the Greater Nomadic Council

Hunting the White Cookie-Cutter

This recent post (with good reader comments) at the Valve on reductive political readings of Moby Dick does a good job detailing a particular case of the more general problem of ham-handed applications of theory:

What a thoroughgoing denial of the integrity of such a singular work as Moby-Dick to suggest it is valuable because it might ultimately inculcate a “love of country”! Does Boyagoda really expect that thoughtful people will want to read Melville’s novel so they can get a good dose of such patriotic medicine? How does it return Melville to Melville to reduce his literary achievements to such pap? On the other hand, is it any better to value Melville primarily because his work can be similarly wrenched out of shape from the other direction and made into a left-wing critique of American excess? Does it return Melville to Melville to portray him as a political polemicist, of whatever persuasion?

I think English departments should split in two. There could then be degrees in literature and degrees in theory. The former degree would be for those interested in studying the particulars of literary works and for those who understand theory is but a set of blurry lenses; the theory degree would be for those who employ literature as evidence to support their agendas. With such a structure in place, those of us who study literature as art, philosophy, and exploration will no longer be lumped with the idolators of theory. Idolators burn in hell, you know.