Simon Stow warns that the influence of political readings of literary texts could be harmful to political discourse. In particular, he cautions against the growing popularity of political readings over political arguments. Compared with traditional arguments, readings are, Stow argues, poorly suited for liberal political discourse. To demonstrate this point, Stow challenges the political character of Richard Rortys reading of Pale Fire. In this essay, I dispute Stow's criticism of Rorty. My basic argument is that literary criticism (or "readings") can be politically significant and that Rorty's acknowledgement of this fact ties him to rather than separates him from, both the political and literary arenas. To make my point, I reconsider the reading of Pale Fire Rorty offers relative to the kind of reading of Don Quixote offered by Nabokov. By arguing that even the most "literary" of writers reads for political purposes, I hope to situate Rorty within a cultural space where the literary and political converge.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-12162008-133459 |
| Date | 15 January 2009 |
| Creators | Copeland, John |
| Contributors | Jannine Montauban, Casey Charles, Rob Browning |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-12162008-133459/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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