difficult literature

[cacian]

Why do writers write complicated difficult unreadable literature?
What is their point?
Maybe there are hidden messages awaiting to erupt and it is up to the reader to detect before they do so.

[blazeofglory]

This is what i have always been thinking. In the name,of stylistic grandeur or something called experiment,some writers eccentrically or arrogantly writing difficult books. In fact we do not get anything out of those comlicated books. There are only shallow ideas, not anything profound or telling found in such books. Even in the domain of poetry people critics tirelessly commend intricate poems. In fact a good poem does the justice of expressing a particular mood one is in with an intellecutal air blended with the fire of passion.

[cacian]

Hi blazeofglory
Stylistic grandeur in writing seems pointless if the message does not get through.
I am not sure however whether it is arrogance or something else.
I often think if I had met a writer whose work is not easy access would they actually sound the same as they write.
There is an elegance about an eloquent writer who expresses himself or herself as brilliantly as they write.
I am not sure Shakespeare wrote the way he or she spoke but I somehow doubt it.

[dark desire]

Currently reading A tale of a Tub by Swift. I am understanding only like 30-40% of it but whatever I am getting, it is fascinating and interesting. I could never have imagined that way back in the 18th century someone would have created such a sharp invective on christianity and critics. I am not understanding much but I am having a fantastic ride out of whatever I am getting.

On a side note, I hate people who use the word 'dense' for texts. It is their heads that are dense and not the texts themselves. Many in my class do that.

[PeterL]

That a particular reader finds a paricular text difficult doesn't necessarily mean anything else. Some of the texts that are seen as difficult by one person are considered easy by another. The one who mentioned "A Tale of a Tub" is a case in point. That pirece is one of the most straightforward that Swift wrote; the language, structure, verbiahe, etc. are standard English. On the other hand, James Joyce wrote Finnigans Wake because he could, rather than writing it for the benefit of others. If one does not understand that; that's fine.

[blazeofglory]

The question is literary standard. It is not necessary for a piece of literature to be difficult to be standard. This is an illusion only. A great piece of art can be great by being overly simple. Dostabsky, Tolstoy are some of the great writers, doubtless though they are not incomprehensible to any readers.

[Delta40]

That would depend on the reader.

[Charles Darnay]

Hi blazeofglory
Stylistic grandeur in writing seems pointless if the message does not get through.

A very strange statement coming from you.

But I agree with Peter: just because a reader (or even large group of readers) find it difficult, does not make it so. I would say, aside from a few unsuccessful OULIPO writers, writers do not write with the intention of writing a difficult book (I suppose you are thinking of Finnegan's Wake). There is a strict structure of meaning to such a book, even if it is not laid bare.

[blazeofglory]

That would depend on the reader.

You are right. Yo a great extent it would depend on the reader only.

[Delta40]

If a work of literature challenges someone and 'does their head in' they may throw it down in disgust and say it is incomprehensible or too difficult to read without implicating themselves at all!

[stlukesguild]

Why do writers write complicated difficult unreadable literature?
What is their point?
Maybe there are hidden messages awaiting to erupt and it is up to the reader to detect before they do so.

Who defines complicated, "unreadable" literature? Are we to assume that because you or blazeofglory find a work of literature difficult or even "unreadable" that the author was clearly arrogant and the ideas shallow? Perhaps the reverse is true. Perhaps the reader who assumes that because he or she struggles with a book that it must be poorly written and shallow is himself/herself the arrogant one who cannot see beyond the shallow, simply worded ideas.

It seems logical to me that most writers write for an audience that they imagine as being not unlike themselves. James Joyce, quite likely, wrote for an audience that shared his profound grasp of literature and his passion for language and wordplay. Shakespeare (Forsooth!) wrote for an audience that used an English quite different from that which we know and use everyday. It seems the height of arrogance to assume that because you as a reader may not be among the audience that Joyce wrote for that as a result his works are themselves arrogant, shallow, and unreadable.

"I don't 'get it'. It's difficult to grasp. Thus it must be bad." Is that what the whole argument here is?

As for the notion that good writing should be akin to the spoken language... that is pure nonsense. None of us writing here speaks the same as we write. In writing we are afforded the luxury of thinking about or choice of words...editing a turn of phrase until it reads better... pausing until we can formulate just how to best express that which we wish to express (I've done that a couple of times now... as you can see by the "Last edited..."). Shakespeare quite likely did not speak in the manner that his characters spoke in his plays any more than any other writer... outside of the most mundane and boring... speaks in the same manner in which he or she writes.

[MorpheusSandman]

You're asking a broad, generalized, reductive question about a broad, generalized, but diverse group of authors and works; what possible all-encompassing answer would you expect, or, better yet, what kind of answer could there be? Texts are difficult for a variety of reasons, some contextual, some formal, some linguistic, some cognitive, and it's impossible to summarize such diversity. Plus, the difficulty of texts is really a reflection more of readers than writers. Writers usually know what they're talking about when they write something, and readers may or may not share their same frame of reference. Plus, writers also like to try new things, experiment, create works of linguistic art that haven't been experienced before. When artists are original and innovative, it's often difficult to grasp what they're doing because audiences aren't expecting it, they don't have the necessary knowledge. But the unfamiliar always becomes familiar in time; nobody would even blink if you played The Rite of Spring today, yet it was so radical in the early 20th century it nearly caused a riot. Similar with The Waste Land; as difficult as it is on its own, once you read an annotated edition explaining the allusions, most of the difficult dissipated dramatically. But let's look at a random list of "difficult" authors:

Shakespeare wasn't difficult to contemporary audiences; he's difficult to us today because the language has changed so much and we've become spoiled and lazy only expecting the most common, idiomatic language in our mainstream literature. Blake was/is difficult because he was crafting his own allegorical mythology and he expects his readers to keep up with what his characters and places "mean" on a symbolic level. Joyce was/is difficult because he wanted to create a melting pot of language and to reflect the workings of the unconscious. Faulkner can be difficult because of his formal experimentation. Donne because of his compressed syntax and elaborate metaphors and thoughts. Philosophers like Heidegger are difficult because they're trying to express in language things we only have a very vague understanding of to begin with (being and time). Milton is difficult because he wanted to find the formal and linguistic equivalent in English to Virgil's epic language in Latin. Eliot is difficult because of his wealth of allusions and tendency to change speaker, location, etc. at will. Pound is difficult for similar reasons, plus throw in ideograms. Ashbery is difficult because surrealism tends towards obscuring common sense to begin with. Wallace Stevens is difficult because of his combination of sense and philosophy, how they collide and separate.

Are we really going to throw all of these authors under the bus because some/many people have trouble getting them? Are they really "pretentious," or do most average readers simply lack the knowledge and intelligence and open-mindedness to appreciate them? Do they take a few glances at the text, blame the writer for being "difficult," and then give up because they're too lazy to put any work in themselves? Most audiences want to be catered to, not challenged, and the best art tends to challenge people on some level. Even popular entertainers like Shakespeare, or Hitchcock in another medium and another century, always leave nagging feelings of things left unresolved in their work... that feeling that, however easy their work is to "get" on a superficial level, there's something much more relevant under the surface that you didn't get. I guess the best thing I could close on is a wonderful quote by Stephen Fry: "(It's) so much easier to say that everything you fail to understand is pretentious than it is to learn to discriminate between the authentic and the fraudulent." (The Ode Less Travelled, pg. 178).

:lol: It seems St. Luke ninja'd me and said nearly the exact same thing I did in fewer words.

[stlukesguild]

It seems St. Luke ninja'd me and said nearly the exact same thing I did in fewer words.

We'll have to make a note of that. It's usually me who is the verbose one.:lol:

[mal4mac]

James Joyce, quite likely, wrote for an audience that shared his profound grasp of literature and his passion for language and wordplay.

Maybe, maybe not. He's on record as saying, with glee, that he thought Ulysses would baffle scholars for a hundred years. So maybe he was, mostly, aiming to baffle an audience that pretended to a profound grasp of literature.


... the difficulty of texts is really a reflection more of readers than writers. Writers usually know what they're talking about when they write something, and readers may or may not share their same frame of reference.

Writers might be trying to do something that is against the reader, or against most readers. Like Joyce trying to baffle scholars, or snobbish modernists trying to baffle the common reader. Some great writers have spoken out against these kinds of lesser writers - Tolstoy, for instance. Also some modern critics, like John Carey, have taken a similar stance.



Plus, writers also like to try new things, experiment, create works of linguistic art that haven't been experienced before. When artists are original and innovative, it's often difficult to grasp what they're doing because audiences aren't expecting it, they don't have the necessary knowledge.


Such knowledge is incredibly difficult to obtain unless you access to the libraries of Bloomsbury. The best writers (Tolstoy, Dickens, Shakespeare ) think of their audience (i.e., the World) and write in a fashion that they can understand. Lesser writers play academic games to keep themselves amused, and that allow them to think they are better than everyone else.



Are we really going to throw all of these authors under the bus because some/many people have trouble getting them?


I've thrown Joyce, Heidegger, Proust under my bus, you can throw who you want under yours. We each have our own busses.




Are they really "pretentious," or do most average readers simply lack the knowledge and intelligence and open-mindedness to appreciate them?


In my bus station, they are really "pretentious," and the average reader, who is mostly knowledgeable, intelligent and open-minded also has the common sense to avoid them. Scholars think they have to struggle with them (hear Joyce laughing in heaven!)



Do they take a few glances at the text, blame the writer for being "difficult," and then give up because they're too lazy to put any work in themselves?


I gave them all a serious "go". Most average readers have more common sense than me.



Most audiences want to be catered to, not challenged, and the best art tends to challenge people on some level. Even popular entertainers like Shakespeare, or Hitchcock in another medium and another century, always leave nagging feelings of things left unresolved in their work...

I've no problem with that, and I don't think the average reader has any problem with that.

[E.A Rumfield]

Not for nothing but people have a tendency to assign meaning to something meaningless because it is offensive for something to mean nothing. We've all heard these people talking about how something in something is a symbol for something. Well unless the allusion is taken directly from something it might as well just be exactly what it is. I think the problem is the audience not the artist. I think Knut Hamsun said the artists job was to pose questions not answer them. Instead of being left pondering people always want the truth, very similar to religion. We never consider that the artist was trying to portray something different or was maybe taking you for the fool that you are.

[Lykren]

EA: Chekhov said that about artists, not Hamsun. If I recall correctly.

Anyways - it seems some members (mal4mac) think the ideas of struggle and pleasure are mutually exclusive. I struggled very much with Ulysses, but the mere memory of reading that text fills me with pleasure.

[hawthorns]

Why do writers write complicated difficult unreadable literature?
What is their point?
Maybe there are hidden messages awaiting to erupt and it is up to the reader to detect before they do so.

I'm late to the party, but I'll give it a go:

Because for many of us, 'complicated' and 'difficult' is what makes literature immensely pleasurable. Compare the sheet music of Justin Bieber to...say...Wagner. The former's simplicity nauseates on the first listen; the latter's complexity requires work but will eventually tear its listener's soul apart. If anything, I wish more contemporary authors were capable of pulling off multi-thematic, complicated works with the same artistry of literature's former masters.

Besides, what do you mean by "unreadable"?

[JCamilo]

Nah, you can say...

Why do women are so complicated difficult and unreachable?
What is their point?
Maybe there is hidden desires waiting to erupt and it is up for men to detect before they do so.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Interesting question, but for my money Stluke, yet again, (damn him...) takes the jackpot with his post and thus makes further postings somewhat redundant.

Never mind. Here's a picture of a sausage:
8495


(There's not 'deeper meaning' with the sausage image at all. For me and my small mind I just find it funny.)

Carry on...

[Delta40]

:iamwithstupid:

(On behalf of Mutatis and his supporters)

[stlukesguild]

:iagree:

Ditto. Sad loss.

[MorpheusSandman]

Writers might be trying to do something that is against the reader, or against most readers.Who cares, though? It's not like we're in short supply of artists (not just writers, but filmmakers, musical artists, painters, etc.) doing nothing but catering to the mass public by appealing to the lowest common denominator. The average person's sphere of knowledge is incredibly limited, and in order to appeal to that you basically have to exclude any words, themes, ideas, etc. that are beyond that sphere, and to do that is to inherently limit what the artist is capable of. While I'm of the mind that most of the best art actually manages to appeal to both sides--the common man AND the intellectual/academic--I think there is far more great art that only appeals to academics/intellectuals than there is great art that only appeals to the common man. Writers like Tolstoy and Shakespeare are rare in that they managed to bridge that gap, but don't be foolish in thinking that their lasting appeal is solely bound up in their popular appeal. Nothing that's popular lasts, and without intellectuals/academics being concerned with preserving their legacy, the masses would have no clue who Tolstoy or Shakespeare were today.


Such knowledge is incredibly difficult to obtain unless you access to the libraries of Bloomsbury.Such knowledge is incredibly easy to obtain if you have access to a computer, electronic reading devices, and maybe enough cash to buy various critical editions and studies. The Norton Critical Edition for The Waste Land goes for like $15--such a high price to pay for knowledge.


Lesser writers play academic games to keep themselves amused, and that allow them to think they are better than everyone else.I'll repost the Fry quote: "(It's) so much easier to say that everything you fail to understand is pretentious than it is to learn to discriminate between the authentic and the fraudulent." Here you are claiming to know the intentions of all difficult writers that "play academic games". Much easier to do that than actually try to obtain the knowledge to distinguish between them.


In my bus station, they are really "pretentious," and the average reader, who is mostly knowledgeable, intelligent and open-minded:rofl: So "pretentious" is completely bound up in your subjective evaluations, and average readers are "mostly knowledgeable" :rofl:, "intelligent" :rofl: :rofl: and "open-minded?" :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: These same average readers that would rather read Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey rather than go anywhere near Shakespeare and Tolstoy? :rofl:


Most average readers have more common sense than me.Aye, sir, it is common.


I don't think the average reader has any problem with that.You're wrong.

[JBI]

You all miss a big point. The post-modernist (using the term to refer to after modernism, not the movement necessarily) had for them, a model which put style and difficulty as a necessity almost. There are very few modernist works that are on the surface very accessible, and almost all the major figures wrote a few extremely difficult books. For instance, Faulkner, Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, easy, Absalom Absalom, difficult. Joyce, Dubliners, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, moderate to challenging, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, very difficult. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, relatively easy, The Waves, difficult.

With that in place, it actually turned out that the most difficult books tended to be the most critically acclaimed, Ulysses being the great monument. In terms of influence, authors grew up in this sense, where all the "difficult" and "new" could be seen as exhausted. Ulysses is very much the summary of the Classical tradition, and the great book of the English language. How does one follow such a book.

The answer is two-fold. You simplify, or you go beyond. For those who went beyond, generally the audience did not care anymore. The Post-WW2 world was different than the Post-WW1 world. So we needed a different kind of literature, naturally. The truly difficult have pretty much been ignored since the 50s. Gravity's Rainbow is a curiosity, and most people read The Crying of Lot 49 to get their taste of Pynchon. The Road and All the Pretty Horses are read more than Blood Meridian. The great Modernist novel did not translate well into the Great Post-Modernist novel. I suspect part of this is that the novel is a dying genre in terms of stylistic advances, and much of the innovation in English comes from the marginal playing with different genres. For instance, Autobiography of Red would be a classic example of the novel reduced to poetry, allegory, myth, etc. A great work in terms of melding genres.

But what happens to all the imitators of Modernist glory? They tend to be unreadable, because the point they are making is too clouded in their over-use of opaque language and form. Take for instance Post-Modern theorists, Derrida and onward, they progressively get more and more annoyingly difficult, missing the point that most of them are discussing minority voices, voices that would never be able to understand what they are saying without a very specific education in technical vocabulary, and a good professor who will guess and then translate.

It is not wrong to say authors are exausting the bounds of rational difficulty for no apparent reason. I wager if anybody read a single sentence by Homi Bhabha, not one person could tell me what the sentence means. A paragraph likewise would be difficult too. The same goes for Spivak, Butler, and a whole slew of them.That is difficulty for no real purpose, as the arguments are usually straightforward. Derrida in a sense can be summarized as, look at how things are built, and try to disassemble based on what has gone into them. Butler to, we are all performing, and the names we take are just limiting. You see now, I have basically done what they should have done. Used understandable language.

I see a point to difficulty, but I also realize there must be a point. Someone like Franzen in The Corrections makes a good joke on it, by having a character write a screen play which is exactly this, deliberate difficulty for no point.

[kelby_lake]

Pale File is structurally quite difficult.

[mal4mac]

Anyways - it seems some members (mal4mac) think the ideas of struggle and pleasure are mutually exclusive. I struggled very much with Ulysses, but the mere memory of reading that text fills me with pleasure.

No I don't, I struggled with Shakespeare, but reading most of his plays over a year is a fond memory. The same goes for other authors, like Dante & Homer. I just don't enjoy *too much* struggle. For me, Ulysses was too much of a struggle. For you, the struggle was worth it. People differ.

[mal4mac]

I think there is far more great art that only appeals to academics/intellectuals than there is great art that only appeals to the common man. Writers like Tolstoy and Shakespeare are rare in that they managed to bridge that gap, but don't be foolish in thinking that their lasting appeal is solely bound up in their popular appeal.

Well Tolstoy and Shakespeare *are* rare, standing above all other writer by the accounts of most academics (alongside two or three others, perhaps). But there are many "universal" writers of the second rank (where *you* might put Joyce & Proust). For instance, Dickens, George Eliot, Hardy, Lawrence, ... hundreds actually, more than enough for several lifetimes reading and re-reading.

[JCamilo]

I do not what you mean by no reason those authors are exausting boundaries. Since when it was not like that? It is nice to think Dante was just being nice when he abandoned latim, but well, he did it because he felt the language was exausted. So he just get a popular idiom and added layers of complexity. Do you wonder why he done it too? Cervantes pretty much felt the novela was exausted and did the Quixote. There is always boundaries that were flogged like horses so the horizon can be expanded. It is hardly new and certainly you can have many reasons. What was the point of Lewis Carroll to make Alice deliberately more difficulty? Did it make the book unreadable.

I also find hard to imagine Modernists as the unreadable model and their children doing the same. Joyce is certainly a model for some, but he is a rarity. Faulkner and Wolf another kind of model, but let's face it (Faulkner was even a best-selling author while alive), for each of them you have Hemingway, Gide, Borges, Kafka, Thomas Mann, Fitzgerald, etc who are all simple "readable writers", at least on the surface of the text. And after wars? Pychon is also a rarity, because McCarty is hardly so challenging. He is even simpler than Faulkner, his books - as much full of references, disgressions - are set in more chrnological order, he hardly have vocabulary complexity like the Joyce types. He is certainly "difficulty" but just like for each Byron there is a Blake or more while Poe was advocating the writting for masses, Melville (an author with many similarities with Poe) was writting things like Moby Dick of Billy Budd. And after the war you had Italo Calvino, Garcia Marquez, Roth, Nabokov and many others who are clearly following other models or chaging those models.

While I see no problem to think the novel is an exausted genre, the russians and flaubert probally are guilty of this, and Joyce pretty much was showing it to everyone, and the decadency of a genre usually means works of lesser quality, excess of references or denials of the model, you are just looking to the given works that exausted the genre, keep exausting and poiting it obviously. Any definite work exausts its possiblities, pretty much what classics do. They change the map, you must look to other directions, you must break the boundaries again. Until this new boundary is stabilished, all seems dead, pointless. What was Whitman doing anyways?

The problem is not the difficulty, obscurity, etc. There have been always those groups in any given time of literature. The problem is that any decadent period if made of steps on the dark. You just cannot tell if Pychon is the dead of a genre or a bridge.

Plus, really, seems like lately difficulty is your new USA. :D

[JCamilo]

Well Tolstoy and Shakespeare *are* rare, standing above all other writer by the accounts of most academics (alongside two or three others, perhaps). But there are many "universal" writers of the second rank (where *you* might put Joyce & Proust). For instance, Dickens, George Eliot, Hardy, Lawrence, ... hundreds actually, more than enough for several lifetimes reading and re-reading.

People are putting Tolstoy in a wagon where he does not belong. He was writing for an elite and was certainly not easy. War and Peace is a challenge of its time, it was pretty much one of the Everest back them, not only the size, but the overly details - specially compared to the kind of novels of the period (more simple, following a character or two, less detailed, humorous). Pushkin and Dostoievisky, specially this, are the popular writers, etc.

