Both George Will and Stephen Greenblatt take radical views on literature and how people should interpret it. Will opposes the ideology that “all literature is, whether writers are conscious of it or not, political.” (111) He explains how “this ideology radically devalues authors and elevates the ideologists-the critics- as indispensable decoders of literature”(111). He feels that by people “deconstructing” authors works they loose sight of what the author was actually trying to explain and then use it as their own political weapon. Overall “critics strip literature of its authority.” (112)
In rebut to Will’s article Literary politics, Stephen Greenblatt explains how analyzing what politically is going on in that time period can aid in the reading and interpretation of the authors work. Greeblatt sees “art” as “not cement. It is mobile, complex, elusive, disturbing.” (115) Greenblatt feels that every angle should be interpreted and that we need to interpret the basics of the literature to be able to understand deeper aspects of the literature. “It is similarly difficult to come to terms with what The Tempest has to teach us about forgiveness, wisdom, and social atonement if we do not also come to terms with its relations to colonialism.” (115)
I think both sides have good arguments, but I feel that you need to mix both aspects together to create a balanced idea. I often feel that people dive to deep into the analysis of a certain literature, and then apply ideas that didn’t even exist during the authors time period. I believe authors express underlying issues in their work that could be politically relevant to their time period. For example, Native Son, written by Richard Wright, portrays the harsh reality of a teenage African American living in the ghetto during the 1930s. Wright wrote this during the 1940s when African American’s were being discriminated against, I believe he was trying to make a statement on how African Americans were treated and show how society pushed them to do certain things. So overall I think it’s important to know when literature was written and the political and social status of the time, that way you came make a balanced analysis.
Okay so I definitely agree with you! We definitely addressed a lot of the same points. You definitely do have to combine both of the essay's ideas to get a balanced view. You can't really say that for sure all writing can have a political interpretation, but at the same time you can't say all literature was meant to have specific religious meaning either. Sometimes people take the text to a different level that maybe even the author hasn't thought of. I think it definitely strengthened you argument when you were able to bring up a real example of how people apply ideas to literature that can't even technically be applied to that time. This happens all too often in literature today. I often times find myself seeing that teachers over-analyze books and give them these so-called meanings that really have no true validity. You cannot say that a writer truly meant something out of a piece of writing when you really could just be finding that connection on your own.
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis Ashley! You did a great job getting across what the authors were trying to say and did an excellent job with your use of quotes. You used really sound quotes and drew them into your response in an organized manner that helped better explain the two sides. I also like how we, and most other people, came up with the same conclusion: that there is required a neutral ground between the two and neither is completely correct. You did a nice job explaining why as well, stating that we cant draw too much into a text, but that we still need to consider the context. I also thought it was a great idea to relate your argument to another source, Native Son. It really helped get across what you were trying to say about the importance of context. Overall, your response was really easy to understand and you brought up some good points.
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