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?"

If it's a good teacher, then the result is to test and explore a viewpoint, rather than prove. I liked when great teachers shared insights and prodded discussion which moved me out of my comfort zone. I mean, I already knew what I thought and felt, being exposed to others' ideas could be illuminating and exciting and challenging in the best kind of way. However, I had way too many teachers of the kind Deb and Hil are describing, who seemed bent on destroying any insight rather than fostering it.

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

Oh, lord, we're right back to why I left Literary in the first place. Or, at least, not entirely; I'm fine with "explain" as a concept, but "justify"? No and no and no.

I'm hugely in the minority, but I'm sticking to it. My reaction to language, to paint, to sculpture, to dance, to music, to the results of any individual creative endeavour, are purely in the gut. I do not feel remotely obliged to justify my gut reaction to anyone.

If I'm writing a review, or a blurb for another writer's work? That's something I have been asked to do, have agreed to do, and, once having accepted the onus, am therefore formally obliged to justify or explain.

If the person whose work I'm reviewing asks for an explanation, I feel I owe them that, because I chose to give the review in the first place. But mostly, they're pretty damned happy with "this one got me right where I live - the emotions, to me, are transparently honest, the language is beautiful, the characters are so alive that I can hear them breathing."

Which is NOT analysis, under my definition. It's purely visceral.

I'm fine with "explain" as a concept, but "justify"? No and no and no.

I can see where the words "justify" and "prove" get your back up. These words have connotations of "you're wrong" in them.