In a very Augustinian approach, Peter Barry wishes to give a "clear explanation and demonstration" (1) of the art and importance of literary theory. He also wants to help the reader (student) "make some personal sense of theory"(2), wonderful for someone who has always believed a personal sense of literary interpretation is all we can honestly claim.
As Morse Peckham points out - even the New Critics are "governed by an ideology of which the practitioners are themselves unaware" (111). I love a good "close reading." Like Barry, I find "intensive reading [often] more useful than extensive reading"(4); however,I can't lie and say I don't sometimes find Formalist theory full of "meaningless, pretentious jargon" (7).
On the other hand, though I agree with Jonathan Culler that "literature is a form of communication" (100) - and we should all be talking in one form or another - when we can hardly claim to know our own individual minds, how on earth can we judge the one true meaning for literary texts written by those we will probably never meet?
An even-handed statement, then, from Cleanth Brooks spoke with the loudest and clearest voice this week:
The various imports of a given work may well be worth studying. ...But such work, valuable and necessary as it may be, is to be distinguished from a criticism of the work itself" (28).
We must examine texts for what they add to the on-going human dialogue, but we must not forget to simply appreciate literature (and all forms of art) for what it may potentially add to the on-going dialogue we have with our own soul.
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I completely agree with your last paragraph; well-stated.
ReplyDeleteThe three Ciceronian principles: to teach, to delight, and to persuade certainly seem to apply to your final comment, Rhonda. As writers we are admonished to "write what you know". Plato states that some of what we know is a "recollection...viewed by the soul before birth" (8). Perhaps that is how we are so moved by certain pieces of literature. Perhaps, in that context, the why doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteI think that an important idea to keep in mind when attempting to touch the mind of the author is that meaning is found in the attempt, not necessarily in the accomplishment. I may never know for sure what the author of Beowulf intended to convey in his work, but my examination of the piece and the connections I unravel are less significant because I am unable to touch the Truth of the piece.
ReplyDeleteThey may be said to be "less significant" in one light, Tony - but a great piece of literature continues to find a "Truth" generation after generation. Maybe not the author's truth - but whose to say that is the one and only, or most accurate Truth?
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