Lagusta Pauline Yearwood wrote: > ick...literary theory talk. yes, it gets irritating, and tiring and > sometimes heartbreaking. yep, i'm an english major. and every once in a > while i have a day diseased with theory when i just want to go home and > read not in a deconstructionalist, post-structuralist (actually...aren't > they the same thing? ahh! see, i can't stop it!), structuralist, ANY way, > just READ. and sometimes i can't, (i don't think i'll ever read a poem > again with out the phrase "patriarchical binary oppositions" popping up > at least once. it's terrible.) but i am learning to trade that for the > advantages learning about all this has given me. This was the main reason I decided I didn't want to go into teaching, but just stay happy as a reader and writer. > i've thought about it *a lot* and i think there are advantages. i think > the purpose to all this is to gain some kind of deeper understanding of > the language. i mean, the people who created these theories obviously > loved language. and i have actually gotten to a place where i let the > theory make me love the text more, and understand it in all kinds of ways. > i think it's so interesting because it's almost like a kind of > secret language in that if you don't know it you can still like the text > but if you do you can understand and see it on all kinds of levels. > well, ok, so it's not like a secret language. maybe it's like...LSD? Lit crit is like acid? Oh, I'd venture to say it's like pot. Reading James Joyce is like LSD. :-) > i think it has something to do with not being able to talk about something you love > so deeply. > wanting to let something stay inside, like a secret, a love so deep. > salinger is like new years eve for me: very quiet, very personal, and it > just makes me want to go sit in a corner and write in my journal. and talk > about it a little as possible, please. it's sacred, almost. another year > is passing. this man wrote these books. it's to beautiful and > heartwrenching to even talk about it. Did you know that JDS was born on New Year's Day?