Latter Tolstoy, which fame was big no doubt, with the religious writting became basically a Paulo Coelho that one day wrote War and Peace. He gave up all difficulty from his early work and in a way, lost all that made him special being completely owned by Dostoieviksy and Tchekhov. Both could actually talk to the lower classes Tolstoy dreammed to talk, either middle class, students, poor people, talk about them and in the case of Tchekhov, be extremelly elaborate yet simple.

Even today War and Peace is one of those books for Curricullum Vitae. And people talking as if he is some dickens...

[cacian]

Not for nothing but people have a tendency to assign meaning to something meaningless because it is offensive for something to mean nothing. We've all heard these people talking about how something in something is a symbol for something. Well unless the allusion is taken directly from something it might as well just be exactly what it is. I think the problem is the audience not the artist. I think Knut Hamsun said the artists job was to pose questions not answer them. Instead of being left pondering people always want the truth, very similar to religion. We never consider that the artist was trying to portray something different or was maybe taking you for the fool that you are.

I did not think an artist had a job at all.
Art is a hobby and must not confounded with a job. It is not anyone art to question others on the contrary it is the artist role to signify and dignify.
I paint because I like it and if others like it then so be it. An an artist I wish to convey whatever is within me and if I have reached out to some others too well then that is even better.
Writing is different however because it involves others reading them too.
Looking at a painting is a different story.


I'm late to the party, but I'll give it a go:

Because for many of us, 'complicated' and 'difficult' is what makes literature immensely pleasurable. Compare the sheet music of Justin Bieber to...say...Wagner. The former's simplicity nauseates on the first listen; the latter's complexity requires work but will eventually tear its listener's soul apart. If anything, I wish more contemporary authors were capable of pulling off multi-thematic, complicated works with the same artistry of literature's former masters.

Besides, what do you mean by "unreadable"?

Hi hawthorns and thank you for posting.
I think what I meant by ''unreadable'' is that why write in one way and converse in a different way?
My aim as a writer is to look for ways to improve what I write and what I wish to write about. I am aware that reading is an enjoyable task practiced by many if not the majority and so I wish to write with this idea in mind.
Reading is fun and so should writing reflect this motive.
When I came across Dante it was not so much the language as much the actual topic handled. I could not make sense of most of it because it seems that a reality I live in does not fit in the actual format or ambiance of the poem. There was nothing in there that suggested a link between me my reality and the poem.
I soon realised that the poem was speaking one way and I was looking the other way.
I had no sense of direction in it because I could not see a reason to want to carry on trying to understand it.
In other words Dante did not speak to me and so I naturally turned away.
I like writing that reflects a time and a situation in which the reader in to sink in the words and the atmosphere. I mean that in order to enjoy and fully appreciate a story for what it is I need to feel that I am somehow implicated even if it is within a word or a sense or a meaning.
For reading to be fully successful it needs to link up with writing. That is how I understand reading.
I need an intellectual involvement within it for me to be interested.
It is like a momentum of story within a story within a story and so for every story I read there is a tiny little story there for me and another for someone else and so on.

[manuscript]

i dont think the novel is stylistically moribund. in that case we might as well say the same thing about verse form or dramatic form. it has always been about genre and that has always been exciting, i am reminded of Chaucer's Miller's Tale. thinking of Robinson Crusoe i am struck just as much by how much hasnt changed as how much has, all those excessive capitalisations and other extraneous and redundant grammatical rules everyone is so obsessed with conforming to, but furthermore how disruptive and upsetting to the entirety of the text Friday's playful mastery of the bear seems. reading Ovid's Metamorphoses i am struck by how selfreflexive it is and how modern that seems and reading a piece of greek drama i am considering the depiction of massive themes on a little human scale and thinking "so this is where it all began". perhaps the whole bloody and technological mess of the 20th century and its aftermath at least in the english speaking world has entailed an unusual degree of textual disruption. but it seems at least as meaningful to say that all of the achievements of the past have introduced so many more further possibilities as it does to say that so much has been achieved that no more can be achieved. literatures of other languages and cultures seem to be crossing boundaries and becoming accessible in ways that they have never done so before in history. we cant know at this time what the implications and final outcomes will be but it is an interesting time to be alive. and at this point other literary forms have arguably only been incompletely integrated into novel forms. and what about computer languages? style seems as varied as voice and voice seems as varied as individuality. i think human imagination seems as unlimited as human language development and it seems like there will always be more to do.

[cacian]

Why do writers write complicated difficult unreadable literature?
What is their point?
Maybe there are hidden messages awaiting to erupt and it is up to the reader to detect before they do so.

[QUOTE]Who defines complicated, "unreadable" literature? Are we to assume that because you or blazeofglory find a work of literature difficult or even "unreadable" that the author was clearly arrogant and the ideas shallow? Perhaps the reverse is true. Perhaps the reader who assumes that because he or she struggles with a book that it must be poorly written and shallow is himself/herself the arrogant one who cannot see beyond the shallow, simply worded ideas.

I did not speak of arrogance at all.
What I wanted to say is the reader is to be considered as part of reading and writing. If one is to write to then the reader needs to have a say on what he or she is given.
As a reader I am pointing out that there are some books who are not reader friendly.
I am naturally questioning because that is how I feel about it.


It seems logical to me that most writers write for an audience that they imagine as being not unlike themselves.

Imagine? how?
A writer lives within an environment and a time lap and so everything he or she writes are as a result of the reality that surrounds them.
To write is to imagine. But to also imagine on top of it a different audience is twice as hard.
What if the writer's imagination is wrong? what would be the point?


James Joyce, quite likely, wrote for an audience that shared his profound grasp of literature and his passion for language and wordplay.
A grasp of literature? Passion is through people and if the majority gain your understanding of your writing then that the only true passion. To write for a wider audience means the writer has a true grasp of his or her environment and shows understanding of people around him and her and and what makes them tick.
To write for all shows an even profound understanding of humanity and that is true passion. Language is passion when it manages to speak to everyone regardless of their grasp of literature.
Literature for it to be true literature needs to be read by the thousands of people.
The more readers the more literature thrives and the more closer literature and people become.
To write to alienate a majority to focus on a minority is for me pointless.
I write not for the minority for the minority is too minor in its opinions I write for the majority for the majority is more likely to give me and my sense of writing a major up beat.


QUOTE]Shakespeare (Forsooth!) wrote for an audience that used an English quite different from that which we know and use everyday. It seems the height of arrogance to assume that because you as a reader may not be among the audience that Joyce wrote for that as a result his works are themselves arrogant, shallow, and unreadable.

"I don't 'get it'. It's difficult to grasp. Thus it must be bad." Is that what the whole argument here is?
I am not arguing and I have not said anything about arrogance either.
I am putting forward a question that I think it is valid since this is about literature.
I think it is fair to question further things one does not understand.



As for the notion that good writing should be akin to the spoken language... that is pure nonsense. None of us writing here speaks the same as we write. In writing we are afforded the luxury of thinking about or choice of words...editing a turn of phrase until it reads better... pausing until we can formulate just how to best express that which we wish to express (I've done that a couple of times now... as you can see by the "Last edited..."). Shakespeare quite likely did not speak in the manner that his characters spoke in his plays any more than any other writer... outside of the most mundane and boring... speaks in the same manner in which he or she writes.
I don't know. Nonsense for you maybe but for me I find it interesting and quite intriguing that one can profuselfy write one way and behave in a totally different way.
Consistency is part of the whole literary science.
If as a reader I am to believe in your writing then exhibiting it by means of talking it too might just the job.
A writer's credibility is not just in his/her stories he or she writes it is also in the way he/she talks and is too.
Credibility is persona.
I talk the talk and walk the walk too.

[stlukesguild]

No I don't, I struggled with Shakespeare, but reading most of his plays over a year is a fond memory. The same goes for other authors, like Dante & Homer. I just don't enjoy *too much* struggle. For me, Ulysses was too much of a struggle. For you, the struggle was worth it. People differ.

Bingo! For you the struggle with Joyce, Proust, etc... wasn't compensated by a great enough payoff in terms of compensation. For others this is not true. But you took it further suggesting that as a result the writers who you failed to resonate with are just snobbish Modernists and lesser writers out to baffle the common reader. Come on! Do you really want to associate yourself with the "common reader"? Well then we should add Shakespeare and Dante and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and even Dickens... and surely the whole of poetry to your list of snobbish literature.

...really, seems like lately difficulty is your new USA.

:nod::iagree::hand::rofl::cheers2::patriot:

Seriously, the irony is that JBI's entire post is virtually as unreadable and esoteric as the authors he's railing against. Can we drop a few more names of obscure and wholly irrelevant critics and theorists... or at least critics and theorists wholly irrelevant outside of academia?

I was thinking Dante... as well as Lawrence Sterne, Milton, Blake's epics, and any number of other authors with regard to the notion that innovation and "difficulty" is something limited to Modernism and Post-Modernism. And really... is the whole of Modernism really that challenging? It's not like every writer of real merit is as difficult as Joyce' Finnegans Wake. Is Proust (surely Joyce equal) really that difficult (beyond the scale of the work... and is he really unique by that standard?)? What of Kafka? Hesse? Grass? Tennessee Williams? Arthur Miller? Camus? Octavio Paz? Garcia-Marquez? Calvino? Borges? Aldous Huxley? Saul Bellow? Philip Roth? Saul Bellow? Robert Graves? Dylan Thomas? Lolita?

[Lykren]

Looking at a painting is a different story.

Cacian - I don't understand. Why is painting so fundamentally different from writing?

[stlukesguild]

Cacian- I did not speak of arrogance at all. What I wanted to say is the reader is to be considered as part of reading and writing. If one is to write to then the reader needs to have a say...

The reader does have a say. They can decide whether the book or the author is for them or not. The author/artist in return has the choice of whether to pander to the opinions of the larger audience or to the audience that they imagine as sharing similar values and standards.

I am pointing out that there are some books who are not reader friendly.

Again... what books qualify as "reader friendly"? To the average high-school student or even average reader Shakespeare is far from being "reader friendly". To me the Harry Potter and Twilight novels are not "reader friendly"... not because they are difficult but because they bore the hell out of me... because they are laden with cliches... because they are poorly or mundanely written.

SLG (quote)- It seems logical to me that most writers write for an audience that they imagine as being not unlike themselves.

Imagine? how? A writer lives within an environment and a time lap and so everything he or she writes are as a result of the reality that surrounds them. To write is to imagine. But to also imagine on top of it a different audience is twice as hard.
What if the writer's imagination is wrong? what would be the point?

There are undoubtedly those writers who write to an audience based upon market research and demographics. I suspect they are few in number. Most writers/artists create first and foremost for themselves. As such, if they consciously consider their audience, they consider an audience that shares their interests, standards, and values. If Joyce is difficult it is because he was writing for an audience that like himself had a great grasp of literature, loved wordplay and linguistic games and puzzles and pushing the accepted limits of language, and were open to experimentation. How can the author's view of the audience be wrong... unless you imagine that the goal is reaching and entertaining the largest possible number which means pandering to the lowest common denominator?

SLG (quote)-James Joyce, quite likely, wrote for an audience that shared his profound grasp of literature and his passion for language and wordplay.

A grasp of literature? Passion is through people and if the majority gain your understanding of your writing then that the only true passion.

There is no "only true passion" regardless of your usual sweeping idealism. Almost all art depends upon the prior knowledge of the audience whether this prior knowledge is of history, "high culture", popular culture, current events, politics, or previous art. Homer's Iliad drops the reader into the middle of the Trojan War. He assumes that among the prior knowledge of his audience they know what the Trojan War was, they know who the various Gods are, they know who Achilles and Agamemnon and Paris are. Joyce, as a well-read author assumes that among the prior knowledge of his readers they are intimately acquainted with Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare, and any number of other writers.

To write for a wider audience means the writer has a true grasp of his or her environment and shows understanding of people around him and her and and what makes them tick.

Define "wider audience". Are you suggesting that E. L. James, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, or J.K. Rowling have a more profound grasp of their environment and deeper understanding of people than Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, etc...? Or are they simply better at offering a product that appeals to the largest numbers? I won't even touch upon the impact of commercial marketing.

To write for all shows an even profound understanding of humanity and that is true passion. Language is passion when it manages to speak to everyone regardless of their grasp of literature.

That's just pure BS. The vast majority... to put it simply... are ignorant. I was going to say "morons"... but that would only apply to perhaps 25%. The same 25% who still believe Obama is not a US citizen. Literature... reading are not important to the vast majority any more than advanced mathematics and physics are important to me. I am ignorant of advanced mathematics and physics and thus my opinions with regard to those subjects is irrelevant (as they should be). Of the literate population as a whole, few are passionate readers. According to the statistics gleaned from the US National Endowment of the Arts, slightly less than 50% of the population as a whole ever read anything that might be deemed as "literature" and only 60% have read any book at all over the past year. Only 12% ever read poetry and less than 4% have ever read a play. Now is this largely non-reading audience the one that you imagine represents a greater understanding of humanity? Perhaps. But then art isn't primarily about humanity... its about art. Every painter I know loves the elements of painting... of visual art. They love color and line and the sensuality of their medium of choice and they love art history. Their subject matter can be the most mundane things: a pile of apples, a group of bottles, a portrait of someone we don't know, etc... By the same token, it has been noted that Shakespeare's sonnets can be reduced to little more than "when I think of you, I feel blue". It is the mastery of language... the vocabulary, the turn of a phrase, the metaphor or other linguistic symbolism, the ability to tell a story or invent a character... not the profound understanding of human nature that matters. I don't turn to art to reveal humanity to me... I turn to art for the unique and powerful vision or voice of the artist.

Literature for it to be true literature needs to be read by the thousands of people.

So this wasn't art:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_decoration3_large.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=decoration3_large.jpg)

After all... the work was never created with the notion of an audience of hundred let alone thousands or millions.

Do you really believe that the size of the audience has anything whatsoever to do with the artistic merit?

The more readers the more literature thrives and the more closer literature and people become.
To write to alienate a majority to focus on a minority is for me pointless.

The point that repeatedly eludes you is that YOU may not be the intended audience for a given work of art. The artist may intend an audience with higher standards... an audience who is well-versed in the tradition he or she is working in and can grasp the allusions and the innovations... an audience who is not adverse to something that is challenging or unconventional... and audience who despises the cliche and being pandered to.

SLG (quote)- "I don't 'get it'. It's difficult to grasp. Thus it must be bad." Is that what the whole argument here is?

I am not arguing and I have not said anything about arrogance either.
I am putting forward a question that I think it is valid since this is about literature.
I think it is fair to question further things one does not understand.

Again... I don't understand higher mathematics or physics. Should I be questioning physicists and mathematicians? Should I imagine that my opinions concerning these disciplines should hold any degree of weight?

I find it interesting and quite intriguing that one can profuselfy write one way and behave in a totally different way. Consistency is part of the whole literary science.

How could it be otherwise. As I already noted, when writing I have the distinct advantage of time on my side. I may think through what I wish to convey and carefully choose my words. I can go back and edit what I have written and say it better. If I am approaching writing as an art form... then like painting or dance or music what I am creating is not a mere imitation or mimicry of reality... it is ART. The dancer does not move like we move when walking about in our everyday lives. The painter does not paint nothing more than the mundane reality about him or her. Music is more than an imitation of the sounds and rhythms that surround us in every moment of our waking lives.

A writer's credibility is not just in his/her stories he or she writes it is also in the way he/she talks and is too.
Credibility is persona. I talk the talk and walk the walk too.

No... it's not. There is a distinct separation between the artist and the art. Wagner was an antisemitic SOB who cheated with other men's wives, stole money from friends, and was generally an altogether unpleasant individual. He also composed music that was greater than all but two or three others who ever existed. The artist's credibility rests upon one thing and one thing only: the art.

[mal4mac]

[COLOR="#B22222"] For you the struggle with Joyce, Proust, etc... wasn't compensated by a great enough payoff in terms of compensation. For others this is not true. But you took it further suggesting that as a result the writers who you failed to resonate with are just snobbish Modernists and lesser writers out to baffle the common reader. Come on! Do you really want to associate yourself with the "common reader"? Well then we should add Shakespeare and Dante and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and even Dickens... and surely the whole of poetry to your list of snobbish literature.

Depends on how you define "common reader", I'm defining him or her as one who probably likes Tolstoy & Dickens, but probably not Joyce or Eliot. I don't think there's a term out there, Careyian reader might get closest to what I mean. But many might not have heard of the English critic John Carey, here's a summary:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jun/04/art.oxforduniversity

I think Carey has a good argument for many modernists being snobby, Joyce is not included amongst those, but he's certainly put forward as being co-opted by Pound, Wolfe and Eliot, under the snobby banner, crudely, "the masses don't understand him, we do 'cause we're better than them." I have grave doubts as to whether they really understand him, so I'm in two minds as to whether fans of modernism are snobs, or just fans of something that I don't like. I assume they are a mixture, and give them the benefit of the doubt, unless they become fascists... (Pound, Heidegger, ...)

[Alexander III]

Depends on how you define "common reader", I'm defining him or her as one who probably likes Tolstoy & Dickens, but probably not Joyce or Eliot. I don't think there's a term out there, Careyian reader might get closest to what I mean. But many might not have heard of the English critic John Carey, here's a summary:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jun/04/art.oxforduniversity

I think Carey has a good argument for many modernists being snobby, Joyce is not included amongst those, but he's certainly put forward as being co-opted by Pound, Wolfe and Eliot, under the snobby banner, crudely, "the masses don't understand him, we do 'cause we're better than them." I have grave doubts as to whether they really understand him, so I'm in two minds as to whether fans of modernism are snobs, or just fans of something that I don't like. I assume they are a mixture, and give them the benefit of the doubt, unless they become fascists... (Pound, Heidegger, ...)

Personally I am a skeptic whenever a man uses the "masses" to justify his opinions.

[cacian]

Cacian - I don't understand. Why is painting so fundamentally different from writing?

Painting requires a visual intellects which we all share. We can all look at pictures/ painting without having to go school and learn about it.
It comes natural to us to look at things since nature in which we live in is full of visuals
We are natural at picking up visuals and interpreting in our own way and so we are natural at drawing and paintings.
Our living environment is full of visuals and so we instinctively like to look at pictures colours shapes and forms.
Painting in this sense is very different. It is second nature and we should all follow our instinct to paint in order apply what we see on a daily basis as part of our appreciation of what nature and people have to offer.

[JCamilo]

i dont think the novel is stylistically moribund. in that case we might as well say the same thing about verse form or dramatic form. it has always been about genre and that has always been exciting, i am reminded of Chaucer's Miller's Tale.

In art, nothing is really dead. But of course, if you look works published 20,30 years ago or more the novel will be moribund. By now, all sense of inovation those works may have produced is exausted. That is the problem, Joyce and Borges really killed the novel but after it a handful of notable novels were written.


And mal4mac, common reader is defined by Johnson is pretty much useless, but certainly will not be reader of Tolstoy.

[stlukesguild]

Lykren- I don't understand. Why is painting so fundamentally different from writing?

Cacian- Painting requires a visual intellects which we all share. We can all look at pictures/ painting without having to go school and learn about it. It comes natural to us to look at things since nature in which we live in is full of visuals

Spoken like someone who has little or no understanding of painting. painting involves as much prior knowledge as literature or music. We can all read or listen to music without having made any formal or informal study of either... but our grasp of the work is naturally limited. As a first year art student I undoubtedly was confronted with this painting:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_34religismall.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=34religismall.jpg)

I would have immediately been able to recognize the subject matter due to my background and exposure to Christian iconography and narratives.

But this painting...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_dulle_griet.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=dulle_griet.jpg)

and certainly this painting...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_F193136.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=F193136.jpg)

Now I can look at the images and tell you what I see... but what is the narrative being conveyed?

And of course the narrative and/or iconography are but part of how one "reads" a painting or image. One gains a far greater grasp of what a painter is doing when one develops a understanding of the visual vocabulary or traditions of a given culture and period. painting involves composition... the structuring of the image... just as much as a poem does. The goal of painting is not a mere imitation or mimicry of visual reality. Painting involves exaggeration, simplification, abstraction, and distortion. Painting is not the same as nature.

