Adding science to literature

College English teacher argues vigorously that "Literary studies should become more like the sciences." 

Comments

[JorgXMcKie]

Great article, but the odds of him having any effect on 'lit crit' are about a kazillion to one. Besides all the things he says need to happen, he left out that we'd have to get rid of about 95% (conservative estimate) of current lit crit profs.

My personal take is that lit crit, deconstructionism, and post-modern whateverism have pretty much sucked all the juice out of most, if not all, non-genre literature. Some mysteries, SF/Fantasy and such can still be read for enjoyment. The rest -- Feh!!

I think I got off board around 1992 when, while researching something else entirely, I ran into a thesis by a French female grad student (I *think* it was her masters degree thesis) that was based on 'deconstructing' the longest series of connected limericks in the English language. As I remember, it ran 43 verses, and was about a man attemptig (and failing) to de-flower his wife on their wedding night.

The French student proposed that this was a cry (from the early 1900s, whence it came) against the un-naturalness of canned food!! Seriously. It was published. Seriously. People discussed this work as if it had real value. Seriously.

I got off the bandwagon right then. Seriously. (I'm starting to sound like Al Gore on SouthPark, I'm afraid.)