In the preamble to his 2009 book Vie de lettre, William Marx poses the guiding question of his study: "What is a lettre?" (the word ishard to translate from the French: certainly not simply someone who is literate, but not exactly a scholar or academic, much less ahumanist - rather a member of the literati, someone whose life is devoted to books, maybe a 文人, but which would include acontemporary literature professor - ideally]: "Someone whose physical and intellectual existence is ordered around texts and books:living among them, living from them, employing his or her own life to make them live and, of course, to read them." You areattempting to enter this life, to become a lettre(e). This is a very strange thing to do! But what exactly does it mean? "Literati format the same time the basis of a civilization (they guarantee its continuity) and a destructive instance, a support and a menace: theypermit the constitution of an order but participate in its contestation.... Such is the true role of the practice and teaching ofJiterature today: to maintain active the double postulation of literature considered simultaneously as an expression of the real andas power of tearing away from this real; to allow oneself to be moved by these texts that have constructed our world, which are us,and at the same time are not us - or to demolish [that is, critique] them, which amounts to the same thing: we must leave open adoor to negation - the difference between culture and entertainment precisely plays out here." Marx continues, "The lettre makestruth triumph against power. He Lor she] alone guarantees the exactitude of sources, the authenticity of texts, the pertinence oforiginal context, the manner of holding closely to original intention. Other interpretations and commentaries are necessary too, butthey come ofter, and if the lettre has not done his [or her] job first, these interpretations, however briliant, are meaningless..." But,he cautions, "Attention, however: scholarly reading (la lecture lettree) is also interpretation, because everything is interpretation;but it is an interpretation where the interpreter effaces him- [or her-] self as much as possible behind the text. In other words,scholarly reading is distinguished from other types of reading by a particular ethical dimension: the "I" of the interpreter isloathsome [haissable]. That there is not an ultimate truth of a given text is clear: but it is important to suppose a criterion of truththat renders certain interpretations more probable or more acceptable than others. In any case, the lettre thinks so." Or so WilliamMarx thinks.
What about you? What do you imagine the role of a literary scholar - teacher and critic - to be? Based on your exposure so far notonly to the literary texts which have appealed to you (or you would not be taking this exam), but also the approaches to them byteachers and critics you have encountered, what do you consider the role of the scholar or lettre(e) to be? is it ideally neutral andself-effacing, the way Marx imagines? Or is this an old-fashioned approach we have fruitfully left behind? If you have anybackground so far in literary theory, how has this ideal been undermined since the "rise of theory" in the 60s and 70s? Why? If youhave not had such exposure, still what do you envision being a lettre(e) will mean for you and your relation to literary texts? Is therean important difference between culture and entertainment? What is the nature of interpretation? What is the point of literaryscholarship? Teaching? For that matter, what is the point of literature?