Pound vs. Eliot

[milo]

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.

To me, you can't really know what sort of a fruit you're dealing with, until you cast your gaze upon the tree its fallen from. Even then, it takes some familiarity with the entire orchard to really know what's going on. That is to say: the approach I advocate and attempt to embody isn't merely psychoanalytic. It is also hermeneutic.

Granted, I'm an amateur, and this thread sprung from a desire to write about poets and poetry as much as anything. My speculations on these matters, I can readily concede, are just that: speculations. That doesn't mean that they are all completely ill founded or entirely without merit.

You think this sort of behavior is a distraction from properly "literary" discussion. That this position essentially ignores the most significant developments in literary theory in the past 40 or so years is something that seems to give you absolutely zero pause.

You (and many others that need to justify a position) believe that writing /needs/ an author to exist, to have purpose or meaning.

It's just not the case. Authorial intent has no effect at all on the actual words. Meaning is determined by the /reading/ not the writing, a good author observes and reports. If an effective analysis is dependent on knowing the author (other than cultural and social issues surrounding the times) than the writing fails.