what's new about deconstruction?

[Doug Millison]

"But they do not get beyond what Blake said two centuries ago."
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/06/24/stibooboo01017.html?

That's the passage -- the final sentence of the Times review, in fact --
that caught my eye.  I'm up for any kind of literary criticism that adds to
understanding and promotes dialogue and new connections with regard to a
particular work. And I'm trying to understand what new understandings the
current fads actually bring to the party.  Blunt statements to the
effectthat the critics of the past were all wrong or didn't understand
literature are as feeble as ad hominem attacks against the people who now
ask serious questions about the claims that the current literary-critical
theorists make for their methods. Do they really bring something new, or do
they just rename everything and shuffle the same old concepts around? It's a
question worth asking.


Dave Monroe:
[good post]