[1] From: Richard Bear <RBEAR@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU> (5)
Subject: Re: 9.167 literary theory
[2] From: Steven Totosy <Steven.Totosy@UAlberta.CA> (10)
Subject: Re: 9.167 literary theory
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 16:11:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Richard Bear <RBEAR@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
Subject: Re: 9.167 literary theory
Mostly around here literature is taught as a weapon (i.e., it is the
patriarchal system being imposed on you, so watch out etc.). I incline more
toward mimesis, but not as mirror (showing us ourselves, or the world) so
much as modeling (attempt to show what *might be* the world and ourselves in
becoming.
rbear
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 07:53:34 -0600 (MDT)
From: Steven Totosy <Steven.Totosy@UAlberta.CA>
Subject: Re: 9.167 literary theory
To answer a question like that is almost to make fun of the whole bloody
industry of literary/critical theory. For me, literary theory is the
framework and methodology with which to make sense of that fluid and more
often than not undefinable thing, "literature." Literary theory is a tool
with which a hypothesis can be tested. Literary theory is the tool of
both the first order and second order observer (constructivism) to find
out about the mechanisms and processes of the literary system and the
literary text. Literary theory, in the more exacting, is for me to find
out the how of literature and what people do with it. Steven Totosy,
Comparative Literature, University of Alberta, Canada,
stotosy@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca