In a message dated 97-12-05 12:26:26 EST, you write: << Peggy, I don't think Jim knows very much about reader response criticism (validity of readings is really not the point of this school of criticism--see _Is There A Text in This Class_ by Stanley Fish or _The Implied Reader_ by Wolfgang Iser for thinking about subjectivity and how readers construct meaning) and I'm disappointed with the idea that our life experiences don't construct our readings and mean something to our "school of bananafish." I'm a tenured English Professor who truly enjoys the way Malcs, for example, uses a pretty keen reading eye and living eye to make his points, I enjoy Helena's cantankerous, I enjoy Tim's kindness, and I miss Sundeep's wisdom...what they bring of themselves to our list and readings is much more important than New Critical bull of whose reading is most valid.>> As far as theoretical perspective goes, your last comment sure tells us where you stand, now, doesn't it? New Critical Bull? :) I respect that you are a tenured professor, and I'm sure you respect those tenured professors out there that see some validity to New Critical Bull, if for no other reason than professional courtesy. For that matter, New Historical Bull has some objective standards for validity of readings as well, no? For that matter, even postmodernists such as Umberto Eco quiver at the thought of readers using texts as inkblots--read Six Walks in the Fictional Woods. He does distinguish between the model reader and the empirical reader, a distinction not valid from a purely Reader Response perspective. What's really interesting is that Eco says his ideas are very similar to Iser's, BUT.... :) The ficitious reader implied by the text is but One component of meaning in Iser's work, but is The Big Banana to Eco. The text, not the reader, is central to Eco so some objective standards of validity in readings are possible... I don't think that Reader Response Criticism has ANYTHING to do with validity of readings either. My point in my response to Peggy was that Reader Response is not the Only approach to literature, and Reader Response is what she was doing. As far as the legitimacy of life experiences regarding reading, well...that depends on your theoretical perspective, doesn't it? :) Again, to cite Eco (I do an Umberto Eco online reading group for AOL so I've been reading him more than usual lately), he relays an experience in which a friend of his complained that Eco used his uncle as the basis of one of his characters in Foucault's Pendulum. Fact is, Eco never thought of the guy--the personality of the character was constructed to fill a role in the novel. This could be an example of life experiences going wrong... Seriously, we all do import life experiences into our readings. When and how much is appropriate is where the different schools of literary theory disagree. And I think these disagreements are healthy :) Argument is the life of scholarship. Nanny nanny boo boo. :P <<I believe the only true thing we can conclude about Antolini is that he is ambiguous, but that it is important for individual readers to weave their interpretations of him into their readings of catcher. BTW, I really don't think Jim's post is offensive and the fact that someone left the list (who was not a very good contributor IMHO) for sensitivity issues is a private affair that has more to do with how individuals construct their e lives than anything said online here. will >> Thanks very much for saying my post wasn't offensive. I did worry about that. I don't think that disagreeing is wrong, but HOW you disagree can be wrong. I can't judge that for myself... Jim