While I'll watch with interest how this thread develops, having
drenched myself in theory in the seventies and eighties, I find I
don't have much interest in it now, or at least not per se. What
reading I do do in it is usually prompted by the work of someone who
draws more from it than I can. For example (and because he seems to
be away at present, I can mention it without discomfiting him), I've
always admired the way cris cheek uses a wide range of theoretical
approaches in the production of work which surprises and intrigues me.
A great deal of the theoretical writing itself seems to me dull and
trite by comparison. In particular, I find nothing in the theoretical
melee around "the death of the author" which I can't already deduce
from Finnegans Wake, Cage and Burroughs, say, let alone the
hinterland of pre-modern textualities that Robin touches on.
The point Mairead suggests is one that I wouldn't like to see lost,
though: that "Theory" can work to close down practice or, certainly,
reception of new sorts of work. (My own free-style and perhaps
inaccurate interpretation.) I'd like to hear more about that if
you've the energy, Mairead.
Best,
Trevor
>Dear Erminia,
>
>I am interested to know more about baroque poetics
>though more of a stripped pine or aluminum handrail poetics type myself.
> Can you provide a translation of the statement you made in Cork 2003?
>
>The death of the author discussion you propose might be interesting
>though my heart sinks at the mention of both Barthes and New Criticism.
>My only contribution is the hoary one that white guys declared the
>author dead just as the non white non guys came running with new forms,
>new words, new images, new rhythms, and new stories.
>
>But I'd love to hear reports from the live worlds of poetry, especially
>Ireland.
>
>Mairead
>
>
>
>www.maireadbyrne.blogspot.com
>>>> Erminia Passannanti <[log in to unmask]> 01/02/04 19:11
>PM >>>
>Has anybody an idea to 'what' exactly, to what set of ideas and specific
>topics, that is: to what texts, Barthes's The Death of he Author
>referred
>when it was written? To what current? I'd like to start a discussion on
>the
>intertext of the Death of the Author. Any idea, Trevor? Do you think
>Trevor
>that it is a suitable discussion this for your list for the new year? Or
>perhaps what goes on in London pubs would be far more exciting for the
>listees, give the recent festivities?
>Trevor, I would be grateful if one could give me an opinion on the
>relationship between Barthes and New Criticism. I am particularly keen
>to
>know if there is anybody willing to face the poetry of the Sixties in
>England, in this light.
>erminia
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