StormHaven

T.S. ELIOT: MODERNIST . . . BUT CONTEMPORARY?

Upon my first reading of Eliot's "Four Quartets," I was pleasantly surprised by what Dr. Burris identifies as an admirable consistancy in Eliot's body of work. I expected the Eliot of "FQ" to be quite different than the Eliot of "The Wasteland"-- somewhere along the way, someone(s) gave me the impression that the later, reconciled Eliot contrasted starkly with the earlier, discontented one (that his "conversion" greatly impacted his writing, and that his poetics pre-conversion were worth much more time/study). I suppose I see now what would cause one to make such a distinction, but I prefer seeing the consistencies that Dr. B points out, looking at Eliot's individual works as parts of a larger project, to emphasizing the differences among his individual works.

The view of humanity Eliot presents in "The Wasteland" re-appears periodically in "FQ." In the third section of "Burnt Norton," the speaker describes "strained time-ridden faces. . . / Filled with fancies and empty of meaning." Such faces belong to "Men" who possess "unwholesome lungs" and "unhealthy souls" and who are blown about by wind, "that sweeps the gloomy hills of London," as bits of paper. Such a characterization continues throughout the text, as in the second section of "Little Gidding," where descriptions of the painful realization of "human folly" and your own deeds "ill done" appear.

Additionally, the same distaste for modernity that pervades "WL" is echoed throughout "FQ." The passage Dr. B mentions-- musings about the river being a "strong brown god" is directly followed by the river being "almost forgotten . . . By worshippers of the machine."

Rather than such descriptions functioning as the focus of the text (as is the case with "WL"), Eliot presents them more as illustrations of why our existence is so transitory and of why we are nearly incapable of coping with such a realization. (I think the calmness with which Eliot presents this state of affairs is perhaps the reason some characterize "FQ" as so different than "WL"; additionally, such descriptions read more like forgiving acknowledgments than indictments-- I'm thinking of the last section of "The Dry Salvages": we "are only undefeated/ Because we have gone on trying.") Indeed, Eliot seems much more concerned with (maybe even impressed by?) the state of nature rather than of humanity, as the former functions comfortably (and almost "knowingly") in perpetual transience. I'm thinking of Eliot's frequent allusions to seasons changing and also (perhaps more importantly) of Nature's way of marking (?) time. The "tolling bell" (introduced in the first section of "The Dry") that "Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried/ Ground swell" is a particularly striking image.

This recurring theme of our transient existence, however, was none too comforting to me this weekend-- as I was reading "FQ," I was being herded on and off of 10 row airplanes (not even four  seats per row) that had faulty engines, malfunctioning steering equipment, etc. For one who needs medication to fly on a plane that is in good shape, these circumstances were a less than ideal combination with Eliot. As I felt my certain death approaching, I got hung up on Eliot's pattern of fire imagery (probably due to the fact that I read Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time" last week). So that I was reading Eliot's phrases, such as "destructive fire," "frigid purgatorial fires," "To be redeemed from fire by fire," "crowned knot of fire," in rather apocalyptic ways, though I acknowledge my personal anxiety coupled with my reading list of late colored this reading-- any thoughts?

Lastly, I think Eliot continues to be quite relevant, but I'm not sure I can back this up with anything particularly scholarly sounding. It probably goes without saying that many of the issues modernists, including Eliot, were grappling with continue to haunt our postmodern era. As much as I love "WL" and as many similarities as I see between it and "FQ," the latter seems quite a bit more balanced (refreshing?) than the former. I suppose what I mean by "balanced" is realistic, or an acknowledgment/portrayal of complexity that I think "WL" in some ways lacks (i.e. "FQ" doesn't make me want to open a vein like "WL" does). We could use a bit more "balance." Thus, I for one am willing to overlook any conservatism in Eliot in favor of the more synthetic view he provides.

TIME, GODS, ASCENSION: ELIOT LEAVES THE WORLD

Regarding T.S. Eliot, I'm assuming that we agree on one point, that Eliot essentially wrote a single poem, a very long and evolving poem, that began with "Prufrock" and concluded with Four Quartets. Another way of making the same point:  Eliot had his subject matters, and they were presented and developed in an orderly fashion, and as a result, Eliot's poetic career is imminently "readable," patently interpretable.  It's as if he set himself a group of problems to explore as a young man, devoted his mid-career to exploring them, and having drawn satisfactory conclusions regarding these problems by 1942, when "Burnt Norton" was published and when Eliot still had nearly a quarter-century to live, he ceased writing poetry.  Problem solved.  Case closed.  Poems done.

