All art is inherently political, but anyone who specialises in reading literature from a marxist/ feminist/ racial perspective is not interested in the text. For them the text is only a vehicle.
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More or less this
No, you're right to take me to task and you make some good points. I agree, both declared and undeclared politics have equal weight on one's understanding of a text. And, since there is no apolitical art, neither can there be apolitical persons with apolitical interpretations ...
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... of texts. What I'm objecting to is the cynical and deliberate use of the text to prop up one's politics. I've mentioned marxism, feminism and race studies only because they are the most prevalent in universities, not because I dislike them (I don't).
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I think this focus comes at the expense of understanding the text as a text. For instance, at my university (which was not a bad one) almost nobody knew what iambic pentameter was by the second year of or studies. We had, however, been exposed to a good deal of ...
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... poststructuralist criticism, feminism, marxism and race studies in our first year. These things are all well and good, but when they come at the expense of basic knowledge of meter, form, etc. then the study of literature suffers - (okay, I'm finished)
End of conversation
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