Epigone, that is very true: there are no truly naïve readings of literature. A metaphysic, a philosophy, no matter how inchoate or unmeditated, lies behind all readings. I was just being hyperbolic.
I am not really against theory, as you suggest - there has always been literary theory, even before Aristotle and Longinus - I am only against the culturacidal Marxists, like Eagleton and his like, who go about shrieking down cultural elites (like the followers of Shakespeare), while making vast sums of money by the way. That was the crew I had in mind. Post-structuralist Marxists - they are my personal "black beasts" (see, I can't even bear to write the French term anymore).
No, I am not really against theory. But the way theory was approached before the mid 80s (in OZ) was to leave it till 3rd or 4th year. But with the advent of poststructuralism, stuff like Derrida and Lacan was inflicted on first year students who had come to literary studies to read literature, not French theory. And as mentioned in a post above, this approach turns away a great many students, my own daughter included.
Marxism has been proved a failure in every political situation it has been applied. Only one preserve remains for the Marxists: literary and cultural studies at universities. Here they are freely permitted to “white-ant” the culture from the inside. But if our culture should ever find itself pushed to the wall by world events, my guess is that such intellectual terrorism would soon be frowned upon, rather than ignored, which is the present case.
But lets just hope the rumours are indeed true about the decline in theory, and that people are finally sick of having their literature reduced to mere “social documents”.
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Mark Allinson
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