welcome to my brain

I don't even think this should count for a real blog post, but this song makes me happy when I get stressed out. I wanted to share this video with everyone in our class, because it's awesome, and it might make you happy, too, if you're trying to catch up on blogs or get ready for our final! The pure 80s cheesiness of this video alone will make you smile, guaranteed.

While thinking more about Bordieu's essay and our discussions in class, I have been asking myself this question:

Is the "intellectualism," or "elevated-ness" (not sure if those are even words, but you get my drift) of a piece of art determined by our perception of it?

In other words, could the way in which we consume a piece of art determine the high-ness of that art? I was kind of talking about this before in my Journey post, but I think I was talking more about how I was mad that some random rich people get to determine what good art is. This post is more about the idea that maybe the "good-ness" of a piece of art is determined by how we look at it.

Bordieu says that "a work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which it is encoded," and I think he's right about that. A person who grew up in a poor part of the inner-city probably has the cultural competence to decode a Lil' Wayne rap song, while a person who grew up in a mansion in an affluent area most likely would not have that same cultural competence, therefore, the Lil Wayne song means nothing to him.

That's not really my point, so let me start to make it. I think--and this is my opinion--that most college professors don't listen to rap music (at least, the rap music of today.) I have also heard many people say they don't think rap music is actually music (mostly rich, old white folks) and I don't think it's a stretch to say that most of the CEO's in the business world today probably don't listen to rap, either. To put it in Bordieu's words, rap music is widely considered to be "lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile," and not worth the time of those who can be "satisfied with the sublimated, refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguishes pleasures forever closed to the profane."

But, if someone in the academic world decided to analyze a rap song to find out the cultural meaning, if they looked at it in an intellectual way, does that make the piece of work "refined?" I've heard of that before. Would that rap song then be considered a piece of high art, because it's been intellectually examined and analyzed?

More on this later!

Dr. Powers mentioned something a few weeks ago in class about how Homer might have never even existed, and it got me really interested. No, I'm not talking about Homer J. Simpson, I'm talking about Homer, the ancient Greek epic poet, who wrote the poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. Well, that's what I learned in school, anyway, and that's what I've always believed, because my teachers told me that. Apparently, this has been a widely-debated question for a long time, as it has its own name: The Homeric Question!

The main sub-questions in that question are: Who is Homer? Is the work of "Homer" by one author, or multiple authors? and, by who and when were these works composed?

According to M.L. West's article "The Invention of Homer," the epic poems of Homer are actually the collective work of generations of poets.

So, why should we believe that someone named Homer couldn't have existed? How in the world could someone attempt to prove that? West writes: "Homer is not a traditional Greek name, and hard to account for as such. No person is actually known to have been named Homer from before Hellenistic times." A Wikipedia article on the Homeric question examined the probability that the name Homer reflected the fact that there were multiple authors, not just one person:

"As further evidence for the theory that Homer is really a name for a series of oral-formulas, or equivalent to "the Bard" as applied to Shakespeare, the Greek name Homēros is etymologically noteworthy. The word is identical with the Greek for "hostage". There is a theory that his name was back-extracted from the name of a society of poets called the Homeridae, which literally means "sons of hostages", i.e., descendants of prisoners of war. As these men were not sent to war because their loyalty on the battlefield was suspect, they would not get killed in battles. Thus they were entrusted with remembering the area's stock of epic poetry, to remember past events, in the times before literacy came to the area."

Also, a Wikipedia article (I know, Wikipedia isn't the most reliable, but I think this is pretty accurate) says that an analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the Iliad and Odyssey shows that the poems consist of regular, repeating phrases; even entire verses repeat. This raises the question: "Could the Iliad and Odyssey have been products of Oral-Formulaic Composition, composed on the spot by the poet using a collection of memorized traditional verses and phases?" This oral tradition is typical of epic poetry in a primarily oral culture. And the article says that poets within an oral tradition often create and modify their tales when they perform them, so the chance of one author named Homer actually borrowing pieces from other poets is likely.

So, the chances of Homer actually existing seem to be slim. I'd be interested in doing more research on the viewpoint that Homer did actually exist, because it seems like the research I found mostly focused on proving that he didn't exist.

On a really funny note, when I went to Google images and typed in "Homer" to try and get a picture of what he supposedly looked like, all I could find were pictures of Homer J. Simpson. Awesome! Maybe the creators of "The Simpsons" named him Homer because he's so dumb, and it's funny that he would be named the same name as the wise, classical poet. Haha!

In class the other day, Dr. Powers was talking about the gender connotations of being creative, and how creativity is placed in a few different categories. Let's take a look at this.

Which one of these people writes poetry?
1. The captain of the varsity football team
2. The shy, skinny boy who wears tight pants and eyeliner
3. The manager at McDonald's

Hmm...I wonder which one most people would pick? I don't want to be stereotypical, but I guess I am. I think I'd probably automatically pick the shy, skinny boy who wears tight pants and eyeliner to be the poet out of this group. And why is that? I think because being a poet and a writer is seen as a feminine thing. That's kind of weird, because traditionally, many of the famous writers of the "classics" (whoever picks those, I don't know) are men. If a man is a writer, I almost always automatically assume that they don't like sports. Why is that? I guess it's a product of my upbringing, or of the gender expectations and roles that were placed on me. So it's my impression that men who are literary are not as masculine as men that play sports. (Sorry, Dr. Powers!) I know this isn't true, but it's my first impression when I think of that. Another interesting thing, though, is that artists are thought to be more sensual than non-artists. But maybe this only applies to musicians, or filmmakers, or painters or sculptors? I'm not sure. I just know that my perceptions of gender roles as related to writers and artists are waaayyy off and outdated. Does that jock write poetry? Maybe! Either way, I don't think art, or creating art, is either masculine or feminine.

Here's a video of an artist that absolutely busts down any gender conventions we might have about art. Is he masculine? Is he feminine? Hmm...I'm not sure. But is he awesome? ABSOLUTELY! Go, Boy George!

What is the "best" kind of art? What is the "highest" form of music, or literature, or film? Off the top of my head, I would say that classical music is the highest form of music, the "classics" (which we talked about in class today) are the highest forms of literature, and maybe independent films or intellectual films are the highest form of film. Why do I say this? I guess because it's been ingrained into my head that smart people read/watch/listen to those genres, so I assume it means those are the high genres of art. Is that because "the gatekeeper" told me that? Made me believe that? Is that because my teachers have always exemplified those art forms as being the highest? Probably it's a combination of all of the above.

I definitely don't think that all the books on the NY Times Bestseller List are worth reading, and I absolutely don't think that the videos MTV plays and the songs the radio plays ten times a day are worth listening to. I don't think most of the things in popular culture are, so why are they popular? I can name a few songs that I think are the best songs of all time, because of the way they make me feel: Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", Billy Joel's "Piano Man", anything by Pink Floyd, anything by John Coltrane...the list goes on. Don't laugh at my Journey reference, either. But, anyway, I know that the feelings "Piano Man" evokes in me don't necessarily mean that it's a good song, but can't I be the determiner of what's "good"?

I can't? Wait, why not? Is it because I'm not "educated" enough? I have five years of college under my belt, and will have a bachelor's degree in my hand in a few months. Didn't the ruling, elite class of society brainwash me enough to love a Verdi opera more than "Comfortably Numb"? I guess not. But I digress. By the way, my friend Kristen also thinks "Don't Stop Believin'" could be our national anthem. That's how good it is.

Anyway, those were just rambling, incoherent thoughts, that in no way belong in the world of academia. I have more I want to say about this, because I am definitely perplexed. Why does the ruling class get to determine what we should like? Because they have the money to do it. That's where the money in the agents, the publication, and the promotion of modern literature is. I think. I don't know, it's just a hunch. OK, I'll add on to this later...

Here's the best song in the world. Ever. Better than Mozart or anything else. I'm exaggerating, but I wanted you all to feel the power of Journey.

Walking through the bookstore the other day, I noticed something strange: all I saw, everywhere, were names of authors all around the room. I didn't see really any titles of books, or many pictures on the covers, either; just huge, bold, sometimes even fluorescent names of authors. On the side, here, is an example of a book like this- it's obvious that Danielle Steel wrote it, since her name is so prominently displayed at the top of the cover in bold black. Notice that the title of the book, The House, is at the bottom of the cover, in smaller letters, and is almost disguised by being nearly the same color as the background.
I've noticed this for a long time, actually, and I just think it's kind of obnoxious. Do the authors really think they are that important that they need to put their names that huge on the book cover?

