Re: [F_minor] intentionalist fallacy yadda yadda

[paul wiener <pwiener@ms.cc.sunysb.edu>]

OK, I was cheating. Of course I agree with you that creative work 
trumps and outlives criticism.  That's not a reason to downgrade 
Wikipedia, though.

Here's a critic whose stated opinions have defined her creative 
influence: Oprah Winfrey.

At 11:23 AM 1/14/2008, Robert Merkin wrote:
> paul wiener wrote:
>
> > Four beloved great critics of the 20th century?
> >
> > Edmund Wilson, Bernard Shaw, James Agee, John Updike.
> >
> > 19th Century?   Henry James,  John Ruskin, William Dean Howells, 
> Mark Twain.
> >
> > .....to name a few of hundreds.
>
> ============
>
> You're cheating or fudging. Perhaps I should have been more explicit 
> -- critics who were almost exclusively critics, whose primary 
> contribution to the arts was (and remains) criticism. So I'll give 
> you Edmund Wilson and John Ruskin, maybe Howells.
>
> The rest -- it's not their criticism that bought them their ticket 
> to creative permanence. Agee's "A Death in the Family" (also the 
> text for one of Samuel Barber's most beautiful compositions, 
> "Knoxville: Summer of 1915"), his screenplays ("The African Queen," 
> "Night of the Hunter"), and his text for "Let Us Now Praise Famous 
> Men" -- this guy was a great critic SECOND. And travelled into the 
> future not for his criticism.
>
> Twain, Shaw, Henry James, Updike likewise. Most well-educated people 
> would ask, "Oh, he was a critic, too?" (I think an American can be 
> considered well-educated and still not subscribe to The New Yorker. 
> You can squeak by with visits to better-stocked doctors' waiting rooms.)
>
> This isn't my choice or preference, it's the world's. At the 
> turnstile to immortality, readers and listeners and art-lovers want 
> your creative work, not your criticism.
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: paul wiener <pwiener@ms.cc.sunysb.edu>
> > To: <bobmerk@earthlink.net>; F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU 
> <F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu>
> > Date: 1/14/2008 10:25:22 AM
> > Subject: Re: [F_minor] intentionalist fallacy yadda yadda
> >
> > Four beloved great critics of the 20th century?
> >
> > Edmund Wilson, Bernard Shaw, James Agee, John Updike.
> >
> > 19th Century?   Henry James,  John Ruskin, William Dean Howells, 
> Mark Twain.
> >
> > .....to name a few of hundreds.
> >
> > Is someone trying to use the intentionalist fallacy to to disprove
> > the value of the Zenph recording?  That would be a little like using
> > it to disprove the value of a digitized copy of the William Morris
> > Canterbury Tales......
> >
> >
> >

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