December | 2007 | Jardinière

White flags and name tags

December 21, 2007 at 12:55 pm (Academic, Family, Public relations)

I think I’ve got to come to terms with the fact that I am too overwhelmed, both personally and professionally, to keep this up in good faith.

Next week is the MLA, though. What a year it’s been, eh?

I’ve decided I will wear my nametag this year, specifically so you — yes you — can make this virtual arrangement a real one. That is, if you catch my name in the corner of your eye — or come to our panel, Friday at 7:15, Columbia Room, Hyatt Regency — please, come up and introduce yourself!

Will I pimp my ride. . . ? We’ll see. I’m bringing the kids; I’m sure my daughter could work some glitter magic.

In the meantime, have a restful and joyous holiday.

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Clippings

There is a sentence in Dr. Johnson's "Life of Gray" which might well be written up in all those rooms, too humble to be called libraries, yet full of books, where the pursuit of reading is carried on by private people. ". . . I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers, uncorrupted by literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of learning, must finally be decided all claim to poetical honours." It defines their qualities; it dignifies their aims; it bestows upon a pursuit which devours a great deal of time, and yet is apt to leave behind it nothing very substantial, the sanction of a great man's approval.

The common reader, as Dr. Johnson implies, differs from the critic and the scholar. He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole-- a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing. He never ceases, as he reads, to run up some rickety and ramshackle fabric which shall give him the temporary satisfaction of looking sufficiently like the real object to allows of affection, laughter, and argument. Hasty, inaccurate, and superficial, snatching now this poem, now that scrap of old furniture without caring where he finds it or what nature it may be so long as it serves his purpose and rounds out his structure, his deficiencies as a critic are too obvious to be pointed out; but if he has, as Dr. Johnson maintained, some say in the final distribution of poetical honours, then, perhaps, it may be worth while to write down a few of the ideas and opinions which, insignificant in themselves, yet contribute to so mighty a result.

"The Common Reader" (1925) Virginia Woolf

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