We are natural at picking up visuals and interpreting in our own way and so we are natural at drawing and paintings.

So it doesn't matter what the artist does as you are just going to interpret it in your own way? I suspect you tend to do the same with what you read and what music you listen to.

Our living environment is full of visuals and so we instinctively like to look at pictures colours shapes and forms.

Our environment is full of sounds and the spoken and written word as well... this in no way means that music and literature are something that can be instinctively understood.

Painting in this sense is very different. It is second nature and we should all follow our instinct to paint in order apply what we see on a daily basis as part of our appreciation of what nature and people have to offer.

I can quite assure you that considering such comments, you have virtually no understanding of painting whatsoever.

[manuscript]

In art, nothing is really dead. But of course, if you look works published 20,30 years ago or more the novel will be moribund. By now, all sense of inovation those works may have produced is exausted. That is the problem, Joyce and Borges really killed the novel but after it a handful of notable novels were written.

couldnt disagree more - the truly creative mind will always perceive potential. of course the work of scholars and historians is still as vital as ever however.

[JCamilo]

The true creative mind will exactly perceive he needs to do something new, because the works of past have exausted their own genre. Go and write Ulysses and see how trully great and creative will be.

[mona amon]

JCamillo - In art, nothing is really dead. But of course, if you look works published 20,30 years ago or more the novel will be moribund. By now, all sense of inovation those works may have produced is exausted. That is the problem, Joyce and Borges really killed the novel but after it a handful of notable novels were written.

I feel this is placing too much importance on style, as well as being too impressed with stylistic innovations and experiments, and then novels which do not do anything noticeably new in these areas are labelled as old hat. There's a lot more to a novel than writing technique. There are as many different styles as there are good authors, because each has something different to say, and their own unique way of saying it.

As long as the novel is “some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”, it's going to remain alive and kicking.


Depends on how you define "common reader", I'm defining him or her as one who probably likes Tolstoy & Dickens, but probably not Joyce or Eliot.

What about the reader who likes Joyce and Dickens, but not Eliot? :D Readers are difficult to classify into uniform groups. You will find people who list Harry Potter and Ulysses among their favourite works.


I see a point to difficulty, but I also realize there must be a point. - JBI

:iagree: Hear, hear!

[MorpheusSandman]

the irony is that JBI's entire post is virtually as unreadable and esoteric as the authors he's railing against. Can we drop a few more names of obscure and wholly irrelevant critics and theorists... or at least critics and theorists wholly irrelevant outside of academia?Hmmm, I found it perfectly readable, but only because I'm fairly familiar with the names he mentioned, having recently read some intro to lit theory texts. Like anything else, once you familiarize yourself with the names and terminology, it's not all that difficult. I must say, though, that "theorists wholly irrelevant outside of academia" is a perfect example of redundancy (are there any critics/theorists relevant OUTSIDE of academia?). :lol:


Most writers/artists create first and foremost for themselves. As such, if they consciously consider their audience, they consider an audience that shares their interests, standards, and values.Indeed, and the same is true for all the arts. I once read a great quote from David Lynch in an interview about the difficulty of his films versus the accessibility of Spielberg. Lynch replied that both he and Spielberg made the films they wanted to make, and Spielberg's just happened to appeal to more people. He figured that if he made films he wanted to see, that someone else would want to see them. The same is true for literature; there are plenty of audiences out there that enjoy linguistic puzzles and formal inventions and various intellectual difficulties, who become bored with the Twilights of the world and their cliched predictability. I don't get the argument that these people are any less worth writing for than the general masses, who already have more artists catering to them then they could possibly want.


There's a lot more to a novel than writing technique. One could, potentially, boil everything down to technique/form. Afterall, that's what separates all arts from life to begin with is how things are rendered.

[Mason Pringle]

Let me the newbie throw two cents - please don't laugh at me - but please brutally critique with arguments if i'm wrong!

I think the line between some kind of over-difficulty that is contrived by an author vs. the genuine depth/complexity of a great literary work is that whether the so-called "common reader" can understand the basic plot of the novel without some kind of "decoding" or reading between the lines. Flannery O'Connor and Saul Bellow are two authors I like very much. A common reader whose books are Twilight/Fifty Shades of Gray can STILL understand the plot/events of an O'Connor book or a Bellow book, or a Shakespeare book if he/she has a dictionary/reads the annotations, or the epic by Dante, or Crime and Punishment. They wouldn't get to the deep meanings/symbolisms but they would get the story/plot. The same CANNOT be said about Woolf or Joyce. I think that's a reasonable line. What do y'all think?

(continued from my last reply)

Btw, I almost forgot, the exemplar/exhibit A of a book that is in appearance very comprehensible (in plot/story) to any common reader yet few understand the deeper meaning is Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche. You can have very complex and elegant ideas behind simple prose and there is no need to make a "common reader" wanting to throw the book into the trashbin in frustration

[JCamilo]

Well, Manson, the common reader is a myth. It does not exist. Wolf for example didn't got Joyce eithers. She was a common reader? (And Ezra Pound didn't got Finnegans, Borges either. They just became common readers?


I feel this is placing too much importance on style, as well as being too impressed with stylistic innovations and experiments, and then novels which do not do anything noticeably new in these areas are labelled as old hat. There's a lot more to a novel than writing technique. There are as many different styles as there are good authors, because each has something different to say, and their own unique way of saying it.
r.
I simply cannot be placing too much importance on style if I do not even mention it.


As long as the novel is “some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”, it's going to remain alive and kicking.

Good. Because a novel is not definited as this.

[kelby_lake]

Of course writers should write for themselves, but we should at least feel like they're writing for "us".

[mal4mac]

... common reader is defined by Johnson is pretty much useless, but certainly will not be reader of Tolstoy.

It's an amorphous term, but it's in use, and perhaps worth trying to tighten up for modern use. I found this interesting article that might help:

http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number9/kaplan.htm

So Johnson's "common reader" is the educated, reasonable man, the representative of Augustan taste and common sense, who has formulated rational assumptions about his world. Johnson’s Common Reader is surely not the average man nor the common man in any sense of low social status, but the universal man in the neoclassical sense.

Neoclassical literature is characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason, form, and restraint. This would include Tolstoy, I think (although the glory is unrestrained!), but not The Bible, Proust, Joyce, or most modernists. Those who like modernism are "uncommon" readers who can live with unreason, are happy with formless text, or text that lacks restraint. If that gives you delight, then that's cool, but it doesn't give me delight, and it doesn't give "the common reader" delight.

I think Woolf reveals her snobbishness in her, sometimes useful, account of the common reader. She says, “he is worse educated …. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others.” So according to her, someone who has read all Augustan literature, and largely for pleasure is uneducated, but her modernist-critic pals, who might have read far less, are the self-appointed Gods who are the only ones fit to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. This is elitist and snobbish. Johnson neither lowers his standards for, nor patronizes, his Common Reader.

Kaplan's article concentrates on Jane Austen, who knew and wrote for this well-read Publick seeking amusement along with a “little learning.” The readers of Pride and Prejudice and Emma, like the readers of Rasselas, judged manners, morals, and literature according to standards delineated in the neoclassical periodicals like Addison’s Tatler and Johnson’s Rambler. The essayists provided, in essence, a code of critical and intellectual criteria against which the reader could compare and contrast not only a new work but the whole of society. So the Common Reader is a demanding reader with a universal view. One thinks, perhaps, of a Victorian gentlemen reading Dickens, reading the broadsheets, reading Darwin and searching for fossils, attending serious Opera (though probably not Wagner...) and attending Faraday's lectures (though not reading Maxwell's mathematical papers...) That's Johnson's Common Reader.

One of Oprah's choices was Anna K., indicating that Tolstoy appeals not only to the Common Reader, but to any reader...



What about the reader who likes Joyce and Dickens, but not Eliot? :D Readers are difficult to classify into uniform groups. You will find people who list Harry Potter and Ulysses among their favourite works.


But shouldn't we attempt to classify? The definition of the Common Reader is amorphous, but readers of late Joyce are out on a limb! I think we can definitely say they are not Common Readers, even if they like Dickens. If they don't like Joyce, but like Eliot, they are still not Common Readers, because Eliot is out on a similar limb...

[JCamilo]

I am sorry, but you are saying Dr.Johnson was not snobbish and does not lower his standards? Really? Virginia is a lady close to him. He just call those readers ignorant in the same essay quoted by the writer of the article you mention... an article he does not define common reader at all (when he mentions the term, he just implies that the writers of novels had to be attuned with the public, as they write about the daily occurances and the public, the common reader, know those occurances quite well)

Anyways, Augustan here is just a reference of time. The term, not Johnson's, means: readers of what is published today. They are not talking about the classical writer, or anything like this, the augustan literatura is the literature of the period those writers are talking. Just it, does not make much if they were reading Hume or some obscure writer on time.

And yes, for her and Johnson, the largely educated pals like themselves are not common readers. That is basically the definition of both, the common reader is the one who readers for enterteiment and not for scrutinity, study, philosophy. etc. For both, they are pretty much the same. The public for best sellers. That is certainly not Tolstoy, which was writing for the elite, for people with time for War and Peace. That Tolstoy style is somehow classical, is irrelevant. Dickens was not and was the common reader master. The common reader do make Darwin a best seller, but they are completely uneducated about biology and until today, few can really understand what evolution is. If the common reader goes to opera, is because it is a fashion. The common reader is the reader of newspappers and not Virgil. And Oprah appeals to a classic which nobody will read. I bet she nominated Virginia Wolf once or while too.

But the term is silly, today the common reader is largely opinitative, much more educated, with a considerable variety. To the point, mentioning a common reader as target is irrelevant, does not means anything. You just need to see the diversity of common readers on this thread to see how this is true.

[cacian]

Painting requires a visual intellects which we all share. We can all look at pictures/ painting without having to go school and learn about it.
It comes natural to us to look at things since nature in which we live in is full of visuals
We are natural at picking up visuals and interpreting in our own way and so we are natural at drawing and paintings.
Our living environment is full of visuals and so we instinctively like to look at pictures colours shapes and forms.
Painting in this sense is very different. It is second nature and we should all follow our instinct to paint in order apply what we see on a daily basis as part of our appreciation of what nature and people have to offer.

Writing however requires a different tactic it means it is learned first.
To get to writing one has to go through different stages from listening to speaking to writing.
It is difficult to interpret writing to speaking but it is not impossible.
I think it is a great shame that writers do not converse the way they write andI feel we missing out.
Humans have a true potential to surpass themselves intellectually in spoken and in writing but they have not achieved it yet.
To write is to imagine a different place world with different characters nothing like us or maybe not.
To paint is to refer to already existing images that our memory has absorbed throughout growing up.
We are excellent at copying but we are not so good at interpreting and that is what art is lacking.
We are able to paint without with visual memory.
We write with our inspired memory.
If we could combine the two then we are onto something emotionally tangible. An art within an art.

I also find that beside difficult literature there is also literature that talks at me/for me rather then with me.
Stories that ''talk with me'' are more enjoyable.

[Pierre Menard]

'Common Reader' is utterly irrelevant.

Not all art is for everyone. As stlukes said, guys like Joyce and Eliot will be writing for people who they expect will share the same interest in literature or at least have a similar taste as themselves, maybe even for people who want the challenge or want to experience something that literature hadn't offered before. It's why Joyce is a monument of modernism and 20th century lit in genera; he truly gave us something new in Ulysses, something clearly influential in the lit that came after it, something that opened new doors and something that is still being discussed in depth today. Furthermore, Joyce, Eliot, etc have continued to find new readership 90 years after they were published, in new eras and in times when Modernism wasn't so fresh and new. Is it for everyone? Nope. Should it be? Absolutely not. Not even for some indefinable vauge 'common reader'. How utterly irrelevant.

It's the same for all mediums.

Will the common TV watcher truly grasp all that's going on in The Sopranos? No, they'll likely miss a great deal of the allusions, the visual metaphors, the cinematography, the long-ranging storylines, some of the themes, etc. Is The Sopranos still one of the greatest and most influential Tv dramas? Yep.

Will the common movie watch be able to grasp Fellini's La Strada? Or Bergman's Wild Strawberries? Nope. In fact, they'd level the same criticism that some level at the modernists. But was Fellini or Bergman making the films for those people? God no. They were making it for themselves first and foremost and would have expected people with a similar interest in film or the themes presented or the style of film to be watching.

And so on and so forth.

[mona amon]

One could, potentially, boil everything down to technique/form. Afterall, that's what separates all arts from life to begin with is how things are rendered. - Morpheus

Umm yes, if you take it all the way to its logical conclusion, but I did say there are as many different styles as there are good authors, as each has something different to say, and their own unique way of saying it.


As long as the novel is “some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”, it's going to remain alive and kicking. - mona

Good. Because a novel is not definited as this. - JCamillo

Not a definition. It lays down some of the characteristics of a good novel, and I feel there is endless scope here for authors to come up with their own distinctive novel. Anyway, how do you define the novel, and what about it do you feel was killed by Joyce and Borges?

[stlukesguild]

What about the reader who likes Joyce and Dickens, but not Eliot? Readers are difficult to classify into uniform groups. You will find people who list Harry Potter and Ulysses among their favourite works.

That's more than doubtful.

[cacian]

But the term is silly, today the common reader is largely opinitative, much more educated, with a considerable variety. To the point, mentioning a common reader as target is irrelevant, does not means anything. You just need to see the diversity of common readers on this thread to see how this is true.
What is a common reader because common means all sorts. We are all able to read and write.
But are we able to reason the same? I think we would be if the books and the literary works aim to establish a link between all readers which is not doing at the present moment.
I think books attract a big variety of readers and it is thus the literary material available that shapes how one reads and not the other way around.
To write assuming only a certain minority would appreciate it is narrowing the literary gap and close in on oneself.
The idea of any writing is to involve more and more readers of all walks of life and not alienate them otherwise the gap will narrow and readers will be less keen to read because they are not being engaged.
Literature aims must be visionary and not eliminatory.

[JCamilo]

Mona Amon:

It could be applied to everything written, no?

The thing they killed was the conventional novel, the realism from guys like Flaubert. With Ulysses. So much, he had to go a completely fragmentary and language based novel next. His works are like fantastic literature yet about the most mundane things in the world. There is not the feeling of "Lets keep moving chapter from chapter", you do not really want to know what will happen (I believe most of the difficulity of reading those works is not "reading" but finishing. Those works are easy to read, but not easy to finish as they are not set to be a page turner, with Ulysses this is more amazing, as he does something traditional - following characters with perfect chronology - but make you always wander off to the world of references which keep us in the most surprising momments. With Finnegans he even abandon the characters, because it would be a repeation of Ulysses).

Feeling a novel justify its length by their capacity to make us follow page after page and that was just not enough for Joyce anymore and would not be anymore, Borges just gave up the novel. He would deny chapters, working with Poe's short story notion of quick impact. All the themes were worked, all developed... so he could only talk about the repetition of the those themes, the exaustion. Also, he challenged the idea that it is possible a realistic literature as all language is a poetic potential. So, those two (not just them, but they are probally the major name) digged a grave for the novel and left a rose. The thing is of course, they killed something that is in the end, just a form, not a life, so it does not really die.

[stlukesguild]

MorpheusSandman- Hmmm, I found it perfectly readable, but only because I'm fairly familiar with the names he mentioned, having recently read some intro to lit theory texts. Like anything else, once you familiarize yourself with the names and terminology, it's not all that difficult. I must say, though, that "theorists wholly irrelevant outside of academia" is a perfect example of redundancy (are there any critics/theorists relevant OUTSIDE of academia?).

I am, unfortunately, familiar with most of the names dropped. I simply wouldn't read any of them again voluntarily, and I was suggesting that if one is engaging in a dialog on the question of the accessibility of literature and arguing against opacity or difficulty in favor of such accessibility, there is a certain irony in dropping a bunch of names of critics more inaccessible than Faulkner or Joyce.

Are all critics irrelevant outside of academia? I don't know. I'd like to think that some like Johnson, Ruskin, Coleridge, Paz, Borges, Robert Hughes, etc... are actually good writers.

stlukesguild- Most writers/artists create first and foremost for themselves. As such, if they consciously consider their audience, they consider an audience that shares their interests, standards, and values.

Indeed, and the same is true for all the arts. I once read a great quote from David Lynch in an interview about the difficulty of his films versus the accessibility of Spielberg. Lynch replied that both he and Spielberg made the films they wanted to make, and Spielberg's just happened to appeal to more people. He figured that if he made films he wanted to see, that someone else would want to see them. The same is true for literature; there are plenty of audiences out there that enjoy linguistic puzzles and formal inventions and various intellectual difficulties, who become bored with the Twilights of the world and their cliched predictability. I don't get the argument that these people are any less worth writing for than the general masses, who already have more artists catering to them then they could possibly want.

That has long been my feeling. An artist friend of mine noted that there is no such thing as some great monolithic "art world", rather there are many smaller "art worlds"... each having its own values and standards and it is possible for "great art" to arise in any one of them. As such, our goal as artists should be to create that which we believe in and love first... and then put forth the effort to connect with the audience that shares our likes and values. I know that as a painter I strive, like Lynch, to create the sort of paintings I'd like to see... although the realization may indeed fall short... or even be surprising different from what I had initially envisioned. I have no illusions that everyone shares my values/standards/interests. Essentially, I don't accept the notion that all art is for everybody.

[stlukesguild]

Of course writers should write for themselves, but we should at least feel like they're writing for "us".

Why? If the artist in question has very different values/standards/interests than you... if you are not among his or her imagined audience... why should you feel like they are writing for you?

[mal4mac]

What about the reader who likes Joyce and Dickens, but not Eliot? Readers are difficult to classify into uniform groups. You will find people who list Harry Potter and Ulysses among their favourite works.

Yes this is doubtful, Harry Potter doesn't have one supporter among the 125 leading authors represented in Zane's "Top Ten", in which 544 books get a mention. One writer chooses "Peter Pan" alongside Ulysses... Only 13 authors pick Ulysses, which is well out of the overall "Top Ten"...

[JCamilo]

What is a common reader because common means all sorts. We are able to read and write.
I think books attract a big variety of readers and it is thus the literary material available that shapes how one reads and not the other way around.
To write assuming only a certain minority would appreciate it is narrowing the literary gap and close in on oneself.
The idea of any writing is to involve more and more readers of all walks of life and not alienate them otherwise the gap will narrow and readers will be less keen to read because they are not being engaged.
Literature aims must be visionary and not eliminatory.

Cacian, until about 100 years ago, the majoriy of world's population could not even read. Right now, when we write in english we are narrowing. More, people have a lot of differences, how you will find a common anything between even those posting in this thread. It is notable that all that is Universal in Shakespeare is actually complicated. That is what give the work capacity to be multiple. Things are naturally hard to understand, just like I have no idea why you use so much line breakers :D

[Pierre Menard]

I think books attract a big variety of readers and it is thus the literary material available that shapes how one reads and not the other way around.

Yes, and that's why it's great to have such a large amount of literature out there. There's plenty that appeals to some and plenty that appeals to others. Nothing appeals to everyone, nor should it.



The idea of any writing is to involve more and more readers of all walks of life and not alienate them otherwise the gap will narrow and readers will be less keen to read because they are not being engaged.

Is it? According to who? I thought the idea of writing was to write...the way you intend to write, for the people you intend to write for...y'know, considering you're the writer and the reasons for you writing should be left up to you. Like I said, there is plenty of lit out there for all manner of people to be engaged by...a writer doesn't have to service every single person with their writing, their writing will engage some, other writing will engage others, and so on.



Literature aims must be visionary and not eliminatory.

But...why are you imposing your own personal belief onto others? Maybe the folks engaging in the writing of literature can define their own aims and don't need other people telling them who it is they should be catering to.

[cacian]

couldnt disagree more - the truly creative mind will always perceive potential. of course the work of scholars and historians is still as vital as ever however.

I personally think that scholars whilst they have exhausted their natural power to entice a certain je ne sais quoi readers in their own imaginary literary world they have in fact missed out one major point and that is to bring all readers under one same roof in to establish a common ground of understanding. There is a role a fine line a function to everything we do and writing and reading is also part of that.
To write is envisage what reading is about and what it could achieve long term.
In order for mankind to get on and get by they have to have a common something in discourse an intellectual stimulation and reading can provide that. A true writer should aim to establish links with another writer and another in order to bring all readers to a matrimony of understanding and broaden the field of communication through the literature they set out to write.
A world that unifies in thinking is a world whose literature thrives on common grounds. It is important for humanity to feel part of the 'big literary community' ,a world of books they are part of, and that could only be achieved through writings that facilitate rather then complicate.