Apparently, Roland Barthes noticed this, too. In "The Death of the Author," he says that this incredible, illogical emphasis on the author is "...the epitome and culmination of capitalist ideology, which has attached the greatest importance to the 'person' of the author." He definitely hit it on the head here: in our capitalistic society, the prestige of the individual is both bankable and desirable. I think this is American individualism at its finest-- any opportunity to put yourself on a pedestal is crucial. Just look at reality television. Even though these people make complete asses out of themselves, just the chance to get on TV and be a "star" and seen by millions of people completely bypasses any sense of dignity. I think I'm getting really far from the original point, but the reality TV thing does relate to the whole capitalist-individualism thing.

Anyway, when reading The Death of the Author, I was under the impression that Barthes was from the 1800s or something, since most of the essays we've read in the Norton Anthology have been by people from the 1800s. I was reading this, thinking, wow! Things must have been the same back then as they are now, in regards to capitalism and the importance of the individual. But then I looked at the year he wrote it, and it was written in 1968. I stand corrected.

So, considering what we've been talking about in class with Structuralism and Romanticism, I think it's safe to say that the Romantics would say that the Author is divine, while a Structuralist would disagree and say that the reader is what's important. Words are just words on a page until the reader reads them and rewrites them in his/her head. I think Barthes would be included in the Structuralist category, considering his dislike for the elevated "importance" of the author. More on this later.

Is the thought what really counts?
OK, let's say you are a female (not to be sexist or anything, but this is purely hypothetical). You hear a knock on the door, and when you open the door, your boyfriend is standing there, beaming. You let him in, wondering what he's smiling about.
"Hi! I thought about buying you flowers today. Isn't that great?!" he says, still smiling.
Would this make you happy? I mean, it's nice that he thought about buying you flowers, but is that really the same thing as actually getting them for you?
That is kind of a vague example, so let me try another one.
It's Valentine's Day, and you found your boyfriend the perfect gift (yes, this is a female speaking. Sorry for the bias, but it's what I know!) and can't wait to give it to him. You don't expect anything big from him, but he's been hinting at getting you this beautiful necklace you've been talking about for a long time. You give your boyfriend the gift you bought him, and he's ecstatic. He seems really excited to give you your gift, so you close your eyes and eagerly wait for him to put that necklace on you.
Well, you sit there with your eyes closed for about five minutes with a stupid smile on your face, and nothing happens. You finally open your eyes, and just look at your boyfriend, waiting for something to happen.
"I thought about getting you that necklace you want...but I didn't...umm..." he says, trailing off. "Isn't it the thought that counts? Huh?"
Again, these aren't really realistic examples. What I'm trying to say is that it ISN'T the thought that counts, with anything. Wimsatt and Beardsley would agree with me.
W & B, in their "intentional fallacy," say that in regards to literature (specifically poetry), the intention of the poet is irrelevant when the reader interprets the poem. Apparently, many poets thought that they could write poems with hidden meaning that only they understand, or they wrote poems that just didn't make sense. If the reader, in searching for the meaning of the poem, can't determine it by him/herself by purely reading the poem, and the reader feels the need to look at biographical information to figure out what the meaning of the poem is, then the poem is rendered to be inadequate. Basically, if there is a distinction between what the poet meant to do, and what the poem actually does, then the poem is ineffective.
So, let's take this poem:

"Riding the bike in the rain
I go to Mr. Bob's house
Apple pie and strudels
The cat
and scrambled eggs and bacon."

