Re: The talking going on in one's head
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Fri, 22 Oct 1999 16:59:01 -0500
Sean Druine:
> Matt Kuzusko: "But this is exactly how language works."
>
> And with that, I think we have set a new record for most pretentious
> thread in the bananafish archive. (Or, is it naivete?)
Hardly. I think some of the early "poststructuralism" threads, for
which you were present, as I recall, were marginally more pretentious.
> Despite the endless, earnest, arm-chair philsophizing and
> intellectual monkey-slapping of literary theorists, I don't think
> they have, or ever will have, any plausible basis for making the
> claim, "This is exactly how language works."
Your opinion (I suppose regardless of whether you've read much
literary theory) is as loud as anyone else's. It should be noted,
though, that Saussure was not a literary theorist. He was a professor
of linguistics working in a feild he himself called "semiotics" or
semiology. And Freud and Lacan, though often invoked by "literary
theorists," are more closely associated with psychology.
> Literary theory has
> certainly taught us just how vague, ambiguous, and meaningless
> literary theory can be. I don't think they've taught us much of
> anything about language in general.
Perhaps they haven't taught you much of anything about language in
general. The typical response here goes something like "don't knock
it till you've tried it." I'm not saying you should go out and read
"literary theory" (whatever it is), but as it is, your comments are
rude, dismissive and, well, naive.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu