----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:33 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> Yeah "Anxiety" was a problem for me. The idea that an artist was primarily in a dialog with other artists....rather than with his immediate audience...was kinda depressing.
But true, I think. Bloom, though, would say that it's texts, not artists, that are in relation to each other. ___________________________________
Well, yes, somewhat true and in different ways and for different reasons.
You look at someone like Traven, a deeply interesting writer, and he is not writing within the context of the western canon.
You look at someone like Joyce, and the least interesting thing about him is that his is bouncing off the canon.
You look at someone like Olsen in "Tell Me a Riddle" and you have on the one hand a story that can be comprehended and appropriated by someone with an elementary school education and, on the other hand, a story that puts the final odyssey of a dying woman revolutionary in the context of the writings of Hugo, Chekhov, etc. and a whole revolutionary narrative.
But it seemed to me like his intertextuality argument somehow sterilized English lit; he never spoke of it in terms of a continuously evolving project of enlightenment, but rather as an Oedipal cul de sac.
But, you know, if you like the guy and he turned you around, that's a great thing.
Joanna