Erminia Passannanti:
>I meant to say, 'one cannot dismiss...' and it is not me stating this but
>in fact Paul DeMan...that was reported speech of the esay I quoted. 'The
>resistence to theory'.
Ah! Okay. Point clarified.
>Anyhow, I did wish to solicit rebeliousess against literary authorities,
>although De Man is undoubtly one of these cultural authorities one gets to
>adore.
De Man is actually one of the critics who passed me by completely. It
wasn't a conscious decision on my part, simply contingent fact that I
never came across any of his work at the time I was trying to absorb
theory.
And it's occurred to me that I should exclude Benjamin when I claim
not to be interested in theory these days. I happened on Margaret
Cohen's Profane Illumination, discussing B's links with the
surrealists, just before the multi-volume complete Benjamin started
coming out in English. It's arguable, of course, that B is as much a
poet as a theoretician, or that the distinction is revealed in him as
factitious.
>To have reservation is of course a form of dismissal, probably an healthy
>one. I tend to finding difficult to dismiss completely a discipline. I find
>criticism and literary theory essential parts of my appreciation of poetry
>and literature in general, as Oscar Wilde helped me understand with his
>essay 'The artist as critic' (1890)where he let a character state that
>criticism is the superior part of creation.
Yes, that's the way I like criticism to function - as augmentation of
poetry, not as surrogate. And, yes, again: Wilde's criticism is
superb, I reckon, and for me the most important body of his writing.
Trevor
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