The New New Literary Criticism

July 29, 2007 14:02:58.723

Mark Bernstein does a great job of explaining how some of the "old guard" in literary criticism just aren't keeping up. This is nothing new, either - I recall the old guard in the 80's criticizing the word processor as an abomination, saying that the typewriter forced the writer to carefully consider his words. I'm sure that the great grandfathers of those folks deplored the typewriter, as it made the creation of words too easy (compared to longhand). Going back hundreds of years, I know that Gutenberg horrified as many people as he enthralled.

The more things change...

Comments

[Aristotle Pagaltzis] July 29, 2007 17:25:38.773

Douglas Adams:

I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.