Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 09:53:27 -0400
From: Reg Lilly <rlilly-AT-skidmore.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: The end ...


Walker -- I think we're on the same page -- I think you're pretty much right about philosophy borrowing from lit crit to
'end itself' (although I think that the common nexus is probably Nietzsche).  But, being less informed about lit crit
and its history, I'm interested  in the conditions of its first recognizable emergence, just as one can, more or less
ascertain the emergence of philosophy in Plato and/or the Pre-Socratics.
	My fantastically recollected lit crit history would say, if one can distinguish rhetoric from lit crit, that lit crit
as one would recognize it today began with some Renaissance theorist (eg. John Bessarion), but really 'found itself'
with Lessing and Schleiermacher who saw hermeneutics as a 'demythologizing' process -- that lit crit's job was to
discover the 'semantic reality' of the text (i.e., its transcendental meaning).  I'm not sure if it was Mallarme, Poe,
or what lit crit-er it was that put a stop to that!  Who was the first (or important precursors) to jettison lit crit's
hermeneutic service.

Ciao,
Reg

"A. Walker Miller" wrote:
> 
> Literary Criticism has made a turning point, whether you want to call this
> an "end", a "beginning", or nothing. How is there not a "beginning" for
> philosophy, coming out of the "end"? While Derrida destroys western
> epistemology, he seems to replace it with intellectual "play". As Foucault
> denies the progressive humanist history, he replaces it with genealogy.
> Lit. Crit. has done much the same, although it has arguable ascended to a
> new level of importance. There was an "end" to Formalism, and "end" to
> Humanism, an "end" to Structuralism, an "end" to New Criticism. And out of
> these "ends" comes the various forms of oppostional criticism, to borrow
> from Said, that we see today.
> 
> <<you might say lit crit  appropriates philosophy to further the "ends" of
> its own debate>>
> 
> Actually, I would argue that it happened the other way: Philosophy
> appropriated literature/literary criticism/language in order to put an "end"
> to itself, and more importantly, to make a "beginning". While some of the
> forms of literary criticism are at an "end", they always considered the
> question of what a text "means", and often the question of how a text
> produces "meaning", and it seems to me that this is where philosophy,
> history, and even theoretical physics - although I will not even attempt to
> justify that later- are moving.
> 
> No longer a lurker,
> Walker
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Reg Lilly <rlilly-AT-skidmore.edu>
> To: <phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, April 25, 1999 3:21 PM
> Subject: Re: PLC: The end ...
> 
> > Lou,
> >     This sounds exactly right to me; however, with D/F/B/ et al. there is
> > announced (100 years after Nietzsche) the end of philosophy, but it seems,
> for
> > lit crit, to be more of a beginning.  What I'm not clear on is what, if
> > anything, came to an 'end' in lit crit.  Or perhaps it was sort of born
> 'out
> > of the thigh of philosophy' full grown?
> >
> > Louis F Caton wrote:
> >
> > > Reg,
> > >
> > > my guess is that lit depts and lit criticism in general have accepted
> the
> > > radical voices of philosopy on this topic.  That is, when lit critics do
> > > their work, they often gather support from folks like Derrida, Foucault,
> > > Baudrillard, etc.  And those voices clearly feel some sort of "end" to
> the
> > > classic notions of philosophy has occurred.  you might say lit crit
> > > appropriates philosophy to further the "ends" of its own debates...
> > >
> > > lou <catonlf-AT-mail.auburn.edu>
> >
> >
> >
> >      --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >
> 
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