Literary criticism-No Thanks I Have a Mind of My Own

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Literary criticism, at least in terms of schools (i.e feminism, Marxism, Fraudinism) is, for me, the antithesis of what true literature is about. It is really a whole lot of pretentious garbage. People who want to reduce complex works of literature to simple "Marxist" or "Psychoanalytic" paradigms are kind of like food critics who have no sense of taste-they have no imagination, no individualism, they only want to read books in a certain way, to fit in with whatever silly ideology or ism they propagate or believe in, or they want to identify the Oedipal complex of Mr. X or the Marxist connotations of Mr. X's trip to the supermarket. This is the worst (and most ironic form) of totalitarianism, mainly because most people don’t recognise it as being totalitarian. You know the line from Goethe, "None are more wholly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free".

For example, Marxist critics are in a perpetual rush to analyse the 'Marxist' tendencies of Gogol and Kafka, they don't really require any solid "proof" to back up their theories, as they figure their complete and utter literary insensitivity will prove them right. Never mind the fact that Gogol's and Kafka's worlds may have been critiques of power itself, of institutions, some of which weren't "capitalistic"-according to them every institution is capitalistic and that is that, a view as wrong at it banal.

Discuss....

[Lambert]

Literary criticism, at least in terms of schools (i.e feminism, Marxism, Fraudinism) is, for me, the antithesis of what true literature is about. It is really a whole lot of pretentious garbage. People who want to reduce complex works of literature to simple "Marxist" or "Psychoanalytic" paradigms are kind of like food critics who have no sense of taste-they have no imagination, no individualism, they only want to read books in a certain way, to fit in with whatever silly ideology or ism they propagate or believe in, or they want to identify the Oedipal complex of Mr. X or the Marxist connotations of Mr. X's trip to the supermarket. This is the worst (and most ironic form) of totalitarianism, mainly because most people don’t recognise it as being totalitarian. You know the line from Goethe, "None are more wholly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free".

For example, Marxist critics are in a perpetual rush to analyse the 'Marxist' tendencies of Gogol and Kafka, they don't really require any solid "proof" to back up their theories, as they figure their complete and utter literary insensitivity will prove them right. Never mind the fact that Gogol's and Kafka's worlds may have been critiques of power itself, of institutions, some of which weren't "capitalistic"-according to them every institution is capitalistic and that is that, a view as wrong at it banal.

Discuss....

What you're criticising is Literary Theory, not Literary Criticism.

[KyleBennett]

Literary criticism, at least in terms of schools (i.e feminism, Marxism, Fraudinism) is, for me, the antithesis of what true literature is about. It is really a whole lot of pretentious garbage.

Discuss....

I disagree on some levels and agree on others.

I disagree...
Of course when a piece of literature is written the author is not, in my opinion don't try to embed these values into their work, unless they were Literary theorists themselves. An author and a theorist are completely different people, both are arts in themselves. One makes the literature, the other tries to deduce a meaning from it. Whether it be a marxist/are whatever-ism, you should remember it is just a way of reading that certain literature. These ways of reading aren't set in concrete, the reader themselves have to pick and choose from these certain theories.. I believe they theories are created as a form of help to the reader.

I agree... that some theorists go a bit far in their theories and are thence seen as being pretentious, but this ostentatiousness is found in all art forms, one should sift through the big headed tripe and find the stuff that has the meaning without trying to be up their own works.

[Kafka's Crow]

Best theorists (Umberto Eco and Jaques Derrida in my books) assert nothing and negate nothing. They preach open-mindedness and a continuous critical appraisal of situations and texts. This is what Derrida calls the future anterior, a future that is never quite there, a conclusion which is not quite reached but is always consciously and meticulously judged, assessed and re-assessed because conclusions have significant consequences. What was right a moment ago can be very wrong now because of the change in temporal locus. What is needed is an open-minded and continuous struggle to get the best out of every situation and a continuous 'rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

Apart from the psychoanalysts and the Marxists, I have special hatred for feminists as well. How could you put one closed formula to appropriate something as protein and dynamic as a work of art?