Posting 3:
"A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions." Anonymous
I love learning, and it is my hope that I can continue learning (whether academically, through life experience(s), or self-taught subjects) the rest of my life. As mentioned in my earlier post: I am a thinker. Mike would probably tell you I absorb him and myself in random discussion (at times lasting for hours) that spawn from the collection of ponderings and wonderments innate to my nature. Thus, my reason for starting this blog: a way to archive some of the many thoughts about life, love, literature, the world, politics, family, values, morals, etc., that excite my curiosity.
This blog will most likely start as my own journal of thoughts and opinions, aspirations, and experiences; however, it is my hope that it will generate into a community of those who wish to share their thoughts and opinions, to engage in learning; to “aspire to inspire.” I believe it is within each of us to do so—each has a wealth of knowledge to share; thus it is my hope we can share, grow, and inspire collectively.
Moving on to post #3 (the “official post”):
“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?” W. Clement Stone
In my Literary Theory class we discussed Stanley Fish’s essay, “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One.”
For the sake of time (I am after all a college student), I am going to write a few of my thoughts, and the thoughts discussed in class by my professor and fellow students, on Fish’s essay. I hope that my neglect in talking about the opposing essay doesn’t show my lack of desire to employ my mind to any and all theories on this subject; rather, it is my desire to open peoples mind to a probable way of looking at something, as I have, and also to spark interest for further self-research, exploration, and opinion.
I am not going to do Fish’s essay justice; I would suggest your read it if any of this finds you intrigued. I will give an overview of some of the things he discusses and tie the thoughts I developed while reading the essay.
Fish opens his essay by stating the following:
“Last time I sketched out an argument by which meanings are the property neither of fixed and stable texts nor of free and independent readers but of interpretive communities that are responsible both for the shape of the reader’s activities and for the texts those activities produce. In this lecture I propose to extend that argument so as to account not only for the meanings a poem might be said to have but for the fact of its being recognized as a poem in the first place” (Fish 1).
An anecdote is given, of which he draws most of his arguments/theories from (I will paraphrase):
He lectures two courses: 1) the relationship between linguistics and literary criticism, and 2) English religious poetry of the seventeenth century. Fish posted an assignment on the board for his first class:
Jacobs-Rosenbaum
Levin
Thorne
Hayes
Ohman (?)
There was nothing significant about these authors, other than they were linguists assigned to the previous class (Ohman and the question mark—purely a matter of unsure spelling). When the second class came in, the assignment was still on the board. The professor decided to do an experiment with the class, an experiment he has performed at many universities around the nation—all resulting the same. He told the class what they saw on the blackboard was a religious poem and asked them to interpret it. The students quickly started finding symbolisms (mainly Christian in nature; for example, they assumed Jacob represented “Jacobs ladder” in the OT, which allegorized the Christian ascent into heaven; it being on the top of the list also created the assumption. Another said the means of ascent is not a ladder “but a tree, a rose tree or rosenbaum, which was an obvious reference to the Virgin Mary who was often characterized as a rose without thorns, itself an emblem of the immaculate conception”) (4). The students continued to dissect, as English majors do, the poem in its entirety, coming up with legitimate/compelling interpretations of the “poem.”
Leaving the story, Fish asks the reader:
“What source is the ability [the ability for them to interpret the poem]? How is it that they were able to do what they did? What are the distinguishing features of literary language? Or, to put the matter more colloquially, how do you recognize a poem when you see one? (. . .) Some claim you know a poem when you see one because its language displays the characteristics that you know to be proper poems. This, however, is a model that quite obviously does not fit the present example. My students did not proceed from the noting of distinguishing features to the recognition that they were confronted by a poem; rather, it was the act of recognition that came first—they knew in advance that they were dealing with a poem—and the distinguishing features then followed” (6).
To recap, briefly, Fish says: “Skilled reading is usually thought to be a matter of discerning what is there, but . . . [really] a matter of knowing how to produce what can thereafter be said to be there. Interpretation is not the art of construing, but the art of constructing. Interpreters do not decode poems; they make them” (272).
I will write only briefly, because I realize how lengthy this is becoming (although I thrive on this kind of stuff), Fish also argues that everything we learn derives from our “interpretive community” (i.e. we are a byproduct of our society; we can never look at the world objectively).
