Hello,
 
I'm new to this list (again) and couldn't help making a couple of
observations on this thread (which is trailing vapors on the TSE list also).
 
Of course, it should be six persons in a boat. Arwin's proposal looks to me
very much like a seminar, but overhauled to be a mechanic's special. While
I agree that not in this century or any other is everything about human
beings going to be explained by science (sorry, Arwin), I'm sympathetic to
Arwin's complaint about the general level of literary criticism.
 
His practical complaint, all those books saying the
same/slightly/insignificantly different things, seems to me to be legit, so
I applaud him for at least looking for a way to raise the bar.
 
Is this a black and white issue, or two issues? Mind vs. matter on one
stage, quality vs. quantity on another? I don't want to evoke a circle the
wagons response, but I don't see any harm in looking for a new resolution
to at least one of these problems, at least there's no harm where there's a
willingness to admit that there is a problem.
 
My old theory of lit prof had it that the writers and artists have been
doing incredibly good work for the last couple thousand years, and the
critics (his domain) have not. This is the kind of statement that usually
results in defensive reactions, but what if we put those aside and say that
Arwin does have a point....is there somewhere new to go with it?
 
Ken Armstrong
 
 
At 12:13 PM 10/12/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Pearlman said:
>>>I don't think any of us wants literature to have a Pope.
>>
>Arwin replies:
>>I'm sorry, but that is only the way you want it to sound. A Pope? I think
>>that *we* might value our freedom to read and write anything whatsoever
>>about a literary text just that teensy weensy bit too much. What is it, for
>>instance, that prevents us from working in a team of, say, 6 specialists on
>>different aspects of a poem, so common a practice in other fields?
>>
>Pearlman replies:
>
>Arwin, I don't think you understand the incompatibility between the
>scientific and humanistic approaches to literary study.  Hard science
>is great for certain things (e.g., the recent application of the software
>for tracing changes in DNA to ascertaining the true genetic lineage of
>a group of scribe-written Chaucer texts), but the purpose of humanistic
>study of literature has--or should have--nothing to do with establishing
>a definitive Truth about a text's meaning, but should (in my opinion)
>constantly be re-evaluating a text in the new light afforded by the
>changing cultural surround.  That's why you'll always have Shakespeare
>criticism: it is always necessary to reposition the past in relation
>to the changing present.  The "six-man team" that will establish the
>human genome will do a job once and for all; not so any six-man team
>applied to the study of, let's say, an Eliot poem.  I guess one can
>add that humanistic study gets messily involved in the world of
>*values*, whereas strictly scientific approaches limit themselves (not
>always successfully, given the politics surrounding science) to the
>world of--ideally value-free--"facts."
>
>If I am oversimplifying your view, it is because you present a very
>unsophisticated explanation of what a scientific approach to
>literary study might be or should try to accomplish.  In another
>of your messages on this topic you attempt to distinguish between
>scientific textual study and the *wisdom* we readers gain from
>literature.  I agree with you that the "facts" need to be known,
>to the degree they are knowable, but once you enter into the
>world of literary allusions and cultural influences, it is
>impossible to establish their relative weights in determining
>meanings within a text.  As critics we will argue for our
>specific readings, but we will never be able to *prove* our
>assertions with scientific rigor.
>
>All in all, I think it a shame that, at universities all over,
>the humanities have been trying to scientize themselves in order
>to achieve "respectability," i.e., the ability to gain grant
>money from the fact-minded philistines who hold the purse-strings.
>Just look at what's happened in psychology.  I've never heard of
>a single psychology course in which an undergrad is expected to
>read even one full book by Freud.
>
>Top of the day to you,
>
>==Dan P
>Dan Pearlman                    Office: Department of English
>102 Blackstone Blvd. #5                 University of Rhode Island
>Providence, RI 02906                    Kingston, RI 02881
>Tel.: 401 453-3027                      Tel.: 401 874-4659
>email: [log in to unmask]            Fax:  401 874-2580
>