We have not mentioned him, but Umberto Eco is both a first-tier literary theorist and a best-selling novelist.

Please be sure to let me know if this fact leads you to modify any prejudices.

epigone

As one who has friends in literature departments, I don't quite share your wish. First of all, I don't think it's so much that the best New Historicists "reduce [literature] to mere 'social documents,'" but that they use historical documents to illuminate literature. At least that has been my experience. For instance, my appreciation for the prosody of Paradise Lost has been enriched by knowing what the political situation of England was during the 17th C.

I do think it's important to focus on literature, but I also think context can illuminate a text. Insofar as theory can do that and make people ask questions they wouldn't have otherwise asked, read literatures they wouldn't have otherwise read, and make readers see old texts in a new light, I'm all for it. I do agree that theory shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all of literature, but is a tool that should be used in service of the text. However, I don't think (political, economic, cultural) context should be ignored altogether, particularly when the text draws material from such spheres.

[This message has been edited by Jodie Reyes (edited October 08, 2005).]

Janet: "the most intimate analysis of writing is writing itself." - Is this like disappearing up one's own orifice? I thought one had to be a theorist to do that.

I think you guys are lucky just to have been exposed to theory at all. In my college English classes, the professors hardly did any talking about either theory OR the material; instead they'd ask the students to share their thoughts, so you got to listen to 75 minutes of "I hate Joseph Conrad because his sentences are too long." "Analysis" of a text meant judging the behavior of fictional characters against current mores and applauding or condemning the author accordingly.


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited October 08, 2005).]

epigone,
Not only have I read Il nome della rosa in Italian but I attended a seminar at which Eco spoke. A lovely ebullient man who shocked all the pompous bores who had written theses about him because he made a marvellous string of jokes and "didn't seem serious". He had a little academic chap with him (now famous and I've forgotten his name) who droned on and on and was obsessed by theory and was the opposite of the vital Eco. He was the modern equivalent of "il dottore Bolognese".

Later when L'espresso seriously misrepresented, the then prime minister of New Zealand, David Lange's policy about nuclear weapons, I wrote to Umberto Eco (who had a weekly page in the journal) and asked him to straighten it out. He not only did so but wrote me a delightful letter which I still have among my treasures.

I love Umberto Eco but was turned off semiotics by his disciple, Paolo someone. I think I have remembered his name but won't write it here since my comments are a little harsh. In fairness my Italian was not up to his scholarly language which was delivered in a high, husky whisper.

In the end, like good painting, it's all in the brushwork. Umberto Eco has wit and vitality. I still laugh at his analysis of modishness. The front pack can never be caught up with by their imitators because by the time the imitators have managed to acquire the same set of manners and equipment the front pack is doing something else.

The joke was that Eco himself was attended by a retinue of imitators. He didn't mention that fact ;)
Janet

PS:
Just saw that Tim ;)
Touché.


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 10, 2005).]