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You sound like you missed the entire point of a college level literature class. You must have made your TA's life a pleasure arguing that your homegrown, self

by parfe 15y ago

You sound like you missed the entire point of a college level literature class. You must have made your TA's life a pleasure arguing that your homegrown, self reinforcing, critiquing system was just as valid as those being taught in class. Just so you know, you're exactly the same as the student arguing creationism in a biology class, the young earth model in geology, or the solipsistic freshman in Philosophy 101. Just another thick skulled, pompous, snowflake student who would rather pretend to know everything than learn how to think different (AKA in the manner being taught in the specific class). That's ok, you probably moved on in life calling the professor and TA idiots and never skipped a beat while whining about your C. This comment was constructed using the rational system where I can't be wrong and you can't be right.

jey 15y ago
What's the standard for correctness in literature criticism? Biology has one (agreement with externally observable reality). I don't know what the objectives of lit crit actually are, nor what their research methodology is, but it seems that lit crit has more to do with conforming to the culture and tradition of lit crit than anything else.
- parfe 15y ago
  1) Learn and understand the critical framework you will be applying to a work 2) Read the work with the framework in mind 3) Write a critique based on that framework If you hand in a paper on a completely made up framework that is poorly defined, arbitrary and only exists in your head, then the paper deserves an F. This is called the "Make it up as you go along" critique. The make it up as you go along technique is akin to writing up a lab without describing the procedures or recording the results. Then you draw conclusions from the procedure and results that exists only in your head. No one could reproduce it so no one can say you're wrong. You'd still get an F. In writing, If you speak to the professor and say you have an idea for a new/unique style of literary critique and get permission to write up both a description of your technique, as well as a paper utilizing that technique, then you can get an A. Who knows, it depends on the class. The professor could very well say "This is an intro level class where you learn about existing techniques. Save inventing your own for a seminar or senior thesis." But what the OP presented was not a scholarly approach to critique, but a snowflake "All ideas have equal value" approach. Someone who has taken a literature class more recently feel free to correct me. tl;dr Professors put a lot of thought into their academic work and pompous undergrads usually haven't learned enough to know what they don't know.

by parfe 15y ago

jey 15y ago

What's the standard for correctness in literature criticism? Biology has one (agreement with externally observable reality). I don't know what the objectives of lit crit actually are, nor what their research methodology is, but it seems that lit crit has more to do with conforming to the culture and tradition of lit crit than anything else.

parfe 15y ago
1) Learn and understand the critical framework you will be applying to a work 2) Read the work with the framework in mind 3) Write a critique based on that framework If you hand in a paper on a completely made up framework that is poorly defined, arbitrary and only exists in your head, then the paper deserves an F. This is called the "Make it up as you go along" critique. The make it up as you go along technique is akin to writing up a lab without describing the procedures or recording the results. Then you draw conclusions from the procedure and results that exists only in your head. No one could reproduce it so no one can say you're wrong. You'd still get an F. In writing, If you speak to the professor and say you have an idea for a new/unique style of literary critique and get permission to write up both a description of your technique, as well as a paper utilizing that technique, then you can get an A. Who knows, it depends on the class. The professor could very well say "This is an intro level class where you learn about existing techniques. Save inventing your own for a seminar or senior thesis." But what the OP presented was not a scholarly approach to critique, but a snowflake "All ideas have equal value" approach. Someone who has taken a literature class more recently feel free to correct me. tl;dr Professors put a lot of thought into their academic work and pompous undergrads usually haven't learned enough to know what they don't know.