Home Schools Run By Well-Meaning Amateurs

NEA ^ | By Dave Arnold

[bornacatholic]

she was precocious :)

[bornacatholic]

I gotta jet. I've gotta cook for my Bride

[Borges]

Sorry I just don't buy the God/Author comparisons. :-)

Besides no one is questioning the author's intentions. I'm sure they knows what they meant and their intentions cannot be questioned. And a biographer or psychologist can deal with that. It reduces literature to a veiled form of autobiography. A literary scholar has to go by what's on the page.

[bornacatholic]

what's bred in the bones :)

[bornacatholic]

So, according to you, Swift's "A Modest Proposal" can be understood by the critic to be a serious proposal.

[Borges]

He wouldn't make much hay with that. Historical context matters it's just not the only thing that matters. There have been such interpretive conundrums over the centuries. People took Goethe's 'The Sorrow's Of Young Werther' seriously when he intended it to be a send up of Rosseau's ideas. They ended up emulating the titular character and killing themselves. Oops. :-)

But decontextualizing art is done all the time. As social conditions change so does the way art is recieved. Can you imagine Dickens's reaction to a contemporary Victorian Professor who marvels at his use of dust as symbolism in 'Our Mutual Friend'? He'd be baffled.

[Oberon]

But decontextualizing art is done all the time.

Because grasping context is so difficult. It's a huge job, and you can never be quite sure you've got it.

It's one of the reasons I'm interested in history: it helps me to understand old art.

[Sopater]

Dave Arnold, a member of the Illinois Education Association, is head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois

The guy who wrote this article is the "head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois"? Very impressive credentials... I'm sure he didn't get acquire such high achievements as a homeschooler. He must be the product of the highly trained professionals in the public education system.