Although I do see the flaws in Fishes work (they are many), I agree with him in many cases, and have had the fortunate experience (or not so fortunate, depending on how you look at it) of witnessing many occasions that support his theory.
Amanda’s thoughts (drum roll, please):
I laughed when I read the story; I found it quite humorous that a bunch of intelligent English majors were conned into thinking this was in fact a poem. But that is Fish’s point right? The students constructed meaning that wasn’t there to begin with, so in a way, a poem isn’t a poem unless we first assume it is. My question is, who first “assumed” poetry? What is poetry? This question easily leads to Fish’s second argument: we are conformists (is that too bold or too out of context? Sorry). The truth of the example: the students looked for the meaning and ambiguities of the poem, the alliterative and consonantal patterns, once they knew it was a poem. They couldn’t assume it was a poem without being told prior, in which case they were able to draw from their knowledge bank, i.e. interpretive community, and apply the techniques necessary for it to read like a poem.
A personal example regarding the problem with living within an “interpretive community, especially academically:
I had to write an in-class essay in English 314 (prior to reading Fish for my theory class). The instructions were as follows:
1. Read through the poem carefully
2. Identify its form
3. Explain what the form reveals about the poem
4. Use a literary theory to interpret the poem
I am going to speak candidly now: first of all, what is interpretation to you? Is it restrictive? Is it something pre-defined? Is it something open? In this case, if I assume interpretation as open, as in my OWN interpretation (i.e. how the poem moves me, what it symbolizes to me, how I extract meaning), I would be wrong, correct? Clearly this is the case, because first I had to a) identify the form, b) use the form to reveal meaning, c) use a literary theory (am I supposed to know what those are in the first place???) to extract meaning. Let me pose this question: what if I didn’t know any of the aforementioned? What then? Would I be classified as “illiterate” by way of poetic codes/norms?
The problem with this established “poetic interpretive community” is it restricts, and frankly scares people away from reading poetry; it becomes intimidating when one is made to feel there is ONE interpretation, or rather a “pre-defined,” or “more right,” way of interpreting the text. SIDENOTE: Why didn’t I use this “literary theory” as my theory for my in-class essay??? What a riot that would have been—to show the academic world supports Fish, in ways, by saying, “interpret this poem but under these standards/restrictions;” thus, we are being made to conform to the academic literary standards.
Poems should be open to interpretation; why place a standard with form? Well, I can critique my own question. Being an English major I see the relevance in form, the meaning in structure, scansion, etc. There are rules (linguistic and otherwise) one must be advised by, and follow, when reading a literary work (i.e. the outside influences that influence a text—tradition, culture, history, political movements, social/economic movements, industrialization, technology, etc.) All of these things effect and define literary patterns and movements. These must be adhered to, in most cases, when looking critically at a literary work, or else we look past the author’s intention/meaning: discrediting him in sorts. (This raises yet another question: “Is literature for the reader or the writer?” Isn’t this fun, we could rebuttal theories all day—thus the purpose of theory J).
And YES it KEEPS going; if you are bored, it isn’t my problem, you’ve been conditioned to be bored J.
Continuing with my thoughts on Fish’s second argument:
Fish gives an example of a student raising his hand in class. He asks the other students what the student is doing, what he wants? Everyone assumes this an easy answer: he has a question and is waiting for the professor to give him permission to speak. Fish asks the reader the question: how did they not know he had a question verses needing to ask permission to use the bathroom? Case in point: “in the absence of a specific context we are authorized to take the words literally” (i.e. we know certain things because we have learned them from our “interpretive community;” society taught us that when a student raises his hand in class he either wants to say something or ask a question). I couldn’t help but stop and wonder, recently taking Poli-sci, if Aristotle had something going when he claimed that outside the polis (“interpretive community”) human nature didn’t exist; “The way of seeing, whatever it is, would never be individual or idiosyncratic, since its source would always be the institutional structure of which the ‘see-er’ was an extending agent” (Fish 335).
