Re: Seymour an Introduction

Nah, I think even 90% is too high a percentage, and really, what's
"valuable" or "good" criticism depends upon the question you are
asking. This is highly idiosyncratic.

I'd like to repeat that every time every one writes about his/her ideas
about Salinger, they're writing "literary criticism." I think hostility
to the field comes from a sneaking awareness that they're not doing it
as well as the professionals do, as if their ideas weren't good enough
in a highly (overly) democratized view of the humanities by the general
public.

We all know there's nothing worse than elitism, don't we?

I think even beyond these idiosyncracies of choice, taste, and ideas,
there is indeed "bad" criticism out there. It's there because the
critic just Has to Publish Something, not because the critic Has
Something to Publish.

There's a world of difference between the two.

One immediate example that comes to mind is some criticism on
Shakespeare's Othello that I read. F.R. Leavis wrote a very intelligent
essay way back (I don't know -- 20s or 30s -- don't recall) saying the
play was flawed because Othello wasn't a noble enough character to
support a tragedy.

Another critic, writing in the 80s, apes Leavis' thesis and couches the
Exact Same Ideas in psychoanalytic jargon.

THAT was bad criticism. What really peed me off was a note on the front
page of the essay thanking a foundation for the grant she received that
allowed her to research her thesis.

I felt like she needed to give that money back.

Jim

Kim Johnson wrote:

> it's ironic that salinger stopped publishing because,
> it's been reported, the critics got to him. sort of a
> spin-off of the reputed keatsian situation.
>
> i agree with scottie: a biography any old day rather
> than literary criticism. yet as jim says in another
> post, there's valuable criticism out there too. but
> sometimes it's very hard to find given the reason the
> criticism got written in the first place. i'd say pulp
> 90% of it; scottie nails it in his final sentence
> below.
>
> kim
>
> --- Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie> wrote:
> >
> > '... I've never read a piece of [...]criticism
> > [...] that
> > made [...] fiction less than what it is for me
> > ...'
> >
> > I would have change that 'made' into 'didn't
> > make'.
> >
> > Perversely, I think I might write 'biography'
> > instead of
> > 'criticism' if I were trying to find a source of
> > enrichment.
> > How unfashionable is it possible to reveal
> > oneself?
> >
> > But old Keats was speaking in his rough,
> > inarticulate
> > way for multitudes when he complained about
> > people
> > who - what was it? - wanted to unpick the
> > rainbow.
> > (I'm sure I can depend on the scholars to
> > provide
> > the exact quote.)
> >
> > 'Ain't nuttin' but the text,' intones Matt in
> > that strange
> > Tibetan chant of his. No, nuttin' but page
> > after page
> > after page of speculative, modish, jargonesque
> > guff.
> >
> > Scottie B.
> >
> > -
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