Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Giving Up 'Readings'

What do I mean by 'readings'? I mean viewing a book, essay, poem, or other piece of writing through the lens of a particular philosopher such as Marx or Derrida. This makes no sense, really. What does Marx have to do with Dickens, for example?

Here is an article by Mark Edmundson that explains the idea of giving up 'readings' far better than I could. The title of the piece is "Against Readings".

I was interested to find an article expressing an idea that had been vaguely floating around in my mind for some time. I think we should read each piece of writing on its own terms for its own merits.

What do you think? Is there any point in applying a particular philosophy to a piece of writing?

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