Talk:Sage writing

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So far I've only had access to the Landow, so his ideas sort of overwhelm the article. I'll have some more material to work with when I get home in a couple weeks, so I'll add a bit and give a more balanced account. Dozenthey (talk) 23:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Defining sage writer

Dozenthey, I've been reading Landow's book,-- not quite finished, but I've found it very good. I'd like to suggest a change in the opening of the article. In general I think you are on target. But the phrasing seems to me to be a little inconsistent with what I have read in Landow.

"speaking from a presumed position of moral authority" -- I am not finding the emphasis on "presumption" in Landow. In fact, he often seems to be rather accepting of the position these writers take. His concern is less with whether they are or are not sages than with how they formulate their arguments. I think the phrase "moral authority" is also a bit misleading. Today when we hear the phrase "moral authority" we tend to think of "someone imposing certain moral beliefs upon others." Landow does not seem to be quite that concerned with the issue of imposition of beliefs. He points to the relationship between writer and reader, and recites, often it seems with some delight, the means by which the sage writer often attacks the reader. But he does not seem to take the side of the readers. If anything one might say he sides with the writers, he points to their satire, the quality of their arguments, and the rhetorical risks they take (and incidentally he uses rhetoric in the positive sense of a persuasive argument, not in the negative sense of an empty argument).

Frankly, I think "speaking from a presumed position of moral authority" is not an entirely inaccurate statement about the sage writer,-- the problem is, in a short article, it has the unfortunate effect of emphasizing aspects of the definition that are not, to my reading, quite so prominent in Landow's work. Landow seems to be rather fond of his authors (although, he is hard on Arnold,-- not altogether inappropriately). This phrase makes them sound like, well, "blow hards." (You may remember I refered to this an "ironic" term because it suggests that the sage writer is not really so sage, but only presumes to be sagely; I find little or no irony in Landow. I think he really sees these writers as sages, although I do not mean by that that he is entirely deaf to their faults.)

I do not know how this might be changed, other than to suggest the open section might be better with this phrase excised from it. I didn't want to just run in and change the article until you have had a chance to comment. I know "be bold," but I like the adage "be respectful" better and you have done good work here, I don't want to be disrespectful of that. Mddietz (talk) 21:31, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that Dozenthey has not contributed since July, so I will go ahead and make this change, but I am certainly willing to discuss if Dozenthey returns or if anyone else wants to discuss. Mddietz (talk) 20:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Changes to Article

I have finally worked my way back through the recent changes and noted the revert war. I think the article is better for the improvements that Paul has added, but I am a little concerned about two things. 1) two editors seemed to be in strong disagreement and not a single word found its way onto the discussion page; 2) I have not read Holloway, but I have read Landow and I think something of his ambivalence in the use of the term sage writing has been lost. Dozenthey, the initial author of this article, overstated that ambivalence, but the sage writing term seems to me not quite as neutral as it appears now in this article. At the same time, short of the overstatement we had before, I'm not sure how well that can be stated in so short an article as this. And the additional supporting material makes it clear that this term is not the hobby horse (spam) of a single scholar. I would support adding the term to the articles (Thoreau and Ruskin) from which it was removed. Mddietz (talk) 20:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Didion and Mailer?

The lede defines this article as being about a genre of creative nonfiction popular in the Victorian era. The list of sage writers includes Joan Didion and Norman Mailer. I'm a bit uncertain how they fit in here. While I can kind of see how Didion might find herself here, I'm not at all sure about Mailer. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 19:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)