. The rest were 
on the reading list because they were "significant" for one reason or 
another.
</rant>

> David writes:
> In the second case, it just wasn't obvious to me until Heidi 
pointed it out. I think that's because I don't ask myself what the 
author intends when I read something, while I think that that is 
something humanities students are encouraged to ask. 

<rant>
Up in the ivory tower, the last thing you ask is what the author's 
intent was. This is somewhat valid in that it's really not possible 
to determine what the autor's intent was (especially dead authors), 
but mostly lit crit types don't want the author's intent to interfere 
with their religious interpretations of the text. If they can't 
wrench the meaning seventeen ways 'till Sunday, they won't be happy.

So, David, you're right when you say that "when these theories become 
the defining principle of all analysis they are worse than nothing." 
But you're not allowed to say that in class or in a paper. Not in the 
lit crit programs, anyway.

</rant>

--Dicentra, who didn't get to say much at Cornell