by myownsatellite » 11/4/2007, 10:19 pm
Like Sarah said - you need to study all sorts of criticisms and then form your own argument out of it. An opinion and a criticism are two different things. I'm studying to be a literature professor, and I'm going to school right now for an MA. Soon I'll be working on a PhD. If someone has a PhD, it means that person has spent years and years studying just about everything out there on a certain subject. Mine is science fiction and fantasy, two of the most "unscholarly" genres out there. At least to the critics. Not once did I put down King or say that he's not worth reading. In fact, I'm attempting to open up the "canon" of literature that is taught in schools. Just because the literature isn't 100 years old doesn't make it bad. I agree with you guys. What I think you might have misread is that I love the old work too, and spend a lot of time on literary criticism of the older work since that's what's out there for me to read. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute to more modern criticism in the future.
So because I've read a ton of criticism and formed my own argument, everyone else's arguments are out the window? I don't think so. Interpretation, Representation and the Author are three loaded terms that, if you're going to study literature and the criticism of literature, you really need to familiarize yourself with. I'm not trying to come off as a smarty pants here because even I don't understand all the implications these terms have on the study of literature yet. But you can't just say that one person is right and everyone else is wrong - when you are interpreting a work of literature you are doing it through specific formulas and philosophies. I have a professor who is a huge Chaucer scholar. It seems like he knows everything there is to know about the man. But he knows the criticisms - he read it, he studied it, he internalized it, and he formed his own opinion. He leaves it open-ended for the class, just like the author did. We can never truly know authorial intentions, and therefore what else are we to do but analyze according to our own structures?
I feel like we're arguing about two totally different things here. I said I'm not a fan of Stephen King, but that doesn't mean I don't think he should be read. He may not be scholarly, but he is a good writer. I can't read him because I'm not a horror person and he freaks me out. That's the sign of a good writer, isn't it? If you want change, you have to make it yourself. That's what I'm trying to do. Why does it feel like you're both saying that literary criticism is a bad thing? How else are we supposed to talk about literature? "Oh, that book was awesome, I loved the characters!" Or "This is a book worth studying because its character development is very reminiscent of the time period." Personally, I prefer the latter. Getting in-depth with a piece of literature and analyzing all the possibilities is much more interesting than just reading it and saying "Wow, that was a good read." That is what criticism strives to do. It's not a bad thing. A lot of people prefer the "It's a good book" type of reading and that's fine. But that's not what literary critics are doing. And no Lando, when two PhD holders have differing opinions, it does not mean that one is right and the other is wrong. It means that both have studied the work and the criticisms surrounding the work, and have formed differing readings of the work. It's not normally a matter of right and wrong when you are doing a close analysis of something - it's all a matter of interpretation.
~*Megan*~
"Wow, nice to meet you. Nine years huh? That's a really long time. Are you going to stab me or something? Because if you are, can we get it over with?" ~Jer
You are never stronger than when you land on the other side of despair. ~Zadie Smith, White Teeth