Postmodern Lit Crit, or “Burn Your Humanities Degree”

So some crank deconstructionist has decided to read Dante and just ignore all that crap about theology. He explains:

“Not aimed at excising theological concerns from Dante, this approach instead attempts to break out of the hermeneutic guidelines that Dante structured into his poem and that have resulted in theologized readings whose outcomes have been overdetermined by the poet.”

Translation: Pay no attention to what the poet says about or through his work. Pay attention to me, a scholar on the make in the deconstructionist academy of the decadent West. I’m trying to make a buck here and get accepted into the guild of the postmodern godless scholars.

John C. Wright, to whom I sent this excerpt and my translation replies:

Oddly enough, I have written an examination of Barolini’s work, and my work is not aimed at the critical concerns from Barolini, but instead attempts to break out of the literaturist guidelines that Barolini structured into his essay and that have resulted in literarary-criticism readings whose outcomes have been overdetermined by the critic.

My book is called SAUCE FOR THE GANDER: political determinations in the wholesale bullshit disguised as literary criticism in Barolini.

I admit I did not read Barolini’s book, but I feel no need to, since my literary theory says that authors who write meaning to be understood, like Dante, should be read to be understood; whereas authors who write meaning to misunderstand others and lead others into misunderstanding, should be taken at face value, with hellish seriousness, and be misunderstood as deliberately as they misunderstand, all so that the angels might be moved to laughter at the comical injustice attempted.

We live in an era specially devoted to intellectual perversion no less than sexual ones.

The modern academy is largely filled now with people who hold conferences in which they get together to present papers full of 30 pages of closely reasoned prose arguing that language has no meaning. Then they break for lunch, and you can be damn sure that when the bill comes, they will have no pretenses that the tab has no meaning.