[stlukesguild]

Mason Pringle- I think the line between some kind of over-difficulty that is contrived by an author vs. the genuine depth/complexity of a great literary work is that whether the so-called "common reader" can understand the basic plot of the novel without some kind of "decoding" or reading between the lines. Flannery O'Connor and Saul Bellow are two authors I like very much. A common reader whose books are Twilight/Fifty Shades of Gray can STILL understand the plot/events of an O'Connor book or a Bellow book, or a Shakespeare book if he/she has a dictionary/reads the annotations, or the epic by Dante, or Crime and Punishment. They wouldn't get to the deep meanings/symbolisms but they would get the story/plot. The same CANNOT be said about Woolf or Joyce. I think that's a reasonable line. What do y'all think?

Would the average reader of Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray be able to grasp Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick, John Donne's poetry, William Blake's epics, the poetry of Spenser, Rilke, Holderlin, T.S. Eliot... indeed one might suggest the whole of poetry? It seems that what it comes down to is that many of the imagined "common readers" have a great difficulty in breaking away from the traditional plot/character-driven novel/short story/play... and thus anything that breaks away from or falls outside of this tradition... including almost the whole of poetry... is deemed as "difficult" if not "meaningless" and "unreadable" by many.

[Mason Pringle]

On this subject, it should be also noted that some authors deliberately use very simple prose and minimal verbosity/gimmicks to achieve maximum profundity. Ernest Hemingway comes to mind. Would you guys prefer if all novels are written that way?

stlukesguild - sorry didn't see your post when i wrote the above, will reply in the thread in a bit :)

[JCamilo]

Of course, it is a matter of style. We should not think that form or language is the only source of difficulty. Why is Faulkner "Sound and Fury" hard to read (reading does not equate understanding). More because of unusual break of usual narrative sequence - which is confortable for readers of Mark Twain, for example. So, it is all about pratice. After all, simple mathematical operations are all "impossible" until you learn it.

You do not want to learn idioms and the history of literature enough to not feel like Ulysses is a dead end? Sure, hardly the only book wrote ever or in that year. But calling it difficulty or unreadable is forgetting there is people who read it and understand it quite well. They are a minority? But let's put this way, even only a miniroty in the world has read Shakespeare or the bible. Then, ulysses is only a minority among the minority.

[stlukesguild]

To write assuming only a certain minority would appreciate it is narrowing the literary gap and close in on oneself.

To write... to create otherwise... to imagine that one is creating/writing for the whole of humanity... writing/creating something that will be universally loved... is to be delusional.

[cacian]

Yes, and that's why it's great to have such a large amount of literature out there. There's plenty that appeals to some and plenty that appeals to others. Nothing appeals to everyone, nor should it.
Ah well I like all things to appeal to all because that is the only way to bring people together.



Is it? According to who? I thought the idea of writing was to write...the way you intend to write, for the people you intend to write for...y'know, considering you're the writer and the reasons for you writing should be left up to you. Like I said, there is plenty of lit out there for all manner of people to be engaged by...a writer doesn't have to service every single person with their writing, their writing will engage some, other writing will engage others, and so on.
To write is to imagine everyone having a go because they can all find something in it to entertain and think about.
And yes there is plenty out there but it is a real diaspora of ideas and texts that does something to some and nothing to others.
There is a gap and that is the big issue, the literary gap is immense and it shows on the worldwide intellect or the lack of it.

But...why are you imposing your own personal belief onto others? Maybe the folks engaging in the writing of literature can define their own aims and don't need other people telling them who it is they should be catering to.
Well it is not about catering for anyone and I am not imposing anything I am just nothing how some books are near impossible to entertain or even think about. A writer would make true impact on the majority of readers because he or she has shown full understanding of his immediate society/environment. In his or her writing, society as a whole would feel part of his/her story and this because society recognises or sees itself in something they have written read or. Literary context is paramount and should be in discourse with people and society as a whole.
A writer that makes a link albeit thin between him the story the readers and another writer is a truly successful writer.
Recognition is in an identity crisis that needs to come out of its shell and writing stories can actually do that renovate tofull capacity. The intellects needs it if we are to communicate between us and understand each other.

[Alexander III]

You all miss a big point. The post-modernist (using the term to refer to after modernism, not the movement necessarily) had for them, a model which put style and difficulty as a necessity almost. There are very few modernist works that are on the surface very accessible, and almost all the major figures wrote a few extremely difficult books. For instance, Faulkner, Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, easy, Absalom Absalom, difficult. Joyce, Dubliners, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, moderate to challenging, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, very difficult. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, relatively easy, The Waves, difficult.

With that in place, it actually turned out that the most difficult books tended to be the most critically acclaimed, Ulysses being the great monument. In terms of influence, authors grew up in this sense, where all the "difficult" and "new" could be seen as exhausted. Ulysses is very much the summary of the Classical tradition, and the great book of the English language. How does one follow such a book.

The answer is two-fold. You simplify, or you go beyond. For those who went beyond, generally the audience did not care anymore. The Post-WW2 world was different than the Post-WW1 world. So we needed a different kind of literature, naturally. The truly difficult have pretty much been ignored since the 50s. Gravity's Rainbow is a curiosity, and most people read The Crying of Lot 49 to get their taste of Pynchon. The Road and All the Pretty Horses are read more than Blood Meridian. The great Modernist novel did not translate well into the Great Post-Modernist novel. I suspect part of this is that the novel is a dying genre in terms of stylistic advances, and much of the innovation in English comes from the marginal playing with different genres. For instance, Autobiography of Red would be a classic example of the novel reduced to poetry, allegory, myth, etc. A great work in terms of melding genres.

But what happens to all the imitators of Modernist glory? They tend to be unreadable, because the point they are making is too clouded in their over-use of opaque language and form. Take for instance Post-Modern theorists, Derrida and onward, they progressively get more and more annoyingly difficult, missing the point that most of them are discussing minority voices, voices that would never be able to understand what they are saying without a very specific education in technical vocabulary, and a good professor who will guess and then translate.

It is not wrong to say authors are exausting the bounds of rational difficulty for no apparent reason. I wager if anybody read a single sentence by Homi Bhabha, not one person could tell me what the sentence means. A paragraph likewise would be difficult too. The same goes for Spivak, Butler, and a whole slew of them.That is difficulty for no real purpose, as the arguments are usually straightforward. Derrida in a sense can be summarized as, look at how things are built, and try to disassemble based on what has gone into them. Butler to, we are all performing, and the names we take are just limiting. You see now, I have basically done what they should have done. Used understandable language.

I see a point to difficulty, but I also realize there must be a point. Someone like Franzen in The Corrections makes a good joke on it, by having a character write a screen play which is exactly this, deliberate difficulty for no point.

On principle I agree with you, but I suppose that is on account of our greek assumption of literature. The greeks, creativity and constant inovation of literary forms. But I disagree with you when you equate lack of inovation to stagnation, think Roman literature, inovation and originality were minor points compared to the greater form of perfection. The romans took greek literary models and rather than innovate and hold originality as their chief muse, they followed the muse of perfection. Virgil does not innovate nor is he original and experimental, he uses the same epic model borrowed from the greeks, yet he was the su[reme poet for roughly a thousand years. Modernism was very greek, to be experimental and and to fail was the norm (pound, t.s Eliot , Joyce) and I suppose we still have the modernist leaning towards the greek model, but surely the roman model of rather thank seeking to innovate seeking to perfect is just as credible and valuable. It is only natural that a period where the stress is on inovation should be followed by a period where the stress is on perfection, otherwise either through to much innovation or to little literature does stagnate.

[Mason Pringle]

stlukesguild -
Would the average reader of Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray be able to grasp Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick, John Donne's poetry, William Blake's epics, the poetry of Spenser, Rilke, Holderlin, T.S. Eliot... indeed one might suggest the whole of poetry? It seems that what it comes down to is that many of the imagined "common readers" have a great difficulty in breaking away from the traditional plot/character-driven novel/short story/play... and thus anything that breaks away from or falls outside of this tradition... including almost the whole of poetry... is deemed as "difficult" if not "meaningless" and "unreadable" by many.

I haven't read Strerne or Moby Dick or Spenser/Holderlin so I cannot make a judgement on these specific books. But I didn't find Blake's poetry "difficult" to "read" - difficult to interpret, yes, and poetry is supposed to get people thinking and feeling beyond the words themselves. T.S. Eliot is kind of on the borderline. But poetry and novels are different in nature. Poems don't need to tell a story or events that are supposed to happen (in the fiction-verse that the author set up). In novels, one can still use experimental styles (non-linear narration, etc.) without resorting to arcane language or incomprehensible sentences, so the typical twilight reader would still know "what's happening"

Of course, some people seem to equate length with difficulty and i'd agree that's wrong. Crime and Punishment is long but not difficult. I heard from others that Moby Dick is of a similar case. Toni Morrison may be difficult to some people but she doesn't write thousands of pages in one novel. One reason people get frustrated with Joyce may be that he's both long and using arcane language (and/or language that he made up himself)

[JCamilo]

Moby Dick is "difficulty", not length but the book plays with constant rythimic changes, from very slow to fast, continuals point of view changes, different writing styles and of course, the most charismatic character is hidden (Ahab come and shows, often). I am not talking about understanding it (who does?) but really what is usualy that most bothers the readers, the break of rythim. It is not a confortable book.

Of course, size is not the same as difficulty (it is one of the possibilities). I however think Blake can be a reference to his other works, like Milton. It is not a compelling work. Of course, if we look well, Aurora Leigh, Idylls of the Kings, etc were popular at their time and today such length poems will probally tire the hell of readers. Mostly because we lose the aptitude for such kind of narratives.

[Mason Pringle]

Moby Dick is "difficulty", not length but the book plays with constant rythimic changes, from very slow to fast, continuals point of view changes, different writing styles and of course, the most charismatic character is hidden (Ahab come and shows, often). I am not talking about understanding it (who does?) but really what is usualy that most bothers the readers, the break of rythim. It is not a confortable book.

Of course, size is not the same as difficulty (it is one of the possibilities). I however think Blake can be a reference to his other works, like Milton. It is not a compelling work. Of course, if we look well, Aurora Leigh, Idylls of the Kings, etc were popular at their time and today such length poems will probally tire the hell of readers. Mostly because we lose the aptitude for such kind of narratives.

I concur with what you said about poetry. But I wonder if people went through high school lit and had to read Odyssey (or the even longer Illiad) for class, why would they then complain Aurora Leigh is too long? At least it's in original English

[JCamilo]

But who really read Odyssey or Iliad on class? And how many of them really read it?

Plus, Aurora is like a Dickens story. There is not really anything as Homer in prose, so I guess people who search for victoria drama has the much more accessible Dickens.

[namenlose]

Latter Tolstoy, which fame was big no doubt, with the religious writting became basically a Paulo Coelho that one day wrote War and Peace. He gave up all difficulty from his early work and in a way, lost all that made him special being completely owned by Dostoieviksy and Tchekhov. Both could actually talk to the lower classes Tolstoy dreammed to talk, either middle class, students, poor people, talk about them and in the case of Tchekhov, be extremelly elaborate yet simple.

I will have to disagree with you on this point. In his later years, Tolstoy was still able to produce The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Hadji Murat, both of them classics known for their perfection of storytelling. They may lack the scope of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but I would not dismiss them as inferior works created by a master who was past his time of genius. In fact, they are arguably more flawless in some structural respects, what, even though doesn't make them superior to the aforementioned greater pieces, at least counts for their own excellence as individual works. I would be hard pressed to find any piece of literature that could rival Ivan Ilyich as a psychological novella or Hadji Murat as a short war piece.

Furthermore, they were not the only works of his later phase worthy of note. Resurrection, although not as good as them, is still a great novel, and some of his short stories were also more than noteworthy. How Much Land Does a Man Need?, for instance, may be one of the best, if not the best work ever composed in the genre.

I agree with you though he was not exactly the populist writer he wanted to be. War and Peace is much closer to the work of a modern Homer or Virgil than to the novels of Dickens, who was much more successful at pleasing the general public than he ever was.



Neoclassical literature is characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason, form, and restraint. This would include Tolstoy, I think (although the glory is unrestrained!), but not The Bible, Proust, Joyce, or most modernists. Those who like modernism are "uncommon" readers who can live with unreason, are happy with formless text, or text that lacks restraint. If that gives you delight, then that's cool, but it doesn't give me delight, and it doesn't give "the common reader" delight.

The Bible was one of Johnson's favorite sources, and, just as Proust and Joyce, is certainly not devoid of form, reason or restraint. Of course both novelists demand from the reader different approaches towards these matters, but so did Cervantes and Tolstoy. It's common among great literary masters to introduce innovations to their respective traditions, many of them of formal nature. While Don Quixote consolidated the novel as a genre, War and Peace combined the genres of the novel and the epic. Moreover, if you really want to defend Johnson's concept of "common reader", you must consider that Clarissa, hardly an easier reading than In Search of Lost Time, was one of the novels he esteemed the most.

[JCamilo]

Yes, I am of course exagerating when calling Tolstoy a Paulo Coelho, but those are exactly the works that I am pointing, There is notable short stories of Tolstoy, I find the one about the horse Kholstomer to be awesome. (And another elite themed story), but here Tchekhov was one shoulder above him, specially the empathy Tchekhov had with the subjects of his tales. Ald Ivan Ilyich is very good, but as you said, not as good or similar to his earlier works. And here, Dostoievisky was more able to feel for those who suffer. But anyways, it is a great point, Johnson common reader would not read War and Peace, a novel not in mundane peculariaty, but in an almost epic scale. The complete opposite of what he saw on the readers and in what Jane Austen readers are reading. Thinking Tolstoy as the kind of writer for common reader is ignoring the differences between his "religious work" and his earlier works and even between him and Dostoievisky.

[JBI]

No I don't, I struggled with Shakespeare, but reading most of his plays over a year is a fond memory. The same goes for other authors, like Dante & Homer. I just don't enjoy *too much* struggle. For me, Ulysses was too much of a struggle. For you, the struggle was worth it. People differ.

Bingo! For you the struggle with Joyce, Proust, etc... wasn't compensated by a great enough payoff in terms of compensation. For others this is not true. But you took it further suggesting that as a result the writers who you failed to resonate with are just snobbish Modernists and lesser writers out to baffle the common reader. Come on! Do you really want to associate yourself with the "common reader"? Well then we should add Shakespeare and Dante and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and even Dickens... and surely the whole of poetry to your list of snobbish literature.

...really, seems like lately difficulty is your new USA.

:nod::iagree::hand::rofl::cheers2::patriot:

Seriously, the irony is that JBI's entire post is virtually as unreadable and esoteric as the authors he's railing against. Can we drop a few more names of obscure and wholly irrelevant critics and theorists... or at least critics and theorists wholly irrelevant outside of academia?

I was thinking Dante... as well as Lawrence Sterne, Milton, Blake's epics, and any number of other authors with regard to the notion that innovation and "difficulty" is something limited to Modernism and Post-Modernism. And really... is the whole of Modernism really that challenging? It's not like every writer of real merit is as difficult as Joyce' Finnegans Wake. Is Proust (surely Joyce equal) really that difficult (beyond the scale of the work... and is he really unique by that standard?)? What of Kafka? Hesse? Grass? Tennessee Williams? Arthur Miller? Camus? Octavio Paz? Garcia-Marquez? Calvino? Borges? Aldous Huxley? Saul Bellow? Philip Roth? Saul Bellow? Robert Graves? Dylan Thomas? Lolita?

There was much challenge there, my point was not to dismiss those works, but derived works, such as Derrida's philosophy (which he claims came to him while reading Finnegans Wake) are unreadable and often not worth the time. As you put it, nobody has heard of those authors - and the reason is probably they are too difficult to make people want to read them. Academia is what keeps many of these difficult books alive. Academia has its own genre of authors who write "literary fiction" - which basically means you are writing directly to an academic audience.

IF these theorists cannot be understood, then chances are the authors they cater to are also somewhat unreadable. Some authors now only care about the specific academic audience, which was my point. Butler, Spivak and Bhabha are three authors (their genre being philosophy/theory) who are only read by academics. my point was that if they broadened their audience they would be more effective. The fact that you could not understand my post only highlights its point - that audience is becoming divided by esoteric and technical language.

Novelists do similar things. Chinese novels are all about China, and the political commentary is often masked in irony and allegory that only a chinese historian may get. Canadian novels tend to play with the ideas of canadian critics, as nobody else reads them. American novels are all about the USA, etc. There comes a point when one realizes authors are deliberately narrowing their audience. Bhabha is writing for maybe a few thousand academics in the world, nobody else can read him, and even those few can only guess as what he is saying.

Take this award winning quote by Butler:

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

Nobody can stand reading that, let alone a whole book of it, or a whole series of books of it. She is just one of many incomprehensibles. There are novelists who also write in that style, yet lack the genius of a Joyce to pull it off. My point is, at what point do we say enough is enough?

IT needs to have a point, besides these annoying sentences of spiraling neologisms.

[JCamilo]

Derrida, sure? If you want to impress a girl by saying you read Derrida she will reply "Good, but I read Foucault"...

Seriously, are you really complaning about specific use of language inside groups? What next? Biologists? Lawyers? Doctors? It is obviously identidy and has a point.

[E.A Rumfield]

Mason Pringle- I think the line between some kind of over-difficulty that is contrived by an author vs. the genuine depth/complexity of a great literary work is that whether the so-called "common reader" can understand the basic plot of the novel without some kind of "decoding" or reading between the lines. Flannery O'Connor and Saul Bellow are two authors I like very much. A common reader whose books are Twilight/Fifty Shades of Gray can STILL understand the plot/events of an O'Connor book or a Bellow book, or a Shakespeare book if he/she has a dictionary/reads the annotations, or the epic by Dante, or Crime and Punishment. They wouldn't get to the deep meanings/symbolisms but they would get the story/plot. The same CANNOT be said about Woolf or Joyce. I think that's a reasonable line. What do y'all think?

Would the average reader of Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray be able to grasp Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick, John Donne's poetry, William Blake's epics, the poetry of Spenser, Rilke, Holderlin, T.S. Eliot... indeed one might suggest the whole of poetry? It seems that what it comes down to is that many of the imagined "common readers" have a great difficulty in breaking away from the traditional plot/character-driven novel/short story/play... and thus anything that breaks away from or falls outside of this tradition... including almost the whole of poetry... is deemed as "difficult" if not "meaningless" and "unreadable" by many.

The average reader of Twilight is a 16 year old girl. You are far superior to every emotional 16 year old girl. Congrats. Just remember that Shakespeare has lay very close to the base of a exponentially decaying society. So what's it worth in the end?

[JBI]

The legal profession actually has been criticized for this directly - for using such language as only lawyers trained in such language can understand, requiring everyone who wants a fair time in court the help of an expensive legal aid. Many critics have pointed out that had the law been written in simpler language, many could represent themselves to good effect, rather than relying on out-spending the apposing side of the courtroom.

As for biologists, it has a point. But if you write like Butler as a biologist you will be fired. Scientific writing is actually deliberately succinct and clear for a reason. It is the most rigid form of formal writing we still have, I would wager.

The same goes for much of doctors.

Now as for Foucault, who I have read, he is simply easy in comparison to Derrida. Foucault is not that difficult to grasp in English, hence why his reception has been so large on the audience of mediocre American professors.

Identity has a point, but what is the point of locking out readers in literary discussion. It just adds to the argument that literary theory is a waste of time, and mere mental masturbation. There are times I must agree with this - it seems to be so in much of Western Academia, particularly in North America and England, though less so in the continent with the exception of France.

That I think is the reason for the shift in the last 5-10 years in the approach to criticism and academic writing. Post-Colonial studies are dead, gender studies dying, Foucault-influenced fields on the way out, etc. Edward Said is currently in the process of being obliterated from my world of Area Studies, and finally all the nonsense and pseudo marxism will be put to rest in favor of older modes of history and close reading.