I've always admired that about him, the way he used poetry to define and complete a task, and I think it's a defining quality of a superior mind.  Eliot never wrote out of habit, it seems to me, nor did he write because he was in a lyrical mood and wished to give vent to his lyricism.  No, Eliot wrote to solve solvable problems, and so the end of poetry was in sight for him as soon as he wrote his first line.

Eliot's defining problems are gathered together in Four Quartets, as if for a final assault.  It's a mighty poem, in my estimation, because it records the struggle required to achieve real clarity on a number of difficult issues.  Eliot is interested in the Christian notion of time, how it fuses time past, present, and future, at the moment of the incarnation, and how, properly conceived, "all time is eternally present," as he says, which is to say, every instant of our lives, again, properly conceived, is a moment of the incarnation. 

Except of course that Eliot was heavily influenced by Indian philosophy, particularly by the Indian practice of figuring forth psychological states as visualized deities:  "I don't know much about gods," Eliot writes, "but I think the river / Is a strong brown god."  Eliot learned from Indian philosophy a kind of lyrical dialecticism, a way of representing poetically the idea that it's difficult to speak of eternity without understanding, implying, and finally accepting the temporal in our lives, the ebb and flow over which we have no control.  To resolve this issue, Eliot ultimately returned to Christianity, a much worked-over Christianity, and found solace, as I read him, in a kind of salvation as figured forth in Christ's life.  Eliot's Christianity in some senses is a conservative Christianity, but in others highly synthetic and unorthodox.

Which leads us to the questions that we might discuss in class.  To what degree do we find Eliot's religious resolutions to be suitable to the contemporary world?  As you probably know, Eliot's stock has dropped somewhat since the heyday of the 40s and 50s.  But I wonder why it has dropped, precisely.  Of course he's conservative politically and artistically, and we tend to fancy ourselves very liberal.  But I think there's more to it than that. 

Eliot has a very distinct vision of art and its purpose, which is, to my eye, visible in his poetry from time to time.  How would you characterize it?  How does it structure his verse?  What are its social implications?  And how does Four Quartets that vision?  What are the poem's essential subjects, and do they engage us today?  Why or why not?  The back cover of my edition has Stephen Spender proclaiming the arrival of "ideas" in Eliot's verse, and what a bracing and much-needed innovation that is.  Agree?  Disagree?

How would you assess Eliot's accomplishment?

THE VIOLENCE OF FACT

I want to talk a little bit about the possibility that Wallace Stevens may have written “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” in an attempt to reconfigure the typical “us versus them” mindset that must have been rampant in 1942, when he published this poem.
Wallace Stevens concludes "[Prose statement on the poetry of war], " the text that appears just before “Supreme Fiction,” with the statement:

“The poetry of a work of the imagination constantly illustrates the fundamental and endless struggle with fact. It goes on everywhere, even in the periods that we call peace. But in war, the desire to move in the direction of fact as we want it to be and to move quickly is overwhelming. Nothing will ever appease this desire except a consciousness of fact as everyone is at least satisfied to have it be.”

In her preface to THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND, Holly Stevens details that she used "manuscript evidence, correspondence, or date of publication" to arrange the works in chronological order. Thus, "[Prose statement on the poetry of war]" is the immediate predecessor to "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction." I think this relationship, coupled with the fact that the poem was published in 1942, puts a frame on the poem that indicates that Stevens may have been trying to write a new kind of "war poem," one that resists the overwhelming "desire to move in the direction of fact as we want it to be," turning fact into an experience of truth that is different for each person. According to Jonathan Ausubel, as “Supreme Fiction” progresses, Stevens breaks down the initial persona he assumes, as pedant, in a way that destroys the mindset that authority figures have possession of a commodity, fact, that they may impart to their subjects. Though it may be a leap, I think that through doing this, Stevens records what could be an adjustment and annihilation of the mindset of war, a mindset that depends upon the assumption of each side that they are the possessors of truth, of fact.

