>Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 10:42:56 +0200 >From: "Jesús G. Maestro" <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: RE: De nuevo la alegoria y Cervantes (de Bryant Creel) >To: "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] >Reply-to: [log in to unmask] > >Dear Bryant, > >Thanks so much for your message. This is very kind of you. As you can >appreciate, this dialogue is very interesting, but it is summer! As a >matter of fact, I do not know if those for whom we write would be well >acquainted with our (or my own) bias (maybe they are not interested in >sharing it). Usually the common notions fail, and, in partnership with >literature, ethics lay out a complex system that focuses on the internal >faculties of the mind. > >Look, you are likely to know El mito de la interpretación literaria >(Iberoamericana · Vervuert, 2004). Have a look if you have a chance. Our >divergences from or agreement with the myth of literary interpretation >might be significant. Cheers! It is better to hear the devil's side than >to silence him. > >Have a very nice summer! > >Keep in touch, yours, > >Jesús > >-----Mensaje original----- >De: Coloquio Cervantes [mailto:[log in to unmask]]En nombre de A. >Robert Lauer >Enviado el: viernes, 27 de mayo de 2005 2:00 >Para: [log in to unmask] >Asunto: De nuevo la alegoria y Cervantes (de Bryant Creel) > >Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 19:17:18 -0400 >From: Bryant Creel <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: De nuevo la alegoria y Cervantes (de Jesus G. Maestro) >X-Sender: [log in to unmask] >To: "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]> >Cc: [log in to unmask] > >I don't want to get into an argument (it's summer), Jesús, but speaking >from what will undoubtedly seem to be a limited perspective on my part, >since I neither recognize nor agree with a lot of what you say (although I >suspect that my ignorance or lack of sophistication has a lot to do with >it), I would venture to say that I don't discern what I always thought >post-modernism was in your use of that term. I've never identified the >study of ethics with post-modernism; in fact, I don't know of anyone >besides myself who incorporates ethics into literary criticism (except for >Wayne Booth, who does it in way that I can't relate to). Also, I think of >post-modernism (which I can tell you about as much about as about drug >connections in Knoxville) as actually preferring to subvert anything so >traditional as ethics, by importing pop art, queer theory, etc., anything >unconventional. Isn't post-modernism related to post-structuralism and so >to deconstruction and the assertion of a universal relativism based on the >structuralist claim that everything is language, and so fiction -- >subjective idealism: a modern form of nominalism [which does have its >progressive dimensions, but also is, after all, medieval, scholastic, and >bookish]? I ask in earnest because I don't cultivate an association with >such currents, since I find them to be pedantic and academic in the >vernacular sense. I would appreciate being enlightened on this >subject. Go ahead and embarrass me in front of everyone -- it doesn't matter. > As for "the moral," "moral" CAN just mean having to do with > behavior, i.e. "concerning human action," as Aristotle defines ethics > (hence "ethos" means [distinctive] "character" in the sense of what a > person characteristically does). Now surely you didn't mean to object to > allegory on the grounds that it has to do with human behavior. You had > to mean "moral"/"ethical" in the sense of concerning normative ethics -- > do this and don't do that [I don't study that kind of ethics, by the way, > but value theory (phenomenological ethics of value, value personalism -- > Scheler, N. Hartmann); Aristotle was a great precursor of > phenomenology]. Now you're shifting the ground. Yet this all is > probably related to my total failure to understand how you can associate > post-modernism with "grounded in the study of ethics" (not your words, > but how I interpret your meaning). Please enlighten me. > I don't know about you, but some of us have been working hard in > this terrain of gaining a grasp of fundamentals for 40-45 years (and > sought anonymity in the meantime) just to get our bearings to a > respectable degree (others of us gave up early), and I don't mean in > relation to post-modernism (which I really want to learn more about, > since now I consider it to be a "kitchen of technique" in creating > in-groups and out-groups and securing jobs -- I prefer classicism of the > manneristic variety, which is very modern in my mind). > Diana, my parents met at Denver University. I see your a patient > scholar, mesurada (I already knew it). > >Yours, >Bryant