WEBVTT

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Prof: All right.

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Now last time we were giving
examples of what might happen if

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one takes seriously that
extraordinary eleventh footnote

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in Wimsatt's "The
Intentional Fallacy"

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in which he says that the
history of words after a

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poem was composed may well be
relevant to the overall

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structure of the poem and should
not be avoided owing simply to a

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scruple about intention.

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Essentially,
that's what Wimsatt says in the

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footnote.

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So I went back to the great
creator raising his plastic arm

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and suggested that,
well, maybe after all there

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might be some good way of
complicating the meaning of

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Akenside by suggesting that the
modern,

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anachronistic meaning of
"plastic"

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would be relevant to the sense
of the poem.

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This by the way--just because
one can make this claim and,

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I think, make it stick in
certain cases,

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doesn't mean that the
proposition is any less

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outrageous.

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Just imagine
>

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a philologist being
confronted with the idea that

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the meaning of words at a
certain historical moment isn't

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the only thing that matters in
understanding the meaning of a

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poem.

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So I just wanted to give
another example a little closer

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to home in the poem of Yeats,
the 1935 poem "Lapis

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Lazuli."

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I began talking about it last
time.

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It's a poem which begins,
"I have heard that

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hysterical women say / they are
sick of the palette and

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fiddle-bow,
/ of poets that are always

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gay..."

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The storm clouds of the
approaching war are beginning to

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gather.

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A lot of people are saying,
"Enough of this kind of

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effete culture.

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We need to think about
important things,

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particularly about politics and
the social order"--

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by the way, a very powerful
argument in 1935.

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In any case,
Yeats was on the other side of

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the controversy and insisted,
after all, that there is a

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continuing role for art,
as indeed, on the other hand,

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there may well be even in such
times.

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So he's sick of everybody
saying they don't want to talk

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about painting,
they don't want to talk about

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music,
and they don't want to talk

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about poets who are "always
gay."

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All right.

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So then the poem continues.

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It involves a stone,
a piece of lapis lazuli that

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has a kind of a flaw in it,
which is like a

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"water-course,"
and where one can imagine a

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pilgrim climbing toward
increased enlightenment.

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As the poem goes on,
Yeats talks about the way in

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which civilizations crumble--
that is to say,

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all things fall apart,
but then it's possible to build

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them back up.

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He says, "All things fall
and are built again / and those

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that build them again are
gay."

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Now, as I said last time,
needless to say,

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Yeats was not aware of the
anachronistic meaning that we

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may be tempted to bring to bear
on the poem.

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Yeats is thinking of Nietzsche,
he's thinking of a word,

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froehlich,
which probably is best

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translated "joyous,
energetically joyous."

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He is just borrowing that word
from the translation of a book

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by Nietzsche.

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Well and good but,
if you were a queer theorist or

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if you were interested in making
not a weak,

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but a strong claim for the
importance of queerness in our

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literary tradition,
you would be very tempted to

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say, this enriches the poem--
not just, in other words,

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that they are energetically
joyous as creators,

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but also that in our
contemporary sense of the word

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they're gay.

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Now this again,
as in the case of Akenside,

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may or may not raise the
hackles of the philologists,

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but there's a certain sense in
which from a certain point of

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view,
it's difficult to deny that it

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doesn't lend a certain
coherence,

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an additionally complex
coherence, to the nature of the

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poem.

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All right.

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Then we have Tony the Tow
Truck.

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You're probably beginning
to wish I would refer to it,

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so why don't I?

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In the second line of Tony
the Tow Truck,

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we learn that "I live
in a little yellow garage."

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Now of course,
the denotation of the

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word "yellow,"
as Cleanth Brooks would say,

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is that the garage is painted a
certain color.

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The connotation,
which undoubtedly the author

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had no notion of,
wasn't thinking of--this is a

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book for toddlers--
the connotation is that somehow

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or another there's the
imputation of cowardice,

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possibly also the derogatory
imputation of being Asian.

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Maybe Tony is Asian.

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Well--okay.

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This has nothing to do with the
text, we say,

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and yet at the same time
suppose it did.

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We could interrogate the author
psychoanalytically.

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We could say,
"Hey, wait a minute.

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Okay.

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So you say it was painted
yellow.

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Why don't you say it's painted
some other color?"

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We could begin to put a certain
amount of pressure on the text

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and possibly,
as I say, begin to do things

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with it which are kind of a
five-finger exercise--

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we'll be doing a lot more of
that sort of thing--

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but which might work.

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All right.

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These are examples of the
extraordinary implications of

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Wimsatt's eleventh footnote,
and also, I think,

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perhaps in advance of today's
discussion,

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clarify to some extent the
importance for critics of this

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kind of notion of unity.

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In some ways,
everything we have to say today

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will concern the idea of unity.

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In other words,
a connotation is valuable and

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ought to be invoked even if it's
philologically incorrect if it

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contributes to the unity,
the complex building up of the

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unity,
of the literary text.

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If, on the other hand,
it is what Gadamer would call a

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"bad prejudice"--
that is to say,

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some aspect of my subjectivity
that nothing could possibly be

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done with in thinking about and
interpreting the text--

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then you throw it out.

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So the criterion is:
is it relevant to the unified

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form that we as critics are
trying to realize in the text?

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That criterion,
as I say--not just for the

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sorts of semi-facetious readings
we can do with Wimsatt's

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eleventh footnote but also for
readings that may at least have

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some marginal plausibility--
this sense of unity is what

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governs interpretive decisions
of this kind.

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All right.

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Now a word or two about the
antecedents of the New

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Criticism: In the first place,
the thirties and forties in the

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academic world bear witness to
the rise of a canon of taste

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largely introduced by the great
Modernist writers,

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particularly by T.S.***Eliot.

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You may notice that Brooks,
for example,

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has a kind of Donne obsession.

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He gets that from Eliot's essay
"The Metaphysical

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Poets," which is a review
essay of a volume of Donne's

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poems edited by somebody named
Grierson which made Donne

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overnight,
for a great many readers,

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the central poet in the English
tradition.

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Brooks is still,
as I say, very much under the

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influence of this.

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Well, Eliot,
in "The Metaphysical

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Poets," says some rather
interesting things that had

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far-reaching consequences for
the New Criticism.

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He says, "Poetry in our
own time--such is the complexity

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of the world we live in--must be
difficult."

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He says that poetry has to
reconcile all sorts of disparate

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experience--reading Spinoza,
the smell of cooking,

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the sound of the typewriter.

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All of this has to be yoked
together in the imagery of a

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good poem,
particularly of a metaphysical

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poem,
and this model of complexity is

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what matters both for modern
literature and for literary

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criticism.

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Now by the same token,
other Modernists like James

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Joyce are also contributing to
this idea of the independent

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unity of the work of art.

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In "Stephen Hero"
or "Portrait of the Artist

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as a Young Man," you
remember Stephen in his

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disquisition on form and Aquinas
and all the rest of it argues

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that the work of art is
something that is cut off from

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its creator because its creator
withdraws from it and simply

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pares his fingernails,
in the famous expression.

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It's very interesting.

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You remember that in the
Wimsatt that you read last time,

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Wimsatt argues--I think
probably thinking about that

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passage in Joyce--
that the work of art is

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"cut off"
from its author at birth.

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This is an umbilical cord he's
talking about.

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It has no more connection with
its author from birth on and

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roams the world on its own.

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Ideas like this,
as I say, are taken from the

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aesthetic and practical thinking
about the nature of the work of

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art that one finds in Modernism.

