Just practicing to see what I can get done in ten minutes.

[glover7]

This clearly isn't a formal essay. I'm just testing myself to see what ideas I can get on paper in ten minutes. Comments or criticisms welcome, as always.


Georges Poulet, in a famous essay on reading, describes for us a text that lives its own life beyond the thoughts of the reader. In his Phenomenology, the test is a conduit of immortality through words and shared consciousness. For Poulet, the text exerts. This exertion is the point of critical importance. After all, many works have dealt, though perhaps to only a mere trifling, with the idea of textual immortality. Any drama film doyenne can relate the immutable control that a legacy has over the masculine mind. It is here, then, at the point of exertion that we must rest our eyes. In this, the resting of the eyes and also of the mind, Poulet’s accuracy is striking.

I have mentioned the resting of the eyes simply as an indication that the writer now may take the initiative of control. The reader may relax, set loose its consciousness and continue to skim the lines. This grants the control. In any writing that intends to engage, there must be that tension. The figurative cord is on one end the reader’s granting of consciousness and on the other is the writer’s exerting control. This cord is a crucial element for a piece of writing. Without such a tension, the cord is left slack, neither end achieving its purpose for the interaction. Yet one must yield to the implicit conclusion: I assume a purpose for writing.

Though unlikely, it is possible that writing assumes no purpose. More specifically, a piece of writing may assume no intention of being read, that it may not intend to pervade the consciousness of the reader. A diary entry, for instance, may hold no intent except as a record or a cathartic exercise. Can one then define the physiognomy of literature by this description? A work is literary if it intends to invade. Ignoring the metaphorically penetrative implications of such a definition, one may say that the spirit of literature is tantamount to the doctrine of manifest destiny. One must conquer all boundaries of the intellect so fully that no resistance can ever emerge.

Of course, I do not posit this as the, or indeed as any, definition of literature. I cannot do what millions of others have failed in doing without resorting to the discursive offerings of success. What I can do is offer an inversion of the invasive relationship. The video game offers an avatar and an amorphous identity; instead of consciousness, it offers embodiment. How does one define even the most popular avatar of all video games? Mario is a plumber with a mustache. Any description beyond that is impossible to establish concretely. Here, then, is our vessel. The act of consciousness no longer belongs to the book and the unattached mind.

[DickZ]

Maybe I'm not the best one to comment on this, because I can't even understand what it is you're trying to say. I don't really get the meaning of thoughts such as the text exerts or a work is literary if it intends to invade. For simple folks such as myself, it might be helpful if you explained what it is that text exerts, or what it means for a literary work to invade.

Otherwise, we'll tend to think this is just a bunch of fancy words that don't say anything, and we'll figure that you're just aiming to hit some arbitrary word count target.

[LMK]

Are your comments, glover7, written in the style of Georges Poulet's essay? I ask this because I do agree with DickZ that the language is a bit over the top for a ten minute test of a review on an essay.

I don't often read what others say about reading, as in my opinion it is between the author and me. As an aside, I do not read the inside flap or reviews of a book either at all or until after I’ve finished the work.

The exception to discussion would be a book club where people have agreed to read and then give their insights and opinions of a specific work.

However to think one can write about reading is a bit of an oxymoron to me. To write about reading in the most general of terms and then turn it around to write about the writer is, to me, odd. I have no intention of reading Mr. Poulet’s work, if this is an introduction to what one might expect. (This is why I do not read flaps and reviews, it ruins it for me, and there is so much out there to read, I expect I’ll not be missing too much.)

[Cunninglinguist]

In general I like what this work aims at, i.e. a definition of literature and how a critic (or anyone) ought to read a work in order to get the most out of it.

The text exerts. The text exerts her intended meaning, which the author bestowed. Yet the text seems to never be perfectly interpreted, as we all assign different meanings and definitions to each word. The job of the critic is to find this intention by casting his personal definitions aside (set loose his consciousness) and attempt to inherit the author's. In this sense, Poulet argued that letters, journals, etc. held as much pertinent information as the immediate work being interpreted, as all of these types of writings hold valuable insights about the author’s character (consciousness or cogito, in Poulet’s terminology).

