Ok, so to be honest I was a little confused with the two articles, but I think I got the most part of them. The debate going on within the two authors essays is about analyzing texts and finding politics within them. For example, Will explains that he views hidden messages in Shakespeare’s works, such as feminism and colonialism, as unimportant and taking away from the original text. Greenblatt thinks the exact opposite. He sees these messages and thinks they enrich the readers experience and should be analyzed in classrooms. He believes that if we do not realize these hidden politics and analyze them we face “the risk that we might turn our artistic inheritance into a simple, reassuring, soporific life.” Will’s views contradict Greenblatt’s ideas that we should dissect texts to find inner meaning. He uses examples like, “Emily Dickenson’s poetic references to peas and flower buds are encoded messages of feminist rage.” Will believes analyzing these little details until there is nothing left to analyze takes away from the original meaning of the text.
I find all of this pretty interesting. I have actually been thinking about this a lot in class. Will’s opinions make sense to me. When we read “Reunion”, I felt like we were seriously dissecting every part of the short story until what the author was probably trying to say was lost in minor details that were merely there to describe setting or feeling. Obviously there were details that meant something more than their surface meaning, but sometimes I think we dig deeper than necessary. On the other hand, I love the way works like “The Tempest” can be viewed so many ways. There really are a million different ways to view Caliban. I think my conclusion is that sometimes we do dig way deeper than necessary, and sometimes that is not what the author intended or meant to say, but who says that’s bad. Some things that are simply written with no underlying meaning can mean something to one person and something completely different to another person. That’s the beauty of opinion and individuality. Most writers would probably love to hear all the intellectual conversations their simple thought spurred.
This is a really good blog Haley. You brought up some very good points and I completely agree with you about over analyzing “Reunion”. I felt the same way in class. I also like that in The Tempest there are so many different ways to interpret what Shakespeare’s purpose was when he was first writing it. Even though I like thinking about what the author intended when he was writing it, sometimes I get frustrated and wish that they had just been more straight forward with their purpose. I think that you made some very good arguments in this blog and you also helped me to better understand the articles. Good job!
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