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In the meantime,
let's consider the academic

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setting.

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In the 1930s,
when Ransom in particular is

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writing his polemical
manifestos,

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The New Criticism and
The World's Body,

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and attacking most of what's
going on as it's being done by

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his colleagues,
he has two things in particular

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in mind: in the first place,
old-fashioned philology,

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the kind of thinking about the
literary text that would insist

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that "plastic"
means what it means in the

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eighteenth century--
and a lot of that was being

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done.

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This was the golden age of the
consolidation of the literary

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profession.

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Standard editions are being
created.

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The great learned journals are
in their early phase.

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Knowledge is actually still
being accumulated having to do

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with the basic facts of the
literary tradition.

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We didn't know a great deal
about certain authors until this

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period of the flourishing of
philology in the very late

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nineteenth and early twentieth
century took hold and pretty

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much created for us the archive
that we now use today in a

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variety of ways.

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So although the New Critics
were fed up with philological

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criticism,
I don't mean to be

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condescending toward it or to
suggest that it didn't play a

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crucially important role in the
evolution of literary studies.

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Now the other thing that was
going on,

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and here--I don't know,
depending on one's viewpoint,

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perhaps some measure of
condescension might be in order,

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but these two were
spectacular figures--

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the other thing that was going
on was that there was a vogue

11:50.268 --> 11:52.208
for what might be called
"appreciative

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teaching."

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That is, the contemporary and
colleague of I.A. Richards at

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Cambridge was the famous
"Q,"

12:00.761 --> 12:06.571
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch,
whose mesmerizing lectures had

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virtually no content at all.

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They were simply evocations,
appreciative evocations,

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of great works of literature.

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I have to say that at Yale,
exactly contemporary with

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"Q"
we had a similar figure,

12:22.500 --> 12:25.450
the person after whom Phelps
Gate is named:

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the great William Lyon Phelps,
who would enter the classroom,

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begin rapturously to quote
Tennyson,

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would clasp his hands and say
that it was really good stuff,

12:37.960 --> 12:41.980
and the students were so
appreciative that they gave

12:41.977 --> 12:46.307
hundreds and thousands of
dollars to the university ever

12:46.312 --> 12:47.102
after.

12:47.100 --> 12:49.340
In other words,
this was valuable

12:49.340 --> 12:51.180
teaching, >

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but again
>

12:53.072 --> 12:54.342
>

12:54.336 --> 12:56.746
the New Critics were fed up
with it.

12:56.750 --> 12:58.880
This was the atmosphere they
found themselves in,

12:58.879 --> 13:02.689
and what they wanted--and this
anticipates the atmosphere that

13:02.691 --> 13:05.941
you'll see the Russian
formalists found themselves in

13:05.940 --> 13:10.320
when we turn to them next week--
what they wanted was something

13:10.315 --> 13:14.135
like rigor or a scientific basis
or some sort of set of

13:14.140 --> 13:17.400
principles that could actually
be invoked,

13:17.399 --> 13:21.159
so that the business of
criticism could become more

13:21.155 --> 13:24.735
careful and systematic,
less scattershot,

13:24.736 --> 13:27.126
less effusive and so on.

13:27.129 --> 13:31.679
So this is, in effect,
the backdrop in which in the

13:31.678 --> 13:35.738
American academy--
influenced, as we'll now see,

13:35.739 --> 13:39.059
by certain trends in the
British academy--

13:39.058 --> 13:42.788
arose in the thirties and in
the forties.

13:42.789 --> 13:45.129
All right.

13:45.129 --> 13:49.279
Now the first figure I want to
talk a little bit about,

13:49.283 --> 13:53.673
and the first figure whom you
read for today's assignment,

13:53.669 --> 13:55.439
is I.A. Richards.

13:55.440 --> 14:01.000
Richards, before he joined the
English department at Cambridge,

14:01.000 --> 14:05.180
was actually a psychologist,
trained as a Pavlovian

14:05.181 --> 14:08.651
psychologist,
so that when you read in his

14:08.652 --> 14:12.692
essay about "stimuli"
and "needs,"

14:12.688 --> 14:15.658
you see pretty much where you
stand.

14:15.658 --> 14:19.628
His sense of the way in which
the mind reacts to the world,

14:19.629 --> 14:22.719
to its experience,
and the way in which it's an

14:22.715 --> 14:26.445
uncomplicated reaction,
a resisting reaction,

14:26.450 --> 14:31.360
or an adjusting reaction,
all has very much to do with

14:31.360 --> 14:33.210
Pavlovian principles.

14:33.210 --> 14:38.680
These govern to some extent
Richards' understanding even of

14:38.677 --> 14:44.327
his literary vocation during the
period when in 1924 he wrote

14:44.331 --> 14:48.481
Principles of Literary
Criticism.

14:48.480 --> 14:51.600
For Richards,
reading is all about

14:51.596 --> 14:56.836
experience--that is to say,
the way in which the mind is

14:56.842 --> 14:59.172
affected by what it reads.

14:59.168 --> 15:03.718
And so even though his subject
matter is literature,

15:03.720 --> 15:07.830
he's nevertheless constantly
talking about human psychology--

15:07.830 --> 15:10.750
that is to say,
what need is answered by

15:10.750 --> 15:13.570
literature,
how the psyche responds to

15:13.566 --> 15:16.746
literature,
what's good and bad about

15:16.750 --> 15:19.700
psychic responses,
and so on.

15:19.700 --> 15:23.720
This is the intellectual focus,
in other words,

15:23.721 --> 15:25.471
of Richards' work.

15:25.470 --> 15:29.680
Now another aspect of his
having been and continuing to be

15:29.681 --> 15:33.451
a scientist is that Richards
really did believe,

15:33.450 --> 15:36.380
seriously believed,
in reference--

15:36.379 --> 15:39.599
that is to say,
in the way in which language

15:39.601 --> 15:42.151
really can hook on to the world.

15:42.149 --> 15:46.429
Verifiable and falsifiable
statement is for Richards the

15:46.428 --> 15:50.938
essence of scientific practice
and he cares very much about

15:50.938 --> 15:51.638
that.

15:51.639 --> 15:54.069
He does not,
in other words,

15:54.065 --> 15:57.565
share with so many literary
critics--

15:57.570 --> 16:00.390
perhaps even with Brooks,
who follows him in making the

16:00.394 --> 16:02.964
fundamental distinction I'm
about to describe--

16:02.960 --> 16:07.420
he does not share with the
majority of literary critics and

16:07.423 --> 16:10.583
artists a kind of distaste for
science.

16:10.580 --> 16:13.160
This, by the way,
is also true of his student,

16:13.160 --> 16:16.320
Empson, who was a math major
before he became an English

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major.

16:16.889 --> 16:21.769
Both of them take very
seriously the notion that there

16:21.770 --> 16:27.210
can be a scientific basis for
what one does in English or in

16:27.205 --> 16:29.135
literary studies.

16:29.139 --> 16:32.839
So another aspect of it for
Richards is--

16:32.840 --> 16:35.310
because he takes science so
seriously--

16:35.308 --> 16:39.188
is that he actually reverses
the idea that we talked about

16:39.192 --> 16:41.942
last time in Sidney,
Kant, Coleridge,

16:41.942 --> 16:43.422
Wilde, and Wimsatt.

16:43.418 --> 16:47.828
He actually reverses the idea
that it's art that's autonomous.

