"As a reader, we must realize that our immediate reaction to a poem is unimportant" (taken from my notes during Dr. Power's literary criticism class).
What Wimsatt and Beardsley are saying in their essay "Affective Fallacy" is that after reading a poem, the reader must not take into consideration their gut instinct. This instinct is to remain completely separate from all critic of the poem--don't even think about that question, "and how does that make you feel?"
I'm not so sure how I "feel" about that (funny, but as I've spent 3 years within the Messiah College community, I've learned that we can say statements without owning them, saying "I feel like you're not doing this right" instead of "you're not doing this right, idiot." I know this doesn't necessarily tie in with our affective fallacy conversation, but it's just a side note. And everyone should know that this behavior has crept into my own communication skills and I might continue saying it for the rest of my life). Back to Wimsatt and Beardsley--
Apparently we have to be a student of a poem before we can make a criticism of it. Sounds like a good idea. We don't want just anyone making outrageous statements about a work of literature. But again, doesn't that make us sound elitist? Yes. Oh well, I think that in this case we can let it pass. Because in all honesty, we do have a history of censoring things that are far from needing to be censored because our gut reaction tells us to be afraid of what the text is saying, or what the text is about. If we cannot base our judgments of a text on initial reactions, then it makes sense to say that we do indeed have a duty to appreciate the things we do not like. Appreciate, not in the sense of really thoroughly enjoying it, but just in the sense of understanding it completely. You don't have to agree with the poem, it doesn't have to make you feel good, but appreciate the form and the meaning within it.
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Think of it in these terms. Are you entitled to an opinion without supporting it? I have my doubts that we can responsibly say yes. What is that verse from scripture. Be always ready to give a defense of the faith that is in you, or something like that. In other words, opinions do not deserve to be taken seriously publically unless we can give an account of their plausibility. Is this elitist. I don't think it has to be. We can allow the person who eats too much and never exercises to believe that he has been fated by God to be obese, but we are under no compulsion to give that person's opinion the same kind of credence that we give scientists of nutrition. That doesn't mean that scientist are beyond questioning. It does mean that they have to be questioned from the grounds of knowledge and experience. We have a harder time applying this to Literature because we mostly think literature doesn't matter that much. If you like it, it must be good for you. However, should we really have that opinion? I don't think we can carry it out all that far. Would there not be some truth to the notion that a person who has read and studied a work a great deal more than someone else would have a more informed and authoritative opinion than someone who hasn't? Indeed, wouldn't it be somewhat egocentric to believe that all readings are necessarily equal. This is the culture of Youtube, to some degree, but is it a good culture to have?
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