That was what was bound to happen anyway - it came to a point where theory left the text behind, and merely began to discuss theory - its application reduced to mere philosophy on other philosophy. The movement in the past decade or so is to return to the text itself as an item - sure we can philosophize, but contextualizing has been shown to be more interesting. Analyzing through understanding its composition has been shown to be more interesting. Discussing impoverished voices and possible slights toward Irish Catholics in the most boring book of the Faerie Queene has been deemed a thing of the past already.

I suspect much of this has to do with the fact that film critics and theorists have influenced the genre - in film criticism, it being a relatively new field, theory is still in the background. The technical requirement on the commentary has proved you need a grasp of close reading - or viewing - in order to be able to discuss the work. Though many Literary theorists and critics group up in this environment of close reading and "New Criticism" the 70s and 80s, and then 90s generations absorbed less and less of it, so the theory clouded out the thing being discussed. I suspect a return to the text was inevitable when people realized they weren't actually talking about anything concrete.

Still there was one problem - the author who writes to the`theorist, or in part to the theorists, such as J. M. Coetzee, who seems to hop on every bandwagon of theory around. He is probably the most decorated English-language writer working now, but his major works are theory-crazed.

[Mason Pringle]

The average reader of Twilight is a 16 year old girl. You are far superior to every emotional 16 year old girl. Congrats. Just remember that Shakespeare has lay very close to the base of a exponentially decaying society. So what's it worth in the end?

16 year old girl? There are tons of college students, some of my former classmates who are smart pre-med kids who read and love Twilight. So don't generalize. At the SAME TIME - I've seen 16-year-old girls who are saying Laurie Halse Anderson (who's a far better writer than Meyer) is too shallow/sentimental for their taste and those young HS girls who have read Faulkner or even Joyce.

My opinion of what a 16-year-old girl should be reading? McCullers, McCullers, and McCullers - you indeed can write great literature that almost all 16-year-olds can understand!

[JBI]

The average reader of Twilight is a 16 year old girl. You are far superior to every emotional 16 year old girl. Congrats. Just remember that Shakespeare has lay very close to the base of a exponentially decaying society. So what's it worth in the end?

16 year old girl? There are tons of college students, some of my former classmates who are smart pre-med kids who read and love Twilight. So don't generalize. At the SAME TIME - I've seen 16-year-old girls who are saying Laurie Halse Anderson (who's a far better writer than Meyer) is too shallow/sentimental for their taste and those young HS girls who have read Faulkner or even Joyce.

My opinion of what a 16-year-old girl should be reading? McCullers, McCullers, and McCullers - you indeed can write great literature that almost all 16-year-olds can understand!

Well, in other words, the target audience is 16 year old girls (I would say 14 actually). If middle-age men are reading the books, it doesn't change the fact that they are not the target audience, and they are an exception.

Joyce is not common reading amongst 16 year old girls, no matter how many literate 16 girls you converse with. Twilight, is, or at least was for a time.Its sales, which far outstrip all of Joyce's sales, show this.

[MorpheusSandman]

@Mason Pringle


I think the line between some kind of over-difficulty that is contrived by an author vs. the genuine depth/complexity of a great literary work is that whether the so-called "common reader" can understand the basic plot of the novel without some kind of "decoding" or reading between the lines… What do y'all think?I think this is dead on, actually. Common audiences of the arts are mostly just looking for traditional dramatic or comedic narratives; relatable protagonists, clearly delineated antagonists and conflict, turning points, climaxes, resolution, etc. As long as dramatic art follows the classic dramatic “arc” then common audiences are usually willing to go along for the ride, and usually willing to like it as long as these works meet their preconceived expectations or show them something apparently new within that tradition. It’s why in film audiences are still more open to Star Wars or The Matrix than 2001: A Space Odyssey, or even the more adventurous more open to the films of Fellini or Bergman than to the films of Brakhage. When you’re dealing with 2001 or Brakhage, you’re dealing with films that very obviously subvert traditional dramatic tropes and archetypes. Similar with literature where works like Finnegans Wake have no apparent dramatic structure at all. It’s why most readers find poetry difficult because lyric is usually about the workings of a mind in reflection during an event than it is about character, conflict, drama, etc.

I tend to think the dividing line is between those that demand some kind of traditional drama and those that are open to art that breaks away from that to put the emphasis on tone, aesthetic, form, experiment, language, philosophy, or any of the other components that go into making up a respective art-form. To get Brakhage one merely needs the ability to appreciate abstraction in a cinematic form, and then many of his films become incredible works of beauty, a very pure example of images in time. Similarly, to get Joyce one merely needs the ability to appreciate language as language rather than language as a utilitarian tool for automatic representation. I once said that poetry was the art of not seeing through language, and, sadly, that’s what most people do because of how they use language everyday; they “see through” language to (intended) meanings, and when those (intended) meanings become obscure, or even retreat to the realm of textured sound rather than representation, most people switch-off because they don’t know how to appreciate language on the level of music.


I didn't find Blake's poetry "difficult" to "read" - difficult to interpret, yes,I wonder how one can separate “reading” Blake from “interpreting” Blake.

@mona amon


Umm yes, if you take it all the way to its logical conclusion, but I did say there are as many different styles as there are good authors, as each has something different to say, and their own unique way of saying it.This just seems like the old “unique snowflake” argument, which conveniently ignores that snowflakes are more alike than different. There is a 20th century theory of literature that states that art is really made up of a combination of past arts, rather than some new, unique, personal innovation by each author. When authors write, what they’re really doing is regurgitating what they’ve digested of their culture and their experience with literature. It’s the old misconception that the more one reads and studies, the more one dilutes their individual personality and starts to sound like other writers; but the reverse is actually true, because the more one reads and studies, the more one is able to combine the voices of the past into a new concoction that actually reads/feels differently. It’s typically the unlearned, shallowly read writers that sound like everyone else because they repeat the cliches that more learned writers avoid. So I don’t think it’s true that every writer (even every good writer) has something different to say and a unique way of saying it, at best what I’d say is that they have something familiar to say in a way that feels unique because of its mixture of old ways of saying it.

@stlukes


I am, unfortunately, familiar with most of the names dropped. I simply wouldn't read any of them again voluntarily, and I was suggesting that if one is engaging in a dialog on the question of the accessibility of literature and arguing against opacity or difficulty in favor of such accessibility, there is a certain irony in dropping a bunch of names of critics more inaccessible than Faulkner or Joyce.I guess I don’t see the irony since those critics were being used as examples of writers that are needlessly opaque, difficult, and inaccessible.


Are all critics irrelevant outside of academia? I don't know. I'd like to think that some like Johnson, Ruskin, Coleridge, Paz, Borges, Robert Hughes, etc... are actually good writers. It’s not so much a question of them being good or bad writers as it is of how many people are interested in reading literary criticism or theory outside of academia. Even passionate readers’ time is limited, and most would rather spend it reading novels, poetry, and/or drama than reading critics writing about novels, poetry, and/or drama. An interest in criticism and theory is almost exclusively an academic pursuit outside of the people that actually do it for a living.

@cacian


Ah well I like all things to appeal to all because that is the only way to bring people together. To write is to imagine everyone having a go because they can all find something in it to entertain and think about.I once made a similar point in a thread on here a long while ago, essentially that I think art is better when it’s able to attract both popular audiences and the cognoscenti because only then do you get a kind of push/pull tension happening between tastes and opinions. I always come back to Hitchcock and Shakespeare being the prime examples of artists able to appeal equally to both, and there’s probably some truth that their greatness is a product of that rare ability. However, most artists simply aren’t capable of this, nor do I think they have to be or should even try to be. Usually, our favorite artists are those that have a limited appeal but speak to us in very personal ways. Blake may be such an example in literature of an author whose appeal is not broad, but is capable of creating fanatic devotion in those whom he speaks to deeply. In film I’d say that Brakhage, Hou Hsiao-hsien, or Theo Angelopoulos are directors that speak personally to me but that are very difficult and inaccessible to most. I adore Shakespeare and Hitch, but I’m equally appreciative for Blake and Brakhage. As far as all audiences having a go, there is actually a literary theory known as the implied reader (http://www.amazon.com/Implied-Reader-Patterns-Communication-Fiction/dp/0801821509), that talks about the audience any writer has in mind when making a work, and how that audiences shapes how the work comes to be. Donne was writing for a very different audience than Dickens, and, again, I’m glad that both audiences existed to inspire the work of both.

@Alex


Virgil does not innovate nor is he original and experimental, he uses the same epic model borrowed from the greeks, yet he was the su[reme poet for roughly a thousand years. I think a distinction needs to be made between “original/experimental” and “innovation.” Typically, the former implies a dramatic break from traditional forms, while the latter is used to describe small new things introduced within tradition. On that level, I think we can say Virgil (as with Milton) were innovative, if not entirely “original” or “experimental.” Virgil certainly expanded the scope of pastoral poetry, and his linguistically dense and artificial epic is quite a ways a way from the Greek model.

@JBI


Butler, Spivak and Bhabha are three authors (their genre being philosophy/theory) who are only read by academics. my point was that if they broadened their audience they would be more effective. The fact that you could not understand my post only highlights its point - that audience is becoming divided by esoteric and technical language. EDIT: Much of what I wrote here you addressed in your previous post, but I'll leave it anyway.

There is an argument to be made for why the audience has become so limited. The practical critics of the 18th and 19th centuries were writing for a “mass” audience that shared their broad frame of reference. It was, in a sense, a luxury to have so many people from the same culture with the same shared interest and the same general knowledge, and it allowed critics like Johnson and Coleridge and Hazlitt to speak generally and plainly to that audience. The 20th century saw a broadening, fracturing, and integrating of culture, and minority views and voices began to find representation and outlet more than it had in previous centuries. Literary criticism and theory is essentially a reflection of that fracturing and broadening, to the point that special theorists (feminism, queer, post-structuralism, post-colonial, etc.) are equal to what could be collectively called “practical criticism.”

Every specialization comes with its own lexicon that seems unreadable to outsiders, but I’ve found that most theorists are easily understood once you digest the initially alien terminology. Where I would agree with you, though, is that much of what they have to say is not insightful, original, or substantial enough to warrant the obscure lexicon they couch it in. However, one could say the same for a great deal of philosophy, which is equally bad at creating terms that seem needlessly vague and obscure, and are equally needless much of the time. Overall, though, I think the greatest crime committed by the various 20th century theorists is in the ideas that a culture theory can subsume art under its theoretical paradigm. That’s why, despite my familiarity and often fascination with theory, I come back to practical critics like IA Richards, Cleanth Brooks, William Empson, Helen Vendler, and Christopher Ricks (who has written eloquently on this issue: see “Principles Against Theory” and “The Pursuit of Metaphor”). I find that their approach to understanding literature is consistently more insightful, flexible, comprehensive, and less dogmatic as opposed to theorists that typically require you to understand their language, and then buy into their theory of culture, before what they say about literature is insightful. However clever and interesting much of theory is, I dislike how it’s taken on religious-like qualities in academia, where anyone outside of it is considered naïve, insular, etc.

FWIW, this battle between theorists and (practical) critics is not limited to literature but extends to film as well. There’s a relatively famous dispute between David Bordwell (a film scholar) and Slavoj Zizek (cultural critic) about the limits of the other’s approach, and the same way I side with Ricks in regards to literature, I side with Bordwell in regards to film: http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/zizek.php


Identity has a point, but what is the point of locking out readers in literary discussion. It just adds to the argument that literary theory is a waste of time, and mere mental masturbation.Has literary criticism (not just theory) ever been more than a "waste of time" and "mental masturbation"?


...finally all the nonsense and pseudo marxism will be put to rest in favor of older modes of history and close reading...it came to a point where theory left the text behind, and merely began to discuss theory - its application reduced to mere philosophy on other philosophy.Formalism and Historicism will certainly outlast the fashions of modern theory, as they've been around since the dawn of aesthetic theory. Your point about why this will happen is a point I've made frequently myself. Too often with theory all it is pseudo-philosophy without the intellectual substance of the great philsophers. What you end up with is culture and philosophical theories twisted and mutated grotesquely in order to "analyze" literature and art, the result is frequently a distorted, bastardization of philosophy, cultural studies, and art.


I suspect much of this has to do with the fact that film critics and theorists have influenced the genre - in film criticism, it being a relatively new field, theory is still in the background. The technical requirement on the commentary has proved you need a grasp of close reading - or viewing - in order to be able to discuss the work. This, I think, is incorrect. Theory in film has been pervasive since the 60s, as Bordwell discussed in the link above, and it very much grew out of literary theory. The “practical” critics of film are those typically writing for mainstream publication in the form of reviews rather than those in academia. The formalists and cognitivists like Bordwell are likely in the minority within film academia still, while theorists like Zizek (Lacan, Marx), Molly Haskell (feminism), and Christopher Metz (structuralism) have dominated for decades.

[JCamilo]

C'mom, JBI, there is a lot of ingenuity to think a specialized profession can be exercised as easily by everyone without proper pratice. It is not just language, and yet, this would not be besides a point. It has a point.

And Scientists? Really? Hawkins claims exactly the contrary when he wrote. Simple because most scientists must domain and use a extremelly hard form of language, mathematics. And Biologists?They employ a dead language. And scientific thesis is very direct and simple if you first has the keys to read it.

Frankly, Derrida is even mainstream. He has books for average audience. Foucault in other hand is widely know for his "mental masturbation". Any can read either, but calling Derrida unreadable is funny.

Anyways, literary criticism is not failling because it is academic. Biologists face much of lawman with the creationism battle. Any form of elite in western is facing the same process of criticism. In a past thread you claimed there is not such thing as academics, now you discuss as if the entire field is the same. It is simple not. Just think, Eco, Derrida, Barthes, even Bloom... when theorics have been so popular? Those guys are pop, not in the sole domain of academy at all.

[MorpheusSandman]

JCamilo, the difference between scientists and critical theorists (and philosophers, I'd argue) is that the former are attempting to be reductive, using language which refers to one, very specific object that everyone within the field understands; the latter's lexical inventions are frequently obscure, and instead of reductionism, they perpetually inflate to include more and more ambiguous implications. Ironically, IA Richards wrote of this way back in the 20s before theory even really got going in how many of the "important" words in philosophy were dangerously ambiguous and were what lead to the great variety of interpretations and misreadings. Richards seemed to think that this could be solved by better understanding context, but I don't think such ambiguity can be completely resolved and relieved by context (many Biblical cruxes prove this point). The solution is, inevitably, I think, more precise language, rather than more ambiguous language, yet is there any doubt that theorists revel in ambiguous language? Even taking JBI's quote from Butler, how many time is "structure" used and what does it mean, precisely, each time? IMO, in trying to subsume too much of culture within their theoretical paradigms, theory has too frequently invented a lexicon that can't speak precisely and incisively about its subjects. It's the consequence of trying to write about things on a macro level, about structure and groups and power and gender, and what happens are details and precision slips through their fingers. Science is about splitting atoms with lasers, while theory is about knocking down skyscrapers with wrecking balls without realizing there's a great deal of life going on within the buildings that are unaccounted for.

[OrphanPip]

Depends on the theorist. Butler is obtuse, but her ideas about performativity can be pretty clear when they're put in the hands of a more direct writer like Jack Halberstam.

[MorpheusSandman]

True, it does depend on the theorist, and not all of them write like wannabe philosophers, but the trend is far more prevalent amongst them compared to the "practical critics".

[cacian]

But who really read Odyssey or Iliad on class? And how many of them really read it?

Plus, Aurora is like a Dickens story. There is not really anything as Homer in prose, so I guess people who search for victoria drama has the much more accessible Dickens.

Good point.
For one to want to read anything they have to have a starting point a reason a palpable one in order to desire that read.
As a class it is even more fun to have a directed reason to want to read. When a book is read then everyone has either confirmed or had a question of something in mind answered as and when they finish reading.
No point in presenting me with a literary text if I have nothing to hold on to when I read.
To read is to be in charge from the word go. The writer is to allow dissoluted ideas afore hands if a reader is going to have chance in grabbing hold off the reign as he rides/reads the story if you like.

[mona amon]

What about the reader who likes Joyce and Dickens, but not Eliot? Readers are difficult to classify into uniform groups. You will find people who list Harry Potter and Ulysses among their favourite works.

That's more than doubtful.


mal4mac - Yes this is doubtful, Harry Potter doesn't have one supporter among the 125 leading authors represented in Zane's "Top Ten", in which 544 books get a mention. One writer chooses "Peter Pan" alongside Ulysses... Only 13 authors pick Ulysses, which is well out of the overall "Top Ten"...

Why all the doubt? I mean, no one's going to expect one who only reads HP, Twilight etc to be able to read Ulysses, but if you start from the opposite end, there's no reason why a person who loves Ulysses cannot also love HP. We're talking about love here (or at least I was), not artistic merit. A low brow book can be just as capable of stirring up love in the reader as a highbrow book, but of course not all books, highbrow, low brow or middle brow, are capable of doing that.

I put both Ulysses and HP on my favourites list in my profile because I love both these books. But I didn't put HP on my Litnet top 10 list because I felt that sort of list needed a more objective sort of judging process of what makes a great book.

Examples of low-brow books that are beloved by a wide range of readers - To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone With the Wind, Winnie-The-Pooh, I can't think of any others at the moment but there must be many, especially children's books.

[kelby_lake]

I have a high-brow and low-brow love of films, as long as they are successfully high-brow or successfully low-brow and are recognised as such. For example, I love Music and Lyrics but I would never claim it to be a high work of art.

I wouldn't called TKAM low-brow. Simple but not low-brow. Low-brow I would associate with melodrama, farce, the anti-intellectual.

[cacian]

I have a high-brow and low-brow love of films, as long as they are successfully high-brow or successfully low-brow and are recognised as such. For example, I love Music and Lyrics but I would never claim it to be a high work of art.

I wouldn't called TKAM low-brow. Simple but not low-brow. Low-brow I would associate with melodrama, farce, the anti-intellectual.

A low and high brow....now that sounds like someone pulling faces.

[mal4mac]

I think you can have good high brow and bad low brow, an example of the former would be films like "The Wolfman" starring Anthony Hopkins (or the original...). For me, an example of bad is "reality" shows like "I'm a celebrity get me out of here..."


Scientific writing is actually deliberately succinct and clear...

Yes they present equation A and equation B, and join them with the phrase "it is obvious that A implies B". This is both clear and succinct. The problem, then, is that the reader has to write most of the book, that is, cover reams of paper in showing that A does indeed imply B, usually a hard task as "it is obvious that A implies B" only to the professor.

[JCamilo]

JCamilo, the difference between scientists and critical theorists (and philosophers, I'd argue) is that the former are attempting to be reductive, using language which refers to one, very specific object that everyone within the field understands; the latter's lexical inventions are frequently obscure, and instead of reductionism, they perpetually inflate to include more and more ambiguous implications. Ironically, IA Richards wrote of this way back in the 20s before theory even really got going in how many of the "important" words in philosophy were dangerously ambiguous and were what lead to the great variety of interpretations and misreadings. Richards seemed to think that this could be solved by better understanding context, but I don't think such ambiguity can be completely resolved and relieved by context (many Biblical cruxes prove this point). The solution is, inevitably, I think, more precise language, rather than more ambiguous language, yet is there any doubt that theorists revel in ambiguous language? Even taking JBI's quote from Butler, how many time is "structure" used and what does it mean, precisely, each time? IMO, in trying to subsume too much of culture within their theoretical paradigms, theory has too frequently invented a lexicon that can't speak precisely and incisively about its subjects. It's the consequence of trying to write about things on a macro level, about structure and groups and power and gender, and what happens are details and precision slips through their fingers. Science is about splitting atoms with lasers, while theory is about knocking down skyscrapers with wrecking balls without realizing there's a great deal of life going on within the buildings that are unaccounted for.

All this is irrelevant, first being "reductive" is hardly being easier. And this does not change a single letter from the fact that scientists,on their field, are also using a language that excludes the vast majority of readers. Which is pointing there is little difference on result (exclusion of readers), even if in different style. Again, Hawkins pointed that phisiciains were only understood by the other handful physicians in the world.

This is not new, Dawkins and Gould, who tried to write about evolution for the public received their share of criticism for doing so. The groups protected themselves with language. I mean, you do not even need to go faraway to find the lovely internet argument "Evolution is just a theory"..."but in science, theory means something else" to know there is a wall deliverated build in every academic field that put apart specialists and just the curious.