As illuminated by Ausubel's article, the poem follows a steady progression of speakers and perspectives: from the didactics of the pendant, to the epiphanies of the poet, to the conflation of  the pedant, the poet, and the reader into a general perspective of "self." Ausubel opines that Stevens does this to address the issue that the pedant's original intention, to "educate the ephebe-reader into ignorance"(367), cannot be achieved directly through teaching: the very action of teaching seeks to eliminate the ignorance of the student, and thus it is impossible to teach someone how to reset their mind into an ignorant state through the traditional teacher/student model. And so Stevens attempts to assume the role of poet midway through the poem, but discovers that the poet too cannot communicate truth to the reader because he “cannot enforce his epiphanies on the reader”(ibid). Thus, through his progression of perspectives, Stevens slowly destroys the pedant's, and indeed possibly his own as the poet, desire to state as fact the need to launder the mind of facts and associations in order to write poetry that is alive. In doing so, Stevens attempts to offer truth to the reader by offering, the reader an experience to behold subjectively as an alternative to a moralizing lesson.

I wonder how much the context of World War II urged Stevens to try to reconfigure the role of the poet in the poem from one in which the poet plays the role of teacher, and therefore authority, to one that hands that authority over to every reader who encounters the poem. He seems to view fact as having a strong relationship to violence. At the beginning of "[Prose statement on the poetry of war]," he states that "in the presence of the violent reality of war, consciousness takes the place of the imagination. And consciousness of an immense war is a consciousness of fact." Violence in its most extreme manifestation of war, creates an acute desire for fact. Stevens goes on to define the consciousness of fact as "a consciousness of the victories and defeats of nations," indicating that the mind adopts a need to sort out whom the body count tells us can claim the truth. This type of consciousness of fact is predicated on the search for authority, which in its extreme, can result in tyranny, which was obviously a phenomenon of human nature that would have interested anyone trying to meditate on the 1940s. Confusingly, and in true Stevensian fashion (consider his multiple “ideas” in the first part of “Supreme Fiction,) he seems to use the term “consciousness of fact” in opposition with itself. In the first paragraph of “[Prose statement…],” Stevens defines the consciousness of war as the consciousness of fact. But, after exploring how war creates a desire for fact and consciousness, rather than imagination, Stevens asserts that “nothing will ever appease this desire except a consciousness of fact as everyone is at least satisfied to have it be.” This seems a curious contradiction, for he seems to suggest that a consciousness of fact is the only means to combat the desire for…a consciousness of fact. However, I think that compacted in this statement is a key to the abstract relevance that Stevens’s work on the subjective had in his time. The first “consciousness of fact” refers to a definition of reality that is based on fact. The final “consciousness of fact,” the one that will appease the desire for fact, refers to an understanding of the existence of fact, of its limitations, of its guile, and of how to alter the mind in a way that accepts that everyone has a different experience of truth.

All of this is to argue that Stevens sees fact as the refuge of those who believe in a world of right in wrong, of those who believe that war can bring about a just winner. I think that Stevens recognizes that poets are often seen as authority figures, and that though this may seems harmless, their status as authority figures adds to traditional models of power, which he attempts to eradicate through “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction.”

Posted by: Margaret Poist | February 17, 2008 at 11:10 PM

DUNCES IN THE CORNER

I sort of hate to start levelling charges of national ignorance and sinking intellection as we're in the midst of Wallace Stevens where national ignorance and sinking intellection seem to be the emotions-of-the-day, so I'll let Susan Jacoby do it in her piece in The Washington Post which appeared yesterday, Sunday, 17 February.  Have a look at it.  As I've been reading Stevens, I've felt strangely evidentiary in this argument that America is losing its collective intelligence.  You have to wonder:  the NEA report was one thing, this article is another, the level of political conversation on the television still another . . . books O books . . . that whole lament about the demise of print culture.  Is this more of the same sort of doom-saying prophecy that is as old as the written records or does this mark a new trend in a downward slide.  Note:  I did hear Toby Keith say several years ago that his foreign policy was real simple:  "You hit me, I hit you back harder."  And there were many hysterical cheers.  It obviously stuck with me because I still remember it.  I don't know why exactly except maybe it had something to do with a coarseness of thought that suddenly catches fire and becomes trendy so that . . . well, that's enough.  Have a look at the piece and see what you think.

NOTES TOWARD A SUPREME FICTION

My posting this week is a little different, its difference suggesting a bit of frustration with working through "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction."  Generally considered one of the great long poems in the American tradition, I read it with great difficulty this time, and I even consulted a few secondary sources to clear up my dilemma.  I've chosen one here for us to talk about, and we'll spend class time doing just that.  The author and title of the essay follow, but to access it click here.

1.

