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