Pound vs. Eliot

[jdeirmend]

I don't understand why you have to lock yourself into one theory or 'perspective.' At times there may be a line, a stanza, a poem, and so on, which alludes to the writer's life, and is so obvious it would be stupid to ignore. Other times the writing has nothing to do with the author's life. Can we not address both in criticism?

For purposes of discussion, it would be useful to know who you're addressing. I see myself arguing for an inclusive way of reading.

Whether or not a portion of a work recognizably or obviously alludes to a writer's life, however, is almost besides the point. For it doesn't confirm or change the fact that his or her intention formed the work. You seem to recognize this in the second half of your post, when you address the "professors."

I'm sorry, but the point I was making was that you and milo are arguing for different approaches to criticism, and so I'm asking, why can't you include both? There is no need to go off on a tangent about intentionality because really you are just arguing for a psychoanalytic approach to reading poetry.

Oh and thanks for not bothering to respond to my second paragraph and completely ignoring my third.

Lainey,

To address your first question: well, for one, the idea of a work "standing on its own" is something that I'm suspicious of. Context informs every single possible sentence that can be uttered or written, as much as it informs the meanings of words themselves in a sentence, as much as the meanings of paragraphs and pages. Agreed?

Even so, as I mentioned in my first reply to you: I see my perspective as inclusive. I don't see myself arguing for a "psychoanalytic" perspective, in the sense that most lit-crit students probably understand it, because I don't see psychology as something separate from semantics. Every mental production is meaningful, and every meaningful bit of language is mental.

What pisses me off, really, is the pretense that seems to go hand in hand with "New Criticism." To say that a literary work "stands on its own" is often as much to say that it conforms to one's own sensibilities as anything else. If someone wants to offer me an alternative account of what that means, I'm all ears. No one really has yet, to my knowledge. Nevertheless, I am considering the possibility that something can, in some sense, "stand on its own." I tend to believe that this happens when literary works address timeless themes, of which I take much of classical philosophy to be an exemplar. Milo seems to scoff at this.

Now a concession for you: at the beginning of the thread, I tried to explore some of Pound's and Eliot's work on the basis of psychobiographical speculation, it's true. And I know I've spilled no small amount of virtual ink trying to defend the idea that we can know something about an author through his or her writing. But I've since acknowledged that building an informed picture is more of a hermeneutic task than a "psychoanalytic" one. Meaning simply: the more one reads of an author's work, as well as of the works that surround it in time and place, the better an idea one can have of what that work means. This is true, I think, particularly in relation to the question of what motivated the work's production, on the part of the author.

Arguably, the perspective I'm pushing for is psychoanalytic, but I think that people who have little or no training or knowledge of psychoanalysis employ the methods I'm mentioning all the time, whether they are aware of it or not, Milo among them.

Second: I was addressing something you had written in my "tangent."

Lastly, as I've already written, much of the second part of your response was very difficult for me to make sense of. Also, I am by no means required to respond to you or anyone on this forum. I did respond out of a desire to include you in the discussion, as much as a curiosity to know who you were addressing.

If you're going to expect a comprehensive response to what you write from me, I would kindly invite you to make it a habit to read, re-read, and edit your posts. I don't mean to be presumptuous in saying this. We obviously share interests, and from what I could get out of what you wrote, you seem to have a lot to say that is relevant and interesting. The way your thinking was presented, however, seemed haphazard, which discouraged me from responding.

I would like to engage you in a discussion on these matters, please rest assured -- I would just need you to display some more control and deliberation in your diction for me to be truly interested.

Again, I don't mean to be off-putting, just honest.

Best regards,
James