"This Hot, Dependent Orator": Shifting Narrative Stance and the Collision of Speaker and Reader in Notes toward a Supreme Fiction Jonathan Ausubel This will take you to JSTOR at Mullins Library, and to read the essay, you'll have to log in with your user name and password, the one you use for your email.  Maggie, are you posting?  You might want to address this essay in your thoughts on this poem.  Maybe it will give you a framework . . . at any rate, let's try to concentrate on "Notes" this week.  And if you need some extra time for your posting, that's fine with me.

READING TERRY EAGLETON

Reading Terry Eagleton was certainly a challenge. I'm somewhat familiar with Marxist criticism and thought, and am accustomed to the bewildering writing style found in most literary theory; nevertheless, I could feel my eyes glazing over. I intend on looking again (and again) at his introduction before Tuesday's class, but at the moment, I would describe my perception of Eagleton as a bit...fuzzy. Therefore, any commentary, corrections, and/or clarifications in your posts would be welcome and appreciated.

My reading of Eagleton (a subjective experience?) leads me to believe that he isn't necessarily praising or critiquing the currently construction of "the aesthetic." Rather, like Fish, he is merely providing an explanation of how Western thought and bourgeois hegemony developed. The aesthetic, however, isn't really the problem, but how that notion has been used:

But my argument is also that the aesthetic, understood in a certain sense, provides an unusually powerful challenge and alternative to these dominant ideological forms, and is in this sense an eminently contradictory phenomenon. (3)

Later, towards the end of his introduction, Eagleton places his work in a vague hierarchy of radical thought/projects:

There are many forms of radical cultural enquiry of considerably greater political significance than such high theoretical labour; but a deeper understanding of the mechanisms by which political hegemony is currently maintained is a necessary prerequisite of effective political action, and this is one kind of insight which I believe an enquiry into the aesthetic can yield. (12)

So, Eagleton is not blueprinting a new social order. He is (merely?) deconstructing the historical and philosophical practices that led to our current state. In his post, Dr. Burris refers to earlier methods of reacting to art, specifically Aristotle's theory of art's cathartic power. But does Eagleton have any interest--or at least feel a pressing need--to change our concept of the aesthetic? Or is he more concerned with "using what he can" of the post-eighteenth century vision of art, aesthetics, and subjectivity, in order to change the current dominant ideology? After all, Eagleton is clearly in the same grip as all of us: he acknowledges that one can thank the Englightenment for giving him or her the ability and tools to rationally criticize the Englightenment!

At this point, if there are any corrections or clarifications that need to be made regarding my understanding of Eagleton, I would like them addressed.

If we may move on, I have a few questions that I would like to raise, for discussion in posts and in class. I am not particularly interested in decrying middle-class hegemony or proposing radical political action. Instead, I am curious about the implications and consequences of Eagleton's argument about the aesthetic, if we grant that what he says is correct. How does our post-eighteenth century, subject-based philosophical orientation toward art--that it is a subject meant to be interpreted--affect us? (And by "us," I mean the artists themselves, the audience for art, and the culture that surrounds the purveyors and recipients of art.) What is gained and what is lost by viewing art this way? Is it just as productive as it is damaging? And, perhaps fundamental to the discussion, if we're criticizing a subjective experience with or response to art, how do we distinguish it from an objective one? As Dr. Burris notes, even Aristotle's theory of art as a purging mechanisms relies on somewhat subjective feelings such as pity and fear. Even statements which seem highly objective--for example, "This carpet is soft"--rely on the subjective sense of touch and the subjective vehicle of language.

Subjectivity, context, and interpretation were all concepts that continually arose in my mind while reading Wallace Stevens.

First, I was continually reminded of the impact context, and the appearance/presentation of the words, has on the reader. We spoke earlier in the semester on the mysteriously wonderful sensation that comes from holding and reading a physical book; how something about its tactility and portability produce feelings that cannot be reproduced by reading the same book on a computer screen or a device such as the Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Device/dp/B000FI73MA. I was reminded of this discussion by the physical presentation of Stevens's work in The Palm at the End of the Mind. What effect (if any or to what degree) does the physical placement of the words on the page have on the poem and/or the reader (see "For an Old Woman in a Wig")? Or, how different would a reading be without certain words and phrases italicized? And, most importantly, how do we read poetry that has missing pages and lines? Is a poem that is apparently incomplete worth looking at? How do we acknowledge and address these gaps?

