Tuesday, January 30, 2007
The Thoughts of Youth are Long, Long Thoughts . . .
Something to Help You Sleep . . .
Ok, I'm sure some readers wouldn't consider 27 to be exactly "youth"; as I was informed by a Gateway student yesterday, that's "almost 30"! At least he's good with math. As odd as it may sound, I really don't feel threatened by 30; in my profession, it's a magic age when people start taking you seriously-does a lot for the respect factor . . .
Back to the long, long thoughts of youth. I mentioned a while back that I'm part of this short story club, led by Illustrious Editor Kent d Curry; I have a great time analyzing all things literary with him; just so you know, we could pretty much revolutionize the world of English literature if Simon & Schuster would give us a book contract. I mean, Bill Shakespeare was good, but I think we've got some truly original ideas, not some hacked plots from Grecian tragedy.
So, Illustrious Editor Kent sent me this quote attributed to Goethe (Again, for the sake of space, I summarize): "There are three kinds of readers: the one who enjoys without judging, the one who judges without enjoying, and the one who reading and judging enjoys both."
So Kent Says . . .
Now, here's where he went with this:
1) Enjoyment without judgment: those who read "genre" literature-Westerns, mysteries, romances, etc. without really considering whether or not this is a truly "great" book.
2) Judgment without enjoyment: the lit-nerd MFAs who get stuck in Metaphor Forest in the Land of Symbolism. Notice that most people get lost in the forest; metaphors are like forests because people get "lost" in them, losing the connection of reality and referent . . .ahem, I digress.
3) Reading, judging, and enjoying: those who appreciate the story as simply a "good" story but are also able to read a little below the surface and understand that when a cowboy is dressed all in black, that's a "Western symbol" for "bad guy"!
This last "level" is the level at which people should read everything, including the Bible.
Then I Reply . . .
My speciality is interpreting the Bible (a discipline known as "hermeneutics", because, as you know, it wouldn't be "cool" if it was known only as "interpreting the Bible"). That's not quite the same as modern American fiction, so my approach is a little bit different.
So, as a free sleep-aid, I'll describe my take on Goethe. There are three "loci" useful for discovering/extracting meaning from texts. You can discover meaning in a text by focusing on authorial intention, textual structures, and/or personal experiences (you may have heard the term "reader-response criticism"). To say it more simply, the three loci are 1) author, 2) text, and 3) reader. Incidentally, the history of literary and Scriptural study since the Enlightenment has essentially moved along this continuum.
Something to Wonder About . . .
Now, Goethe, as mediated by Kent, seems to describe exactly these three loci:
1) Genre-readers: A literary "genre", by definition, focuses attention on the intention of the author because it raises the question: "Why did the author choose this genre to communicate this message?"
2) Snotty MFAs: These symbol-seekers treat meaning as something that is "buried" in the text, not really related to what the author "originally intended". As an example, I had a friend tell me about a structuralist analysis of the famous Western movie, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper. After analyzing the symbolism, this critic discovered that the movie was about the gender roles of men and women in the Old West. Well according to good ol' Wiki, the movie was an allegory combating 1950s McCarthyism! So take that, unknown structuralist critic, poisoning my friend's mind with your lame-brained, feminist jargon! Ha!
3) The "intelligent" reader: These readers recognize that the "discovery" of meaning within the text is usually more illuminating about the discoverer than about the discovery! Our sociocultural context drastically influences the way we perceive texts.
The Goal: "Good" Reading
The trick is to find a way to balance these three elements. Authorial intention is key to the initial production of the text. Nobody's ever started writing, saying, "Well, I really don't know what I'm trying to say, but . . .". Well. Ok. Maybe that's happened in this blog once or twice. Anyway.
However, texts do have "unintended interpretations"; do you really think that Tom Jefferson was actually including black Americans when he said, "All men are created equal?" (He obviously wasn't thinking at all about the fairer sex). Well, Martin Luther King, Jr. thought that was what he meant, or should have meant!
And, at the end of the day, it is up to the reader to read carefully, aware of our own cultural biases, and looking closely for textual clues that lead us to the author's intended meaning. The final step (as in the case of TJ's "Declaration of Independence" mentioned above) is to judge whether those intentions are truly "good". As some scholars would phrase it: the reader is actively involved in the "production" of meaning. Readers don't "create" meaning ex nihilo; we "discover" or "excavate" it.
Betcha didn't know "reading" was so hard! Maybe that's why Paul is so adamant that Timothy learn to rightly divide the "Word of Truth"; there are a lot of ways to do it "wrongly"-believe me, I grade Bible college papers every day. So, if you're not asleep yet, why don't you pull out your Bible and try some real reading for once? Let me know how it goes!
