I guess what I would define as the opposite of reductionist literary criticism is the sort that tries to see why the whole is greater than its parts. ==Dan At 11:49 PM 7/23/00 -0500, you wrote: >Daniel Pearlman wrote: > >> I am afraid I do not agree with Carrol that all types of literary >> criticism are in effect reductionist. This is to define the word >> "reductionism" in such a way as to render it meaningless. In the >> same way, the word "political" is rendered meaningless by those >> naifs who subscribe to the doctrine that "everything is political." > >I think I have to agree pretty much with this disagreement. One does not want to >leach all meaning from the term "reductionist." Pending further thought, let me >tentatively suggest, howver, that most of the really interesting (and lasting) >literary commentaries tend to be reductionist. That attempts to be too broad run >into the sort of thing that Pound skewers nicely in Canto 28: > > And Mr Lourpee sat on the floor of the pension dining-room > Or perhaps it was in the alcove > And about him lay a great mass of pastells, > That is, stubbs and broken pencils of pastelll, > In pale indeterminate colours. > And he admired the Sage of Concord > "To broad ever to make up his mind." >........................................................................... .............. > > . . .and il Gran Maestro > Mr Lizst had come to the home of her parents > And taken her on his prevalent knee and > She held that a sonnet was a sonnet > And ought never to be destroyed, > And had taken a number of courses > And continued with hopes of degrees and > Ended in a Baptist learnery > Somewhere near the Rio Grande. > >After all, the *Cantos* take a pretty reductionist view of human history -- "With >usura the line grows thick" -- ridiculous, but without that "insight" (horribly >inaccurate and wonderfully fruitful) there would have been no poem, nor any of the >thousand topics the poem throws up for contemplation. Part of the ordinary >person's thinking is adopting to "actual" conditions the brilliant errors of >various reductionists. > >The physicists may or may not eventually come up with a TOE (Theory of EVerything) >that holds -- but if they do, it will be both a powerful reduction, *and* a >pointer to huge realms of undiscovered material which will both "explained" and >not explained at all by the TOE. > >Carrol > >P.S. "I am afraid I do not agree with Carrol" -- Why afraid, I'm a fairly harmless >character. :-) > HOME: Dan Pearlman 102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 Providence, RI 02906 Tel.: 401 453-3027 email: [log in to unmask] Fax: (253) 681-8518 http://www.uri.edu/artsci/english/clf/ OFFICE Department of English University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Tel.: 401 874-4659