Notes toward a Unified (Non)Theory of Composition and Literature.

A separation between textual production and textual consumption is not a self-evident state of being for English studies. The gap in English studies has been constructed in large part along the lines of production of texts as opposed to the consumption of texts. Several articles published in the 1980s called for a unifying theory of composition and literature, but they were more successful at clarifying the reasons why the project failed. A look at two texts, Lynn Z. Bloom's "Freshman Composition as a Middle-Class Enterprise" and Daniel T. O'Hara's "Henry James's Version of Judgment," reveals that composition and literature already recognize that all acts of reading and writing synthesize text, writer, reader, and critic into a single process. What would truly accomplish the unification of composition and literature is for scholars to produce discourse like Bloom's and O'Hara's that does it without articulating it as the object. Unity is a practice not a theory. (Contains 11 references.) (RS) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ********************************************************************************