Wayne Booth describes the classics as friends in the deepest and most productive sense of the word.
Tag Archives: Literary Theory
Lit’s Precondition: People All the Same
I’ve just come across an illuminating contrast between literature and war. Theater director Mary Zimmerman is currently staging a version of the Arabian Nights at Washington’s Arena Stage, and in the program notes she responds to the question, “Are you saying that you believe certain feelings are universal, or perhaps that we share an essential […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Family of Man, Mary Zimmerman, Steichen, teaching Comments closed
Neuro-Lit Riding to the Rescue?
I wrote last Thursday about neuro-lit, which an article in the New York Times has trumpeted as English’s “best new thing.” Certain practitioners are analyzing the way readers become absorbed in stories—fictional identification—by scanning their brains as they read. Practitioners of this new approach are contending that fictional identification has played a key role in the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Chretien de Troye, David Lodge, Holy Grail, Neuro-Lit, Percival, Small World Comments closed
Fish’s Claim that Lit is of No Use
Stanley Fish Last week I was talking to my colleague in philosophy Alan Paskow about a Stanley Fish New York Times column. (Cancer update: Alan had one of the five tumors in his lungs removed two weeks ago through cyberknife surgery.) Although an old post—last January—it had stuck with us because it contradicts so […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Anthony Kronman, Education's End, English teachers, Humanities, Stanley Fish, Terry Eagleton Comments closed