Also, subjectivity and interpretation of experience came to mind because it seemed to be a preoccupation of Stevens as content for his art. There are numerous poems--including two of my favorites, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and ""Study of Two Pears--that revolve around the instability of observation and perception. His play, Bowl, Cat, and Broomstick, also shares this theme. Additionally, there are several poems that deal explicitly with the power of metaphor, and how we can understand and even change our perceptions through metaphor. These poems include "Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb," and "Life is Motion." These poems and play, and the others that address interpretation, metaphor, and truth(s) in art, are the ones I am most interested in discussing further.

I am also curious to speculate about Eagleton's response to Stevens? Would he consider him a defeatist and enabler of the subject-driven conception of art? Or would he see Stevens as a literary forebearer to himself, recognizing and deconstructing the ideology of the aesthetic in his own work?

Posted by: Jack Ayres | February 10, 2008 at 06:45 PM

THE EAGLE FLIES: EAGLETON'S IDEAS & WHAT TO DO WITH THEM

You have to like the cover of The Ideology of the Aesthetic.  That's Terry Eagleton staring down at the rest of us.  He's wondering how he might explain those ideas of his to the masses.  But seriously--the Introduction that you read this week in conjunction with the first of half of Wallace Stevens' poetry provides an accurate example of a lot of the British/Marxist/Socio-Political criticism that was prevalent in the 80's and to a degree in the early 90's.  It's deadly serious stuff, so serious, it puts your eyes out reading some of it, and you wake up realizing you've killed your father and married your mother.

There is some complaining here about the current state of socialist criticism, and the ways in which it has effaced its roots in the grand tradition of social engagement.  Exactly how much time do I have for that?  How much time do I have for a committed academic of great gifts to scold us about our own ideas and adventures into social-service work?   Right, not much.

I assigned Eagleton because he summarizes for us an essential idea that we don't spend a lot of time talking about in graduate programs--he's right, alas, to complain--because American doesn't have a prominent and well respected tradition of socialist commentary.  Here's a fundamental idea--fundamental to Eagleton and many others--that we need to discuss:

Conceptions of the unity and integrity of the work of art, for example, are commonplaces of an 'aesthetic' discourse which stretches back to classical antiquity; but what emerges from such familiar notions in the late eighteenth century is the curious idea of the work of art as a kind of subject. (4)

It is a very big deal, this notion of the work of art as a kind of subject.  Why?  Because it speaks to the tendentious relationship between the subject and the object, the perceiver and the perceived.  Later on in the book, in the Chapter on Kant, Eagleton amplifies his idea:

That the individual subject should come to occupy centre stage, reinterpreting the world with reference to itself, follows logically enough from bourgeois economic and political practice.  But the more the world is thus sujectivized, the more this all-privileged subject begins to undermine the very objective conditions of its own preeminence.  The wider the subject extends its imperial sway over reality, the more it relativizes that terrain to its own needs and desires, dissolving the world's substance into the stuff of its own senses. (70)

One of the points that Eagleton is making here concerns, in a sense, Hirsch's notion, which we discussed in class, of "validity in  interpretation."  We begin to view the work of art as a subject the moment we begin to view it as an opportunity for each of us to interpret it.  We seize this opportunity the way we seize any opportunity for self-aggrandizement or profit:  to reinforce through our interpretations--in this case of the work of art--our own view of the world, our own set of values, our own perspective on whatever it is that falls within the expanding penumbra of our existence. 

It doesn't matter, for the time being, that our interpretations are offered up for different reasons; it doesn't matter that we might finally deem some of these reasons more defensible than others; it doesn't matter because in determining which are the more defensible ones we are, once again, extending the domain of the subject in its essential act of interpretation and amalgamation.  So, interpretation, hermeneutics, belongs essentially to the realm of the subject, and it is this subject that Eagleton identifies in the new version of art that arises in the eighteenth century and with which we are still grappling.

You're wondering what in the world would do with a poem, for example, after reading it, if we don't interpret it?  Or rather, how in the world will I make a living as an English teacher if I don't find some persuasive way of  interpreting in a public forum the poem that I have just read?  One way of beginning to understand the answer to that question is to remember what Aristotle said about catharsis.  Aristotle claimed that catharsis, the purging of pity and fear while viewing a tragedy, was the primary function of literary art and one of the most important social functions that art serves.