16:47.830 --> 16:52.090
If you look on page 766 in the
left-hand column,

16:52.090 --> 16:56.750
you'll find him saying that
science is autonomous,

16:56.750 --> 17:01.580
and what he means by that is
that scientific facts can be

17:01.576 --> 17:06.316
described in statements without
the need for any kind of

17:06.316 --> 17:11.306
psychological context or any
dependency on the varieties of

17:11.314 --> 17:12.784
human need.

17:12.778 --> 17:17.288
It is autonomous in the sense
that it is a pure,

17:17.288 --> 17:22.088
uncluttered and uninfluenced
declaration of fact or

17:22.086 --> 17:23.426
falsehood.

17:23.430 --> 17:26.380
Then he says:
To declare Science autonomous

17:26.382 --> 17:30.202
is very different from
subordinating all our activities

17:30.202 --> 17:30.842
to it.

17:30.838 --> 17:35.578
[Here's where poetry comes in.]
It is merely to assert that so

17:35.578 --> 17:40.008
far as any body of references is
undistorted it belongs to

17:40.007 --> 17:40.937
Science.

17:40.940 --> 17:45.080
It is not in the least to
assert that no references may be

17:45.076 --> 17:48.266
distorted if advantage can
thereby gained.

17:48.269 --> 17:51.749
And just as there are
innumerable human activities

17:51.751 --> 17:55.091
which require undistorted
references [scientific

17:55.092 --> 17:58.292
activities]
if they are to be satisfied,

17:58.288 --> 18:02.498
so there are innumerable other
human activities not less

18:02.497 --> 18:07.007
important which equally require
distorted references or,

18:07.009 --> 18:09.619
more plainly, fictions.

18:09.618 --> 18:13.868
Here you see Richards' basic
distinction between what he

18:13.872 --> 18:16.732
calls "scientific
statement"

18:16.733 --> 18:20.373
and what he calls "emotive
statement,"

18:20.367 --> 18:25.237
the distinction between that
which is truly referential--

18:25.240 --> 18:31.180
that which is incontrovertibly
verifiable or falsifiable on the

18:31.180 --> 18:35.120
one hand,
and that which is emotive on

18:35.115 --> 18:36.205
the other.

18:36.210 --> 18:39.180
Later on Richards changes his
vocabulary, and he no longer

18:39.175 --> 18:41.565
talks about scientific and
emotive language.

18:41.568 --> 18:44.198
Even more dangerously,
from the standpoint of anybody

18:44.202 --> 18:46.332
who likes poetry,
>

18:46.328 --> 18:49.048
he talks instead of
"statement,"

18:49.053 --> 18:50.323
meaning science,
and

18:50.315 --> 18:53.565
"pseudo-statement,"
meaning poetry.

18:53.568 --> 18:56.358
You are really out on a
limb if you're going to defend

18:56.364 --> 18:58.284
poetry--
as Richards kept doing--as

18:58.278 --> 19:00.618
"pseudo-statement,"
but of course

19:00.616 --> 19:03.846
"pseudo-statement"
is just another expression for

19:03.847 --> 19:06.297
what he calls here
"fiction."

19:06.298 --> 19:11.648
Once we sort of settle into
this vocabulary,

19:11.650 --> 19:14.890
and once we get used to this
clearly unquestioningly

19:14.894 --> 19:18.454
scientific perspective,
why on earth do we need

19:18.448 --> 19:21.418
pseudo-statement or fiction at
all?

19:21.420 --> 19:23.710
We know very well,
by the way, that there are

19:23.710 --> 19:26.620
scientists who simply cannot
stand to read poetry because

19:26.624 --> 19:27.774
it's false, right?

19:27.769 --> 19:32.909
Just as Richards says,
there's always something kind

19:32.911 --> 19:37.751
of archaic or atavistic about
poetic thinking.

19:37.750 --> 19:41.280
It's not just that it's not
trying to tell the truth,

19:41.275 --> 19:44.725
as Sidney said--"nothing
lieth because it never

19:44.732 --> 19:46.092
affirmeth."

19:46.088 --> 19:50.268
It is in fact,
Richards goes so far as to say,

19:50.268 --> 19:53.238
following Plato,
lying.

19:53.240 --> 19:59.560
Poetry is constantly getting
itself in trouble in all sorts

19:59.564 --> 20:03.494
of ways--on page 768,
for example.

20:03.490 --> 20:16.780


20:16.778 --> 20:20.668
He says, sort of toward the top
of the right-hand column,

20:20.666 --> 20:23.336
page 768:
It is evident that the bulk of

20:23.337 --> 20:26.767
poetry consists of statements
which only the very foolish

20:26.769 --> 20:29.159
would think of attempting to
verify.

20:29.160 --> 20:32.800
They are not the kinds of
things which can be verified.

20:32.798 --> 20:37.328
In other words,
they're a pack of lies.

20:37.328 --> 20:40.938
It usually follows from this
that somebody like this points

20:40.940 --> 20:44.670
out that whereas we all know
that a democratic society is the

20:44.673 --> 20:48.103
best society to live in,
poetry prefers feudal society:

20:48.102 --> 20:49.402
it makes better poetry.

20:49.400 --> 20:55.300
Whereas we all know that the
universe is of a certain kind--

20:55.298 --> 20:57.968
we can't even call it
Copernican anymore--

20:57.970 --> 21:02.270
poetry has this odd preference
for Ptolemaic astronomy.

21:02.269 --> 21:05.129
In other words,
everything about poetry is

21:05.132 --> 21:05.972
atavistic.

21:05.970 --> 21:08.820
It's a throwback to some
earlier way of thinking.

21:08.818 --> 21:13.188
There is some kind of latent
primitivism in poetic thinking,

21:13.186 --> 21:17.106
and Richards seems cheerfully
to embrace this idea.

21:17.108 --> 21:19.198
That's what he means by
"fiction"

21:19.203 --> 21:20.903
or
"pseudo-statement."

21:20.900 --> 21:22.380
So why on earth do we want it?

21:22.380 --> 21:27.410
We want it, according to
Richards, because it answers

21:27.411 --> 21:32.351
needs in our psychological
makeup that science can't

21:32.345 --> 21:33.405
answer.

21:33.410 --> 21:38.920
In other words,
we are a chaos of desires.

21:38.920 --> 21:43.760
Some of them involve the desire
for truth--

21:43.759 --> 21:45.909
that is to say,
for what we can learn from

21:45.912 --> 21:48.202
science--
but a great many of our desires

21:48.200 --> 21:50.960
have nothing to do with any
notion of truth but,

21:50.960 --> 21:56.450
rather, are needs that require
fanciful or imaginative

21:56.453 --> 22:01.233
fulfillment,
fulfillment of other kinds.

22:01.230 --> 22:06.810
The reason this fulfillment is
important and can be valued is,

22:06.808 --> 22:10.168
according to Richards,
that these needs--

22:10.170 --> 22:14.210
unless they are organized or
harmonized so that they work

22:14.211 --> 22:18.761
together in what he sometimes
calls a "synthesis"--

22:18.759 --> 22:21.919
can actually tear us apart.

22:21.920 --> 22:26.880
Literature is what can
reconcile conflicting or

22:26.878 --> 22:30.798
opposing needs,
and Richards cares so much

22:30.800 --> 22:34.230
about this basic idea that in
another text,

22:34.230 --> 22:36.160
not in the text you've just
read, he says,

22:36.160 --> 22:39.750
shockingly, "Poetry is
capable of saving us."

22:39.750 --> 22:42.950
In other words,
poetry is capable of doing now

22:42.950 --> 22:44.870
what religion used to do.

