But Deb, I think you're conflating two things, and I don't think that's a good idea. There is this:

Then we do agree on the definitions. I just never wanted any help in thinking about my take on what I've read.

and then there is this:

the opposing arrogance, there: why would their take be any more valid than mine?

The first part? Sure. You read your own way; you're not interested in the stuff of literary connections and references and all that. That's fine. But it's whether or not you find analysis useful to you is not the same as whether analysis is arrogant. Arrogant analysts definitely exist, and they're people to avoid; but calling all analysis arrogant is as reductive and dismissive as saying "all romance is bad".

I'm not asking you to read analysis, if it's not your thing; but I wish you wouldn't call it names in front of those of us who enjoy it.

And if that was the way it had ever been presented, I might not have had to restrain myself fropm standing up and telling the soi disant "expert" that his or her shit stank just like everyone else's. But it wasn't.

I can completely grok your POV if that's how things were presented to you. Completely. My back would have been up if someone had presented something in a "My way is the One True Way" mode.

Since I'm working on getting my teaching certificate in H.S. English/Theatre, it's nice to get a reminder on how to present literary analysis. I'm lucky that I had good teachers who were of the "This is my viewpoint. If you have another and can prove it, wonderful" school of litcrit.

Allyson, there are a couple of people here, and when I read their stuff for free, I feel like I am stealing. You are one.

Do you have a particular piece you want read, and for which you want feedback? I love to read you. You breathe life into your words--give them blood, and a heartbeat.

But it's whether or not you find analysis useful to you is not the same as whether analysis is arrogant. Arrogant analysts definitely exist, and they're people to avoid; but calling all analysis arrogant is as reductive and dismissive as saying "all romance is bad"

I don't think all analysis is bad. I'll listen to it from people who can actually do some of what it is they get paid to talk about. I spend a couple of hours a week on the phone to London with Roz Kaveney; she is an analysis queen, and we have lively conversations on it.

But she knows, when dealing with me, what my boundaries are, and she respects them. As a fourteen-year-old in a classroom, having my own gut-level take on Hamlet and having to listen to a little man waving his Oxbridge cred about like a handkerchief and insisting, for three straight months, that the only thing that mattered in the play was the homoerotic subtext?

He's being paid to do that, Nutty. And as a student - may I add, one with a brain, thank you, and one with opinions that are no less valid than his, despite the credentials - I had no right to stand up and tell him just how and why he was ruining the play for me. Believe me, I know. I tried it. Got kicked out of his class for it - he didn't want feedback on his opinions, he just wanted a captive audience, and he had one.

I'm not asking you to read analysis, if it's not your thing; but I wish you wouldn't call it names in front of those of us who enjoy it.

OK, now I'm confused, and rather edgy. I didn't start any of the conversations about it; my comments are in response to other comments. Are you saying that it's ok for the proponents of litcrit to effectively bully me out of Literary (ironic, in and of itself, now I think of it) because my opinion doesn't match theirs, but that expressing my own dislike of it is somehow not equally acceptable? And if that's not what you're saying, could you please clarify?

I'm lucky that I had good teachers who were of the "This is my viewpoint. If you have another and can prove it, wonderful" school of litcrit.

I had a bunch of those. I also had a few who were of the "My view is right, yours is wrong" school, and I got terrible grades in those classes, because, first, I couldn't restrain myself from raising my hand with "But couldn't it also be seen as...?" questions, even after it was abundantly clear that the teacher hated it, because I really have a total inability to not give my point of view in academic discussions, and also because I'd hand in papers with my own interpretations, because I considered it both lazy and dishonest to hand in a paper with what I knew the professor wanted to see when it wasn't what I wanted to write.

t edit: x-post.

"This is my viewpoint. If you have another and can prove it, wonderful"

See, with fiction, that stops my ability to deal with said teacher right there.

Fiction is just that. A novel is someone else's landscape, someone else's dreamscape, someone else's heartbreak or historical distillation or personal triumph, filtered through their ability to use language as a tool.

So how on earth can anyone ask someone to "prove" a viewpoint about something that's purely the result of creativity?

This is where it lost me.

I usually look at it as "justify" or "explain" rather than "prove."

I don't think all analysis is bad. I'll listen to it from people who can actually do some of what it is they get paid to talk about.

You seem to think that all literary analysis done by people who don't write fiction is bad, or possibly that all people who write literary analysis but not fiction are arrogant. And, as someone with a fairly good analytical brain who nevertheless does not write fiction (don't have stories in my head, never have), that does raise my hackles a bit.

I also had a few who were of the "My view is right, yours is wrong" school, and I got terrible grades in those classes, because, first, I couldn't restrain myself from raising my hand with "But couldn't it also be seen as...?" questions, even after it was abundantly clear that the teacher hated it, because I really have a total inability to not give my point of view in academic discussions, and also because I'd hand in papers with my own interpretations, because I considered it both lazy and dishonest to hand in a paper with what I knew the professor wanted to see when it wasn't what I wanted to write.

Hil just completely described my 11th grade Honors English class. Hated it. Hated that I hated it. I don't think I got terrible grades, but I got Bs when I'd never had anything less than an A. It had been my favorite subject, until Ms. W. She ruined so many books for me. She ruined reading for me, for a (very short) time. And she was wrong.

So how on earth can anyone ask someone to "prove" a viewpoint about something that's purely the result of creativity?

Yes. This. I like how Hil puts it--justify--here's why I see what I see. It's what I enjoyed about our Buffy and Angel discussions. There were almost as many viewpoints as there are Buffistas. I liked the discussion on that level--"here's what I saw," and "Oh, really, here's what I saw." I loved that people could come to the table and leave us 50 different views of the same episode. That's the sort of analysis I really grove on. My English analysis class? Not so much.

I usually look at it as "justify" or "explain" rather than "prove."

Much better word choices, Hil. Thanks. It's all about being able to answer the question, "Why do you think that?"