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!
Ok, I'm sure some readers wouldn't consider 27 to be exactly "youth"; as I was informed by a Gateway student yesterday, that's "almost 30"! At least he's good with math. As odd as it may sound, I really don't feel threatened by 30; in my profession, it's a magic age when people start taking you seriously-does a lot for the respect factor . . .
Back to the long, long thoughts of youth. I mentioned a while back that I'm part of this short story club, led by Illustrious Editor Kent d Curry; I have a great time analyzing all things literary with him; just so you know, we could pretty much revolutionize the world of English literature if Simon & Schuster would give us a book contract. I mean, Bill Shakespeare was good, but I think we've got some truly original ideas, not some hacked plots from Grecian tragedy.
So, Illustrious Editor Kent sent me this quote attributed to Goethe (Again, for the sake of space, I summarize): "There are three kinds of readers: the one who enjoys without judging, the one who judges without enjoying, and the one who reading and judging enjoys both."
So Kent Says . . .
Now, here's where he went with this:
1) Enjoyment without judgment: those who read "genre" literature-Westerns, mysteries, romances, etc. without really considering whether or not this is a truly "great" book.
2) Judgment without enjoyment: the lit-nerd MFAs who get stuck in Metaphor Forest in the Land of Symbolism. Notice that most people get lost in the forest; metaphors are like forests because people get "lost" in them, losing the connection of reality and referent . . .ahem, I digress.
3) Reading, judging, and enjoying: those who appreciate the story as simply a "good" story but are also able to read a little below the surface and understand that when a cowboy is dressed all in black, that's a "Western symbol" for "bad guy"!
This last "level" is the level at which people should read everything, including the Bible.
Then I Reply . . .
My speciality is interpreting the Bible (a discipline known as "hermeneutics", because, as you know, it wouldn't be "cool" if it was known only as "interpreting the Bible"). That's not quite the same as modern American fiction, so my approach is a little bit different.
So, as a free sleep-aid, I'll describe my take on Goethe. There are three "loci" useful for discovering/extracting meaning from texts. You can discover meaning in a text by focusing on authorial intention, textual structures, and/or personal experiences (you may have heard the term "reader-response criticism"). To say it more simply, the three loci are 1) author, 2) text, and 3) reader. Incidentally, the history of literary and Scriptural study since the Enlightenment has essentially moved along this continuum.
Something to Wonder About . . .
Now, Goethe, as mediated by Kent, seems to describe exactly these three loci:
1) Genre-readers: A literary "genre", by definition, focuses attention on the intention of the author because it raises the question: "Why did the author choose this genre to communicate this message?"
2) Snotty MFAs: These symbol-seekers treat meaning as something that is "buried" in the text, not really related to what the author "originally intended". As an example, I had a friend tell me about a structuralist analysis of the famous Western movie, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper. After analyzing the symbolism, this critic discovered that the movie was about the gender roles of men and women in the Old West. Well according to good ol' Wiki, the movie was an allegory combating 1950s McCarthyism! So take that, unknown structuralist critic, poisoning my friend's mind with your lame-brained, feminist jargon! Ha!
3) The "intelligent" reader: These readers recognize that the "discovery" of meaning within the text is usually more illuminating about the discoverer than about the discovery! Our sociocultural context drastically influences the way we perceive texts.
The Goal: "Good" Reading
The trick is to find a way to balance these three elements. Authorial intention is key to the initial production of the text. Nobody's ever started writing, saying, "Well, I really don't know what I'm trying to say, but . . .". Well. Ok. Maybe that's happened in this blog once or twice. Anyway.
However, texts do have "unintended interpretations"; do you really think that Tom Jefferson was actually including black Americans when he said, "All men are created equal?" (He obviously wasn't thinking at all about the fairer sex). Well, Martin Luther King, Jr. thought that was what he meant, or should have meant!
And, at the end of the day, it is up to the reader to read carefully, aware of our own cultural biases, and looking closely for textual clues that lead us to the author's intended meaning. The final step (as in the case of TJ's "Declaration of Independence" mentioned above) is to judge whether those intentions are truly "good". As some scholars would phrase it: the reader is actively involved in the "production" of meaning. Readers don't "create" meaning ex nihilo; we "discover" or "excavate" it.
Betcha didn't know "reading" was so hard! Maybe that's why Paul is so adamant that Timothy learn to rightly divide the "Word of Truth"; there are a lot of ways to do it "wrongly"-believe me, I grade Bible college papers every day. So, if you're not asleep yet, why don't you pull out your Bible and try some real reading for once? Let me know how it goes!
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!
# posted by Luke @ 7:58 PM 
