Something else I found interesting about this article was the assertion that critics whose judgement is too subjective will not gain an audience. While I am not an avid reader of literary criticism, I do enjoy film criticism, and for me as a consumer, a review written by someone with a clear voice and motivation is more effective than a review written by someone who didn't feel strongly either way about the film. Then again, I can see how if this logic was followed, good reviews would be meaningless, because they would just be opinions, and anyone can have them. I think what I'm struggling with is that it seems as though reacting critically to literature takes all the enjoyment out of it. I don't think literature is meant to be read objectively, because it would make it a mechanical process instead of an enriching one.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Value/Evaluation
One thing that stuck out in my mind while reading "Value/Evaluation" was the idea of institutionalized evaluation, and how the books we learn about in school are indicative of what is canon. I have found that when talking to students who went to other high schools, a lot of us have not read the same books. Even inside of my school, students at different levels read different books. For example, the lower level English class in freshman year read The Divine Comedy, and the higher levels did not. I went to a private school, so I suppose there was more freedom in deciding curriculums, but I wonder why the people in charge decided that The Divine Comedy was worth reading for some students and not for others.
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I also wonder about canon and the idea of an institutionalized evaluation because I went to a public high school and I haven't read anything people read in their high schools that I have talked to. For example, when I came to Stevenson University, most people discussed how they had read The Great Gatsby and A Midsummer Night's Dream, while I had never read these. I'm actually reading The Great Gatsby for the first time right now for this class. In my high school we were required to read Anna Karenina, The Bell Jar and Lord of the Flies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point you made in the second paragraph about how too much subjectivity in a critics opinion is looked down upon--I think its bull. If a reader is what makes the novel, why can't a critic offer their thoughts on what they think the book is tackling? Are critics not readers? Are they robots who are not supposed to dish out opinions? I think it severely limits the amount of gems we could pull from a novel to put restrictions on what critics--people trained to analyze literature--think. I think that, however, as opposed to looking at critics as reviewers--as we would for films--we cant look at them as reviewers when it comes to literature. As the text explains, critics of literature aren't people that tell you whether the book is bad or not..I think that would limit them even more--that is, if they were dignified reviewers, rather than literary archaeologists.
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