Isn't that a wonderful poem? It's so groundbreaking and fresh! What do you think it means?
I'm sure you could pull some kind of random meaning out of it, but it really doesn't make sense. I wrote that amazing piece of work, by the way. And if you wanted to figure out what it meant, you could go into my biography and see that I lived next door to Mr. Bob when I was little, and his family made me apple pie and strudels, with a side of eggs and bacon. Oh, and he had a cat that I liked. After you read that information, you could maybe get what the poem meant.
BUT, if that's what it took to figure out what my poem meant, then that was basically a bad poem. Well, maybe not a bad poem, but it is ineffective. Poems like that are kind of a secret code, and that isn't cool because it isn't public, that's private. There's no way anyone could figure out exactly what I meant by just reading the poem. And, according to W & B, no one should have to figure out what I meant- if the reader couldn't figure it out by reading the poem, then that's just bad.
That's just a way I try to understand the Intentional Fallacy. It's the fallacy of intent. What you intend is irrelevant; what you do is what's relevant. I think this could apply to many different areas of life.

(Like that picture I made? Haha! If you haven't seen the movie The Break Up, that's the picture that's on all the movie posters. Obviously, Thoreau and Emerson were not in it before.)

So, I've been really interested in the relationship between Emerson and Thoreau, so I did a little research. I just looked at a few articles in the JSTOR database- so I know that there are probably millions of other articles out there, and lots of them will probably contest the information I found. It's common knowledge in the field of literary studies that Emerson and Thoreau shared a relationship between the late 1830s and early 1840s, but what I wanted to know is what, exactly, that relationship was like. My own thought, before I looked at these articles, was that Thoreau, being younger, looked up to Emerson, and Emerson thought of Thoreau as a kind of protege- so I thought it was a mutually enjoyable, close relationship.

Interestingly, John Brooks Moore and Robert Sattelmeyer each have very different opinions of this.

About the relationship between Emerson and Thoreau, Moore, in his 1932 article, "Thoreau Rejects Emerson," writes that it was assumed that the two men had a close relationship, because of their similar views and ideas. But, this was not the case.

"A curious witness to the comparative dominance of Thoreau in their relationship is to be found in their journals. There are over sixty important references to Thoreau in Emerson's Journals; while in Thoreau's Journal there are only between twenty and thirty really significant references to Emerson, most of them very brief. Further, it ought to be noted, Thoreau's references to Emerson are often ironic and entirely lack the tone of discipleship."

He goes on to say that Emerson, in his Journal, often quoted something from Thoreau and glowingly commends it. Apparently, Emerson praised and complimented Thoreau often, which caused Thoreau to complain:

"I should value E's. praise more, which is always so discriminating, if there were not some alloy of patronage and and hence of flattery about it..."

Hmm. Interesting. I'm actually not too sure what that means, but it doesn't sound as if Thoreau was that excited about Emerson's continued praises of him. Anyway, Moore's main point is that while Emerson looked at Thoreau with a sort of awe and praise, and Thoreau looks at Emerson as nothing really special. Moore writes that Thoreau did, once, find Emerson fascinating, but that view of him disappeared rapidly as time passed.

OK, so on the other hand, Sattelmeyer, in his 1989 article "When He Became My Enemy: Emerson and Thoreau, 1848-1849," has a completely different, and opposite, view than Moore. Sattelmeyer writes:

"Emerson and Thoreau became seriously estranged from each other in 1850...the impact of their falling out appears to have been more personally devastating to Thoreau, for Emerson was clearly the great companion of his early years, the one on whom he had most staked his intense aspirations for a transcendental friendship."

That's interesting. But what is even more interesting is what Sattelmeyer says about the importance of Emerson to Thoreau:

"For Emerson, on the other hand, Thoreau, though clearly a central figure in the older man's life, was finally only one of several younger friends and proteges who ultimately proved to be personal and professional disappointments to him."

OK. So that's basically the complete opposite of what Moore writes. Moore says that Emerson deeply admired Thoreau and made tons of glowing references to him in his Journal, but Thoreau was the one who was not too enamored with Emerson, and was actually pretty annoyed by him. Sattelmeyer says that Emerson was the one who was annoyed with Thoreau, who he thought was a disappointment and a failure, and that when the two men stopped talking, Thoreau was absolutely devastated because Emerson was, in fact, his BFF.

This whole thing makes me laugh. It's like Emerson and Thoreau had groupies, and the groupies fought (and are still fighting over) who didn't like who. I take that back- I guess that's kind of mean. Some Thoreau or Emerson scholar might stumble upon this blog and get all upset because I called them a groupie. I'm sorry.

