From a Mailing-List I'm on. (editted for update)

[jajy1979]

Literature classes can be among the most frustrating you take, because the professor is always right, even when he/she is wrong

Comments

[lexycon]

Heh... I've long said the same thing about writers writing to be read.

Although, GOOD lit professors aren't at all like this.

[syroustlesta]

LOL. That's sad. *G* Sad, but true. =-P Thus I tend to avoid literature at all possible costs. We aren't using an official interpretation, we are using whatever interpretation the proff decides he likes.

[jadedjade]

i have seen this before... and i understand both sides... personally, i love literary theory, and examining the text as though the author is dead, and i don't think there's anything wrong with it... at the same time, sometimes i do just read for pleasure... in an academic setting though, the reading isn't supposed to be for pleasure... you'd be amazed with some of the interesting things you can find in literary works, that perhaps the author wasn't meaning to put there, but that you find there, and manage to apply to something bigger... i dunno... i'm a tard... i love literary theory ...

[lexycon]

exactly, Jade. I don't think there's a thing at all wrong with taking apart a text to see what you can learn from it or for inspecting writing style or symbolism or anything else. In fact, I think there's merit in it. What does it matter if the author meant for an object to symbolize something? What does it matter if he meant one thing to foreshadow another? If it's there and it works, then you've found something cool in the text