22:44.868 --> 22:47.778
Poetry, you remember--this is a
scientist--

22:47.779 --> 22:53.319
is no more true than religion,
but it can perform the function

22:53.323 --> 22:58.053
of religion and is therefore
capable of saving us.

22:58.048 --> 23:02.978
And so even despite the seeming
derogation of the very thing

23:02.977 --> 23:07.487
that he purports to be
celebrating in books like The

23:07.486 --> 23:10.656
Principles of Literary
Criticism,

23:10.660 --> 23:16.480
Richards does hold on to an
extraordinarily important

23:16.482 --> 23:22.412
feeling for the mission of
poetry to harmonize conflicting

23:22.410 --> 23:23.450
needs.

23:23.450 --> 23:27.250
That's the role of poetry and
that's what it does,

23:27.250 --> 23:33.070
simply by evoking our wishes,
our desires--

23:33.068 --> 23:36.968
irrespective of truth--in their
complicated,

23:36.970 --> 23:45.250
chaotic form and synthesizing
them organically into something

23:45.247 --> 23:50.487
that amounts to psychological
peace.

23:50.490 --> 23:53.620
It's a little bit like
Aristotle's idea of catharsis,

23:53.618 --> 23:56.048
which can be understood in a
variety of ways,

23:56.048 --> 23:58.598
but Milton at the end of
Samson Agonistes

23:58.596 --> 24:01.316
understands it in one way
when he says,

24:01.318 --> 24:05.868
Now we have as a result of this
tragedy "calm of mind,

24:05.869 --> 24:08.459
all passion spent."

24:08.460 --> 24:11.780
That could be the motto for
Richards' work.

24:11.778 --> 24:14.778
The experience of art,
the experience of poetry,

24:14.778 --> 24:21.678
and the reconciliation of
conflicting needs results in a

24:21.682 --> 24:25.912
kind of catharsis,
a "calm of mind,

24:25.907 --> 24:27.797
all passion spent".

24:27.799 --> 24:28.749
All right.

24:28.750 --> 24:32.650
Now Richards had a student,
an undergraduate student,

24:32.653 --> 24:35.133
William Empson,
who had, as I say,

24:35.130 --> 24:39.410
been a math major who decided
he'd switch to English.

24:39.410 --> 24:43.520
He went to Richards and he said
he had an idea about ambiguity.

24:43.519 --> 24:46.539
He said he felt there was quite
a bit that could be written

24:46.540 --> 24:49.770
about it, and so he wondered if
Richards would mind if maybe he

24:49.769 --> 24:50.759
worked on that.

24:50.759 --> 24:52.199
Richards said, "Fine.

24:52.200 --> 24:52.750
Fine.

24:52.750 --> 24:53.300
Sounds terrific.

24:53.299 --> 24:54.449
Go do it."

24:54.450 --> 24:58.180
So a few months later Empson
brought him the manuscript of

24:58.183 --> 25:01.723
one of the greatest books of
criticism in the twentieth

25:01.721 --> 25:04.931
century ,and one of the most
amazingly surprising:

25:04.932 --> 25:07.162
Seven Types of Ambiguity.

25:07.160 --> 25:10.420
The brief excerpt you have
in your photocopy packet--

25:10.420 --> 25:15.840
I trust that you have picked it
up by this time at Tyco [copy

25:15.836 --> 25:19.536
center]--
from Empson is taken from

25:19.537 --> 25:25.757
Seven Types of Ambiguity.
I think Empson is the funniest

25:25.758 --> 25:29.818
person who has ever written
literary criticism.

25:29.818 --> 25:34.828
I think that his deadpan way of
bringing things down to earth

25:34.825 --> 25:39.575
when they get a little too
highfalutin' involves the skill

25:39.579 --> 25:42.249
of a genuine stand-up comic.

25:42.250 --> 25:44.740
His timing is perfect.

25:44.740 --> 25:48.410
He has, in other words,
all of the attributes of a

25:48.406 --> 25:49.976
great comic writer.

25:49.980 --> 25:53.320
I've enjoyed reading him so
much that when I was asked to

25:53.323 --> 25:55.953
write a book about him,
I agreed to do so.

25:55.950 --> 25:57.950
I've always been like that.

25:57.950 --> 26:01.530
Byron was the only person I
enjoyed reading during the

26:01.532 --> 26:05.322
nail-biting and tense period of
studying for my orals.

26:05.318 --> 26:08.528
So I wrote my dissertation on
Byron as a result of

26:08.526 --> 26:12.186
that--nothing complicated,
no deep reason for doing these

26:12.190 --> 26:12.910
things.

26:12.910 --> 26:15.510
But Empson I hope you enjoy.

26:15.509 --> 26:19.269
He's a page-turner,
and his extraordinary

26:19.271 --> 26:25.101
brilliance as a critic is really
just part of the experience of

26:25.104 --> 26:26.614
reading him.

26:26.608 --> 26:33.018
I'm particularly interested in
the excerpt you have and what he

26:33.022 --> 26:37.662
does with his notions--
because this is his way of

26:37.657 --> 26:40.567
responding to
"enthusiastic"

26:40.574 --> 26:42.864
or appreciative criticism.

26:42.858 --> 26:45.358
One of the tricks of
"Q"

26:45.361 --> 26:49.381
and Billy Phelps and all the
other sort of authors and

26:49.378 --> 26:53.238
lecturers in this mode was to
say that they read for

26:53.244 --> 26:57.194
"atmosphere,"
that there was something that

26:57.186 --> 27:01.196
one just felt along one's
bloodstream or in the pulses

27:01.204 --> 27:04.924
when one encountered great
literature,

27:04.920 --> 27:09.050
and their purpose as lecturers
and as critics was to evoke the

27:09.051 --> 27:10.611
atmosphere of things.

27:10.608 --> 27:12.678
So Empson says,
Well, atmosphere,

27:12.676 --> 27:16.416
certainly that exists and we
can talk about it in all sorts

27:16.423 --> 27:18.353
of ways;
but after all,

27:18.346 --> 27:20.886
what is the use of atmosphere?

27:20.890 --> 27:24.030
What is the use of any aspect
of literature if,

27:24.025 --> 27:27.225
as good scientists,
we can't analyze it or can't

27:27.229 --> 27:29.819
somehow or another account for
it?

27:29.818 --> 27:34.128
If there is atmosphere in the
passage I'm about to quote from

27:34.132 --> 27:37.082
Macbeth,
it must be atmosphere of a

27:37.078 --> 27:40.528
certain kind and there for a
certain reason.

27:40.529 --> 27:42.699
What follows,
it seems to me,

27:42.702 --> 27:46.742
is one of the most staggeringly
beautiful, wonderful,

27:46.740 --> 27:50.780
amazing riffs on a passage of
literature that you can

27:50.777 --> 27:52.017
encounter.

27:52.019 --> 27:55.269
I'm sorry if I sound a little
bit like Billy Phelps,

27:55.271 --> 27:56.741
but I do get excited.

27:56.740 --> 28:01.680
He quotes the passage from
Macbeth.

28:01.680 --> 28:05.200
As Empson says,
the murderers have just left

28:05.198 --> 28:07.988
the room,
and Macbeth is sort of

28:07.988 --> 28:11.028
twiddling his thumbs,
hoping it's getting dark

28:11.032 --> 28:13.822
because it's got to get dark
before Banquo can be killed.

