On one level, it is easy to see both Murry’s humanism and Woolf’s visions as a means of self-promotion, resting as they do on a personal engagement with the text rather than the detached, analytical methods of the newly professionalised humanities. This, of course, leaves both Woolf and Murry open to many of the charges levelled at literary criticism when its entry into university syllabuses was first mooted: that it … Read the rest
Tag: Linguistics
Woolf and Murry: Impressionism and authority
Woolf’s opposition to scholarship and the canon, and her upholding of a method of reading that was emphatically non-institutional, make her search for an authorial persona and an appropriate critical method- ology seem less the product of gender alone than the result of a complex set of intellectual and institutional factors, in which gender neverthe- less played an important part. It is certainly significant that there are parallels between Woolf’s … Read the rest
Quick Sermons
Quick Sermons
Audience Reactions to Sermons
Medieval theoreticians and practitioners adapted the Classical arts of rhetoric – the artes dictaminis (letter-writing), artes poetriae (poetry), and artes praedicandi (speaking) – to their specific needs. The focus of the artes or ars praedicandi became the province of preachers, lawyers, and rulers, who learned the art of composing and delivering their sermons, arguments, and speeches. Very little, however, is known about the reception … Read the rest
Reading Actively
Most people read in a relaxed, almost passive way. They let the story or poem carry
them along without asking too many questions. To write about literature well, however,
you need to read actively, paying special attention to various aspects of the text.
This special sort of attention will not only deepen your enjoyment of the story, poem,
or play but will also help generate the information and ideas that … Read the rest