Subject: Re: popeyed/Theoretically Emerging
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Thu May 31 2001 - 22:33:36 GMT
The funny thing Scottie, is that I will probably always be bewildered
about the scholarly/creative parallels and conflicts you've
playfully configured into a Judas metaphor. I've worked approximately
equally hard as a poet and a scholar, perhaps avoiding conflicts and
betrayals by imagining that my diverse interests are a bit like
alternating current helping me to keep energy flowing. Funny thing
is that Salinger did a bit of academic blending in his art...our
recent discussions about Rilke's possible role as a "reading lens"
show that Mr. Salinger did leave literary bread crumbs so that
readers could wander in his inverted forests with a sense of who had
been charging the author with enough reading energy to write...lately
I've been thinking about how language and literature are so much
shared experiences that to pretend otherwise is missing the fun.
Despite its academic context, I wrote about my garden poppy because
it shows how fiction connects readers. I haven't seen that friend of
mine in close to 10 years, but there he was on our screens just
yesterday...what I'm really imagining is this: Literature has been
mostly a record of authored texts because that's what survives, along
with growing bodies of criticism...but here in the 21st Century,
we've found better ways to record how texts and readers dance. The
evidence of literature as an experience may be more interesting and
accessible than perceiving literature mostly as its authored texts.
The thinking in this post was begun and influenced by the l938
(Literature as Exploration)ideas of Louise Rosenblatt and seem
evidenced now by ideas discussed on this list.
will
-- Will Hochman Assistant Professor of English & Composition Co-Coordinator Southern Connecticut State University 501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515 203 392 5024 http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Tue Jul 24 2001 - 09:20:43 GMT