>        As for bringing other passages to bear on this one, Jerome McGann
>has pointed out that the tendency of every part of the Cantos to bear on
>every other part makes final judgment impossible, and opens the text to
>continual re-interpretation.
>        Is that what we are doing? And incidentally, I am still going with
>the "self-chastisement" view I recently offered.
>
>                                                Jacob Korg

I think that's what we ARE doing, Jacob.  Each of us selects
different aspects of the text to bring to bear on the passages
we hope to "interpret."  But the connections that some critics
make stand up better than those that others choose to make.
Otherwise you've got complete anarchy.  The text is whatever
any reader wants it to be.  If that's true, then I've been in
the wrong business.  If they allow me into heaven, it'll be
based on all the freshman comp I've taught.

==Dan
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