An Exploration Into Critical Literary Theory

     With this blog I intend to record my thoughts and questions that occur while taking a graduate class entitled Seminar in Critical Approaches to Literature.

    Rene Magritte's painting of The Menaced Assassin encourages entry, so to speak. The entire body of world literature lies breathless and transfixed upon the cutting table of the assassin, who in this case is the literary critic.  Harsh halogen lights of theory illuminate each crevice, mole, hair, nail and eye socket of the individual work.    The practitioners of theory step to the table with their scalpels of intellect and predisposition to slice away at the body until the folds of skin reveal the decaying liver satiated with inert transgressions, the quiet heart that once bubbled with emotions, and the spongy brain of plot and imagination.  But with the life taken out of it, the breath of spirit gone, the movement of blood stopped, the fingers no longer grasping at truths, is this body of literature revealed in this sacrilegious manner something new and blasphemous?  In Magritte's painting, when the assassin  finished, the female body remained with a male head.

     There are two types of critics in the world:  1) Those whose occupation it is to dissect, discover and deliver ideas about a piece of literature, whether the work is nonfiction, as in biography, history or essay, or fiction, as in novels, poetry, plays or short stories.  2)   Those who are the writer/critic.  That is, those creative types whose preoccupation it is to deliver to the first type of critic all those imaginative works that allow critic number one an occupation.

     Critic number two's first concern is writing the new biography, history, essay, novel, poem, play or short story.  But critic number two must skillfully step away and turn the scalpel upon their own work, otherwise the world will bludgeon it with their blunt weapons of criticism.  Occasionally, the great critical creative types like T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Flannery O'Connor and Bertolt Brecht journey away from their own works to discuss the poems, plays, novels and short stories of their colleagues.

     My creative preoccupation is writing plays.  However, I find that every new piece of criticism I read enriches my experience as a writer.  Marvin Carlson, Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht, G. B. Shaw, Michael Taussig, Peter Brook and Antonin Artaud, to name a few, write passionately about drama.  I never agree with everything they express, but I always grow as a writer after reading their critical works.  Perhaps I will grow as a critic.

     In Plato's Ion, Socrates mocks the interpreter/critic Ion.  Although the discourse of Socrates may be a satirical trap for his friend Ion, they are true words.  "And you have to understand his (Homer's) thought, not only his words—an enviable lot indeed.  For a rhapsode would never be any good if he didn’t understand what the poet says.  He has to be an interpreter of the poet’s meaning for his audience, and it’s impossible for anyone who doesn’t understand what the poet says to do this well."

     I look forward to this semester of 'isms in critical literary theory.