While there is a great deal of debate about what Aristotle meant precisely, you will notice that nowhere in that formulation does commentary make an appearance.  Aristotle is certainly dealing with what we would recognize as subjective emotions, pity and fear, but he is not enshrining that subject by recognizing their expression in an act of criticism as somehow necessary to the complete perception of the work. 

Poets, of course, are aware of this, and no one is more aware of this than Wallace Stevens.  His work has attracted some high-powered theorists because his work is powerfully theoretical on the subject of art's perception by those who are perceiving it naively, those who are perceiving it professionally, and those who are perceiving it simply   . . . to perceive it.  Once the subject is given free reign in interpretation--within those standards and limitations set by Fish's "interpretive communities"--then meaning is brokered like stocks on the stock market.

This is a concern to many writers.  It was a major concern of Wallace Stevens.  Look for it as you go through his poetry.

HUGHES, THE CANON, & THE FISH

I became acquainted with Langston Hughes's poetry when I was in high school (and largely unaware of my whiteness and of the complexity of the Harlem Renaissance), and as an avid blues and jazz fan, I immediately and unreservedly fell in love with his work. As an undergraduate, I discovered that Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston had a sort of falling out, which partially contributed to her relative obscurity for a number of years. I took (and to some extent, still take) this slight against Hurston personally, yet in spite of myself, I continued to be quite attracted to Hughes's poetry but also to begin to vaule it as more than just "good" poetry, as socially and culturally significant and as politically useful. This past week, I found myself weighing Hughes against George Schuyler by way of their discussion in the "Nation" over the existence of "Negro Art." For the first time, Schuyler's argument resonated with me more than Hughes's-- largely due to insights from postmodern feminism and the canons' possible construction/reification of difference. As usual, however, less than five minutes after picking up Hughes's collection of poetry, I was sold, ready to proclaim him the best poet of the twentieth century.

The point of relaying all of this flip-flopping is that whatever canon we include Hughes in (American, African American, etc.) and whatever his role in the Harlem Renaissance or politcal stance(s) that contributed to it, Hughes produced engaging and aesthetically pleasing poetry. In other words, at fifteen years old, I did not posess the historical/cultural knowledge (nor the political inclination) to fully appreciate the connections among the "head of vibrant hair/ Tamed down," the music's "hypodermic needle/ To his soul," and "Trouble" mellowing "to a golden note" of "Trumpet Player," but I liked the poem. Similarly, poems such as "Cross," "Silhouette," and "Dream Boogie" all spoke to me before I had (for better or worse) developed a certain "lens" through which to view literature.

Interestingly, as I think back upon that first experience with Hughes, I wonder if his poems did or did not "say" the same things to me that they do nearly ten years later-- that perhaps the only difference is that now I process his poems with a more sophisticated vocabulary or lens, that these beautifully crafted poems taught (the 15 year old) me about my world and the way it works without my even realizing it.

Of course, my current and self-conscious agenda(s), despite my love for Hurston and my fascination with Schuyler, easily fits in with that of Hughes. Yet I must confess that the last section of his "Selected Poems," "Words Like Freedom," is easily the weakest (in a lyric/literary/poetic sense). Interestingly, this section is also his most overtly political. (I think all of Hughes's poetry contains at least an implicit politics-- an assertion which may be attributed to my personal agenda for reading him). For example, "Freedom's Plow" fails to meet the standard set by "Dream Boggie" or "The Weary Blues."

What I am suggesting is, that if everyone (writers, poets, scholars, artists, etc.) possesses an agenda anyway, perhaps one measure of how "good" a poem is, or if it should be canonized, studied, is the extent to which that agenda remains subordinate to artistic, aesthetic concerns. In other words, Hughes's overall agenda is, generally, the same in "Dream Boggie" and "Freedom's Plow," but I would much rather read, study, and teach the former and believe it warrants more of our attention than the latter. However, this view, my view, of literature in general and of Hughes's poetry in particular, begs the question, with all of these agendas and lenses floating about, can we ever actually draw these distinctions with confidence that we are drawing the "right" ones? That we are acting in a responsible manner? That our distinctions will stand up to others'? Fish suggests that we cannot, and as someone who I suspect fits into his category of "leftist," I feel a bit disheartened by his suggestion.

