Plato's emotions

I’d like to try to discuss Plato’s views in a way that might appeal to more people, in a way that allows some leeway for emotion while still honoring the importance of logic and reason in society. Plato does allow that emotions exist but that we should take emotions them and instead of acting out based on only our emotion, we should use logic and reason to channel our emotions to create something constructive that leads to truth. He argues that art will often write the emotion and create an emotional response in a reader, but this is not healthy because it doesn’t lead to logic and reason. “It feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.” *Controlled* not repressed, as we talked about in class today.

This perhaps can make more sense if put into an example. Let’s say a person is very angry and he writes a poem about how angry he is. Other people read this poem and respond such that they are angry as well about this situation though they perhaps weren’t angry before. Or, maybe you're angry and you listen to an angry song, does it make you feel better? Sometimes, yes, but oftentimes don't you just end up wallowing in the emotion? This is not constructive. Anger will only perpetuate more anger if reason and logic are not called upon – the emotions will build up too much and we will not be able to understand why we have these emotions. The angrier we get, the less rational our thought becomes. However, if we have the emotion of anger and then use our logic and reason to understand why we are angry, then the anger can often dissipate through the understanding of how we came to that emotion – perhaps not at first but eventually. We change our view to something that is constructive. Thus, emotions (even those destructive ones) can be constructive if logic and reason are employed to lead one to a deeper understanding and truth.

ars poetica, Freud style

We have clearly moved away from deconstruction in class, even though some of those questions still persist, especially in our current readings. Freud, in his essay about creative writers, states that "a creative writer presents his plays to us or tells us what we are inclined to take to be his personal daydreams" where we are left to feel "a great pleasure" from the "confluence of many sources." Is "ars poetica" here really a secret? If we all opened up our egos to the world, we'd be the next Hemingways, Prousts, Tolstoys? Or is "creative writing" just one in an infinate number of outlets of sickened daydreamers? Maybe we are all creative "writers" in this way, in our own little centers of supposed human experience, each individual dream its own center in the "terrifying form of monstrosity"!

Post-Structuralism Destructs

According to Derrida as I understand him (which admittedly may be little) and our conclusions in class on Monday, fairy tales do not exist except as something that people (writers, readers, critics etc…) created. I asked Professor Chapman” what then do those critics and writers who study / write fairy tales do if their subject matter doesn’t exist? He answered, “I think Derrida would say they are doing the best they can with metaphysical concepts.” If I may take that previous question a little farther if fairy tales don’t exist because “the center is not the center”—who’s to say that “romance” exists? Or “drama?” Or any other genre / aspect of literature? Post-structuralism seems a little disconcerting in my view. How can deconstructionism hold itself up if it is arguing that everything unravels itself?

Emily F.

Decisions, decisions

A subject that keeps coming up, but we never really discuss is how sometimes literary theories come into conflict with each other. Individually, the theories all make sense, but when viewed together, some things just don't work. How do we reconcile these differences? Should we make some sort of hierarchy of theory? Should we view each theory in a vacuum?

History and literature

I'm not sure how many people came to the keynote speaker at the Muse conference this weekend, but I think I saw a few people from our class there. To briefly summarize the talk, the speaker read a paper on domesticity as it was related to the Merry Wives of Windsor. She studied this topic by researching recipe books of the era. Toward the end of her speech she began to talk about her work as New Historicism writing. She talked about the differences of opinion throughout history and said that there were just as many debates and differences of opinion as there are today. After events or eras pass by, people try to consolidate and make sense of what happened. They try to find answers and come to coherent ideas because they have the benefit of hindsight. In this way, can we understand history better than present day? Or since we are living today, in the now, do we understand better what is going on because we are living it? History, in these ways, seems related to literature. All literature is creating some sort of history of its own, a fictional history. To add to the complexity, many texts are influenced by actual history as related to the events of that time and the personal history of the author. Does that make literature more complex than just 'history'?

