[Milton-L] Symposium on Milton's Samson

[Michael Gillum]

Fish wrote  _Surprised by Sin_ in (I suppose) 1965-66, before continental
Theory had made much of an impact in the US. New Criticism was still very
influential. If Fish made an effort to avoid intentionalist language in SbS,
I suspect that would reflect the influence of Wimsatt rather than Barthes.
But SbS is evidently intentionalist in spirit. Fish was trying to get at
intention by discussing features of the text and how they shape the
responses of what he posits as a typical reader. I don't recall whether he
ever slipped into the overt intentionalism that marks _How Milton Works_.

Did/does Fish have a particular respect for Milton grounded in religious
belief that led him to treat Milton's poetry in a historical-intentionalist
way and to avoid subjecting it to the various fashionable maneuvers by which
he scrambled to the top of the profession?

Michael


On 5/6/09 11:47 PM, "Harold Skulsky" <hskulsky at smith.edu> wrote:

> I have had time to read only Stanley Fish's little talk (on four things
> one can do with SA). There is nothing particularly arresting in it, as
> far as I can see, and certainly nothing new. But I would be much obliged
> if someone have the kindness to explain the miraculous transformation on
> display here. 
> 
> The Fish of yore I knew and despised was a fellow traveler of Rorty at
> his nihilistic worst, given to shamelessly outré manipulations of
> whatever text was at his mercy ‹ in short, the phenomenally popular
> operator of a three-card monte game whose time had come. The Fish on
> display in the current little talk is a cuddly elder statesman, a
> venerable teddybear of old-fashioned historical intentionalism (is
> Hirsch still with us?), gently rapping the knuckles of anachronists and
> other poachers in the margins of other men's books, and leaving behind a
> tinkle of mild but affectionate laughter. Perhaps the miraculous
> transformation is merely another (unremarkable) reminder that what goes
> around comes around. Still, I can't resist the suspicion that there is
> something afoot here ‹ something important that eludes me.
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