My final thoughts on Fish

I am still in the process of reading the literary theories of Fish.  I enjoyed his book “Is there a text in this class?”  I found the textbook challenging.  I also found out about Milton.  I had never read Milton and have started to read Paradise Lost.  I was never a fan of poetry since I didn’t think I understood it.  After reading Fish and Rosenblatt I have a better appreciation of poetry since they both state that meaning is more than what the critics say it is.  It is an activity and more of what the reader gets out of the text.  What does this mean?  What does this text do?   How can I relate to it?  I will leave the questions about who came to the window in L’Allegro to the critics to discuss and I will read and enjoy the poem even though I have my own ideas about who came the window.  For me who came to the window is not important to get meaning from the poem.

Discussion on Chapter 7: Interpreting "Interpreting of Variorium"

            Chapter 7 is titled Interpreting Interpreting the Variorum.  Fish wrote this in response to a response to his article Interpreting the Variorum.  There were two professors that commented on his first article.  The first professor, Professor Bush stated that Fish was mounting an attack on the Variorum.  Professor Bush emphasized the resolution.  Bush like Ralph Rader claims the final understanding is the meaning.  Fish disagrees with them and emphasizes the act of reading.  Fish claims that the act of feeling doubt and struggling to find meaning during reading to be the meaning of the text. 

            Other critics claimed Fishes method of reader response is just teaching people to read a different way.  They claim Fish is not following the way that readers actually read.  Fish denies this claim and states he is just bring out what people naturally do during reading and that the meaning of the text is also found in the act of reading and not just in the text itself.

                I found this article very interesting just in the fact that he was commenting on a comment on his comment of a body of comments.  You can get lost in all the comments.   I do like this as an exercise for my students.  I am having read and comment on their peers work.  I have not let the writer of the report comment back.  I might let them write a reflection to address any comments that were given by either the teacher or the other students.  

I had not heard of Professor Bush so I did some research.  He was a professor at Harvard.  He was a known scholar of Milton.  I now have a better understanding about why he felt Fish was attacking Milton.  I found this article about Bush. The title was What Douglas Bush Stood For, by Edward Le Comte in his book, Mitlon Re-viewed: Tem Essays.

Milton Re-viewed: Ten Essays - Page 25

books.google.com/books?isbn=0815303068

Edward Le Comte - 1991 - ‎Preview

WHAT DOUGLAS BUSH STOOD FOR Miltonists tend to live long, I am glad to note. Is there something sustaining in their author? By way of anecdote: since A Milton Encyclopedia has entries only for the deceased, the editors had to find out ...

One book that Professor Bush wrote is John Milton: A Sketch of His Life and Writings.   He spent his life trying to find the meaning on Milton’s poems.

Discussion on chapter 6 Interpreting the Variorum

Interpreting the Variorum is the title of Chapter 6.  Fish used the publication of A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton because he could show that the critics were arguing around a base set of agreements.

            “I seized upon the publication of the Milton Variorum because it greatly facilitated what had long since become my method, the surveying of the critical history of a work in order to find disputes that rested upon a base of agreement of which the disputants were unaware.” Fish.

            I looked up what exactly a variorum was and Wikipedia had a very nice synopsis of the word. 

“A variorum is a work that collates all known variants of a text. It is a work of textual criticism, whereby all variations and emendations are set side by side so that a reader can track how textual decisions have been made in the preparation of a text for publication.” – Wikipedia 11/30/2013.

            I have been trying to read the work that Fish is talking about.  I looked on line for a web copy, but only found books for purchase.  I did find a copy of the Variorum of Milton’s Poems at UNM library.  I am planning on checking it out to read a little more about Milton.  Since I have my training in science I find the variorum fascinating. I had not heard of a variorum.  In science I have read reviews, which compile the literature on a certain subject.  I did my graduate work on the effects of heat shock proteins on breast cancer.  I read many heat shock proteins reviews which put together all the scientific research and analyzed and critiqued the different experiments.  A Variorum reminds me of a review in the scientific community.   If you are interested in reading the Variorum here is a citation. 

A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton: Samson Agonistes [Hardcover]

Stephen B. Dobranski (Author), P. J. Klemp (Editor), Archie Burnett (Introduction)

                Fish writes about the Variorum and states that the formalist analysis is not completely wrong but in the search for meaning they leave out the reader’s response.  The reader’s response is the activity of reading.  The critics are only looking for the final meaning and have generated an assumption that meaning is within the actual text itself.  

                Fish states that the Variorum has tried to solve many questions like the one in L’Allegro.  What  is the identity of whoever or whatever comes to the window in L’Allegro?  You can make a case for “every proper noun within a radius of 10 lines.”  

                Fish describes these questions and answers a formalist analysis.  They go on the assumption that the meaning is within the text.  Fish points out you can always point to any part of the text and it can prove but also disprove anything.  This is the wrong way to analyze the poems or the text.  The question that the critic need to ask is what does this word or phrase do?  They forget to include what the reader experiences during the reading. 

 I agree with Fish that part of reading and enjoyment of reading is the actual experience of reading and not just the final conclusion of a piece of text.