Pound vs. Eliot

[milo]

Milo,

Thanks for joining in.

Please note that I never claimed that "an author's writing always refers back to the author himself." That is an extremely strong (and stupid) claim. We need to distinguish carefully between sense and reference. "Sometimes" refers would be better, but always gives at least a sense of what the writer was about, yes, that's my position.

If that seems so terribly controversial, let me try and re-state it again. What I'm trying to say is that we can get a sense, and perhaps even a privileged one, of who a writer was through his/her writing. Perhaps even a sense of what he really thought or believed that is more accurate and revealing than any directly biographical or autobiographical account. Otherwise, bits and pieces of understanding that lend themselves to us knowing things about the author that he even didn't quite understanding about him/herself. Literature can lend itself as a conduit for an otherwise secretive soul, as much as one to a soul's hidden secrets. Why else do writers use pen names, after all? Every willful concealing is at the same time, particularly to the careful eye, also a revealing, whether consciously intended or not.

Note that I did not say that Shakespeare's writing "proved" he was homosexual, but rather that some of it seems to establish emphatically that he was. Certain of his sonnets, when read and paired with certain biographical information, have lead more than one respectable scholar to this conclusion.

the difference between establish and prove is nothing. The only thing it really establishes is that he could write from different POV's

It is true, there is nothing radical, controversial or even particularly intersting being presented here, the confessional movement seemed to establish to every literary analyst that writers only write about themselves and scads of "details" have been posthunously uncovered about authors (all unsupported by actual evidence, by why dwell on that?)

Of course we should also disregard the track record of success for this practice, let's rewrite history through apologism!

Mostly, I find the practice a combination of pop-culture fanboi-ism and smug "kill your heroes" satisfaction that draws small minds away from the literature toward neo-con culture star watching. I also find it pretty distasteful and mostly utter bollocks.

Ahh! You keep ignoring things I'm writing. For one, the word SEEMS.

the court acknowledges the word "seems" noted here in all caps.

Also, the sarcasm is really unnecessary, and only presents an obstacle for me towards understanding what you're trying to say. "Apologism?" What am I making defenses/excuses for?

apologism, in addition to the dictionary.com definition, is used as the rewriting of historical facts to coincide with what we already believe.

Finally: if you want to assert that psychobiographical modes of interpretation tend towards "fanboisms" or lend mostly to a shallow, cult-of-personality engagement with writers, go tell that to the most eminent critics working in English right now, who routinely utilize such modes of reading, and do so with breathtaking astuteness and aplomb.

if one of these fan-bois shows up here I will do so. For now, I deal with what is available.

My readings may verge on the former distasteful things you allude to, but that's to be expected. I'm not a comp. lit. Ph.D. working out of Harvard after all. If I was, I probably wouldn't be arguing with you and Billy over so much trivial bullshit on a poetry message board online.

you would be surprised. you would be surprised.

Really, though, you and Billy both ought to consider that not only is literature inseparable from life, but that life is inseparable from literature. The donning of a mask or a persona in the writing of literature is not so different from what we all do in public life; it doesn't always take too much to see through it. Beyond that, even with intimates, we only know them through the signs they show us, whose subtleties and depths we sometimes find ourselves plumbing by attending to them as we would a text.

It seems you believe everyone should consider this. Consider it considered. You should consider the success rate this produces. Consider the following: Yes, much of Shakespeare's writing alludes to homosexuality but wait!! Much of it alludes to heterosexuality!! Well, one of them has to be true doesn't it? Let's just credit this irrelevant discovery to our shrewd analysis of his writings, shall we?

Anyhow, I think you're both clinging to romantic notions of selfhood that makes private intention into something that is barred off completely from what is made public in literature. Granted that the most skilled authors/writers tend to be the best at artfully concealing the private selves they draw upon in creating their art, with some exceptions. Even so, the most skilled, devoted, and sometimes merely attentive readers can still find the traces of the self that hides.

I think you're clinging to a pointless psychoanalysis of writers through writing that does nothing to increase the value of the /writing/ itself, actually distracting from literary discussion, diverting them to literary figure discussions.