> He was good at making words that echo. One that sticks with me is Linda
> saying of Willy Loman, "Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a
> person."
>
> Stephen, isn't the ability to ignore what a work actually _is_ part of the
> process of turning living art into a monument? Hard to know what to do
> about such appropriation, though the struggle of/with tradition is surely
> partly about removing all the barnacles and pigeonshit that education and
> status stick all over it...
I like to think there are public high school kids - 15 & 16 years old - who
get gripped by the work itself and run with its emotions (outrage, etc) for
the rest of their lives while I relyi on the possibility that most high
school English teachers are not already turning the students and the work
into high minded fossils! The optimist here. I mean American public schools
- unlike the French - are less hidebound - unless you are going to a private
or select public school where to get into high level Universities they start
turning out students who are repeaters of orthodox criticism ad nauseum.
Oops, got to take off,
Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
|