28:13.818 --> 28:15.098
So naturally he looks out the
window to see

28:15.098 --> 28:15.828
>

28:15.828 --> 28:20.838
how the time is going,
and this is what he says:

28:20.839 --> 28:24.399
… Come, seeling Night,
Skarfe up the tender Eye of

28:24.395 --> 28:26.825
pitiful Day
And with thy bloodie and

28:26.828 --> 28:30.548
invisible Hand
Cancel and teare to pieces that

28:30.553 --> 28:33.503
great Bond
That keeps me pale!

28:33.500 --> 28:36.170
Empson doesn't mention this
word, "pale,"

28:36.166 --> 28:39.256
but in juxtaposition with the
crows and rooks it strikes me

28:39.261 --> 28:42.411
that it itself is an interesting
moment in the passage.

28:42.410 --> 28:44.990
Light thickens,
and the Crow

28:44.990 --> 28:47.420
Makes Wing to th' Rookie
Wood.

28:47.420 --> 28:50.630
Empson italicizes that because
while he has something to say

28:50.634 --> 28:53.144
about every part of the
passage--which all good

28:53.142 --> 28:55.052
criticism by the way should do.

28:55.048 --> 28:57.248
If you quote something,
say something about all of it.

28:57.250 --> 28:57.990
>

28:57.990 --> 29:03.120
Okay--but Empson italicizes
these particular lines because

29:03.124 --> 29:08.354
it's going to be the true focus
of what he'll say later.

29:08.348 --> 29:11.348
Good things of Day begin to
droope, and drowse,

29:11.348 --> 29:15.168
While Night's black Agents to
their Prey's do rowse.

29:15.170 --> 29:18.160
Thou marvell'st at my words,
but hold thee still [Lady

29:18.161 --> 29:20.081
Macbeth has come into the room];

29:20.079 --> 29:24.019


29:24.019 --> 29:28.649
Things bad begun,
make strong themselves by ill:

29:28.650 --> 29:30.330
So prythee go with me.

29:30.329 --> 29:30.959
All right.

29:30.960 --> 29:35.120
So Empson is fascinated by this
passage, and then he gives you,

29:35.122 --> 29:38.952
in the next few paragraphs,
the amazing variety of grounds

29:38.948 --> 29:40.558
for his fascination.

29:40.559 --> 29:42.259
He says, Look.

29:42.259 --> 29:45.879
This is what people mean when
they talk about atmosphere.

29:45.880 --> 29:48.650
It's not just something you
feel on your pulse.

29:48.650 --> 29:51.710
It's something that can be
described, something that can be

29:51.709 --> 29:52.289
analyzed.

29:52.288 --> 29:55.088
And I just want to touch on the
last part of it.

29:55.088 --> 29:57.588
He says, "Rooks
live in a crowd and are mainly

29:57.590 --> 30:00.930
vegetarian…"--
Empson's the person who says

30:00.929 --> 30:05.379
that the ancient mariner shot
the albatross because the crew

30:05.375 --> 30:06.425
was hungry.

30:06.430 --> 30:09.470
He points out that in the 1798
edition of The Rime of the

30:09.468 --> 30:12.088
Ancient Mariner,
biscuit worms had gotten

30:12.094 --> 30:14.004
into the hard-tack,
so naturally,

30:13.996 --> 30:16.816
he says, "The particular
kind of albatross that the

30:16.817 --> 30:19.197
mariner shot,
I am told, makes a very

30:19.200 --> 30:20.710
tolerable broth."

30:20.710 --> 30:21.360
>

30:21.359 --> 30:23.589
>

30:23.588 --> 30:25.588
This is the mode of William
Empson.

30:25.589 --> 30:29.429
So he begins here:
Rooks live in a crowd

30:29.430 --> 30:32.800
and are mainly vegetarian;
Crow may be either another

30:32.800 --> 30:36.390
name for rook,
especially when seen alone,

30:36.393 --> 30:39.763
or it may mean the solitary
Carrion crow.

30:39.759 --> 30:44.299
This subdued pun [this
ambiguity--remember,

30:44.298 --> 30:50.468
this is a book about ambiguity]
is made to imply here that

30:50.469 --> 30:53.929
Macbeth,
looking out of the window,

30:53.932 --> 30:58.662
is trying to see himself as a
murderer and can only see

30:58.655 --> 31:03.985
himself in the position of the
crow: that his day of power now

31:03.990 --> 31:06.990
is closing;
that he has to distinguish

31:06.988 --> 31:10.188
himself from the other rooks by
a difference of name,

31:10.185 --> 31:12.585
rook-crow,
like the kingly title,

31:12.585 --> 31:15.555
only;
that he is anxious at bottom to

31:15.563 --> 31:19.303
be one with the other rooks,
not to murder them;

31:19.298 --> 31:22.278
that he can no longer,
or that he may yet,

31:22.275 --> 31:26.845
be united with the rookery;
and that he is murdering Banquo

31:26.851 --> 31:30.521
in a forlorn attempt to obtain
peace of mind.

31:30.519 --> 31:36.049
I'm not at all sure there's
anything more to be said about

31:36.053 --> 31:40.523
that passage,
which I think lays it to rest.

31:40.519 --> 31:45.959
It does so by insisting on a
complex mode of ambiguity that

31:45.962 --> 31:49.532
governs the passage--not
atmosphere.

31:49.529 --> 31:50.949
Sure, call it
"atmosphere"

31:50.951 --> 31:53.461
if you like,
as long as you're willing to

31:53.462 --> 31:57.732
subject it to verbal analysis,
as long as you're willing to

31:57.730 --> 32:02.440
show how and why the atmosphere
is exactly of the nature that it

32:02.436 --> 32:04.186
is,
and that it arises,

32:04.193 --> 32:08.383
in other words--
and here is the relationship

32:08.380 --> 32:14.090
between Richards and Empson--
out of a complex state of mind;

32:14.088 --> 32:18.528
that poetry,
the poetry of this speaker,

32:18.528 --> 32:23.648
this speaker/murderer,
is attempting desperately to

32:23.653 --> 32:28.103
reconcile and harmonize,
just as he is attempting

32:28.101 --> 32:32.591
desperately to be reconciled and
harmonized with the society from

32:32.586 --> 32:35.316
which he has alienated himself
and,

32:35.319 --> 32:36.719
of course, is failing.

32:36.720 --> 32:38.230
Macbeth is not Shakespeare.

32:38.230 --> 32:41.610
Shakespeare is representing him
in poetry,

32:41.608 --> 32:44.328
attempting to do something
which in the immediate

32:44.327 --> 32:46.987
psychological circumstances
poetry can't do,

32:46.990 --> 32:52.430
but in the process evoking an
extraordinary complexity of

32:52.433 --> 32:58.073
effort on the part of the mind
to be reconciled through the

32:58.073 --> 33:00.313
medium of language.

33:00.308 --> 33:04.648
As I say, this is the sense in
which Empson follows Richards.

33:04.650 --> 33:08.300
But at the same time,
there's something rather

33:08.298 --> 33:10.568
different between the two.

33:10.568 --> 33:13.338
First of all,
Empson doesn't really kind of

33:13.338 --> 33:16.898
settle into a sense that it's
all about the reader--

33:16.900 --> 33:18.980
that is to say,
that it's all about the

33:18.983 --> 33:21.073
reader's experience of the
literary.

33:21.068 --> 33:24.808
Richards is actually an avatar
of figures like Iser,

33:24.808 --> 33:27.998
like Hans Robert Jauss and
Stanley Fish--

33:28.000 --> 33:29.850
whom we'll be discussing later
in the syllabus--

33:29.848 --> 33:33.668
who are interested in reader
response: that is to say,

33:33.670 --> 33:38.240
in the way in which we can talk
about the structure of reader

33:38.239 --> 33:39.229
experience.

