Friday, October 24, 2008

O'Connor - Fiction is a Subject with a History

This article (pgs. 849-852) is of interest as it sheds light on her views on education, something we have not really gone much into. She tends to be supporting the study of literature for its historical value, but as long as students begin at the earliest times continuing to more modern literature. This is the only way that one can appreciate and fully "get" modern novels, by understanding what came before. In this, is O'Connor favoring strictly a historicism type of literary criticism? Any ideas?

3 comments:

wirsindtansen said...

I think that this idea, that fiction is a subject with a history would be very interesting to look at Althusserian terms. Althusser states that "ideologies have no history," yet "ideologies have a history of their own." These theories overlap O'Connor's view in that art and literature are ideologies.

wirsindtansen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wirsindtansen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.