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