Re: Bad Ears

Jim said: "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 responded as I did because I didn't understand why saying that it's only
read by academics amounts to a significant qualification. That is
essentially or nearly true of most everything we've been talking about.

It's not surprising to hear that you read the Poetics in high school, or
that Spielberg is interested in Aristotle, or for Shakespeare to be loved by
actors or directors. It's not surprising that Shakespeare is adapted to
movies, or that his sonnets or Cervantes (I think that Don Quixote is more
than just a fun book, by the way) are carried by Walden Books.

It would shock me, however, to learn that 25% of Americans have read any of
these things at any time in their lives without a teacher telling them to.
And whatever statistics might be showing you that Shakespeare hasn't
diminished in popularity, most people don't pursue him. Even when his
movies are adapted to the screen, if the words bear resemblance to
Shakespeare's the movie will take a back seat to whatever schlock is
released the same weekend.

And: "What I meant by not being "good" beyond 50 years is that it doesn't
necessarily answer the questions that people are asking of texts now -- that
some of its assumptions are transparently bigoted sometimes, other times
obviously outdated, while other times, no doubt, enlightening. I can see
older Shakespeare criticism taking for granted that the Jew in Measure for
Measure was an unqualified bad guy, seeing his speech "if you prick me" as
diversionary nonsense and not, as many see it today, as radical social
critique."

I apologize if I misunderstood. They way you've been talking about literary
interpretation and the influence of culture on it, it seemed to me that by
going bad after 50 years you meant that interpretation, like milk, has a
natural lifespan, after which it is useless.

You consistently mention bad criticism of years gone by, and I'm not seeing
the significance of it if we recognize that there's just as much very good
criticism. I vouch to having my understanding of many old books profoundly
illuminated by reading criticism that is hundreds and in some cases
thousands of years old. This criticism has in no respects gone bad (or
stopped being good).

-robbie
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Received on Tue Oct 29 02:10:42 2002