On Failure

[ecg1810]

Meh, I do like picking fights with lit folks; no irony here. It's not a personal or vitriolic fight, though. I do this over beers with my literature friendemies all the time!

I do see some overlap between the two fields, at least in an ideal situation. But I can count on two fingers the number of literature students I've met who can discuss the most basic concepts of rhetoric, grammar, and linguistics. Hell, I work with a UCLA grad and a UCI grad, and neither of them can explain when to use "who" or "whom." They read plenty of literature, but they've never bothered to figure out what "generative grammar" means or who Kenneth Burke is or, for Christs' sake, why ethos shouldn't rhyme with Cheetohs.

But I do agree that, ideally, the fields would complement each other. From the analysis of phonemes to the analysis of poetry, it is a long continuum of language use. The best class I ever took was Rhetoric and Poetics, which was nothing but rhetorical analyses of literature. Great stuff. But I don't know a single program that invites this kind of study at the dissertation level. I'll glandly stand corrected, though!

No real animosity here. And anyway, rhet/comp is the underdog, remember? Just trying to keep it scrappy.

Thanks for clearing things up, Rock, and sorry for any misunderstanding on my part. I'm glad to hear you're a fan of the reciprocal "complementary theory" we've discussed in this thread. *knuckle tap*

Edited March 22, 2011 by ecg1810