Anyway, I think my personal conclusion is that Emerson and Thoreau liked each other, enjoyed each other's company, but when Thoreau got too popular, Emerson got all bitter, couldn't take it and he hit the road. That's what I think. I could be wrong, and I probably need to do more research before I make a bold statement like that, but that's my conclusion from the extremely intriguing research I've done.

As I was reading T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent," I couldn't help but notice how much his views differ from Emerson's. I guess that's because Eliot was considered to be an "anti-Romantic," and Emerson was considered to be a Romantic...so of course they're different. But, those differences are still really interesting.

While Eliot loved tradition, and sees incredible value in being conscious of the past and tradition, Emerson hated tradition and saw it as submitting to authority, and being the opposite of creative (which is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to anyone. He pokes fun at the "umpires of taste," who have knowledge of already admired and esteemed pictures and sculptures- basically, traditionally revered pictures and sculptures. Eliot, on the other hand, pokes fun at the fact that just saying the word "tradition" is commonly perceived as a negative thing. He also says that "the most individual parts of [a poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously." Regarding reading and books, Emerson says that reading "looks backward but not forward" and talks about young men growing up in libraries, reading the classics, and they end up being bookworms instead of "Man Thinking," which is what they should be striving to be. On the other hand, Eliot says: "Someone said: 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know." Emerson was probably rolling in his grave when he heard that!

One really important distinction, I think, is that while Emerson and Shelley (yes, I'm bringing Shelley into this!) laud the Poet (deserves a capital 'P') and say that the Poet is the "quasi-divine seer," the essence of truth, and who every human should look to in order to see what's beyond this world, Eliot says that the author should be irrelevant. He writes that the life of the poem should be in the poem, not the poet- essentially, he says that a good poem stands alone and the author isn't important. To me, that's the most important distinction between Eliot, the anti-Romantic, and Shelley and Emerson, the Romantics/Transcendentalists (which one were they? I guess I should know this....if you know this, let me know!

So that's what I think. I was thinking that Eliot and Emerson had some similar views on some things, but I couldn't find evidence to back that up. I really did think I found something when I was reading a few days ago, but now I can't find it. Hmm....

Here's a video of Eliot reading "The Waste Land." It's pretty cool to hear his actual voice, reading what is thought of as the most influential poem.

What's better: reading, or writing?

That's kind of a "what came first: the chicken or the egg?" question, because don't you have to learn how to read before you can learn how to write? Hmm...is that how it goes? Not sure. It's tough, because in school, I think we are taught that both reading and writing is important. When I was little, my dad read to me a lot, and when I learned to read, I read a lot, and eventually I became a good writer. I still read a lot, and I've found that because of this, I am able to think critically about the ideas of the books I read, and consequently, I begin to cultivate my own ideas that kind of spin off of those ideas. I think Emerson would say that this is a good thing, and that's what reading should do.

So back to that question. Is it more important to be a voracious reader of books, or to be a skilled writer? To Emerson, and I think most of the Transcendentalists, creation is divine. In "The American Scholar", Emerson says that the "theory of books is noble." He discusses how books are the best type of influence of the past, and how books can inspire the oppressed multitude to open their eyes to Reason and outcry. This made me think that, to Emerson, reading is something to be praised. Then, on the contrary, he writes: "Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst." He refers to the English dramatic poets being "Shakespearized" for years. When we simply read the thoughts of others, and just absorb those thoughts and assume that that's the way things are and accept those ideas and thoughts, that's not creative. Even those English poets that read Shakespeare and actually were inspired to write poetry, they simply regurgitated what Shakespeare did, and basically imitated him. That still isn't being creative.

So, what are books good for, then? To inspire, Emerson writes. What is divine is not reading books- what is divine is creation. Reading an amazing book, or poem, or play, gives us joy and gives us insight into the minds of great thinkers of the past. But reading books and absorbing those ideas should inspire us to create thoughts of our own, and, even better, to write those thoughts down, and in turn, inspire others. We can inspire and be inspired- we can all be connected intellectually. (That is a very Transcendentalist thing to say!) I think maybe this is how reading and writing and being a Poet could actually improve the world. When we read, we can write; when we write, we become divine; we become seers, we become intellectuals- we become, as Emerson would say, "the American Scholar." Well, maybe it isn't that easy, but you know what I'm getting at. We become "Man Thinking," (or should it be Man or Woman Thinking?) and not the bookworm.

