File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 473


Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 21:41:55 -0500
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: PLC: Narrow & Broad Lists (Was Re: Paul Smith as Undergrad. Victim


At 08:52 PM 11/9/97 -0500, you (Pat Sloane) wrote:
>I've learned much more on lists with a narrower range--T. S. Eliot, Virgil's
>Aeneid, mysticism, art and psychology, medieval religion, etc.  If your
>interest is English studies, I'm surprised you find no interest in the many
>author groups--Eliot, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Spenser, etc etc
>etc.  
>

This is very wise advice, according to my experience as well if I may add
mine to Pat's. On lists with really broad topics, so many different things
are brought up by so many different people within a few hours or days, or
even simultaneously, that it is hard to fix on one especially germane idea
and deal with it in a focused, detailed, nuanced way. One instead tends to
ponder all the different insights and problems involved in just a single
thread, or even in a single posting -- and thus tends to end up saying
nothing, especially when the volume is already heavy.

Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing-AT-nyu.edu or downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu



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