High Level Literary Theory and the Amateur

I should have noticed when I read Lentricchia's "Confessions of an Ex-Literary Critic" years ago, but I've realized recently why I can't get on board, at least not all the way, with the various "hermeneutics of suspicion" movements: I'm just not jaded enough.

Perhaps, years from now, when Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton have said to me all they have to say (may the day never come!), when Dickens ceases to shock and shame me into awareness of the poor (may my heart never be so hard!), when Ovid and Sophocles stop looking so darn classical in my starstruck eyes (may I go blind first!)--perhaps then I'll be interested in their Marxist "secret agendas" or in their "deep structural" oppressive characters. Perhaps when that day comes, I'll be able to join in the ranks of the Wordsworth critics so convinced that they've got him whipped when it comes to avoiding self-delusion.

A pity that day will be.

For now my hermeneutics have to be something more like a "hermeneutics of Malorian worship." When one knight in Morte d' Arthur extolled the worth of a superior, through words and through symbolic actions such as bowing and presenting arms, Malory without hesitation called that action "worship." Now I'm not talking about the nasty latria stuff that gets people in a bind about idol-latria and such. No, just the acknowledgment that Malory and Marlowe and Herbert and Coleridge are more worthy knights than Gilmour.

Perhaps this hermeneutical stance will work its way into my dissertation or research. Maybe not. But that's three blog posts in two days--my little mind must be bearing some crazy fruit!

N.T. Wright, Again

I just finished the second volume of N.T. Wright's series Christian Origins and the Question of God, and Jesus and the Victory of God was just as great as the first volume. Wright engages and critiques many scholarly commonplaces and checks the excesses of post-deistic "orthodoxy" on his way to a picture of Jesus that at once takes into account all of the disparate parts of the synoptic gospels and yet, or perhaps as a consequence, leaves Jesus a truly compelling, mysterious, and human figure.

With regards to Jesus' vocation, Wright demonstrates that the role of an apocalyptic Jewish prophet is the starting point from which his teachings and symbolic actions make most sense. Proceeding from there, he shows quite nicely how the prophetic vocation expands in the person of Jesus until he becomes a symbolic embodiment of YHWH's purposes and even the embodiment of YHWH's own self on earth.

Wright argues that the transition between first-century, pre-Rabbinic Judaism and first-century, Jewish Christianity needs a middle term, and he spends the bulk of his six-hundred-sixty-two-page book demonstrating that Jesus, as known primarily through the synoptics, is that middle term. When he's done, it seems the only sensible thing to think.

I've got Wright's next book, The Resurrection of the Son of God, on order from amazon, so I'll be digging into it as the semester starts. I can hardly wait.

Back from the Road

It doesn't seem like a week since we've been back in Georgia--the month of July just flew. Micah will be five months old in just over a week, and Mary and I will be back in our classrooms.

On the reading front, I've got about fifteen cantos of Dante and a chapter of N.T. Wright I'd like to dust off before I go all-Shakespeare for a few months. On the other hand, I have yet to get digging on the new freshman comp textbook--I've got ideas about what I'd like to do with that class this year, but nothing saved yet.

The nice thing is that I've got a laptop now (typing on it right now), so I'll be able to work on those things in places other than my own computer desk and the assigned computer labs around UGA's campus. I'm still getting used to the smaller keyboard and haven't yet broken out the little mouse I bought with it, but the mobility should be just wonderful.

I'll probably wait until I finish one or the other book to start commenting again; for each I've got some things in mind to write but haven't yet solidified them.

Micah with his cousins Analice and Adam

Micah enjoying time with Grandma Burd

The younger generation of the Burd grandchildren and great-grandchildren look on (kinda) for a University of Georgia apparel shot

Micah and his cousin Elizabeth

Micah and Hailey enjoying the afternoon

Micah gets ready for his first swim (I'll get the redeye out before I send this one to family)

Checking things out with Aunt Debi

Micah, now in Pennsylvania, with Aunt Susan

He's in for years of heartbreak...

Micah gears up for his first Cubs game on WGN radio with Uncle Ryan, Dad, and Grandpa Gilmour (he slept through it; the Cubs lost)

With Mom and Aunt (or cousin on some level) Rachel

Playing with Great Grandma Quick

Four generations of Gilmours

At the restaurant with Denise

Waking up (a bit) for Grandpa Gilmour

Micah's sleepy Indiana debut with Grandma Gilmour

Road Trip

Tomorrow I preach my first sermon in two and a half years, load up the car, and take off for Indiana. I'm already realizing that this is going to be a catch-22; if Micah sleeps at night, he's going to be awake and mad he's in a car seat all day. If he sleeps in the car, he's going to be awake and expecting Mom and Dad to be awake all night. There's just no winning. But perhaps it won't be so bad--it's just my first road trip as Dad.