FW: Writing Theory

[jbor]

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From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: Thomas Colin <thomas_colin at hotmail.com>
CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Writing Theory
Date: Sat, Mar 11, 2000, 10:14 AM


Beardsley and Wimsatt (and the New Critics after them) propose "objective
criticism" as the antidote to the practices of "biography and relativism"
which are a product of the "Intentional Fallacy" of "trying to derive the
standard of criticism from the psychological causes" of a text (as also to
the practices of "impressionism and relativism" which result from the
"Affective Fallacy" of "trying to derive the standard of criticism from the
psychological effects" of the work.) Monroe Beardsley and W.K. Wimsatt Jr,
'The Intentional Fallacy' (1946), and 'The Affective Fallacy' (1949);
reprinted in Wimsatt, *The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry*
(1954). Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1967, pp. 3-18, 21-39.

I think the notion of deriving a "standard of criticism" is the stumbling
block here. (What is this "standard"? Who sets it?) And, the concept of
"objective criticism" is oxymoronic, isn't it? I agree that relying on
either Intention or Effect as the only, or predominant, lever for textual
interpretation is potentially misleading, but I'd be wary about throwing the
baby out with the bathwater.

best

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>From: "Thomas Colin" <thomas_colin at hotmail.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Writing Theory
>Date: Fri, Mar 3, 2000, 10:19 AM
>

> 3) I warmly recommend anyone to read W.K Wimsatt's "The Intentional
> Fallacy" (in The Verbal Icon, Kentucky U P.), written some 50 years ago but
> still very actual. Wimsatt is not someone I would usually identify with, but
> this one article is to my mind essential to ask oneself the good questions,
> and forget about the more or less specious ones.