r and layered in meanings upon meanings, and part of a Canon that defines its worth by its author and its place in history. The things we read define us as scholars because we read or don't read the things that are or are not intellectual. But intellect- literary theory- exists because of what it is not. Aesthetic. As Martha Nussbaum mentions, the public imagination and public rationality are both shaped and nourished by literature. Visions of humanity- ideology are shaped by the aesthetic. Aesthetic is not in opposition with intellect, as Tucker states, but in symbiosis with it. While one exists because of what it isn't (lest I get into semiotics here...) they also exist because of what the other accomplishes. Aesthetic, dreaming, imagination and possibility are the seeds of new ideology. Present ideology, once again drifting towards the Tucker team, will soon be past ideology. Why? Because nothing stays the same forever. The value of the aesthetic reader, he who reads for enjoyment, shouldn't be discredited for not reading for the sheer intellect of it. Where would politics and economy and culture and our value systems be if it weren't for people who have visions of a different social life. Things can always be better. Nor should I bash the intellectual reader, who wants to know why humanity is the way it is. Is the way we feel so less valuable than the way we think? Psychologists would have to say no- they make a living by it. To conclude with cheese... the heart can say one thing while the head says another. It happens all the time. We may not be emotionally moved by a text but we sure as heck can read it intellectually. Or, heaven forbid, we enjoy a text for the way it makes us feel and then go and pick it apart until we're blue in the face. Schools make us do it all the time....
