Nancy and Packaging Theory ( or wrapping it up)

Boy am I glad I read Wendy Bishop first! I could understand most of what she was expressing. As each article has become more difficult to wrap my head around, i feel like the hiker hat starts off out of shape and out of breath, wondering when we will get to the top ( or the end). BUT if the hiker climbs long enough she begins to get in a rhythm and by the end she is feeling stronger and is almost ready to take on the next small mountain.

Here's another comparison. When I read ( tried to read) this last article I felt like the student of the losing side - the one trodding through the current-traditional paradigm. She was asked to read and write about abstract topics that she knew next to nothing about.

So the first of three distinct moments was the moment of practical criticism, and the next wave of anthologies - Adams, Kaplan, Lodge and others marks a subtle shift. I'm not sure what the third was.

Amongst this spate of anthologies seemed to have come a closure of theory; "Theory is no longer a contested domain, a model vying for prominence, but has arrived as a fully licensed paradigm." Now we have a canon to draw from. Is this to say that we now have a field of anthologies ripe for picking and there is plenty to put away for a cold winter's day?

the author has even better metaphors like the presidential hall- of Fame anthologies and the food group.

I knew I was lost when I read,"I see the history of critism and theory not only as a march of ideas, a progression of thought existing somewhere in the contemplative ether of intellect."

I thought, " We're not in Kansas anymore Toto!"

Then I read , "To diverge briefly, the second grouping of theory anthologies - the school/ approaches model- is the strongest precisely on this ground, offering theory as a system of alignments rather than statements of great Men." So Instead of great Men, we have Great ideas??

Finally I was confused about how feminism was being treated. "Feminism is treated as an equal grouping, akin to reader response or deconstruction." Then it says current theory anthologies maintain the institutional BRACKETING of feminism among the domain theory, acceptable as a literary subgroup - but not as a parallel configuration." ??? Is that a good thing?

I am sorry but I could not construct enough meaning for me to take much away from this article.