Also tying my political science, in modern political thought, to Fish’s argument, I learned that we can never look at different ways of life or thought objectively; we will always come from a western perspective. It is impossible for us to break free of our heritage. **The western perspective is the gateway for us in understanding life and thought but we can never fully be objective. An example was given of anthropologists, whose career and life study it is to examine other ways of life— often living in a different culture, studying education, traditions, political systems, etc. They are supposed to look at culture objectively; however, it has been proven that when they return to collect their data, to formulate results, they are unable to break free from even the process in which they collect data—using modern social science, which is rooted in western intellect.
Back to the class discussion: we got into the particulars of Fish’s argument, assuming they were correct, and how this theory effected our religious beliefs about the scriptures and revelation. (Again, I haven’t even touched on the opposing essay, but he basically said Fish stands incorrect, for if we are merely our interpretive community, how can we ever learn anything new?). The discussion commenced with the question “do we interpret the scriptures? Do we, as Fish would claim, give them meaning (in other words without us constructing meaning no prior meaning would exist)? SIDENOTE: these are moments I feel bad for the professor—ha-ha—especially teaching theory at a Christian university, of which he wrote an essay about—quite interesting.
The class, of course, re-iterated the “Mormon answer:” we can read the same verse over and over again and get something new out of it each time; also, someone could read the same chapter and yet learn something totally different; thus, Fish stands correct: we extract meaning from texts (prior), even the scriptures. However, and this is the BIG problem with the theory: does that mean the scriptures have no valid meaning or purpose outside of, or prior to, our interpretation of them? Of course the answer is no (believing this is the case, leads to apostasy, i.e. “philosophies of men, mingled with scripture”). So, drum roll— the theory is not without fault, and so it is meant to be, as my professor stated, if a theory professes to stand correct about something, be leery of it; consciousness is complex—always changing, never fixed.
One last thought: I asked my teacher the following question after class, “do you see the dichotomy in this theory? More specific in relation to the Church and the outside world?” And then I gave him examples: In the church we have a right way and a wrong way; we have authorial figures that govern the laws of God. Yes, scripture/revelation is personal (open to interpretation, to a degree); however, most of what we believe in doesn’t create any room for interpretation. So the interpretation seems subordinate to the authorial. However, even in the church, as well as other communities (i.e. academia, our jobs, families, etc.) we are asked to be individuals, be different, stand for what is right, extract your own meaning from things (i.e. don’t believe something because someone else believes it, or write the way someone else writes—have your own voice). Thus, we are asked to interpret things on an individual bases. (This example showing the dichotomy, of which the professor agreed).
The question I then posed to him was “do you feel we can ever be individuals? Do you feel we can ever stand outside our “interpretive community” and see things objectively? I gave him an example of an earlier experience I had in my English 291 class: A group was asked to look at the symbols in Beowulf and report their ideas to the class. A lot of these ideas were based on Christian symbols they found in the text (i.e. Beowulf having characteristics of Christ; triumphing over evil, etc.). The interesting thing about that discussion was, as the teacher explained, Beowulf was an epic text written during the time when the Anglo Saxons occupied England. Later, a Christian, by the name of Bede, translated the epic. It is assumed, by many scholars who read the epic, that Bede inserted many of the Christian references that weren’t initially in Beowulf. This only makes sense because Christianity didn’t exist during the time it was written; the Anglo Saxons were pagan. Thus, we can see Fish’s argument again—Bede took an epic text (intention being to show heroism, to defy all odds against supernatural things, etc.) and extracted meaning from it (coming from his own “Christian, interpretive community”). This is the translation we have today; the translation Christians extract symbolisms from because of their own “interpretive community/conditioning.” I asked my English 291 professor after class if the statistics of those who are Christian look at Beowulf as a Christian epic verses those who are atheist. for example, look at the authorial side of the text—the pagan/original meaning? She didn’t know the exact statistic, but could say that the original work didn’t have Christian references.
My theory professor said, without giving his own opinion, referring me back to Fish (was I to expect anything less?), that Fish would say even if we were to stand “outside our interpretive community,” and look at things objectively, the ideas we derived would have already existed in a prior “interpretive community,” or in other words, we would be constructing meaning from an already constructed meaning.
WHEW! That was arduous but fun! Good things to chew on—good food for thought!
