Zentrope

Lit Theory

The following is what I’ve learned from literary theory. And by that, I mean what I have learned, not what others might learn, or the value of Literary Theory in the broader culture, or its social value. In fact, I may have learned wrong or totally inappropriate things. In other words, the following list is pretty damn trivial and shallow.

Thus:

• Craft: Lit theory has nothing to do with practice, and doesn’t intend to be such a thing. It’s for talking about literature and culture, not for writing (or creating) it. (However, there’s no reason a critic’s discussion can’t bring in craft-oriented concerns, or the concerns of authors-as-authors trying to write a story.) Think Roger Ebert vs Francis Ford Coppola. Very good at what they do, but they’re not doing the same thing, and no one is confused.

• Paradigms: It’s about taking a wide range of paradigms and then using them to talk about literature. Psychology, physics, semantics, semiotics, linguistics, sociology, etc, etc, etc. The one thing I’ve learned from this is that the more paradigms you’re familiar with in your chosen line of work, the more likely you’re going to find elegant, simple solutions to problems. Lots of models to choose from also provides you with different way of re-defining problems, which is sometimes the most important step. Categories are useful shortcuts. Change them, and get get a different kind of usefulness. That sort of thing.

• Avocation: I am not interested in reading or teaching literary theory in any way shape or form. I’m far more interested in the engineering of literature, and the experience of it. Really, ten years on, I don’t even care much about the craft anymore.

• Author Intention: Quite often theorists will say things like, “What Hemingway did,” or “What Atwood points out,” and so on. Or they’ll talk about the theme of a work (through the lens of some paradigm) as if the author him or herself had somehow intended it (even while denying the usefulness of author intention). That’s not at all what critics mean. It’s just a manner of speaking. A short cut for something like, “The author’s text provides a matrix of possible meanings such that….” Lumpy. It’s the limitations of our own language, not that of the theory, or the insight the theory leads to. Actual authors deal in concrete details and their own subconscious sense of felt life. Themes arise out of what they do. They’re not the source of it, even if, after the fact, they talk as if theme is important. (In a sense, an author talking about his or her own work has become a critic, not an author.)

For me, at least, the “paradigms” thing is the most important. These days I write software, but I also read a lot about other people writing software, about different kinds of tools and language and architectures, and its these different approaches that have earned me whatever success I have doing my job day-to-day. I attribute that to having to deal with literary theory, in which each critic seems to define him or herself in opposition to every other critic. An endless circle of undercutting and insight. Like reading blogs about software.

I think it also explains my move to the left in politics. The left seems to allow for far more diversity of thinking (and is thus far more contentious and far better able to deal with problems as the arise in this unprecedented mass culture we’ve got going) than what used to pass for the right when we could still believe the right had a political philosophy.

But in all cases, it finally boils down to the evidence of the text itself, or the actions of politicians, or the effectiveness of various software strategies. Evidence, metrics, trump all, and give life to all.

Okay, I’ll shut this down before it becomes a rant.