Undecidability

Friday in class we discussed the idea of "undecidability" in post-structuralism, particularly referring to Requelme's article. I wanted to know what everyone thought about this. Before discussing post-structuralism, on multiple occasions people have expressed the opinion that there is not a right answer or interpretation, that there can be multiple interpretations. Do you think this is the same idea expressed in post-structuralism? Our class seemed to end on the decision that "undecidability" implies that one interpretation can't be picked over another, that the reader reaches a point at which a decision can't be made. Does everyone agree? Is it possible to see ambiguity and yet still choose one interpretation over another?

Authorial Intent

I have lately been struggling a lot with what my exact views are pertaining to authorial intent. In viewing the other discussions on this blog so far, I was surprised that no one has yet talked about authorial intent seeing as it comes up in class quite often. Today, we were discussing the Joyce article and New Historicism and whether we thought that what author writes is intended or not. Many difficult questions came up in class in a very short time. For example, are selves entirely unified? If not (the conclusion that we seemed to come to in class), does this mean that what an author writes is also not unified? How much of what an author writes is intended and, leading from this, how much does authorial intent matter?

Before this class, I used to place a very high importance on authorial intent when analyzing literature. But now I am not so sure. For one thing, how do we know that information compiled about an author is true? What if we are given false information given by, say a neighbor of the author, and the neighbor just told false things about the author just to be in the news? Unless we were there while the author was writing a piece of literature, how can we truly know that the context that we are told that the literature was written in is really true? Ought we then to rely solely on the text and only what we think that the author is trying to say in it? On the other hand, everything that an author writes about is from their own personal experience and, if we know about, say the death of a family member of the author, this might have a huge impact on that person’s writing and I firmly believe that this is very central in understanding the author’s work.

Is anyone else confused or does anyone else have any “words of wisdom” as to how they determine how much value to attach to authorial intent? Sorry for the long post!

~ Kristen

Readers Make Meanings

Fish argues that “readers make meanings…and meanings make readers [because of socially constructed communities]” I am willing to agree that part of how we interpret a text emerges from the environment and social forces that continually change and evolve around and through us. If we are all part of various interpretive communities, it stands to reason large numbers can agree to certain interpretations of a text like James Joyce’s short stories tend to reflect the socio-political situation in Ireland.

However, no two people are part of exactly the same communities to the same involvement and extent. Because of this difference, there will always be part of us that is original and unlike any others. Fish is partially mistaken when he says “the self…is a social construct.” We are all social constructs to a certain extent but not completely. I refuse to believe that the only reason humans think the way they do is because of society’s standards—that seems like conceding too much control to something far larger and more capricious than the individual.

Opinions? Arguments?

Emily Franzen

Fish and "the self"

Fish's explanation of "self" in terms of interpreting texts just really rubbed me the wrong way. I want to know, what did everyone else think?

Fish basically argues that there is no independent self, because the self is a social construct that "does not exist apart from the communal or conventional categories of thought that enable its operations..." (Fish, 1029). He goes on to say that consequently, any meaning that an individual derives from a text is really just a result of the community, not the individual.

Now, I can't fault Fish for saying that people are greatly influenced by the society and/or communities that they are a part of. I think it would be hard to argue that everyone is completely independent. However, there is just something about his claims that really bugs me. Does that imply that there is no real self? That there is no individuality and everyone within a larger community will extract the same meaning from a particular text? How does he account for the differences in interpretations between fairly similar people- to the point that sometimes its hard to keep in mind that everyone even read the same thing?

I could keep going with questions, but I want to hear what everyone thinks, and if someone has a way to explain Fish in a way that doesn't bother me so much!

Reader-Response Theory

I have two questions that pertain to the Richter reading about Reader-Response Theory. In the section entitled "The Psychology and Sociology of the Audience," Richter explains the position of Louise Rosenblatt by saying, in the most basic of terms, that each reader brings something different to the text. Rosenblatt touches on something we talked about in class the other day: each reading of a text will be different because we are slightly different every time we read a text. This is a good point, just as his advice not to project anything onto the text. What I wonder, though, is if it is possible to have an "undistorted" view of a text? Is it possible to recognize our biases and curb them to get a totally unbias reading?

