Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: lkk@zurich.ai.mit.EDU ("Lawrence K. Kolodney") Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Deconstruction? Or just plain construction? Message-ID: Date: 24 Jun 91 17:00:09 GMT References: <9106190543.AA01879@meteor.meteor.wisc.edu> Reply-To: lkk@zurich.ai.mit.EDU Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab. Lines: 33 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu In article <9106190543.AA01879@meteor.meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.EDU (Michael Tobis) writes: [Talking about a feminist critique of Arnold's "Dover Beach"] I had been read the poem by a woman, and was unaware of the name of its author. (A failure in my own canonical education apparently, but no matter) Accordingly, I had heard the poem as A WOMAN SPEAKING TO A MAN. In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever in the poem of the gender of either the speaker or the listener, as a close rereading, which I warmly recommend to you, will reveal. Maybe so. But isn't the point that the poem is, in fact, taught as an expression of a man toward's a woman? You saw it otherwise. Maybe that's to your credit. But how many actual poems by women which express those kinds of sentiments towards men are in the Canon? I think you do have a point that, in this example of DWM (Dead White Male) literature, we have an expression of a sentiment which need not be exclusive to White Men, and thus might be considered "universal." On the other hand, the fact that the gender of the writer and object of the poem is not clear seems accidental. In a real English class, the genders will be obvious in most writing, either explicitly or by way of background. If only DWM's are read in class, doesn't this tend to reinforce the view that only White Men have agency, and that [because gender *is* known], a certain view of the world (associated with White Men of privilege, but not exlcusively theirs) will be considered universal? larry kolodney -- larry kolodney The past is not dead. It's not even past. lkk@zurich.ai.mit.edu - William Faulkner