I do not like the word “tension” in the second paragraph; my conviction is that “flow” is a much more apt word. There is a flow of ideas between the reader and the writer. When the reader has a dearth of hermeneutic facilities (a closed mind) this flow is stopped. While the metaphor of tension (i.e. tension caused by the disparity between the “consciousness” of the reader and the writer) can work, the metaphor of flowing suggests an explanation more tenable to a majority of readers, in my opinion.

One issue with Poulet that I have is that his theory totally voids the role of the reader in creating meaning. That is to say, his work implies a denunciation of abstractionism. Perhaps the author intends to set a stage where the reader can entertain his own ideas as opposed to just receiving the author’s? Do abstract works like this which beckons the observer to confer her own meaning not fall into the category of literature? Not to Poulet.

In terms of form this piece needs some cleaning up. It needs clearer, more articulate explanations. Some of the prolixity can be winnowed out, though this is not necessary. Prolixity does not necessarily make your work pretentious, though when you start to sacrifice things like structure for prolixity it tends to become a symptom of pretention. Also, when it is just downright superfluous it tends to damage the level of accessibility (I think that has happened here) and one might choose to forgo it for that reason. Although if you're targeting a more educated demographic prolixity can serve as a great vehicle for puns and the like.

[glover7]

Maybe I'm not the best one to comment on this, because I can't even understand what it is you're trying to say. I don't really get the meaning of thoughts such as the text exerts or a work is literary if it intends to invade. For simple folks such as myself, it might be helpful if you explained what it is that text exerts, or what it means for a literary work to invade.

Otherwise, we'll tend to think this is just a bunch of fancy words that don't say anything, and we'll figure that you're just aiming to hit some arbitrary word count target.

Well, when I say that the text exerts, I'm referencing something that Poulet says in his essay about a text's implanting in a reader the author's consciousness. This is also what I'm talking about when I say that the text (or rather, the consciousness within the text) invades the reader. I don't intend for "exert" or "invade" to acquire any special meaning. They are just the most practical words to use in this case. These terms have more to do with consciousness than anything.

In all, I wouldn't even call this a test response to an essay. I'd say it's more of a very simplified introduction to a much longer essay.


In general I like what this work aims at, i.e. a definition of literature and how a critic (or anyone) ought to read a work in order to get the most out of it.

The text exerts. The text exerts her intended meaning, which the author bestowed. Yet the text seems to never be perfectly interpreted, as we all assign different meanings and definitions to each word. The job of the critic is to find this intention by casting his personal definitions aside (set loose his consciousness) and attempt to inherit the author's. In this sense, Poulet argued that letters, journals, etc. held as much pertinent information as the immediate work being interpreted, as all of these types of writings hold valuable insights about the author’s character (consciousness or cogito, in Poulet’s terminology).

I do not like the word “tension” in the second paragraph; my conviction is that “flow” is a much more apt word. There is a flow of ideas between the reader and the writer. When the reader has a dearth of hermeneutic facilities (a closed mind) this flow is stopped. While the metaphor of tension (i.e. tension caused by the disparity between the “consciousness” of the reader and the writer) can work, the metaphor of flowing suggests an explanation more tenable to a majority of readers, in my opinion.

One issue with Poulet that I have is that his theory totally voids the role of the reader in creating meaning. That is to say, his work implies a denunciation of abstractionism. Perhaps the author intends to set a stage where the reader can entertain his own ideas as opposed to just receiving the author’s? Do abstract works like this which beckons the observer to confer her own meaning not fall into the category of literature? Not to Poulet.

In terms of form this piece needs some cleaning up. It needs clearer, more articulate explanations. Some of the prolixity can be winnowed out, though this is not necessary. Prolixity does not necessarily make your work pretentious, though when you start to sacrifice things like structure for prolixity it tends to become a symptom of pretention. Also, when it is just downright superfluous it tends to damage the level of accessibility (I think that has happened here) and one might choose to forgo it for that reason. Although if you're targeting a more educated demographic prolixity can serve as a great vehicle for puns and the like.

I do appreciate the advice. I'm mostly doing this as a way to remain accountable to my essaying. I would like to know where you find the structure is neglected in favor of any sort of abstruse language. One can only improve these things by identifying them.