Secondly, I just want to hear the opinions of others on David Bleich's theory. He claims that our social setting plays a part in our interpretation, or our vocalized interpretation, of a text. Bleich says that readers will keep quiet those things that are irrelevant to others and the aim of the class. I do not know if this is necessarily true because I think most people would agree that they have used the "But that is what I get from the text" excuse at one point in time, especially in the case that others do not agree. What are your thoughts?

Analyzing Characters

Today in class we talked about how there are different things psychoanalytic critics can attempt to analyze, one of these being the characters. There was some discussion about whether or not characters can be analyzed, and whether or not when we do analyze them, we're really analyzing the author.
i have mixed feelings about this. i do definitely think characters can and should be analyzed; that not everything has to come back to the author. but at the same time, i don't know that authors always intend for their characters to be analyzed in the ways we do, especially authors who don't subscribe to psychoanalysis. To me though, this doesn't necessarily mean that analysis of characters is "wrong." If a critic believes that their school of thought actually can be used to understand and interpret the actions of people in the real world, then i feel that they can interpret characters' actions in the same way, without having to consider the author.
any thoughts?

-Amy

Terms and Theory

Something that continues to come up in class is people either asking or arguing “Well, then what is the true meaning of _______?” We have had this discussion about the terms theory, theme, structure, symbolism, etc. It seems to be an emerging pattern—particularly in the two class periods we spent on Brook’s Irony as a Principal of Structure. Sure, we seemed to come to a general conclusion about what Brooks determined to be the meanings of the terms “irony” and “structure” and their interdependence in a literary aspect. But, just because we believe that we have found what Brooks thinks these terms mean, do we really believe this to be the true meanings of the terms universally? Well, of course not.

So what I wonder is, what are we seeking when we theorize the meanings of these basic literary terms that are the foundation on which most literary theory is based? Do we seek a true meaning (if anyone believes that one can actually be found) or a common understanding of the terms in general or for each theorist we happen to analyze?

preconceived ideas

Emily asks, "who’s to say preconceived ideas are a bad thing? These ideas make up who we are, and can make a text more meaningful."

This makes sense to me; it would surely be impossible to come to a text with NO relevant preconceived ideas, and if we did, we would presumably be so stumped by the text that it would essentially meaningless.

But it's easy to imagine preconceived ideas which do interfere with a reasonable interpretation. I'm reminded of the Kit Ramsay character (played by Eddie Murphy) in _Bowfinger_, who counts the number of Ks in scripts; if the total number is divisible by 3, then that's a sign that the script is racist (because the script contains lots of KKKs).

So what counts as a "legitimate" preconceived idea to bring to a text, and what counts as an illegitimate one?

Wes

Barry Theories

I agree with what a few people said in class: "Text contains meaning within itself." There are aspects out of just the text that need to be analyzed. James Joyce's "The Dead" wouldn't have the same, deep impacts (albeit perhaps different reactions) from readers if we did not have the socio-political element. There's more to study than just the text. No writer is completely free from their environments or their society. Not even Thoreau.

Now, I have a question.

Professor Chapman talked a lot about text having "the same meaning" when it was written as it does today. Why do they need to have the "same" meaning? Isn't that it has meaning enough? Even in the time period texts were written in, they would have garnered varying meanings from varying readers. But perhaps that's oversimplifying it.

What do you think?

~Emily~

some questions

You're welcome to write about anything you want, of course, but if you're stuck for a topic, here's one we could start with.

In class today we talked about some of Barry's "ten tenets for liberal humanism" (17-20). There's plenty more to be said about those--go for it! Or you might share your thoughts on one of Barry's five "recurring ideas in critical theory" (34-36) if you want to take on the other side.

Wes Chapman