And really: Science has their share of critics, the scientific language is ambigous enough to provoke doubt. Wittengstein already pointed that all communication is ambiguous. It is pure scientific arrogance to believe they are free of that (which leads to a deep dig on mathematical expressions to achive this perfection, which leads to criticism towards Darwin - which is a criticism towards Biology, a science which expression cannot be equal to physics neither should. Let's put that clearly: Science is so "clear" that only specialists really understand. Just like literature.

As Butler quote, I have nothing to say. It does not seems to means anything, a random quote. Maybe badly written - or Obtuse like Pip pointed - but unreadable? Not comprehensive? And if brevity and clarity would stop misunderstanding, "All art is useless" would never cause so much attacks on the use of art. The Butler case may be an evidence of a bad theoric rather than an evidence that people are unreadable, working to get difficulty without reason... or just that Kant is probally the most influencial philosopher since the greeks and heck... He writes with such clarity and precision, right?

[cafolini]

All this is irrelevant, first being "reductive" is hardly being easier. And this does not change a single letter from the fact that scientists,on their field, are also using a language that excludes the vast majority of readers. Which is pointing there is little difference on result (exclusion of readers), even if in different style. Again, Hawkins pointed that phisiciains were only understood by the other handful physicians in the world.

This is not new, Dawkins and Gould, who tried to write about evolution for the public received their share of criticism for doing so. The groups protected themselves with language. I mean, you do not even need to go faraway to find the lovely internet argument "Evolution is just a theory"..."but in science, theory means something else" to know there is a wall deliverated build in every academic field that put apart specialists and just the curious.

And really: Science has their share of critics, the scientific language is ambigous enough to provoke doubt. Wittengstein already pointed that all communication is ambiguous. It is pure scientific arrogance to believe they are free of that (which leads to a deep dig on mathematical expressions to achive this perfection, which leads to criticism towards Darwin - which is a criticism towards Biology, a science which expression cannot be equal to physics neither should. Let's put that clearly: Science is so "clear" that only specialists really understand. Just like literature.

As Butler quote, I have nothing to say. It does not seems to means anything, a random quote. Maybe badly written - or Obtuse like Pip pointed - but unreadable? Not comprehensive? And if brevity and clarity would stop misunderstanding, "All art is useless" would never cause so much attacks on the use of art. The Butler case may be an evidence of a bad theoric rather than an evidence that people are unreadable, working to get difficulty without reason... or just that Kant is probally the most influencial philosopher since the greeks and heck... He writes with such clarity and precision, right?

I disagree on several counts, but I like how stimulating your position is and the bits of irony that spring from it. I think disambiguation has taken place after post-structuralism died with Foucault and Co. We are in the postmodern age and I doubt very much it can ever be overcome.

[Delta40]

For the sake of facial expression, surely there has to be a below brow....?

[MorpheusSandman]

All this is irrelevant, first being "reductive" is hardly being easier. And this does not change a single letter from the fact that scientists,on their field, are also using a language that excludes the vast majority of readers... Let's put that clearly: Science is so "clear" that only specialists really understand. Just like literature.I wasn't arguing that being reductive was "easier" or that it made science more accessible to the vast majority of readers, but I was merely trying to distinguish between the unique lexicon that is absolutely necessary to science (applying symbols to specific, singular referents) versus the unique lexicon that is rarely necessary to literary theory (that applies symbols to vague, ambiguous referents... if there are any actual referents at all). It's not even that literary theory HAS to be like that, as there is a necessary taxonomies in literature that has its science-like uses. EG, terms used to describe the meters of poetry (iambic pentameter, eg) have a reductive quality; something like "a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure" does not... at all. You may want to hand-wave that quote away, but such quotes are NOT atypical of theorists. Of course, science has similar problems when one is trying to translate experiments and mathematics back into "common language," but that, if anything, is evidence of the failures of language as a symbolic system as opposed to the experimental, empirical, mathematical world of science. Wittgenstein may have thought all language was ambiguous, but this is only because of how symbols pick up multiple referents and intensions as opposed to being reductive to begin with. There are plenty of scientific and mathematical terms that are not the least bit ambiguous. Yes, specialists are needed to understand science, but I don't think you can argue that there is any similar kind of specialists understanding literary theory. You don't get thousands of scientists debating over just what Einstein meant with relativity because it's all there in the math and the experiments, although you do get thousands of literary theorists debating over exactly what "post-structuralism" is supposed to entail.


Kant is probally the most influencial philosopher since the greeks and heck... He writes with such clarity and precision, right?No, but I don't recall saying I was letting philosophers off the hook for their ambiguous language either. At least Wittgenstein realized that most philosophy was a debate over language rather than things that actually had real-world consequences.

[JCamilo]

I wasn't arguing that being reductive was "easier" or that it made science more accessible to the vast majority of readers, but I was merely trying to distinguish between the unique lexicon that is absolutely necessary to science (applying symbols to specific, singular referents) versus the unique lexicon that is rarely necessary to literary theory (that applies symbols to vague, ambiguous referents... if there are any actual referents at all).

First and foremost ,your replied to me after a reply where scientific language spefics was mentioned as a form of field exclusion. Then this was the topic here. But even so, you appeal to a false dicotomy, just like physics, chemestry, biology, medicine needs specific language, so does literary theory. For exactly the same reason. With the same history: academic language development. It is nice your faith on science castle, but sorry, read Darwin and you see someone confuse enough.



It's not even that literary theory HAS to be like that, as there is a necessary taxonomies in literature that has its science-like uses. EG, terms used to describe the meters of poetry (iambic pentameter, eg) have a reductive quality; something like "a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure" does not... at all. You may want to hand-wave that quote away, but such quotes are NOT atypical of theorists. Of course, science has similar problems when one is trying to translate experiments and mathematics back into "common language," but that, if anything, is evidence of the failures of language as a symbolic system as opposed to the experimental, empirical, mathematical world of science.

First, it is a failure of language. Empirical, mathematical, it is irrelevant. And if you manage to point "of course, science has this problem too"... trying to present one field as different to the other like you are doing is ilogical. Both are just the same. And mathematics is a complex system of language hermetic on this own. There is critics to Darwin because he didnt present his theory in a way it could not be reduced to a mathematical formula. So, yes, science do have this need to add expressions that not necessary just for "style".


Wittgenstein may have thought all language was ambiguous, but this is only because of how symbols pick up multiple referents and intensions as opposed to being reductive to begin with. There are plenty of scientific and mathematical terms that are not the least bit ambiguous.

No, Wittgenstein was not talking about symbols. He was talking about communication as a fact. All communication is simply put, ambiguous. And the fact that there is some not ambigous symbols, this does not mean that all constructions with those symbols are not. A mathematical equation is ultimatelly meaningless without references and this is enough to open the possiblity of confusion. And by the way, there is plenty of literary theory terms that are "Not ambiguous"...


Yes, specialists are needed to understand science, but I don't think you can argue that there is any similar kind of specialists understanding literary theory.

I suppose they understand literature, instead of literature.


You don't get thousands of scientists debating over just what Einstein meant with relativity because it's all there in the math and the experiments, although you do get thousands of literary theorists debating over exactly what "post-structuralism" is supposed to entail.

Eh?Post-structuralism is not an academic term, just a movement term. It is like saying Newton was a illuminist. Or Darwin a positivist (he is not really). And you get thousans of scientists trying to understand what Einstein meant, You had with Darwin (the term Evolution is ambiguous as hell). Therminology in science, like in biology, changes from time to time, even the classification in Biology. You are out of your mind if you think scientific lexycon is somehow statitic and not open of debate. People do discuss structuralism ideas, because they are not a finished work like Gravity law (not to mention, they are not scientific theories, so, trying to demand from them the same effect is just not understanding the textual genre they belong).


No, but I don't recall saying I was letting philosophers off the hook for their ambiguous language either. At least Wittgenstein realized that most philosophy was a debate over language rather than things that actually had real-world consequences.

He never said such thing because it is an abuse of imbecility to claim philosophy is a debate of things that had no real world consequence.

[mal4mac]

I wasn't arguing that being reductive was "easier" or that it made science more accessible to the vast majority of readers, but I was merely trying to distinguish between the unique lexicon that is absolutely necessary to science (applying symbols to specific, singular referents)

What if the referents aren't specific or singular? For instance, In Quantum Mechanics the referent might be a wave, or it might be a particle, depending on how you look at it. You might say the referent is a specific, singular probability distribution before the experiment, and after the experiment it's a specific, singular observation. But arguing that a probability distribution is a specific, singular referent seems wrong, as a probability distribution, by being a distribution, is *not* singular.



... science has similar problems when one is trying to translate experiments and mathematics back into "common language," but that, if anything, is evidence of the failures of language as a symbolic system as opposed to the experimental, empirical, mathematical world of science.


How is that a failure? Isn't it just the way language has to be, given the limitations of human beings as evolved apes? Isn't trying to explain quantum mechanics to humans, in words, like trying to get a pig to fly?



Wittgenstein may have thought all language was ambiguous, but this is only because of how symbols pick up multiple referents and intensions as opposed to being reductive to begin with. There are plenty of scientific and mathematical terms that are not the least bit ambiguous.


And there are plenty that are not... or have no referent (i.e., they require you to shut up and calculate...)


A mathematical equation is ultimatelly meaningless without references and this is enough to open the possiblity of confusion....

Yes! That's the problem with Quantum Mechanics, and why Feynman said no one understands it,and why we have all these interpretations making it very confusing - many worlds, Copenhagen, transactional, etc., etc.,...



People do discuss structuralism ideas, because they are not a finished work like Gravity law...

"Gravity law" is not finished, Einstein's General Relativity breaks down at Quantum Dimensions, that's why we have String theorists etc. But given their lack of success, one wonders if "Gravity law" will ever move on from Einstein, and so perhaps it is "finished", in the sense that, in a few years, string experimentalists might say, "the tax payers won't let us build a supercollider with the diameter of the Earth's orbit, so we give up, we're off to make bags of money building web apps, to cheat the British tax payer like Bezos..."

[OrphanPip]

"a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure"

Butler is being her usual obtuse self, but she's not saying anything here that is too insubstantial. She is describing an epistemological shift in structuralist thinking which lead to a form of post-structuralist thinking. I.e. a view of hegemony (the Marxist conception where knowledge is controlled by a powerful dominating body, like the bourgeoisie) which was eventually moved onto a less hierarchical, Foucauldian understanding of power (everyone has a certain amount of power to shape knowledge, how we think of things isn't dictated top down), which undermined the view that structuralist theory was describing something static. In effect she is just summarizing theoretical trends of the 1970-90s.

[cafolini]

They have always been particles. Wave mathematics is used to describe behavior and then some stupidly think the wave is alive and simply another way of talking about an actual particle.

[JCamilo]

"Gravity law" is not finished, Einstein's General Relativity breaks down at Quantum Dimensions, that's why we have String theorists etc. But given their lack of success, one wonders if "Gravity law" will ever move on from Einstein, and so perhaps it is "finished", in the sense that, in a few years, string experimentalists might say, "the tax payers won't let us build a supercollider with the diameter of the Earth's orbit, so we give up, we're off to make bags of money building web apps, to cheat the British tax payer like Bezos..."

Sorry, If I wasn't clear. I was thinking of Newton works as a text. The laws of his theory are "clear" and "not ambiguous" (specially now, 300 years of study where all ambiguity is left behind) because it is a matter of textual style. Laws. You cannot compare -as it is seems - with another form of discuss or a text that is not a syntesis but a disgression towards one hypothesis. They will be naturally different.

And to resume, I do not think (calling the entiry Scientific Community as a whole is a mistake) one or another fields has less or more accomplished truths or they have less or more clarity on their language. It is not my point. The point is:

Academics are language exclusive since the greeks. It is not a new thing. They kept alive latim alongside the church, a dead language. They moved from oral wisdow to written wisdom. Etc.

All fields have their own thrend of language which are understood inside the field. If the give Buttler style is not great - but MP implies, it is a commun use among theorics, then it only supports my point. (And Pip seems to think so far, that her style is not unreadable, pointless or anything as that). Like all other field, there is textual style that is understood and praticed by the members of this field. Or, returning to the original point, they do not make it diffuculty without purpose, they write this way because they belong to a group and target this group.

Some scientific fields may have a less ambiguous text. But only for those who understand it. As much simple maths is, it is hermetic. It is adding difficulty for understandment. Not simplification. Difficulty is not the same as excessive and repetive work. "I am who I am" is ambiguous as hell and it is simple, clear, more clear than any mathematical equation. Meanwhile, Proust is quite understandable albeit the excess of his language.

So, I doubt very much critical theorics are doing anything that is not doing in every field, since the dawn of time.

[kelby_lake]

As for the language of literary critics, it always sounds like they're trying to make the book more distant and confusing. The book is simply an excuse for this type of literary critic to impose their political beliefs or to show off their intellect, without saying anything intelligent about the book at all.

[MorpheusSandman]

JCamilo


…just like physics, chemestry, biology, medicine needs specific language, so does literary theory. For exactly the same reason.The discovery or observation of a new object requires a new term to refer to it. When this happens in any field then specific language related to it is necessary. However, this is not always what happens, and it is not uncommon for those in such fields to needlessly invent terminology that not only doesn’t have any specific, reductive referent, but is so damned ambiguous that you get people arguing over just what it means. Do both of these things happen in science and literary theory? Yes, but I’d argue that former is much more common in science and much rarer in literary theory, especially considering that most of that kind of necessary literary terminology has been around since the Greeks. Conversely, I’d argue the latter has become almost the trademark of modern literary theory, the invention and, sometimes, misappropriation of terminology that isn’t actually describing anything definite. One doesn’t have to look much farther than Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to see a proliferation of this. Lacan’s terms have very little practical value even within actual psychoanlaysis, but they certainly weren’t coined to be used to analyze literature.


mathematics is a complex system of language hermetic on this own.Yes, but nobody debates over what the symbol “+” means.


And the fact that there is some not ambigous symbols, this does not mean that all constructions with those symbols are not. A mathematical equation is ultimatelly meaningless without referencesCommunication is only ambiguous when the symbols and/or grammar is, and when completely reductive, non-ambiguous symbols and grammar are used, as in most math, then there is no ambiguity. That language doesn’t usually have that kind of luxury doesn’t mean it’s an impossibility, or that we shouldn’t strive for it. As for math being meaningless without referents, I don’t entirely agree. There’s a lot of theoretical math that’s done without referents, only using the language of math, that may or may not have any actual referents (the way, eg, infinity is used in physics).


And you get thousans of scientists trying to understand what Einstein meant,You do? I’m unaware of any modern physicists that don’t understand relativity…


You are out of your mind if you think scientific lexycon is somehow statitic and not open of debate.I never called it static, but what I did say was that it seeks specificity and reductionism so as to disallow for ambiguities. Reality frequently complicates our attempts to reduce it, but at least there is an attempt and, usually, eventually, a success.


People do discuss structuralism ideas, because they are not a finished work like Gravity law (not to mention, they are not scientific theories, so, trying to demand from them the same effect is just not understanding the textual genre they belong).The very usage of the word “theory” implies that there is some principle or mode of thought that can explain the full range of phenomena within whatever field it’s discussing; in this case, a literary theory would seek to explain the underlying mechanism of all literature. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect something approaching the rigors of scientific theories for literary theories. As for various theories not being “finished,” I’d contend they CAN’T be finished because none of them can possible account for everything within literature, which makes me wonder why we call them “theories” in the first place.


…He never said such thing because it is an abuse of imbecility to claim philosophy is a debate of things that had no real world consequence.Well, that was badly stated, but Wittgenstein clearly thought that philosophical problems were more problems of language than actual problems, and he felt that most of these problems would dissolve with the correct usage of language. Are you familiar with the Wittgenstein/Popper poker incident?

mal4mac


What if the referents aren't specific or singular? For instance, In Quantum Mechanics the referent might be a wave, or it might be a particle, depending on how you look at it.I would assume that the reason we have both terms is to refer to which way you’re looking at it… FWIW, I did say that science attempts to be reductive, not that it always is or always can be. Just to clarify as much as possible, I don’t think literary theory even makes attempts at reductionism, preferring to create very broad, ambiguous terminology whose very vagueness makes it intriguing, if ultimately rather insubstantial.


How is that a failure?I should’ve said it’s a failure of how human cognition creates and interprets language rather than a problem of language in the abstract. A good explanation of what I’m talking about would be this article: http://lesswrong.com/lw/nh/extensions_and_intensions/ Specifically:
The actual intension of my "tiger" concept would be the neural pattern (in my temporal cortex) that inspects an incoming signal from the visual cortex to determine whether or not it is a tiger.
The actual extension of my "tiger" concept is everything I call a tiger.

Intensional definitions don't capture entire intensions; extensional definitions don't capture entire extensions. If I point to just one tiger and say the word "tiger", the communication may fail if they think I mean "dangerous animal" or "male tiger" or "yellow thing". Similarly, if I say "dangerous yellow-black striped animal", without pointing to anything, the listener may visualize giant hornets.
You can't capture in words all the details of the cognitive concept—as it exists in your mind—that lets you recognize things as tigers or nontigers. It's too large. And you can't point to all the tigers you've ever seen, let alone everything you would call a tiger.

The strongest definitions use a crossfire of intensional and extensional communication to nail down a concept. Even so, you only communicate maps to concepts, or instructions for building concepts—you don't communicate the actual categories as they exist in your mind or in the world…

So that's another reason you can't "define a word any way you like": You can't directly program concepts into someone else's brain.My point in the quoted statement being that trying to translate empiricism, tests, and, especially, math back into language because it’s difficult (sometimes impossible) to find the words that will “directly program concepts into someone else’s brain.” I’m not saying that science doesn’t face this challenge as much as literary theory, but the difference seems to me that science often already has the models—the language, predictions, tests, etc.—that work, and then it merely becomes a challenge of translating all that’s known back into a language that can make it known to those unfamiliar to that language. Is this really comparable to literary theory? Do theorists really have powerful explanations of how literature functions and are only finding it a challenge to translate that back into a language that’s understandable, or does the obscure language merely represent very obscure ideas? I certainly don’t think the difficult, unique language of science exists, in general, as a reflection of obscure ideas, and whenever the ideas are obscure, there is usually an attempt towards clarity. Does that happen in literary theory? All I see is that it’s become more complicated, more vague, more obscure, and I don’t see that the ideas have really matched it.


"Gravity law" is not finished, Einstein's General Relativity breaks down at Quantum Dimensions, that's why we have String theorists etc.It’s “finished” in the context that Einstein developed it for. That it doesn’t hold down to the quantum level is a different issue.

[kelby_lake]

I suppose with literary theory, the critic has to 'justify' being paid for their job, as anyone can review a book, so they adopt a more complex language in order to assert their intellect. Scientific theory goes over my head but it doesn't go over the heads of other scientists, right? They do not need to justify themselves in the way that a literary critic might.

[mal4mac]

She is describing an epistemological shift in structuralist thinking which lead to a form of post-structuralist thinking. I.e. a view of hegemony (the Marxist conception where knowledge is controlled by a powerful dominating body, like the bourgeoisie) which was eventually moved onto a less hierarchical, Foucauldian understanding of power (everyone has a certain amount of power to shape knowledge, how we think of things isn't dictated top down), which undermined the view that structuralist theory was describing something static. In effect she is just summarizing theoretical trends of the 1970-90s.

Well that's very clear... but I still don't understand Butler's sentence! Does she give examples of power relations subject to "repetition, convergence, and rearticulation." I'll try: one of Stalin's goons found that sending dissident poets to prison shut them up, so "repeated" that process. Other goons converged on that process and sent all dissident poets they could find to prison, and "re articulated" the process by suggesting that the prisons were work camps devised to make the poets better citizens. Is that the kind of thing Butler means? If you asked the goons how this "brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure", might they say, "we changed our way of dealing with these b*****d poets over time, by devising new prison structures, so I guess so, yes."

But this makes it sound like Butler is saying something obvious and trivial, that she is using complex language to disguise the fact she is not saying anything new or interesting. So I must have it wrong? What is she saying?

[JCamilo]

JCamilo

The discovery or observation of a new object requires a new term to refer to it. When this happens in any field then specific language related to it is necessary. However, this is not always what happens, and it is not uncommon for those in such fields to needlessly invent terminology that not only doesn’t have any specific, reductive referent, but is so damned ambiguous that you get people arguing over just what it means.