33:39.230 --> 33:44.640
Empson is sort of interested in
that, just as he's fascinated by

33:44.644 --> 33:48.174
the texture of textual evidence
itself.

33:48.170 --> 33:51.970
He is also very
interested--much more so than

33:51.971 --> 33:54.761
Richards,
and certainly more so than the

33:54.756 --> 33:58.186
New Critics from whom he sharply
diverges in advance in this

33:58.191 --> 34:01.411
respect--
interested in authorial

34:01.405 --> 34:03.975
intention;
that is to say,

34:03.983 --> 34:09.393
for him, literary criticism is
always an appeal to authorial

34:09.389 --> 34:10.579
intention.

34:10.579 --> 34:14.389
Mind you, he ascribes to
authorial intention the most

34:14.389 --> 34:18.789
amazingly outrageous things that
other critics threw up their

34:18.788 --> 34:23.298
hands in despair about,
but nevertheless it is for him

34:23.297 --> 34:27.147
always still an appeal to
authorial intention.

34:27.150 --> 34:31.700
At bottom, Empson doesn't
really settle into the rigorous

34:31.702 --> 34:36.342
consideration of the author,
the text, or the reader as if

34:36.336 --> 34:39.016
they were separate functions.

34:39.018 --> 34:44.048
For Empson, there's a kind of a
fluid and easy movement back and

34:44.047 --> 34:47.957
forth between what for
hermeneutics are three very

34:47.958 --> 34:50.588
different phenomena:
author, text,

34:50.592 --> 34:51.632
reader.

34:56.659 --> 35:01.309
that's ultimately an appeal
to the author,

35:01.309 --> 35:05.639
but certainly involves both
working on the text itself and

35:05.639 --> 35:09.209
also understanding its effects
on the reader.

35:09.210 --> 35:13.570
So all of this distances Empson
from Richards to a certain

35:13.574 --> 35:15.474
extent,
but the most important

35:15.474 --> 35:17.824
difference, I think,
between Empson and the other

35:17.815 --> 35:20.665
figures we're discussing--
a difference which makes it

35:20.673 --> 35:24.693
even a little bit complex to say
that he's a precursor of the New

35:24.690 --> 35:28.460
Criticism--
is that Empson very rarely

35:28.460 --> 35:34.020
concerns himself with the
whole of a text.

35:34.018 --> 35:38.238
He isn't really interested in
the unity of "the

35:38.235 --> 35:39.305
poem."

35:39.309 --> 35:43.149
He is simply interested in
saying as much as he can about

35:43.146 --> 35:46.646
certain local effects,
certainly with the implication,

35:46.652 --> 35:49.242
possibly,
that this has a bearing on our

35:49.242 --> 35:51.522
understanding of,
let's say, the whole of

35:51.516 --> 35:54.146
Macbeth;
but he doesn't set about doing

35:54.146 --> 35:57.066
a systematic reading of the
whole of Macbeth.

35:57.070 --> 35:59.760
He always zooms in on
something, thinks about it for a

35:59.757 --> 36:02.797
while and then goes away and
thinks about something else,

36:02.800 --> 36:07.590
leaving us to decide whether it
has a genuine bearing on the

36:07.594 --> 36:12.474
entirety or on the literary
wholeness or unity of Macbeth.

36:12.469 --> 36:17.139
Empson is interested in the
complexity of local effects.

36:17.139 --> 36:19.619
Another thing to say about
Empson's perspective,

36:19.619 --> 36:21.789
which makes him differ sharply,
I think,

36:21.789 --> 36:24.379
from Richards and from the
later New Critics,

36:24.380 --> 36:29.370
is that Empson is perfectly
willing to accommodate the idea

36:29.365 --> 36:32.065
that maybe--
just as in the case of the

36:32.065 --> 36:34.245
psychology of Macbeth the
character--

36:34.250 --> 36:38.050
that maybe poetry
doesn't reconcile

36:38.047 --> 36:39.897
conflicting needs.

36:39.900 --> 36:44.210
Maybe, after all,
poetry is an expression of the

36:44.213 --> 36:47.523
irreducible conflict of our
needs.

36:47.518 --> 36:50.958
The last chapter of Seven
Types of Ambiguity,

36:50.960 --> 36:53.900
his seventh ambiguity,
is actually,

36:53.900 --> 36:56.710
as Empson said,
about "some fundamental

36:56.713 --> 36:59.203
division in the writer's
mind."

36:59.199 --> 37:02.259
There, you see,
he diverges from his teacher,

37:02.264 --> 37:03.034
Richards.

37:03.030 --> 37:08.170
He's fascinated by the way in
which literature doesn't unify

37:08.170 --> 37:14.010
opposites or reconcile needs but
leaves things as it found them,

37:14.010 --> 37:17.300
but exposed in all of their
complexity.

37:17.300 --> 37:21.550
Paul de Man more than once
invoked Empson as a precursor of

37:21.554 --> 37:24.714
deconstruction,
not of the New Criticism.

37:24.710 --> 37:28.060
For this reason--for the reason
that he's not concerned with

37:28.061 --> 37:31.071
unity and that he's not
concerned with the idea of the

37:31.074 --> 37:34.224
reconciliation of opposites--
Empson, I think,

37:34.224 --> 37:39.094
can rightly be understood as a
precursor of deconstruction,

37:39.090 --> 37:42.080
if only because deconstruction
follows the New Criticism,

37:42.079 --> 37:44.829
of course, in being a mode of
close reading;

37:44.829 --> 37:51.639
and there has never been a
better close reader than Empson.

37:51.639 --> 37:55.089
Before turning away from
Empson, whose influence was

37:55.088 --> 37:57.658
widespread despite this
divergence,

37:57.659 --> 38:02.499
it needs to be said that his
purposes for close reading are

38:02.498 --> 38:07.838
actually very different from the
purposes of the New Critics--

38:07.840 --> 38:11.540
the American New Critics,
particularly Brooks whose

38:11.543 --> 38:15.693
preoccupation with unity is
something he freely confesses

38:15.692 --> 38:19.822
and something that--
well, we've got ten minutes,

38:19.817 --> 38:23.167
so I shouldn't rush ahead
prematurely--

38:23.170 --> 38:27.180
but something that you can see
to be at the heart of what

38:27.179 --> 38:28.469
Brooks is doing.

38:28.469 --> 38:33.539
Here Brooks,
in The Well-Wrought Urn,

38:33.539 --> 38:36.079
Modern Poetry and the
Tradition, and the

38:36.077 --> 38:38.037
other books for which he's well
known,

38:38.039 --> 38:42.309
uses a variety of different
words to describe the way in

38:42.306 --> 38:46.176
which the complexity of
literature is placed in the

38:46.184 --> 38:48.284
service of unification.

38:48.280 --> 38:50.860
In the essay you're reading
here, he uses the word

38:50.856 --> 38:51.906
"irony."

38:51.909 --> 38:54.529
He admits that maybe he
stretches the word

38:54.525 --> 38:57.585
"irony,"
but he tries to argue that the

38:57.586 --> 39:01.216
variety of effects that he
focuses on in his essay have to

39:01.224 --> 39:02.504
do with irony.

39:02.500 --> 39:05.200
In another great essay,
the first chapter of The

39:05.201 --> 39:07.741
Well-Wrought Urn,
he talks about paradox.

39:07.739 --> 39:10.149
Obviously, these are related
ideas,

39:10.150 --> 39:15.730
and elsewhere he takes up other
ways of evoking the way in which

39:15.733 --> 39:20.433
complex feelings and thoughts
are brought together.

