I mks in Yeview POSSIBLE STORMS - University of British Columbia

OPINIONS & NOTESelse" ? You say that you're the last personto believe that anyone can be objective,and yet if you're not calling for objectivity,what are you calling for other than thesort of (self) consciousness that permitsone to place one's literary judgement ina personal (affective) context? This issomething like the distinction betweencant and honesty. The affective fallacywould seem to be a fallacy if it is indeedfallacious, i.e., "cant." The term seemsrather like "murder," defined as "wrongfulkilling." To equate killing with murderis, at best, inaccurate. It all dependson how one defines "wrongful." Toequate the affective with fallacy either dependson how one defines "fallacy," orit's an error in logic.. . . So to representations of sex ... ifthis is everybody's closet, Bill, then I verymuch think everybody should look in it.... I do not offer "directness" or "honestopenness" as a defence. I don't reallythink a defence is necessary. But somesemblance of understanding is. I am suspiciousof indirection in sexual matters,artistically, for the same reason that I refusedto present Sam from the "outside".... I am no more willing to trust the audiencean inch in this regard that I am inassuming that their view of Sam will beperceptive of the real character ratherthan their preconceptions about veterans.Both in the sex scenes and in my representationof Sam from the inside, I tookthe risk of putting people off, but I farpreferred that to putting them on, or allowingthem to put Sam on as a kindof debased icon to place comfortablyamongst their existing shibboleths. . . .This is perhaps a confrontational attitude,but it is not finally an ungentle orunkind one. I simply believe, artistically,that one must have the thing itself. That'snot the same as arguing "directness" as akind of socioethical imperative transplantedinto art. In fact, a lot of what I'vedone is so bloody indirect that hardly anybody'sseen it yet, much less grappled withit. What I'm saying is based in Stevens,noted as an aridly intellectual poet, whichI think is another major misreading ofthings. I do not believe that seeing or feelingis believing. But I do believe that believingwithout seeing and feeling is abstractand dangerous. That is not so mucha notion of "felt thought" as it is a fairlymystical notion that "thought" is physical,and it's not unrelated to Einstein's famousequation. . . .KEITH то PAYERLE, ι November 1989... In using the phrases "intentionalfallacy" and "affective fallacy," I wasn'tunderwriting them, as it were, but usingthem as ways to define a problem. Personally,I don't think one can be rigid inthese matters. . . . Ultimately, one canonly (legitimately) judge what is there,but to explore an author's intention is, forme, thoroughly legitimate as an initial criticalprocedure: it can help one to understanda work of art, though one's evaluationshould not be dependent upon it. Asfor "affective fallacy," it can be a fallacy,as in the case of a radio station beingflooded with wreaths when a characterdies in a soap opera. . . . On the otherhand, as Thomas Hardy saw, the deathbedof anyone is the fifth act of a tragedy.Of course we are affected by the storiesof Lear, Tess, etc., and our "literaryjudgment" cannot but contain this response.But I am reminded at this pointof how moving Death of a Salesmanseemed when I first saw it, but how disillusionedI felt recently when I saw aseemingly competent performance — becausethe whole construction and writingseemed so tawdry.. . . The matter of monotony in art isa very complicated one. (I would preferto say "monotonous" rather than "boring,"and should have made the distinctionin my previous letter.) Polonius is a222