RE: The last Logos; An Iceberg Full-On

That's a legitimate criticism, but in some ways it's asking something of my
ideas that I'm not attempting to provide. Let me refer you to an older
critic, I.A. Richards. He published several books, two of them titled
_Principles of Literary Criticism_ and _Practical Criticism_.

My ideas fall into the first category, and I think you're asking for the
second.

"Reasonableness" is a vague criteria, yes. But I don't think that means I'm
saying a literary text "can mean anything a reader wants it to mean," or
that this is the natural result of my ideas. I think it's fair to say that
if someone were to argue that Joyce's _Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man_
ended by showing Stephen's conscious, renewed commitment to Catholicism,
they'd be wrong.
Jim

For you, but not for your field.

Daniel

What I'm trying to do is link a prior person/culture/history/sometimes even
language with a current reader (who may be reading according to a number of
criteria), and am defining the literary text as the link itself. Texts both
come from somewhere and go to somewhere. This isn't so much a methodology
but a few ideas to keep in mind. The reader defines the methodology, these
ideas are supposed to describe the relationship between texts and all
methodologies, actually, even highly personal and unconscious ones.

The advantage/disadvantage is that it keeps any one reader from saying,
"this reading is the final reading." It reminds us that every reading of
every text is the product of certain assumptions, some foreign to the text,
some not, and that readings are the product of applying these assumptions to
a specific text. The results are the product of the interaction of text and
assumption or methodology. So meaning can't be just anything -- I don't
think that people who say "infinite" numbers of readings of a text are
possible really have any clue about the meaning of the word "infinite."

Yes, criticism is an art form, but I'm trying to describe how the process
works, not present a how-to.

Jim

Jim, thanks this all makes sense and Derrida cautions us on the indefinite
nature of language but in an inverse reference to Galileo, "Yet it Moves".
I hope the inquisitor goes easy on me, this time. My family hasn't done
well in this respect, Our Sephardic name means 'kindling'.

Daniel

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Received on Mon Mar 10 14:49:40 2003