39:20.429 --> 39:22.709
Empson's word,
"ambiguity,"

39:22.713 --> 39:26.333
continues to play an important
role in the work of the New

39:26.331 --> 39:27.221
Criticism.

39:27.219 --> 39:30.729
It is--at least,
it puts itself out there as a

39:30.730 --> 39:35.410
candidate to be an alternative
term that one might use if one

39:35.409 --> 39:38.219
got tired of saying
"irony"

39:38.217 --> 39:40.477
or "paradox."

39:40.480 --> 39:41.060
>

39:41.059 --> 39:43.279
There are a variety of words,
in other words.

39:43.280 --> 39:45.850
Another word given by the poet
and critic Allen Tate,

39:45.849 --> 39:48.019
one of the founding figures of
the New Criticism,

39:48.019 --> 39:51.329
is "tension"--
that is to say,

39:51.329 --> 39:57.419
the way in which the literary
text resolves oppositions as a

39:57.422 --> 40:00.692
tension;
that is, a holding in

40:00.693 --> 40:05.373
suspension a conflict
experienced as tension.

40:05.369 --> 40:09.759
So there are these varieties of
ways for describing what's going

40:09.755 --> 40:10.795
on in a text.

40:10.800 --> 40:14.510
It's interesting I think that
if one thinks of Tony the Tow

40:14.505 --> 40:18.575
Truck one can think of--
when you go home and study it,

40:18.577 --> 40:22.587
you'll see what I mean--
there's a complex pattern of

40:22.594 --> 40:25.744
imagery,
as it were, between pulling and

40:25.739 --> 40:26.429
pushing.

40:26.429 --> 40:29.649
There's a tremendous amount of
pulling and pushing that goes on

40:29.648 --> 40:32.898
in Tony the Tow Truck.
We'll revert especially to the

40:32.896 --> 40:36.016
notion of "pushing"
in other contexts later in the

40:36.018 --> 40:38.588
course,
but for the moment you can see

40:38.594 --> 40:42.524
the way in which there is a
tension between that which pulls

40:42.519 --> 40:46.279
and that which pushes,
which is one of the motive

40:46.284 --> 40:47.934
forces of the story.

40:47.929 --> 40:50.659
That, I think,
is an example also:

40:50.663 --> 40:55.553
if it is ironic that
Tony is now stuck and instead of

40:55.548 --> 40:59.998
pulling needs to be pushed,
if it is in some Brooksian

41:00.003 --> 41:02.573
sense ironic that that is the
case,

41:02.570 --> 41:11.970
we can understand that as irony
or as tension or ambiguity.

41:11.969 --> 41:15.419
Now there's one way in which
Tony is probably not a

41:15.418 --> 41:17.838
good proof text for the New
Criticism.

41:17.840 --> 41:21.240
You remember that in "My
Credo," the little

41:21.239 --> 41:24.579
sort of excerpt that you get at
the beginning of the Brooks

41:24.583 --> 41:27.143
section in your anthology,
Brooks says,

41:27.143 --> 41:30.823
"Poetry should be about
moral things but it shouldn't

41:30.817 --> 41:32.297
point a moral."

41:32.300 --> 41:38.160
Obviously Tony the Tow Truck
points a moral and so would

41:38.164 --> 41:43.274
be subject to a kind of
devaluation on those grounds by

41:43.273 --> 41:47.223
the New Criticism--
even though there are ways of

41:47.217 --> 41:50.117
reading Tony,
as I've been suggesting,

41:50.117 --> 41:51.217
New Critic-ally.

41:51.219 --> 41:52.779
All right.

41:52.780 --> 41:56.960
Now the idea of unity for
Brooks, and for the New Critics

41:56.963 --> 42:00.143
in general,
is that it be complex,

42:00.143 --> 42:04.123
that it warp the statements of
science,

42:04.119 --> 42:09.539
and that it bring to bear a
tension between the denotation

42:09.541 --> 42:12.491
and the connotation of words.

42:12.489 --> 42:14.879
The word "yellow"
in the second line of Tony

42:14.875 --> 42:17.535
the Tow Truck--
its denotation is that it

42:17.543 --> 42:21.733
is a certain color,
the color that Tony's garage is

42:21.731 --> 42:22.541
painted.

42:22.539 --> 42:24.989
The connotation,
I have suggested,

42:24.989 --> 42:30.809
is of the variety of kinds that
one might gingerly approach in

42:30.811 --> 42:36.061
thinking about complicating the
texture of the story.

42:36.059 --> 42:39.539
In any case,
the tension between denotation

42:39.536 --> 42:44.336
and connotation is part of the
way in which irony works.

42:44.340 --> 42:47.920
So the question again is--and
the question it seems to me

42:47.918 --> 42:51.678
raised in advance by Empson--
why should these sorts of

42:51.677 --> 42:55.447
tension, these movements of
complex reconciliation,

42:55.449 --> 42:57.889
result in unity?

42:57.889 --> 42:59.699
It's very interesting.

42:59.699 --> 43:02.419
Brooks's reading of "She
Dwelt Among Untrodden

43:02.422 --> 43:05.312
Ways," the wonderful Lucy
poem by Wordsworth,

43:05.309 --> 43:08.239
emphasizes the irony of the
poem.

43:08.239 --> 43:11.409
Brooks feels that he's on very
thin ice talking about

43:11.409 --> 43:15.519
Wordsworth and irony at all,
but at the same time does bring

43:15.516 --> 43:19.746
it out rather beautifully,
talking about the irony of the

43:19.746 --> 43:24.126
poem basically as the way in
which you can't really say that

43:24.126 --> 43:27.836
Lucy can be a flower and a star
simultaneously.

43:27.840 --> 43:29.890
She's a flower,
she's perishable,

43:29.885 --> 43:33.655
she's half hidden,
and she's ultimately dead and

43:33.659 --> 43:37.129
in the ground--
whereas a star would seem to be

43:37.132 --> 43:41.122
something that she just can't be
mapped onto if she is this

43:41.123 --> 43:42.573
half-hidden thing.

43:42.570 --> 43:44.040
But at the same time,
Brooks says,

43:44.036 --> 43:46.546
"Well,
after all she is a star to the

43:46.547 --> 43:48.937
speaker,"
and he's just saying,

43:48.940 --> 43:52.070
"She's a star to me;
she's a flower half hidden,

43:52.067 --> 43:54.567
unnoticed to everyone
else."

43:54.570 --> 43:58.760
The relationship between the
depth of the speaker's feeling

43:58.757 --> 44:03.017
and the obscurity of Lucy in the
world is the irony that the

44:03.018 --> 44:07.488
speaker wants to lay hold of and
that reconciles what seem like

44:07.494 --> 44:09.954
disparate facts in the poem.

44:09.949 --> 44:14.719
Well, now I just want to point
out that close reading can

44:14.715 --> 44:17.605
always be pushed farther.

44:17.610 --> 44:20.170
That's the difficulty about
close reading.

44:20.170 --> 44:22.860
It's all very well to say,
"Look at me,

44:22.860 --> 44:27.410
I'm reconciling harmonies,
I'm creating patterns,

44:27.409 --> 44:31.449
I'm showing the purpose of
image clusters and all the rest

44:31.452 --> 44:34.362
of it," but if you keep
doing it,

44:34.360 --> 44:38.880
what you have yoked together
becomes unyoked again.

44:38.880 --> 44:42.000
It falls apart,
or at least it threatens to do

44:42.003 --> 44:42.353
so.

