literary criticism

I am working out my essay on literary criticism, and it is chaotic an Quasimodo, so I will have to spend a week upon it. Here is the briefest excerpt to show you the general pull of its plough.

 

Daniel

 

Rules of analysis…..

 

There is only one book. And every writing is part of it. Not all do all writings cohere into one great book, but each individual book is essentially the same as all books are, if you know how to telescope out to the barest outlines, the same deed is expressed in every read, the development of the idea.

Every book represents one dynamic object. The object moves, and its parts move in relation to each other. You must comprehend the unity of the work as a whole.

A book is a system of meaning of which the texture is but the surface. The texture is the syntax, the ink, the signifiers, the conscious language, which trigger the unconscious original language of feeling within the mind of the reader.

All books are mere commentary upon your own experinece. The book can only open you up to experiencing new things, but the only materials the book can use is evocations of things you have seen, felt, and known already. All books, even the most sacred and divine, are secondary and less important than the ultimate book of your Memory.

A book presents wisdom. That is, a pattern for thinking which is the blueprint, for how to feel or move, understanding patterned for repetition. Every beauty and every insight is to teach you a pattern on how to discover other insights, and be your own beauty.

A book cannot contradict itself. Being from a single human being, which is by nature a unity expressed through contradictions, the book itself is only apparent in contradictions, and requires further understanding at the moments it seems to dispute itself. In fact, those moments are much richer and manifold then is immediately apparent, so seek out contradictions within the book, difficulties and problems, in order to understand the consistency inherent within them. And since all books are part of the same book, every book in history coheres, even if one is written to contradict another, for primary experience cannot contradict itself, and any book that is understood at the point of primary experience of the author is a positive fact of experience, incapable of contradiction. Experience is self-evident.