Which is impossible. We each have a naive interpretive frame that we’ve constructed through years of reading and living. So any “raw virgin encounter” with a work is already being mediated by a default set of preconceptions.
I voted Yes.
Okay, we don’t need literary crit but why would we want to give it up? Lit Crit is FUN! It’s only problematic if folks take it too seriously and insist that there’s a “right” interpretation.
It’s fun to debate the intent of the author vs. popular reception, particularly if the author is alive to dispute interpretations of their work.
There are a lot of papers written claiming characters or authors from classic literature are gay. I’m gay so I find them highly entertaining, it’s like academic fanfic.
It doesn’t mean that I honestly believe that Alice is gay, or that Lewis Carroll/Charles D. was gay or that he was a homo and didn’t know it. It’s just fun to read works through different filters.
We spend a lot of time dissecting works we enjoy on this board we just do it with less tweed than academia. God knows I got a belly full of Lit Crit in college though, a person can definitely OD.
I meant free from the influence of other’s analysis of the specific work. Which is usually mostly possible for works that aren’t insanely popular or classics.
Obviously the only way to experience a work without any contextual influence is for it to be gibberish.
I think the line is crossed when the critic passes from “I understand what the author was saying” to “I understand what the author was saying better than the author does”.
With some critics, there’s an almost complete disconnection between the work they’re supposedly discussing and whatever theory they want to sell.
Ok, I understand now, Sparknotes is junk and not a true representative of literary criticism.
Which brings to the disturbing question that I think the number of readers of Sparknotes, compared to the number of readers of GK Chesterton’s lit crit, is approximately one million to one.
Extremely well put.
This is my number one problem with most movie critics. Nothing upsets me more in a review than someone saying “Kubrick’s characters display emotions that can only be measured in inches” without any support whatsoever.* Apparently the reviewer thinks his viewing of the film is all the support that is necessary.
As for criticism, my favorite criticism puts the emotions I had at the end of a film into words and explains what the film did to bring them out. It gives me insight into myself, humanity, and the art of creating art.
*Fuck you, Anthony Lane.
The implications of that are indeed disturbing.
Ah … I agree then.
I’ve had readers understand my work better than I do. To some extent, writing is a mixture of skill and instinct. Some things just sound right without my being able to say why, and someone else can say, “It’s because of this and this” and I feel the moment of recognition.
We write from a culture and a context. We are influenced constantly by things we take in but don’t fully comprehend.
Criticism often reveals things about a work the author didn’t consciously know were there.
Obligatory XKCD :
And equally often, criticism reveals things about the critic.
I think it’s a losing game to ever try to figure out what the author really intended. You’ll never be able to know. Even if you could ask an author what Work X “really meant” they probably either wouldn’t tell you or couldn’t tell you. Worrying about authorial intent will always get in the way of criticism, which should be of the work itself, not what may or may not have been going through the author’s mind before or during the conception of the piece. I’ve been on both sides of this as a critic and an author. I’ve heard “Oh, Shelly never intended that” but at the same time, I would never tell somebody their interpretation of my work is wrong. Writing isn’t like programming a computer. You don’t consciously decide every single element included and what the parameters are.
For example, it might say more about me than Stoker when I say that there is obviously gay subtext in Dracula, but at the same time, I sure as hell wouldn’t want people to make assumptions about my thoughts, goals, values, hopes, dreams, and sexual preferences based on what I write. In the end, a homoerotic reading of Dracula is meant to reflect * solely* on the text and not what Bram Stoker did or didn’t think about his story, characters, or the intense, complicated relationships he had with other men including Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and his boss at the theater (whose name I have forgotten but who Dracula seems to be based on, description wise).
It always reveals things about the critic.