So lets consider the 'argument', firstly in terms most people recognise - it is quite an affront when an argument commences between strangers; your either always prepared (a 'bicker badge' - that never was offered when I was at Guides) and throw many years of experience and relative wisdom into the tussle, or your left scarred for next few days wondering how it all 'kicked off'. Car parks, queues, supermarkets; irate mothers in school playgrounds are all gladiatorial sites for confrontation. Closer to home arguments are wounding, restrictive and sometimes fatal - or all can be put right over a cup of tea and an agreement to 'beg to differ'.
What of the argument in the world of the academics? Oh so many, many arguments and all on the basis of 'reason' so why would it be now after all this time on a degree would I question the argument?
Because I believe its banded about without any clear definition regarding the practise of reasoning. Lately two things have struck me whilst absorbing the comments that fly in the conference/seminar rooms of University. One is the matter of being responsible in all areas of literary study and the other is the group of words used to give direction to a question. Yesterday I was informed (formally) that to argue is another way to explore, this did not settle right with me, so I turned to the source of all best advice 'the dictionary' to confer. It is not the case that I did not see any reference towards exploration because it is there: 'to seek', but I find this a little underhand. By the word explore one feels that ones arms are wide, open to new things not peeping under chairs and behind doors. There is the possibility that the subject in question could be bigger.
(Big and small: a recent lecture I sat through exploring the Modernists view, the magnified view, the, don't over look this view.)
Moving on through arguments definition I also read: 'a quantity upon which another depends, or under which it is to be sought in a table' I know full well that this is pointing to the world of mathematics however if we change the latter 'in' to 'at' then an image of the argument in action suddenly comes to mind.
Do we not depend on our government to sit at the table and quantify reason within their debates? Earlier still with King Arthur and the infamous round table, did he not sit with his Knights to discuss what was best for his people of Camelot? A table so often is a division between asking and answering in all institutions of rule. It is also symbolic to discussion, as in an alter to offer something of our selves for the greater good. To plead, appease, persuade and wager we exchange opinions and demand proof of the value of others ideals and why?...so with reason there is a reasonable conclusion..... After all it has to be whittled down to what is right, doesn't it?
Yet that is not what literature is - the pages continue to be open to questions but not with wrath. How does this make sense in literature: pages of written words full of secrets luring us into centuries of excavation - to dig deep into the text, closer and closer. Can we argue with Shakespeare, Dante, Homer and Yeats? Asking them bluntly: "what is your writing for, is it valuable?" if we could, then there argument would certainly be useful, and it would remove the middle person who speaks on their behalf. The ones who with rigidity rise with letters after their names like add on carriages of clout.
To analyse (so science based - thank you structuralists for those images of the book slapped on the examination table), to explore (feel the tug of the wind on the sail Sir Walter Raleigh and Christopher Columbus) or to argue, there is at least one on this list that sounds staunchly one sided.
To be remonstrated against for a lack of argument seems futile when you look at the breadth of published work - who has the energy to stomp and bark all day ('Q')? It stands to reason that we have all approached our search for answers from the same source of resplendent knowledge; where people branch off and deviate is just another way society has endeavoured to individualise themselves. I'm sure that this was not done by constant petty squabbling but by at least some decisive exploration.
Negative noun that it is, I'd prefer not to have to use it when thinking about questions raised about literature texts; if arguments are healthy - and only through my cultural belief do I debate (which must be around a table with pasta, a warm Rosso and a big smile) then my essays are poorly....but passionate. As a gorger and explorer of language, me the reader, has digested and ruminated on many texts (well we've done it together) and if they could speak I hope it would be from around my table ....