Posted by: alschmidt | February 03, 2008 at 03:37 PM

A MAN CALLED FISH

What can you say about Stanley Fish?  Like him, love him, hate him, feel indifferent about him--and Fish has garnered all of these responses and many, many more--he has constructed a presence in the business of education and scholarship that resembles no other.  Unlike many academics, he cherishes public debate, and he is never happier than when he is exposing the pieties of those encamped both on the left and the right.  He has his own set of pieties, of course, and Martha Nussbaum has exposed those as authoritatively as he has exposed others.  His most notorious academic post was held at Duke University from 1986-1998, a time in which he transformed the English Department--or destroyed it, depending upon whom you ask--from a sleepy, Southern enclave to a leading center of contemporary theory and inquiry. 

He makes a lot of money, and he used to drive a Jaguar (maybe he still does).  He was one of the early pioneers of Reader Response theory; he is accused of sophistry and sublimity, sometimes in the same breath.  He is valuable to those of us who need reminding occasionally that we ought to examine our social values--let's say "ethics"--and how they arise from, or are connected to, our reading; for those of us who don't need that reminder, he is irritating.  He knows a lot about Milton, and the Renaissance in general.  It is a sign of his mental health that he claims this knowledge to be a very small thing in a very large world.  He believes that academics need to be more punctual in everything that they do.  He is a hustler; or he is engaged.  Take your pick.

His prose is dense, humorous, a flexible instrument for an often inflexible genre:  literary and social criticism.  Sometimes he seems difficult to predict simply because he wants to seem difficult to predict, not because his ideas are unpredictable.  He is very good at saying predictable things in unpredictable ways. 

I wanted to read this particular essay, "That's Not Fair," the Introduction to There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, because Fish plays the inveterate iconoclast here, a role that has always been dear to his heart.  And iconoclasm seems to me needed nowadays in a profession that is becoming ossified in its practice and organization.  Perhaps, as some will argue, it has always been this way.  Ossification is only part of the picture; there is much work being done that is vital, transformative, and even revisionary.  I agree.  But most of that work, or the work that I would place in those categories, depends upon a literate culture, and one capable of making and defending informed judgments in the public arena.  That is what I find in short supply--and I don't care if it has always been in short supply--and that is what I would like to see redressed in some way. 

For my money, the heart of his argument lies in the following two sentences from the Introduction:

This does not mean that all discriminatory practices are equal; all it means is that one cannot condemn a practice just for being discriminatory (since there are none that are not).  Rather, one must consider the effects of a practice and attempt to calculate as best one can the costs of either allowing it to flourish or moving to curtail it (12).

This, in some ways, is the heart of Fish's argument whenever he discusses literary values and the formation of literary canons (decidedly plural!) that are acceptable to the community of readers and teachers who are concerned with them. 

Notice, though, how he avoids the real argument, the one that ends friendships and insults entire races and ethnicities.  If it is true that all "practices"--and we can read here "canons," "syllabi," or "books we ought to read"--are discriminatory, in the sense of selective, then it is reasonable to assume that we need to examine the effects of reading this book, to the exclusion of that book (because we can't read and teach all books), and whether or not we find those effects to be salutary or pernicious.

How then do we determine what is salutary and what is not?  Fish, in this essay, doesn't address this question.  In other work, he has argued for the existence of  "interpretive communities" who, to condense a fairly complex argument, gain the upper hand, first rhetorically, then actually, in the determination of what we will read and teach.  These arguments are won "in the fray," to use the terminology of "That's Not Fair," and while they might appeal to transcendant values, there is nothing essentially transcendant about them.  Chicano literature is not more essentially worthy of teaching than, say, Tibetan literature; but Chicano literature has become part of our canon and Tibetan literature hasn't.  Why?  Our answer to this very simple question starts us down the path that Fish has traveled over and over again.

And so we are thrown back in the arena again, fighting for our selections and our tastes.  What Fish has done is to remove, or attempt to remove, from the evidentiary material the idea that one reason for reading one book is essentially more justified than any other reason for reading any other book.  We then have to come to terms with the personal, ethnic, racial, political, social, or aesthetic reasons cited as we propose our selections; and we will have to examine these reasons carefully.  On what grounds are these concerns based?  Are they defensible? If so, on what grounds?

There are larger questions that stand behind these issues.  How do the books that we read and teach help to constitute the culture that we wish to build and preserve?  Even more importantly, how does the selection process itself demonstrate to our students the evaluative principles that we wish to see active in our classrooms, our universities, our societies?  And to what degree are we openly discussing amongst our students the most fundamental implications of having made such decisions?

These are some of the most fundamental issues suggested by Fish's essay, issues that we will discuss on Tuesday in relation to the poetry of Langston Hughes.