NP All about us. From In Defense of Naive Reading, NYT, today

[Mark Kohut]

Likewise ─ and this is a much more controversial thesis ─ such works also can 
directly deliver a  kind of practical knowledge and self-understanding not 
available from a third person or more general formulation of such knowledge. 
There is no reason to think that such knowledge — exemplified in what Aristotle 
said about the practically wise man (the phronimos)or in what Pascal meant by 
the difference between l’espirit géometrique and l’espirit de finesse — is any 
less knowledge because it cannot be so formalized or even taught as such. Call 
this a plea for a place for “naïve” reading, teaching and writing — an 
appreciation and discussion not mediated by a theoretical research question 
recognizable as such by the modern academy.
This is not all that literary study should be: we certainly need a theory about 
how artistic works mean anything at all, why or in what sense, reading a novel, 
say, is different than reading a detailed case history. But there is also no 
reason to dismiss the “naïve” approach as mere amateurish “belle lettrism.” 
Naïve reading can be very hard; it can be done well or poorly; people can get 
better at it. And it doesn’t have to be “formalist” or purely textual criticism. 
Knowing as much as possible about the social world it was written for, about the 
author’s other works, his or her contemporaries, and so forth, can be very 
helpful.