Author: L. Swilley

> don't teachers need to adapt to where there
> students are? That's a big question these days.

[We should notice that in the study of mathematics and the sciences, "where the students are" is defined by their rational/intellectual preparation to learn what we now offer. We do not ask them how they feel about the bi-nomial theorem or Bernouli's Principle, or wherein or how these ideas are reflected in their experience. The examination of literature is similarly a rational/intellectual one; it defines exactly *what* a work says and precises *how* it says it. Of course, there is a legitimate and profitable examination of a work that does begin with "how does this make you feel", but this investigation of *effect* must be pursued carefully and thoroughly to uncover the "music" of emotions created in the audience by the sequence of events and ideas in the work. (I dare say this is seldom if ever done). ]

> Also, here's a post from a guy who studied formalism at the
> Univ. of Chicago.

[And extremely interesting it is. Thank you for adding it. Please see my bracketed remarks below.]
>
>
> Hi, Sue,
>
> As for being a comparativist, there are many senses in which
> I was and remain one as a thinker. I don’t want to discard
> any critical method that may yield something useful,
> including history and biography, nor did the formalists,
> necessarily; the Chicago method wasn’t merely “formal,” it
> was highly pluralistic. R.S. Crane, one of the founders, said
> ”we ought to have at our command, collectively at least, as
> many different critical methods as there are distinguishable
> major aspects in the construction, appreciation, and use of
> literary works."

[Here is the locus of my continuing fuss: HOW are these several views, especially historical and formal, to be merged - if they are to be merged at all. If we begin by noting that all knowledge of whatever kind concerning a subject is good and enlightening of the subject, yet we must consider HOW these views are to be unified, if they are to be. When we look at the character of Lady Brett in TSAR, and then see that that character is modelled on Lady Duff-Twysden - whose life we then examine - we cannot alter the presentation of Brett in the novel with such historical information (unless we are prepared to give a similarly historical note to every item in the work, thus altering its entire vocabulary); but it is proper and profitable to observe, at the end of our reading, "This is how Hemingway represented Lady D-T in the character of Brett." We cannot appreciate the art of Beethoven's Ninth in its construction by observing that Beethoven was deaf when he created it; our realization of his deafness is a *qualitative* qualification of the *whole* work, touching all of its parts equally. We cannot bring an historical estimate of Julius Caesar to the character in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." but by noting, at the end of the whole play, "This (the character as presented in the play, who for our purposes in appreciating the work by as well be called Jim-Bob or X) is how Shakespeare presents the otherwise historical Julius Caesar.

[These *HOW's" of our investigations must be established and respected.]

> Elder Olson, the only one of the founding Chicago critics
> with whom I studied, explained it somewhat this way in his
> class on poetics. The work of art, in Aristotelian terms, is
> like an axe, i.e., it has a final, formal, material, and
> efficient cause because it is: (1) made for a particular
> purpose (2) in a particular shape (3) out of particular
> materials (4) by someone. By examining whether the maker
> chose wisely with respect to each of the remaining “causes,”
> we can tell whether the maker did a good job in creating the
> product, regardless of whether the product is an axe or poem,
> or a novel. We can thus say that a toolmaker who made an axe
> to cut trees with a blade of 22K gold and a friable ivory
> handle is not a good toolmaker; but one who made the same
> object with a different final cause might be a good one
> indeed. The same is true of a work of art. The poet who wants
> to induce you to feel a protagonist’s pain (and
> intentionality is a big concept in the Chicago school – the
> poet has an effect in mind and has to choose the right
> materials)

[Let me pause here and point out that Aristotle began with an investigation of the plays that were generally considered excellent; he then asked what the essential *effect* of such plays was: such plays produced pity and fear in an audience. And what, exactly, produces that effect? The presentation of a tragic hero who, etc. And now he continues to examine this *formal cause* and its particulars. ]


> Olson and the others were not totally averse to using history
> or biographical information, but believed them on the whole
> irrelevant in discussions of the work itself, even likely to
> distract from the central issues of literary structure and
> meaning.

[Exactly my point. Unless historical and biographical information is applied to the whole character or the whole event, and unless the application is solely for the purpose of noting simply that art has presented history just so, those two dimensions are hopelessly confused.]

When someone failed to see this, he could be
> scathing. Thus he called another graduate student in one of
> my classes a “fool.” when she stated that he had destroyed
> Auden’s “Lay Your Sleep Head,” — one of the most
> heart-rendingly gorgeous of English lyrics — for her by
> telling her Auden was gay. If you read that lyric and care
> about that one way or the other, you have no right to read
> poetry.

[Well, Olson was harsh; he should have noted to the student that art and ideas are sexless; they deal with the human condition shared by straights, gays, men, women, ancient Egyptians and Hottentotts, etc. ]

[L. Swilley]