Lookee what I did!

This is an excerpt from my midterm. I broke the class curve with it. The teacher used this excerpt (uncredited) as an example for people who are looking to improve their scores. I will therefore now share it with you. :)

In Barthes’ argument in excerpt 2, which examines the nature of Greek tragedies and how they relate to his theory of the reader, he observes the decidedly ambiguous nature of the texts, in which words and phrases have double meanings, only one of which is heard by the characters in the play. Both meanings, though, are heard by their intended target, the audience. The reader, or listener, is taken into account in these writings—if that engagement with the audience were not undertaken, the plays would have long since lost their power. It is the reader/listener who engages with the work and allows its multiple levels of meaning to come forth, not the author. A text contains a multiplicity of meanings and dialogues, but only within the sphere of a reader are they realized.

Of course, Barthes intends not an individual reader, with unpredictable tastes, backgrounds, and habits. Rather, he insists that the “reader” is a role, an idea which we enact (or reenact) as we engage with a text. His reader is not a person but an idealized theory; much like the famed frictionless plane: it is excellent for conceptualizing, but no one will actually get there. To borrow from Plato, we are but flawed copies of that perfect reader that exists somewhere else entirely, on another planet of existence. This was, and still is, a pretty radical concept. The idea that neither the author nor the text are of great importance, that the reader’s experience with the text and whichever of its meanings appeared in that examination is the whole of the work—these fly in the face of continental literary thought, especially at the time this was written. It is anti-authoritarian at its heart, on multiple levels, encouraging revolution and the overthrow of old ways of thinking about literature ….

On the other hand...

So as to prevent me from getting too cocky, the universe delivered a bit of a set down today in my other class. Turns out that the 4-6 page paper I've been bitching about for ages? That was supposed to be 4-6 pages double spaced. And in MLA format, which I didn't follow, as it was at no point specified in the syllabus. Guess that's one of them there "learn it as a freshman" thing that you miss as a transfer student, since I haven't really had any two classes use the same style requirements. I don't think the previous professor would have minded, but her replacement is a lot pickier about it. Oops.

My grade wasn't bad, but it would have been better if I'd not messed that up. Also, of course, if I'd written about half as much. THAT would have made things a lot easier. Duh.