Da Bears

>I believe you can name quite a long list of rhetorical classics -- that are
>read
>by academics. Seems like the point I was responding to at the time had to
>do
>with something that's influential beyond those circles. I read Aristotle's
>Poetics in High School --

And I Ethan Frome-what's your point?

  I heard Spielberg,
>though, virtually quote Aristotle in his description of what makes a good
>movie
>-- you have to be able to create the effect just by telling the story,
>without
>all the impressive visuals.

Interesting theory coming from a guy whos last three movies have been
propelled by eye candy.

>
>Shakespeare? My God, man, he's writing for Hollywood this very day :).
>His
>plays, both in film and performance, haven't diminished an iota in
>popularity.

Most students, every day ones that usually won't pick up Critique of Pure
Reason on a rainy day, forget about Poetics, have the reaction; 'why do they
talk that way?' or other explinations of how it bores them. Aside from good
performances where they engage the text through a play, the bulk will likely
thrive in a 'Language Arts' class that shows them what the Bard really meant
via film.But really it is what the producer, director and of course the
actor intended and thus we have the text unravelling before our eyes.

>Don Quixote is a fun book

So is Mao II.

>
>I would have to separate rhetorical works (about the proper use of
>language)
>from literary criticism (explication of a text) in this discussion, though.

But you have mentioned and then referenced to a literary critic by the likes
of Barthes . Of whom was known among many, if nothing else, by his quip 'the
author is dead'. But if the author is the source of the text, I say once
again THAT type of literary criticism, the kind that has made such an impact
among the academic hacks still deriding Papa, is and always will be, bogus.

'...to answer the questions people have about the text'

In other words, how to distort important pieces of work great people toiled
over and make them turn over in their graves.
People who fuel the literary criticism industry: Good-for-nothing,
God-forsaken, supercilious academicians; most of whom haven't the innate
drive to find a better way to kill a cancer cell (perhaps that is why on
average more grant money goes to science departments, at least some are
awake), will measure their progress in a college by how many times they can
point out that Scott never developed after Gatsby.

Publish or Perish.

If I appear like a curmudgeon on this subject, and many on this list have
privately told me so, than at least I've gotten through to some people.

Yours,

John Gedsudski
Adjuct Professor of Waggery
Philistia Community College
507 Boorish Drive
NY,NY

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Received on Sun Oct 27 12:42:40 2002