Dominic, thanks for the added comments.
Max, not close reading. Discourse analysis...
... unfortunate, being a southerner, less enlightened close reading
Leavisite (Melb Uni) unlike us far more enlightened northerner MAK
Hallidayite discourse analysing (Sydney Uni) Foucaultian epistemologists
(UTS) who have taken over the World with our discourse analysing writing
formations... (and from what I am told have invaded and taken over Melb
Uni.)
Jokes aside, the disputes over FR Leavis and MAK Halliday are probably
essential to an understanding of recent Australian literature. The
dispute was not so much over close reading as a method but rather the
status of the a-priori transcendental. (I will skip out here except to
say Prof Sokal and I are very much in agreement... skippy....)
Discourse analysis requires close readings for both Derrida and
Foucault. Not being a reader of Larkin and knowing little of him
Dominic was giving quite a nice image of the writing formation which led
me to think of Sedgwick's concept of homosociality as the exchange of
women. The multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in
which they operate and which constitute, in a process through ceaseless
struggles, as the support which these force relations support one
another, form a chain or system. (Foucault)
Anyways, The idea of the exchange of women I can find difficult to get a
a handle on. Also, wrt immanent critique... best Chris Jones.
On Wed, 2009-08-12 at 20:31 +0100, Dominic Fox wrote:
> Well, Larkin never does say who exactly it is he loves...
>
> He doesn't strike me as a very intensely homosocial writer, pals
> Kingsley and Jim notwithstanding. In his own curdled way he seems to
> have rather liked women (although he tries to disguise this behind a
> lot of griping about sex); he doesn't really seem to have liked men
> very much at all (although he tries to disguise this behind a barrage
> of jocular obscenity). Mama and Papa are doubtless behind it all.
>
> It's a strange area. I don't feel that the gender relations of
> Larkin's era and milieu are quite accessible to us now, although some
> things undoubtedly haven't changed all that much. His stance, and his
> peculiar mixture of privations and compensations, were reactionary
> then, although coupled with a strong will towards their own
> obsolescence. That Thom Gunn was publishing at the same time, and at
> one point even associated with the same "Movement", seems
> extraordinary.
>
> Dominic
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