In conclusion, I'd say that reading and writing are both equally important. Each has its own function, and I think each is dependent on the other. A writer must also be a reader, and reader must also be a writer.

One of the cool things about college is realizing that things you've studies in different classes can, sometimes, be related, and then you find that you are actually learning something new. I'll explain. In my Literature and the Environment class, I'm reading Thoreau's Walden. And in Literary Criticism, we read "The Poet", by Emerson, for class today. While reading "The Poet", I noticed a lot of similarities between Emerson and Thoreau- so much so, that I am starting to think that the two were not only (obviously) members of the Transcendentalist school, but that they were, in fact, best friends! OK, that might be stretching it a little bit, but what I'm trying to say is that Emerson and Thoreau had extremely similar views and thoughts, as evidenced in their writing. A lot of you might be yawning at this point, because you already knew this, and I'm sure Dr. Powers already knew this, but I didn't! It's a very exciting feeling, because no one explicitly told me that Emerson and Thoreau actually were friends, so I feel as if I discovered something. So if you already knew this, just humor me and follow along. I think I might also do some independent research on the similarities and relationship between Thoreau and Emerson, but that post will come in a few days.

There are a lot of passages from Walden and The Poet that I would like to talk about, but I think that would take a whole lot longer than I anticipated, so I'll just talk about a few things I saw. A main idea that both Emerson and Thoreau discuss is the idea that if people focus on material things, and model their lives around them and worship them, then they will never find joy and truth in the simple, natural beauties of life. Emerson writes: "If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pine woods." Similarly, in Walden, Thoreau writes: "Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind...We worship not the Graces, but Fashion." In another vein, Thoreau says: "...a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper," while Emerson writes, "[The poet's] cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water."OK, so this focus on simplicity and authenticity is, undoubtedly, a prime trait of Romanticism and Transcendentalism, and that could obviously explain the similarities between the writing of Thoreau and Emerson. And I'm sure that is an adequate explanation, but there were so many other similarities in what I read than the few I listed above. So, more on that in my independent research later.

This kid really knows what Transcendalism means.

I tried to think of a better title for this blog post, but I couldn't. So, I guess this will have to do!

I really enjoyed reading the article "What Is Literary Theory?" I guess I enjoyed it because I don't really know anything about literary theory. I probably should, as this is my 5th (yes, my 5th!) year in college, and although I might have actually learned some things about literary theory throughout my college experience so far, I can't really recall anything specific. So this was a new experience for me.
To start, I want to put it out there that I've always had problems understanding literary criticism. I had no idea it was a part of literary theory (am I supposed to capitalize those terms? hmm...) To help me understand the different kinds of literary criticism better, I always thought of the different kinds of critcisms as different lenses. So, in this article, the author talks about how Chinua Achebe, looking through the "postcolonial" lens, says that Conrad's Heart of Darkness "fails to grant full humanity to the Africans it depicts," and that perspective is created from a postcolonial literary theory that presupposes a history of exploitation and racism (straight from the article, but I don't know how to cite that). Kind of like a camera with all different color lenses that you can switch- you can switch to a red lens, and when you look through the viewfinder, everything you see will be red. Switch to a blue lens, and everything you see will be blue. Switch to a feminist critic's lens, and you'll see all the parts a feminist critic would be interested in...that might all sound really elementary to a lot of people in this class, but for me, it's the easiest way to understand literary criticism. And if I'm wrong, PLEASE tell me!

One form of literary criticism I think is really interesting is the one that Charles Augustin Saint Beuve talked about- that a work of literature could be entirely explained and and analyzed in terms of the biography of the author. I can understand this, because I don't see how an author could completely take him/herself out of the literature they are writing. So, I think that examining the life of the author is a valid way to analyze a literary work. I mean, I'm sure Proust's point of view that the "details of the life of the artist are utterly transformed in the work of art" (also taken directly from the article) is also a good point, but I think I need to read more about that to know enough to have an opinion about it.

Anyway, do you think the Author means nothing - that his or her work stands alone in the face of interpretation? I'd like to research more about this.
OK, that's all for now...bye!