[Milton-L] responses and intentionalism

[James Rovira]

Carol:

My own personal Fish story --

I spoke with him briefly at the Milton dinner, MLA 2001 (I think).  I
was fortunate enough to meet Al Labriola at that time too.  Fish had
been arguing with a student about the relative merits of philosophical
study, saying something along the lines that the more advanced
philosophy gets the more removed it is from the way people actually
think about their lives.  I said something to this effect: "But can't
you say that about literary studies too?  The more detailed and
advanced our literary theory, the further from the common reader we
are?"  Fish responded, "F--- the common reader!"  Emphatically :).

Once you assume certain characteristics of a reading community as the
basis of your reading of a text, you privilege that reading community.
 SbS and other Fish books assume readers of a certain education and
sophistication.  Do you really think he'd bother imagining a reading
community made of up adolescent boys who had no knowledge of the
Biblical and mythological referents in PL -- who just read it as an
action story?  The only way out is to do something like the recent
Continuum anthologies do -- "The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe."
Etc.

Jim R

On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Carol Barton <cbartonphd1 at verizon.net> wrote:

> Neither he nor any other reception theorist worth his or her credentials
> would presume to tell the broad spectrum of
> persons-throughout-history-who-have-read-Milton what their individual
> experiences *should be*--but if you share the same responses that Fish does
> to the various poetry and prose about which he has written, you will
> understand *why* you reacted the way you did.