This is true in any field. Even sports.


Do both of these things happen in science and literary theory? Yes, but I’d argue that former is much more common in science and much rarer in literary theory, especially considering that most of that kind of necessary literary terminology has been around since the Greeks.

Greeks didn't even had paragraphs. They didn't had novels. They din't have romances. They didn't had digital literature. But the point you do not need to argue if the former is much more commun in science or not. You just show those numbers. This is simple data, either you have a study that shows it or not. Otherwise you are just guessing. And since the most influential language of humankind is latim, not greek... heck, my guessing is that your guessing is not very good.


Conversely, I’d argue the latter has become almost the trademark of modern literary theory, the invention and, sometimes, misappropriation of terminology that isn’t actually describing anything definite. One doesn’t have to look much farther than Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to see a proliferation of this. Lacan’s terms have very little practical value even within actual psychoanlaysis, but they certainly weren’t coined to be used to analyze literature.

How we ended in Lacan ? The appropriation of terminology is quite commun. Science does it all time - from classic philosophers, artists, religious texts. This kind of critic is quite irrelevant.


Yes, but nobody debates over what the symbol “+” means.

Are you positive of that?


Communication is only ambiguous when the symbols and/or grammar is, and when completely reductive, non-ambiguous symbols and grammar are used, as in most math, then there is no ambiguity

Are you talking about Wittgenstein and Propp and is saying communication is often not ambiguous and it happens because of symbols and grammar? Really...
Plus, you understand that completely reductive is something that is not "simple" at all? Or easy to understand?


That language doesn’t usually have that kind of luxury doesn’t mean it’s an impossibility, or that we shouldn’t strive for it. As for math being meaningless without referents, I don’t entirely agree. There’s a lot of theoretical math that’s done without referents, only using the language of math, that may or may not have any actual referents (the way, eg, infinity is used in physics).

Infinity used in physics is a referent. Abstract maths, that is "math for math" does not have an actual meaning you can traslate but the mathematical operations. Simply as put, a mathematical equation without its referencial is not anything but number "games". 2 + 2 = 4 means what?


You do? I’m unaware of any modern physicists that don’t understand relativity…

Albeit, there is physics who didnt understood Einstein and took a few decades for him to stabilish himself you are obviosuly misreading: thousands scientists try to understand Einstein. It is needed a reckonized degree of study, complexity and trainning of physics before they can even understand it. It is not simple. It is self-explanatory, just because it can be reduced to a small formula. I repeat E=MC² goes as I am who I am. Cryptic, complexity in simple forms.


I never called it static, but what I did say was that it seeks specificity and reductionism so as to disallow for ambiguities. Reality frequently complicates our attempts to reduce it, but at least there is an attempt and, usually, eventually, a success.

Hence why everyone in the world understands science right? Because it is a sucess that scientific knowledge have been translated to a easy pattern of communication that we all can understand?


The very usage of the word “theory” implies that there is some principle or mode of thought that can explain the full range of phenomena within whatever field it’s discussing; in this case, a literary theory would seek to explain the underlying mechanism of all literature.

No, it does not imply only it. A theory imply an abstract model that can represent something. But, simple as put, the so called hard sciences theories are just not the same as the human science theories. Most human sciences reckon they cannot be universal, they cannot be tested, there is no lab, etc. Literary theory is certainly not the same as Gravity Theory, Evolution Theory, etc.


I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect something approaching the rigors of scientific theories for literary theories. As for various theories not being “finished,” I’d contend they CAN’T be finished because none of them can possible account for everything within literature, which makes me wonder why we call them “theories” in the first place.

Are you joking right? The word theory predates modern science, scientific methods for millenia. It does not belong to science at all. Why should other fields abide to the exoteric of physics? And futher, you are not demanding more rigor, you are demading results similar. The objects are different, trying impose the same kind of testing to fields as Physics, Biology, Linguistics or Economic is just absurd.


Well, that was badly stated, but Wittgenstein clearly thought that philosophical problems were more problems of language than actual problems, and he felt that most of these problems would dissolve with the correct usage of language. Are you familiar with the Wittgenstein/Popper poker incident?

Yes, Popper had to block Wittgenstein's facebook account for it didn't stop poking him. Anyways, there is a ocean of difference between Wittgenstein beliving language generate the millenia of philosophy debate to think Philosophy had no real application, concepts and ideas.

[mal4mac]

I don't know any modern physicists who don't understand special relativity, equations and all, including E=MC², but there are many who don't understand General Relativity, at a professional level, e.g., they can't calculate standard results like the precession of the perihelion of mercury, or light rays being "bent" by solar gravity. Of course, they have probably read the more advanced popular works on General Relativity, so know what's what, but not at the level of professional understanding. GR is not a requirement for an undergraduate physics degree in the UK, and from there you can do research in non-GR areas, and so never gain the level of understanding that Einstein or Eddington had.

[mal4mac]

They have always been particles. Wave mathematics is used to describe behavior and then some stupidly think the wave is alive and simply another way of talking about an actual particle.

The "particles" don't act like any particles I know, for instance in the double hole experiment, when "going through" the first slit they "need to know" if the second slit is open, so they "know" when to make a wave pattern on the screen. If you're wondering "double what?", check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAgcqgDc-YM

(Of course particles can't know anything, so they must be "somehow" spread out so they go through both holes... but aren't spread out things waves? You might then submit and say "ok they are waves". But no! With one hole open they act like particles...)

[cafolini]

The "particles" don't act like any particles I know, for instance in the double hole experiment, when "going through" the first slit they "need to know" if the second slit is open, so they "know" when to make a wave pattern on the screen. If you're wondering "double what?", check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAgcqgDc-YM

(Of course particles can't know anything, so they must be "somehow" spread out so they go through both holes... but aren't spread out things waves? You might then submit and say "ok they are waves". But no! With one hole open they act like particles...)

I went to watch that video and my conclusion was that the man moved to and away from thre podium so that he could have two holes, his own, one near the podium and one away. I also noticed the comical laughter of the jackasses in the audience. What were they laughing about. What an utterly boring situation!! Closing this case.

[MorpheusSandman]

But the point you do not need to argue if the former is much more commun in science or not. You just show those numbers. This is simple data, either you have a study that shows it or not.Firstly, I don't know how one could "prove" this; is one supposed to count up every single term used in science and literary theory and compare them based on their reductive specificity? How would one even begin to carry that study out? Secondly, It's more than just "guessing," it's knowing the goals of the different fields. Science is seeking to understand, model, and clarify reality, and they seek a medium, a language, that can do that. They may not always succeed, but it's not for lack of trying, and it's not because they're trying to couch a bunch of nothing in complicated language. Literary theorists are looking to sell books (mostly) to other literary theorists, so they don't have so much concern in being clear as they do in writing in a way that will sell, and if pseudo-philosophy sells, that's how they'll write.


How we ended in Lacan ? The appropriation of terminology is quite commun. Science does it all time - from classic philosophers, artists, religious texts. This kind of critic is quite irrelevant. Lacan was just an example. Science appropriates terms by means of metaphor (this new thing X is like old thing Y: eg, the internet is connected like a "net" or a "web"); literary theorists think Lacan's terminology literally translates to the study of literature.


Are you positive of that? :lol: Obviously we're talking about in a mathematical context.


Are you talking about Wittgenstein and Propp and is saying communication is often not ambiguous and it happens because of symbols and grammar?
Plus, you understand that completely reductive is something that is not "simple" at all? Or easy to understand?I don't understand the first question. As for the second, yes, I realize that reductionism is a challenge, especially considering how humans process symbols, but, again, what I'm contrasting is the attempt at reductionism that's made in science versus the complete lack of attempt at reductionism in literary theory. Science does not like ambiguous symbols, literary theory seems to thrive on it.


Infinity used in physics is a referent.What's the real-world referent for infinity?


Albeit, there is physics who didnt understood Einstein and took a few decades for him to stabilish himself you are obviosuly misreading: thousands scientists try to understand Einstein. It is needed a reckonized degree of study, complexity and trainning of physics before they can even understand it.I'm not trying to misread, I'm just tripping up over your English a bit... Of course one has to go into a specialized field of study to understand Einstein, but with the requisite understanding of math and physics one can understand Einstein quite clearly because his mathematical formulas are quite un-ambiguous. Physicists do not debate about what Einstein said, or what his formulas mean. Again, I'm contrasting this with literary theorists that are always interpreted by even other theorists. A good example is how a social critic like Zizek, who is no dummy, is frequently criticized for "misreading/misunderstanding" Hegel and Lacan. Do any physicists "misread/misunderstand" Einstein?


Hence why everyone in the world understands science right?Again, that was never my argument. I never argument that science could find a language that would allow it to be understood by everyone without study. My argument was that with study it can be understand because it strives for its own specialized, unambiguous language that is quite clear when it's understood. I'm contrasting that with literary theory which I think does not contain this "study, and then you will unambiguously and perfectly understand" component.


But, simple as put, the so called hard sciences theories are just not the same as the human science theories.Obviously they're not the same, but the theories of physics aren't the same as the theory of evolution either. However, to be called a "theory" at all I would think literary "theories" should have SOMETHING in common with their scientific brethren, so what is the similarity?


Are you joking right? The word theory predates modern science, scientific methods for millenia. It does not belong to science at all.This is just a blatant example of the genetic fallacy. It doesn't matter where words originate from, it matters what they come to mean. Literary theory in its modern form was developed well after the advent of modern science, and, in light of that, it should not use the term so lightly if there is no comparison.


Yes, Popper had to block Wittgenstein's facebook account for it didn't stop poking him.:rofl:


Anyways, there is a ocean of difference between Wittgenstein beliving language generate the millenia of philosophy debate to think Philosophy had no real application, concepts and ideas.Him thinking that philosophical problems "dissolve" with a better use of language does seem to imply that these philosophical issues are problems of language rather than, well, real-world problems... I'm not sure how else to interpret that view.

[JCamilo]

Firstly, I don't know how one could "prove" this; is one supposed to count up every single term used in science and literary theory and compare them based on their reductive specificity? How would one even begin to carry that study out?

Hmm? Probally it is possible, but why are you making claims you know cannot be proved to sustain your argument?



Secondly, It's more than just "guessing," it's knowing the goals of the different fields. Science is seeking to understand, model, and clarify reality, and they seek a medium, a language, that can do that. They may not always succeed, but it's not for lack of trying, and it's not because they're trying to couch a bunch of nothing in complicated language. Literary theorists are looking to sell books (mostly) to other literary theorists, so they don't have so much concern in being clear as they do in writing in a way that will sell, and if pseudo-philosophy sells, that's how they'll write.

This is completely unrelated to the claim you made and now reckongnize is not even possible to be accounted.

But let's work the claim as new claim:

Scientists do not aim to sell books? Really? What is Richard Dawkins doing? The accusation that literary theorics made up therms just to sell books (while they, do like Bloom, who wrote in popular fashion therms that were already accepted in academy, because you know, average readers prefer a mindless canon discussion than theorization) is just bias. All academy tries to explain and understand things, clarify reality, etc. Science is nothing special. Child of Philosophy.


Lacan was just an example. Science appropriates terms by means of metaphor (this new thing X is like old thing Y: eg, the internet is connected like a "net" or a "web"); literary theorists think Lacan's terminology literally translates to the study of literature.

Science adapts by mean of metaphor? Do you mean... Evolution? Or wait, like Atom? And literary theorics do not think Lacan's therminology translate to study of literature without proper adaptations, specially considering Lacan borrowed from study of linguistics in first place and is hardly an authority on either field.


:lol: Obviously we're talking about in a mathematical context.

:D But a positive number, or better, a natural number is represented by a + and it is not an operation. And it is not even the only mathematical use of +. So you see, It is ambiguous. And not everyone can really tell what it is.


I don't understand the first question. As for the second, yes, I realize that reductionism is a challenge, especially considering how humans process symbols, but, again, what I'm contrasting is the attempt at reductionism that's made in science versus the complete lack of attempt at reductionism in literary theory. Science does not like ambiguous symbols, literary theory seems to thrive on it.

It is quite simple: both philosophers point ambiguity is born also from concepts and ideias. Not symbols and much less grammar. And nobody likes ambiguity in a explanation. But it is impossible as all symbols are ambiguous as they are part of communicatiion. Reducing communication to the message (where symbols and grammar are) is not accepted by Critical Theory for quite 80 years.


What's the real-world referent for infinity?

No idea, but at the momment you said "infinity for physics" you give me a referencial. I do not even know what it is, I just know you give me it.


I'm not trying to misread, I'm just tripping up over your English a bit... Of course one has to go into a specialized field of study to understand Einstein, but with the requisite understanding of math and physics one can understand Einstein quite clearly because his mathematical formulas are quite un-ambiguous. Physicists do not debate about what Einstein said, or what his formulas mean. Again, I'm contrasting this with literary theorists that are always interpreted by even other theorists. A good example is how a social critic like Zizek, who is no dummy, is frequently criticized for "misreading/misunderstanding" Hegel and Lacan. Do any physicists "misread/misunderstand" Einstein?

Lacan is debated because he is not "accepted". It is different. Einstein is. But even so, his first decade of fame was filled with contestations, included by physicicians. And like It was said here before, aspects of Relativity are discussed because there is lack of understanding. Point is: there is constant argumentation in science, interpretation, denial etc. It is like the field is organized. Futher, like you said: you need to be specialized to discuss Einstein and understand it. Just, suprise, you need to be in any field. All of them are language dependent.


Again, that was never my argument. I never argument that science could find a language that would allow it to be understood by everyone without study.

Which language is this one? Mathematics is barelly understood by the majority of people. Only the most basic is taught in schools and this basic, more proper for economics than physics, is often forgotten.

The other language?The one in articles, thesis, etc? Understood by most people? Not even popular guys like Gould, Dawnkins, Hawkins got even close of it. Most people cannot even understand Darwin yet, Newton, etc. I mean, until sometime ago, they are like the church. You had to know latim! Only with the democratization of teaching in the XIX there is an effort for basic norms, but heck,

This is an expert of Nature - the most popular scientific maganize.

Stabilization of ubiquitin's β1-β2 region by computational design and phage display, targeting both buried and surface residues, yields a ubiquitin variant that specifically inhibits the deubiquitinase USP7 in vitro and in cells.

Sorry, But this is ****ty. Meaningless. I suppose that make Pip a genius, as he probally understands this and Buttler and the only one who does it here.


My argument was that with study it can be understand because it strives for its own specialized, unambiguous language that is quite clear when it's understood. I'm contrasting that with literary theory which I think does not contain this "study, and then you will unambiguously and perfectly understand" component.

Obviously, with study yu can understand it. Pip did with the example that was called "Unreadable" here.


Obviously they're not the same, but the theories of physics aren't the same as the theory of evolution either. However, to be called a "theory" at all I would think literary "theories" should have SOMETHING in common with their scientific brethren, so what is the similarity?

Because they do not have to use the specific lexycon of Physics.


This is just a blatant example of the genetic fallacy. It doesn't matter where words originate from, it matters what they come to mean. Literary theory in its modern form was developed well after the advent of modern science, and, in light of that, it should not use the term so lightly if there is no comparison.

The problem is that the term still largely used in different ways than "theory" in science is used. So, it is not a falacy: it is just a simple as science does not define the lexycon but their own, so other fields can still use words with different meaning, even "science" will frown from it.


:rofl:

Him thinking that philosophical problems "dissolve" with a better use of language does seem to imply that these philosophical issues are problems of language rather than, well, real-world problems... I'm not sure how else to interpret that view.

he didnt think it. He thinks there is no philosophical problems. He thinks there is concepts ,ideas, notions that are all applied to real world. Do you know, right, he poked Propp exactly to show there is no philosophical problem?

[MorpheusSandman]

why are you making claims you know cannot be proved to sustain your argument? If you’re going to cull every post on this forum (and others) that make claims that cannot be proved without long, sustained research, then you’re essentially going to kill the medium itself.


This is completely unrelated to the claim you made and now reckongnize is not even possible to be accounted. How is it unrelated to the claim I made? My original claim was that most specific scientific terminology exists as an attempt at clarified reductionism while most literary theory terminology does not. The differing goals of science and literary theory are very much influential in why that is.


Scientists do not aim to sell books? Really? What is Richard Dawkins doing?You’re talking about popularized science, the type that seeks to transform the original complexity and specificity back into common language for a mass public. This was obviously NOT what I was referring to by the specialized language of science that only other scientists can understand; the popularized version goes back to what I said about the difficulty of translating the original into something more digestible amongst the publich.


The accusation that literary theorics made up therms just to sell books is just bias. All academy tries to explain and understand things, clarify reality, etc. Science is nothing special. Child of Philosophy. Now who’s making claims that can’t be proved? Can you prove that the thinking is bias, or that all acadmeics tries to explain/understand things? Of course you can’t. With that out of the way, even a Lacanian like Ben Saunders objects to the notion that literary theory and criticism seeks to understand/clarify reality, or even the literary objects it purports to analyze. He feels, as I do, that literary theory exists as a reflective sounding board, a “do you see/feel what I see/feel” approach, an attempt to fulfill the desire that’s left after the experience of the object itself. Again, this is entirely different from the goals (much less achievements) of science. Science seeks to eliminate the various cognitive biases that prevents us from accurately understanding and modeling reality, but without bias, literary criticism/theory doesn’t exist. And, again, stating science is just “the child of philosophy” is a blatant genetic fallacy.


Science adapts by mean of metaphor? Do you mean... Evolution? Or wait, like Atom?I said appropriates, and I was talking about the terms they DO take from reality, not neologisms.


And literary theorics do not think Lacan's therminology translate to study of literature without proper adaptationsOh, really? That hasn’t been my experience with most Lacanian criticism.


But a positive number, or better, a natural number is represented by a + and it is not an operation. And it is not even the only mathematical use of +. So you see, It is ambiguous. And not everyone can really tell what it is. If you encounter it in a properly stated equation, there is no ambiguity. No mathematician would ever be tripped up over its usage. You’re trying to nitpick here, but are just accidentally highlighting a good point that in science/math, even when you have symbols that, on their own, are ambiguous, they are almost always immediately clarified by the context. Again, not the same with literary theory.


both philosophers point ambiguity is born also from concepts and ideias. Not symbols and much less grammar. And nobody likes ambiguity in a explanation. But it is impossible as all symbols are ambiguous as they are part of communicatiion. Reducing communication to the message (where symbols and grammar are) is not accepted by Critical Theory for quite 80 years.If you want to go the Saussurean route, “concepts and ideas” are essentially the “signified” that is meant by a “signifier” (symbol, grammar, etc.). However, the third part of the Saussurean system is the referent, the external THING (or set of things) that are referred to by the symbol. Of course ambiguity exists in concepts and ideas, that’s because of a lack of proper (or even possible) reductionism, and of course those things get transferred when we create and understand symbols (they also come from various unconscious associations with the referents of symbols). However, referents need not join in on this web of ambiguity. An atom is an atom is an atom is an atom. Whatever associations we may attach to it, we are never confused as to what’s being referred to with the word “atom”. It’s on this referential level that science ATTEMPTS to work on, and it’s on this referential level that literary theory tends to fail miserably at.


Lacan is debated because he is not "accepted". It is different. Einstein is.Einstein is accepted because his mathematics are the proof of his claims, and further tests were done that confirmed them (the famous eclipse test). There is no such testing available for Lacan’s claims, or most of literary theory. It’s not so much that Lacan isn’t “accepted,” (though it’s true he isn’t by everyone) it’s that even those that suppose to utilize his theories disagree regularly over what he meant and how one should do so. You claim that Einstein was contested, but, again, this was before the tests were done, before the math was understood. Now that it is, it’s been confirmed. What possible test could be done to verify or falsify Lacan or any literary theory?

You may want to go back to the “scientific and literary theories are different!” but, hell, that was my original claim to begin with. Pretending like they’re equally valid theories that justify their specialized language is just not true. Of course there are debates, arguments, interpretations in science, but it’s always on the cutting edge of the various fields. Science makes clear progress in understanding and modeling/mapping reality. Literary theory doesn’t advance, it just changes as different modes happen to catch the eyes of intellectuals like kittens spotting a shiny object. The literary theories of Plato are just as relevant now as they were thousands of years ago, but the scientific theories of the Greeks, in general, are pretty much kaput.


