In the language world, there is not only one way to see or read each text but many ways. You may have an idea and I could have another idea on the same topic and both of us can be right. Usually, people with different background and culture tend to observe things differently. In Literary Study, Politics, and Shakespeare: A Debate, it demonstrates the argument between George F. Will, a political commentator, and Stephen Greenblatt, a university professor of how literary should or should not be view.
George Will argues in his article, Literacy Politics, that when people tend to use political view to read a text, they could strips away the author’s purpose of the text. For example, he states that “the supplanting of esthetic by political responses to literature makes literature primarily interesting as a mere index of who had power and whom the powerful victimized” (110). From political perspective, the people are only interest on who have the power and who the power is using against. The reader is not focusing on the author’s teachings or purpose. They are reading in too much of the text that they are losing sight of the theme of the text. Will wants people to see that politic have mostly nothing in literature. In addition, Will wrote that “’by deconstructing,’ or politically decoding, or otherwise attacking the meaning of literary works, critics strip literature of its authority” (112).
Stephen Greenblatt’s The Best Way Kill Our Literary Inheritance Is to Turn It into a Decorous Celebration of the New World Order debates that texts should be read and analyze as much as possible. For instance, he wrote that “it is, [he] believes, all but impossible to understand these play without grappling with the dark energies upon which Shakespeare’s art so powerfully draws”(115). Greenblatt believes that without doing researches and understanding Shakespeare himself, one cannot understand the true meanings of his writings. Therefore, by analyzing and researching the text, one gain the understanding and in the making of the thought-process. He encourages readers to view the text from any perspective, which allow the readers to comprehend what they are reading. Without ideas and opinion, literature would fade away.
From both perspectives, I cannot help but agree with both Will and Greenblatt. I do agree with Will when he wrote that “’by deconstructing,’ or politically decoding, or otherwise attacking the meaning of literary works, critics strip literature of its authority” (112). Sometime if the people, with a political bias, can view the text in a totally new and different meaning then the author intended. The purpose of literature is taken away and is left with nothing. However, it is inevitable that the readers do view the text a different way because of their culture and background. Greenblatt states that “the risk that we might turn our artistic inheritance into a simple, reassuring, soporific lie” (115). Without different ideas and opinions of different literature can lead to a boring and simple lie. They are what are keeping literature alive by passing on our knowledge to the next generation and so on. People will always come up with different conclusions.
I like the way you introduced the topic. You let your readers know what you are talking about instead of jumping into the topic like the most of our fellow students (including me) do. I loved this quote that you used, “the supplanting of esthetic by political responses to literature makes literature primarily interesting as a mere index of who had power and whom the powerful victimized” (110). This quote is very informative and useful to your post. It seems like it is kind of hard not to agree with both sides of this article. People do not want to loose the richness of the original text, but they also want to understand on a deeper level what the book means in different theories. This will always be a struggle in the literary world, and may never be resolved. But I think if we apply both ways of thinking toward our reading we will come up with a great understanding of the text we are reading
ReplyDeleteMadalyn, you seem to commenting Choua on everything. Hahaha, me too. Well, Choua, I liked how you said that people with different cultural backgrounds have different views of writings. I believe that it is true that by reading the text in a political view, it can strip away the author's purpose. However, I think that by reading the text in politcal way to an extent, it can help us observe many different things in the text. Also, we wouldn't really know what the author's real purpose was unless we had some communication with him/her. The bad thing about this is that many authors of good works are long gone. I totally agree with Stephen that we should read the texts in many different views; maybe the author's purpose was to expose many different themes. I feel that analyzing the text in many views will help each individual find their own ideas and comments on the text. This will eliminate the problem of having only one correct answer. I believe that writing should be based upon how the reader or author wants to interpret the text. All in all, I believe that analyzing the text in many different aspects is the better way to view literature.
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