Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Who wonders?

I'm planning to work some more on my Benét paper because one of the critics wrote "one wonders what Foucault might have to say in terms of" whatever I might have been saying.

One can always wonder when Foucault enters the scene. What might he have to say?

That expression sounds as though it held some imperative force within it. He just has to say it! Why? Because he can't leave us and the sentence dangling in the air like Foucault's pendulum.

The critic says I seem to be "back somewhere within the realm of the New Critics; since Crowe, Ransom et al., much theoretical work has necessarily happened in order to create an incredulity toward these sorts of grand narratives."

(As an aside, "necessarily" and "in order to" make the imperative reading above less unlikely.)

In other words, I'm not conforming to the narrative of ever-greater critical theoretization! Critical Theory's cultural Marxism melded with postmodernism is the Grand Narrative to end all grand narratives

How apocalyptic . . .

Labels:

2 Comments:

At 12:22 AM, Blogger Kevin Kim said...

God, I hate postmodernism and goddamn postmodernists. Fook Foucault. Qu'il aille se branler dans un coin! Besides, I'm pretty sure that, since Foucault, Derrida, and their ever-obfuscating Gallic ilk, "much theoretical work has necessarily happened." The 60s were fifty dang years ago (depending on how you do the math), and this critic of yours is still suckling at the teat of Foucault?? What's his problem?

Whatever you do, please don't get with the program. Throw some Harold Bloom at these effing monkeys. Bloom makes the PoMo crowd melt back into the slime they've always been.

 
At 9:49 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Good link. Some of what I say, even down to the wording, e.g., "swerve," appears in my rewritten paper - I had already gone to Bloom before reading at the link. Very useful stuff to back up some of what I've written and rewritten.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 

Post a Comment

<< Home