44:42.349 --> 44:46.479
A contemporary of Brooks's
named F.W. Bateson wrote an

44:46.480 --> 44:50.220
essay on this same poem,
"She Dwelt Among Untrodden

44:50.221 --> 44:51.991
Ways," in which he points
out--

44:51.989 --> 45:02.069
the poem's on page 802--that
the poem is full of oxymorons,

45:02.070 --> 45:06.470
contradictions in terms:
"untrodden ways."

45:06.469 --> 45:09.109
A "way"
is a path, but how can there be

45:09.112 --> 45:10.712
a path if it's not trodden?

45:10.710 --> 45:14.230
What is the meaning of an
untrodden way,

45:14.230 --> 45:18.890
or of "there are none to
praise" her but "very

45:18.893 --> 45:20.453
few to love"?

45:20.449 --> 45:23.519
Why call attention not so much
to the difference between

45:23.516 --> 45:26.576
"few love her"
and "none praise her"

45:26.583 --> 45:28.763
as the notion that none praise
her?

45:28.760 --> 45:32.330
This is palpably false because
here's the poet praising her,

45:32.326 --> 45:32.806
right?

45:32.809 --> 45:34.789
So what does he mean,
"none"?

45:34.789 --> 45:37.709
Why is he calling attention,
in other words,

45:37.708 --> 45:39.608
to this logical disparity?

45:39.610 --> 45:44.120
"She lived unknown and few
could know"--how can she be

45:44.115 --> 45:47.045
unknown if few know anything
about her?

45:47.050 --> 45:49.740
In other words,
the poem is full of

45:49.737 --> 45:52.817
complexities,
but who says they're being

45:52.820 --> 45:54.560
reconciled?

45:54.559 --> 45:57.459
They're just sitting there
oxymoronically,

45:57.460 --> 46:00.010
not reconciling themselves at
all.

46:00.010 --> 46:06.300
So Bateson's argument is that
Wordsworth is calling attention

46:06.304 --> 46:11.344
to a conflict of emotion or
feeling that can't be

46:11.340 --> 46:14.810
reconciled,
hence the pathos of the ending,

46:14.809 --> 46:17.439
"[O]h,
/ the difference to me,"

46:17.436 --> 46:18.146
and so on.

46:18.150 --> 46:21.480
This, as I say,
is a different use of close

46:21.476 --> 46:22.266
reading.

46:22.268 --> 46:26.798
It's close reading which is not
in the service of unity or of

46:26.797 --> 46:31.397
unification but recognizes that
the very arts whereby we see a

46:31.402 --> 46:35.632
thing as a unified whole can
just as easily be put to the

46:35.628 --> 46:38.798
purpose of blasting it apart
again,

46:38.800 --> 46:45.180
and of calling our attention to
that which can't be reconciled

46:45.179 --> 46:51.769
just as the speaker can't be
reconciled to the death of Lucy.

46:51.768 --> 46:57.068
Now the New Critics can,
I think, be criticized for that

46:57.072 --> 46:57.942
reason.

46:57.940 --> 47:02.540
The aftermath of--the
historical close reading

47:02.543 --> 47:05.463
aftermath of--
the New Criticism does

47:05.460 --> 47:09.560
precisely that,
if one sees deconstruction as a

47:09.559 --> 47:12.669
response to the New Criticism.

47:12.670 --> 47:14.230
It's not just that,
as we'll see,

47:14.228 --> 47:16.028
it's a great many other things
too.

47:16.030 --> 47:18.610
The deconstructive response
consists essentially in saying,

47:18.610 --> 47:19.190
"Look.

47:19.190 --> 47:22.230
You can't just arbitrarily tie
a ribbon around something and

47:22.228 --> 47:22.948
say, 'Ah ha.

47:22.949 --> 47:24.359
It's a unity.'" Right?

47:24.360 --> 47:26.370
The ribbon comes off.

47:26.369 --> 47:27.299
>

47:27.300 --> 47:30.400
"Things fly apart,"
as the poet says,

47:30.396 --> 47:32.616
and it's not a unity after all.

47:32.619 --> 47:36.909
There is another aspect of the
way in which the New Criticism

47:36.905 --> 47:41.475
has been criticized for the last
forty or fifty years which needs

47:41.478 --> 47:42.978
to be touched on.

47:42.980 --> 47:47.330
The notion of autonomy,
the notion of the freedom of

47:47.329 --> 47:51.849
the poem from any kind of
dependence in the world,

47:51.849 --> 47:56.839
is something that is very easy
to undermine critically.

47:56.840 --> 48:00.990
Think of Brooks's analysis of
Randall Jarrell's "Eighth

48:00.992 --> 48:02.262
Air Force."

48:02.260 --> 48:06.400
It concludes on the last page
of the essay by saying that this

48:06.398 --> 48:10.328
is a poem about human nature,
about human nature under

48:10.327 --> 48:14.647
stress, and whether or not human
nature is or is not good;

48:14.650 --> 48:19.300
and arguments of this kind,
arguments of the kind set forth

48:19.300 --> 48:23.950
by the poem, "can make
better citizens of us."

48:23.949 --> 48:26.099
In other words,
the experience of reading

48:26.099 --> 48:28.519
poetry is not just an aesthetic
experience.

48:28.518 --> 48:31.418
It's not just a question of
private reconciliation of

48:31.416 --> 48:32.526
conflicting needs.

48:32.530 --> 48:35.750
It's a social
experience, in this view,

48:35.746 --> 48:39.746
and the social experience is
intrinsically a conservative

48:39.748 --> 48:40.318
one.

48:40.320 --> 48:44.010
In other words,
it insists on the need to

48:44.012 --> 48:47.532
balance opinions,
to balance viewpoints,

48:47.532 --> 48:51.322
and to balance needs,
precisely in a way which is,

48:51.317 --> 48:55.757
of course,
implicitly a kind of social and

48:55.757 --> 48:58.057
political centrism.

48:58.059 --> 49:01.049
In other words,
how can poetry in this

49:01.052 --> 49:04.452
view--how can literature be
progressive?

49:04.449 --> 49:06.439
For that matter,
how can it be reactionary?

49:06.440 --> 49:10.050
How, in other words,
can it be put to political

49:10.054 --> 49:13.204
purposes if there is this
underlying,

49:13.199 --> 49:18.929
implicit centrism in this
notion of reconciliation,

49:18.929 --> 49:21.519
harmonization, and balance?

49:21.518 --> 49:26.588
That has been a frequent source
of the criticism of the New

49:26.586 --> 49:32.176
Criticism in its afterlife over
the last forty or fifty years.

49:32.179 --> 49:33.999
There's also the question of
religion.

49:34.000 --> 49:37.070
There is a kind of implicit
Episcopalian perspective that

49:37.070 --> 49:39.920
you see in Brooks's essay when
he's talking about the

49:39.922 --> 49:44.552
Shakespeare poem,
in which, under the aspect of

49:44.552 --> 49:48.822
eternity,
inevitably things here on earth

49:48.815 --> 49:50.055
seem ironic.

49:50.059 --> 49:50.729
>

49:50.730 --> 49:55.770
There's always that play of
thought throughout the thinking

49:55.773 --> 49:58.473
of the New Criticism as well.

49:58.469 --> 50:01.969
Naturally, one will think of
things in ironic terms if one

50:01.969 --> 50:05.709
sees them from the perspective
of the divine or of the eternal

50:05.713 --> 50:06.393
moment.

50:06.389 --> 50:11.999