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