Which language is this one? Again, I think you misread me: “I NEVER argued that science could find a language that would allow it to be understood by everyone without study.” To reiterate, my argument is NOT that science can be understood by everyone, but that it’s specialized language is necessitated by its attempts at reductionism. People who study it can understand what is understood unambiguously. I argue this is not the same in literary theory.


This is an expert of Nature - the most popular scientific maganize… Sorry, But this is ****ty. Meaningless. I suppose that make Pip a genius, as he probally understands this and Buttler and the only one who does it here. I’m fairly sure if you could understood what those various terms referred to it wouldn’t be difficult to understand at all.


Obviously, with study yu can understand it. Pip did with the example that was called "Unreadable" here.Yeah, but but I think mac understood it as well, and what conclusion did he come to? Even when it is understood it’s nothing that justifies its “specialized” language. The specialized language is unnecessary. it’s psuedo-intellectual window-dressing, covering up either nonsense or trivial points in language. Science doesn’t do this.


The problem is that the term still largely used in different ways than "theory" in science is used. So then the question remains, what similarity to scientific and literary theories possess, at all, that justifies usage of the same word?


Do you know, right, he poked Propp exactly to show there is no philosophical problem?If there are no philosophical problems then how can philosophical problems apply to the real world? From what I remembered, he poked Popp and challenged him to give an example of moral imperative, which would be a real-world philosophical problem.

[JCamilo]

If you’re going to cull every post on this forum (and others) that make claims that cannot be proved without long, sustained research, then you’re essentially going to kill the medium itself.

Ok, thank you for accepting to not use them as argument... right?


How is it unrelated to the claim I made? My original claim was that most specific scientific terminology exists as an attempt at clarified reductionism while most literary theory terminology does not. The differing goals of science and literary theory are very much influential in why that is.

The claim that the majority of lexycon of literary theory come from greek is irrelevant to this second claim.


You’re talking about popularized science, the type that seeks to transform the original complexity and specificity back into common language for a mass public. This was obviously NOT what I was referring to by the specialized language of science that only other scientists can understand; the popularized version goes back to what I said about the difficulty of translating the original into something more digestible amongst the publich.

You talked about popular literary theory. Those who get money selling books for the public. It is the exactly samething: several academics in all field try to get some money with popularization of their ideas. This is exactly the samething.


Now who’s making claims that can’t be proved? Can you prove that the thinking is bias,

Yes. If you go to the outrageous claim literary theorics write and make up terms just for selling books and other theorics accept it as face vallue as a "pseudo" anything, You are being biased. The claim is outrageous and ridiculous, accusing an entire academic field of fraud.


or that all acadmeics tries to explain/understand things?

ok, this isa generalization. Some academics are there just for a job, conduct no study. But again... There are hundred of physics that do not propose a single theory, a single explanation, just keep repeating the same studies, etc. So, it is all in the same field.


Of course you can’t. With that out of the way, even a Lacanian like Ben Saunders objects to the notion that literary theory and criticism seeks to understand/clarify reality, or even the literary objects it purports to analyze. He feels, as I do, that literary theory exists as a reflective sounding board, a “do you see/feel what I see/feel” approach, an attempt to fulfill the desire that’s left after the experience of the object itself. Again, this is entirely different from the goals (much less achievements) of science. Science seeks to eliminate the various cognitive biases that prevents us from accurately understanding and modeling reality, but without bias, literary criticism/theory doesn’t exist. And, again, stating science is just “the child of philosophy” is a blatant genetic fallacy.

Not that I know this Ben Saunders, so could you show where he says it?
Plus, Science seeks to eliminate bias? Are in the XIX century? So, the geneticism filled with racism that poluted science for quite awhile, the huge laboratories which study, research and share knowledge as the owner wants, the fields between famous scientists or even entire universities? Or countries because after all your speech shows a faith on this godlike thing, Science, the unify all humankind as the same? Very nice that the ideal science is universal, very biased to think all literary theory is a individual ego battle.
Plus, Science is the child of philosophy. It is philosophy that develops rationalism, direct language, mathematical use, seek of truth and all fields that have origem from philosophy - even religious philosophy - are seeking some short of universal truth. The faith in Science is touching.


I said appropriates, and I was talking about the terms they DO take from reality, not neologisms.

Dawkins memes? Punctual Equillibrium! Such nice terms.


Oh, really? That hasn’t been my experience with most Lacanian criticism.

Considering Lacan is heavily criticised on his own field, we cannot expect such pristine following among litherary critics based on your experience, can we?


If you encounter it in a properly stated equation, there is no ambiguity. No mathematician would ever be tripped up over its usage. You’re trying to nitpick here, but are just accidentally highlighting a good point that in science/math, even when you have symbols that, on their own, are ambiguous, they are almost always immediately clarified by the context. Again, not the same with literary theory.

So, it is a symbol that in a proper context can be intepreted by specialists? So... Is Tiger. Or, surprise, so are all symbols. And not the same as literary theory? Please, give me a single symbol used by literary theorics that does not work in similar ways? (Let's put this way, + is not even the most ambiguous symbol in the ocean) Please, be careful to give symbols.


If you want to go the Saussurean route, “concepts and ideas” are essentially the “signified” that is meant by a “signifier” (symbol, grammar, etc.). However, the third part of the Saussurean system is the referent, the external THING (or set of things) that are referred to by the symbol. Of course ambiguity exists in concepts and ideas, that’s because of a lack of proper (or even possible) reductionism, and of course those things get transferred when we create and understand symbols (they also come from various unconscious associations with the referents of symbols). However, referents need not join in on this web of ambiguity. An atom is an atom is an atom is an atom. Whatever associations we may attach to it, we are never confused as to what’s being referred to with the word “atom”. It’s on this referential level that science ATTEMPTS to work on, and it’s on this referential level that literary theory tends to fail miserably at.

Yes, the ever undivisible divided... Funny, I never saw literaty theorists discussing what a verb may be.... but heck, your experience...


Einstein is accepted because his mathematics are the proof of his claims, and further tests were done that confirmed them (the famous eclipse test). There is no such testing available for Lacan’s claims, or most of literary theory. It’s not so much that Lacan isn’t “accepted,” (though it’s true he isn’t by everyone) it’s that even those that suppose to utilize his theories disagree regularly over what he meant and how one should do so. You claim that Einstein was contested, but, again, this was before the tests were done, before the math was understood. Now that it is, it’s been confirmed. What possible test could be done to verify or falsify Lacan or any literary theory?

There is people correcting Einstein as we type. Not really all scientists believe that things must be falsified, anyways, and no, i do not think Lacan can be falsified (or should), and most people dont hence the use of theory differently.


You may want to go back to the “scientific and literary theories are different!” but, hell, that was my original claim to begin with.

In this very post you claimed to be something else. And this was not your claim. Your claim is that theorics do it in a purpose, revel on ambiguity and science works on reductionism and everyone in field understands. As Mac4mac pointed: not everyone in field understands all. As Pip showed, the theorics can be understood inside their field too. Finally, reductionism as you use is plain wrong. The reductionism in maths has increased the degree of complexity, making it more obscure (reductionism is merely working with more basic concepts, if you have 1000 basics concepts instead of one big general concept, you are being "reductive" but rather not simple).



Pretending like they’re equally valid theories that justify their specialized language is just not true. Of course there are debates, arguments, interpretations in science, but it’s always on the cutting edge of the various fields. Science makes clear progress in understanding and modeling/mapping reality.

I never said anything that one theory from Umberto Eco is a validy as the Gravity Laws. And I pointed the language obscurity is only obscure outside their own field, not that they make it less or more right and this is truth to both.


Literary theory doesn’t advance, it just changes as different modes happen to catch the eyes of intellectuals like kittens spotting a shiny object.

You were, a few day, pointing to a book on Shakespeare that showed a new light on the sonnets, making he the greater sonnet writer of all time. Inst the book a analyses from a literary theoric? And what about the status of oral traditon, completely changed since the XX century studies? This claim is just outrageous.


The literary theories of Plato are just as relevant now as they were thousands of years ago, but the scientific theories of the Greeks, in general, are pretty much kaput.

Which Plato literary theories? Plus, the claim greek achiviments are kaput is either a misconception of scientific progress (is Newton kaput?) and ignoring the copious ammount of contributions from the greeks.


Again, I think you misread me: “I NEVER argued that science could find a language that would allow it to be understood by everyone without study.” To reiterate, my argument is NOT that science can be understood by everyone, but that it’s specialized language is necessitated by its attempts at reductionism. People who study it can understand what is understood unambiguously. I argue this is not the same in literary theory.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. But then, the use of maths in science is not a development for a language reductiom. Maths was a necessary tool used way before the modern scientific method.

And please give example. The only give here was easily understood by Pip.


I’m fairly sure if you could understood what those various terms referred to it wouldn’t be difficult to understand at all.

I understood Eco quite well too. See? If you study the field, you get the terms. (meanwhile, Darwin was so confusing that from him many misunderstandings are born).


Yeah, but but I think mac understood it as well, and what conclusion did he come to? Even when it is understood it’s nothing that justifies its “specialized” language. The specialized language is unnecessary. it’s psuedo-intellectual window-dressing, covering up either nonsense or trivial points in language. Science doesn’t do this.

Sure, then why Hawkins claimed science did it, creating a mathemtical monster that only handful could understand?


So then the question remains, what similarity to scientific and literary theories possess, at all, that justifies usage of the same word?

I suppose science could have used another word. After all, they are those using the latter specific meaning of theory. But you know, scientists are awful imprecise, ambiguous, etc while using tems from other fields.


If there are no philosophical problems then how can philosophical problems apply to the real world? From what I remembered, he poked Popp and challenged him to give an example of moral imperative, which would be a real-world philosophical problem.

Morph: they aren't. Witty was saying it: the debate is creating false problems that are not useful. But philosophy is useful and pratical, because the concepts and ideas are. His main goal was the use of language that would be pure, to those concepts without the century debates and fights. Hence no problems to him.

[MorpheusSandman]

Ok, thank you for accepting to not use them as argument... right?Errr, no, my point was that you can’t do away with claims that can’t be proved on message boards without doing away with message boards, period. Bringing up proof in such an informal discussion is a bit silly.


The claim that the majority of lexycon of literary theory come from greek is irrelevant to this second claim. I think one of us has lost the train of thought: you made two claims in the paragraph I was replying to, the first being about what the Greeks didn’t have, and the second about my inability to prove that necessary terminology was more common in science than in literary theory.


You talked about popular literary theory. Those who get money selling books for the public.No, no, I wasn’t talking about popular literary theory (is there such a thing?), but rather literary theorists aiming to sell books to other literary theorists. It goes back to what JBI said about the audience for lit theory being limited to other theorists. The point being that non-popular science and non-popular lit theory have the same audience of specialists, but the goal of the two groups is entirely different, and science has an impetus to find a clarified, reductive language (not necessarily popular or accessible) while lit theory doesn’t.


Yes. If you go to the outrageous claim literary theorics write and make up terms just for selling books and other theorics accept it as face vallue as a "pseudo" anything, You are being biased. The claim is outrageous and ridiculous, accusing an entire academic field of fraud. I’m not saying that EVERY theorist does this, but that it is extremely prevalent in the field. There are certainly theorists that can write lucidly with a great deal of lexical clarity and even empiricism, but there are those—some of the more popular ones named by JBI—that do exactly what I accuse them of. It’s not being “biased,” it’s right there on the bloody page. Plus, I’m not even calling it “fraud,” because it is what it is. The field has no inherent ethics, or models or goals, or self-correcting system, unlike scientific fields, so it’s rather impossible to commit “fraud.”


ok, this isa generalization. Some academics are there just for a job, conduct no study. But again... There are hundred of physics that do not propose a single theory, a single explanation, just keep repeating the same studies, etc. So, it is all in the same field. My argument wasn’t so much about what they do or don’t do, but about the goals of the various fields. Most literary theory isn’t about understanding literature in remotely the same way that science is about understanding reality.


Not that I know this Ben Saunders, so could you show where he says it?Desiring Donne (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674023471/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=), mostly in the opening and closing chapters.


Plus, Science seeks to eliminate bias? Are in the XIX century?So why are you bringing up pseudo-science to discredit the goal of science eliminating bias? The whole point of the scientific method is to minimize researcher bias, as is the whole peer-review process and repeated testing.


Plus, Science is the child of philosophy.I realize this, but it’s still a genetic fallacy. Science has come far enough to become its own entity, whatever its origins.


even religious philosophy - are seeking some short of universal truth. The faith in Science is touching. Seeking universal truth and knowing how to achieve it are two different things. I don’t need “faith” in science because it’s proven for centuries what it’s capable of doing. The very way we’re communicating now is utterly impossible without science and engineering based on it.


Considering Lacan is heavily criticised on his own field, we cannot expect such pristine following among litherary critics based on your experience, can we?But that’s partly the point; if literary theory had as its goal to find some lucid truth about the reality of literature, then what’s the point of invoking thinkers who are often considered charlatans in their own field? The reason is because there’s nothing—no mechanism, no ethics, no models, no goal—to stop them. It’s not even that I particularly mind as I enjoy a lot of Lacanian analysis of literature, but I’m not foolish enough to think it’s discovering some truths about the reality of literature and/or film the way science is figuring out how reality functions.


Please, give me a single symbol used by literary theorics that does not work in similar ways?I already mentioned the use of the word “structure” in Butler’s paragraph. The word is too general, too broad, too ambiguous, too far away from being reductive, to even hope towards the clarity of “+”. Even the word “desire” in Lacanian theory, or “gender” in gender studies… so many of the major, key words have no meaning that’s even approaching a clarified, specified, reductionism unlike the majority of technical scientific terminology. I’m not even the only person to think like this, as IA Richards was discussing the problems of the major terms in philosophy back in the 20s, and his point is very similar to mine (though we have very different takes on how fixable it is).


Yes, the ever undivisible divided... Funny, I never saw literaty theorists discussing what a verb may be....”Undivisible divided?” As for a term like “verb,” again, you’re pointing out exceptions that I’ve admitted existed long ago. I’ve stated that literary theory (though something like “verb” is really just basic grammar, not literary theory) can have and does have its necessary, technical language that’s reductive. I mentioned the example of the various meters in poetry. They’re technical terms, but once you know what they are you know what they refer to.


There is people correcting Einstein as we type. Not really all scientists believe that things must be falsified, anywaysWho’s correcting Einstein as we type? There are still plenty of physicists that think General Relativity is compatible with QM. As for falsifiability, I can’t think of any proper scientific theory that isn’t falsifiable.


Your claim is that theorics do it in a purpose, revel on ambiguity and science works on reductionism and everyone in field understands.Yes, that’s my claim.


As Mac4mac pointed: not everyone in field understands all. As Pip showed, the theorics can be understood inside their field too.They would understand if they studied it. Pip didn’t show anything beyond what JBI and mac already pointed out, that the esoteric language is obscuring trivial points.


Finally, reductionism as you use is plain wrong. The reductionism in maths has increased the degree of complexity, making it more obscure (reductionism is merely working with more basic concepts, if you have 1000 basics concepts instead of one big general concept, you are being "reductive" but rather not simple).The way you describe it IS how I’m using it. Again, I don’t know where you got the notion that I was ever claiming that such reductionism lead to a simplicity that everyone could understand. Of COURSE it makes things more complex because you are inherently dealing with more parts rather than umbrella terminology that’s grouping a whole host of diverse objects and activity under a single label. A term like “Callithrix penicillata” may be obscure and complex, but for those who study Primatology there is no ambiguity because it is a reductive term, referring to a single sub-species of monkey. Terms like “structure,” “gender,” “power relations,” “desire,” and a whole host of other terms are at the opposite end of reductionism, and literary theory is to such non-reductive terminology as standing water is to mosquitoes.


I pointed the language obscurity is only obscure outside their own field, not that they make it less or more right and this is truth to both. And this is the crux where I disagree. I think it’s just as obscure inside the field and, secondly, I don’t think the content justifies the obscurity.


You were, a few day, pointing to a book on Shakespeare that showed a new light on the sonnets, making he the greater sonnet writer of all time. Inst the book a analyses from a literary theoric? And what about the status of oral traditon, completely changed since the XX century studies? This claim is just outrageous.There are lots of things to say about this:

1. In this thread I previously distinguished literary critics from literary theorists; it’s an important distinction. Classical criticism is probably more clearly called “practical criticism” based on IA Richards’ formulation of the term. Practical criticism adapts itself to the specifics of works, using close-reading and a naïve form of reader-response in combination, so there’s a duality between the text as object and reader as subject. Literary theory is closer to philosophical theory in the respect that it tries to subsume literature under cultural theories. In literary theory, literature just becomes a product of culture that is just as easily explained by aspects of that culture (gender relations, psychoanalysis, politics, etc.)

This “split” in literary studies is not as neat and clear as the above, but it’s not imaginary either. Christopher Ricks has written about it in literature (“Principles against theory” and “The Pursuit of Metaphor), David Bordwell in film where the same split exists.

2. The book on Shakespeare’s sonnets is from Helen Vendler, who is undoubtedly in the “practical criticism” camp of close-reading. Her analysis of the sonnets is text-centric, and, in fact, she openly rejects various theoretical modes (psychoanalysis, gender studies) in her introduction and argues how and why these modes tend to completely miss what’s going on in the sonnets themselves.

3. As much as I love Vendler and her Shakespeare book, it is not an “advancement” in literary studies as it is a new insight, and there’s a distinction between that and scientific advancement. We know Einstein was an advancement over Newton because it explained things Newton’s theory didn’t (the orbit of Mercury) as well as providing a much more accurate model of how physical objects move. These things were confirmed by tests and math. When you’re dealing with something as objective as such predictions, then you can equally measure what theory is most accurate, as easily as showing what dart hit nearer the center of a dartboard.

There’s no such gauge or model or test in literary theory. That we come to see the same object in new ways is a statement about our subjective bias and perspective, which, again, is paramount in literary studies. Such studies can only, at best, give us a new way of looking at literature, but these ways are not necessarily “better” or “more right.” Indeed, to gender study theorists, Vendler’s book is next to useless. It’s only an advance to people (like myself) that care about how form articulates meaning in poetry.

4. About the only advancements in literary studies can be in historicism as new documents or information is discovered, and that’s what your oral tradition point would fall under. But historicism has always been a unique exception to most other examples of literary studies. Historicism shares much more with science than do the other fields and, as such, it is subject to advancements and greater understanding.


Which Plato literary theories? Plus, the claim greek achiviments are kaput is either a misconception of scientific progress (is Newton kaput?) and ignoring the copious ammount of contributions from the greeks. Plato’s mimesis is just as relevant today as ever, even in the wake of abstract expressionism. I’m not doubting the Greeks made contributions to science, but you bring up Newton and the simple fact is that Newton was wrong. His gravity works well in enough in most practical situations, but GR is undoubtedly more accurate and, thus, closer to how reality actually works. So in one sense, Newton IS kaput.


Sure, then why Hawkins claimed science did it, creating a mathemtical monster that only handful could understand?I’m not sure what you’re asking…

[sm123]

Not for nothing but people have a tendency to assign meaning to something meaningless because it is offensive for something to mean nothing. We've all heard these people talking about how something in something is a symbol for something. Well unless the allusion is taken directly from something it might as well just be exactly what it is. I think the problem is the audience not the artist. I think Knut Hamsun said the artists job was to pose questions not answer them. Instead of being left pondering people always want the truth, very similar to religion. We never consider that the artist was trying to portray something different or was maybe taking you for the fool that you are.

can i just go ahead and express my admiration for your signature now?

"through rain, sleet, or snow, my ho better have my money."

[maxphisher]

Joyce also stated that the novel was intended as a celebration of everyday life and people, intended for the average person.

[QUOTE=mal4mac;1187592]Maybe, maybe not. He's on record as saying, with glee, that he thought Ulysses would baffle scholars for a hundred years. So maybe he was, mostly, aiming to baffle an audience that pretended to a profound grasp of literature.

Writers might be trying to do something that is against the reader, or against most readers. Like Joyce trying to baffle scholars, or snobbish modernists trying to baffle the common reader. Some great writers have spoken out against these kinds of lesser writers - Tolstoy, for instance. Also some modern critics, like John Carey, have taken a similar stance.[QUOTE]