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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wild Gazebo" data-source="post: 2279316" data-attributes="member: 24413">Edit:  to Joshua--I'm a slow typer.I believe those are working definitions...not literary definitions.  Which is a quibble...but relative I feel.  There is quite a difference.  And I'm quite sure that those authors...and most definitly the librarians assoiciated with the library of congress would never dismiss symbolism as a minor affection of literature.My somewhat playfull argument refered to the very minor amount of objective information literary scholars deal with.  By all means they will claim far more information is objective, but quite honestly the only truely objective aspect of literature is grammar, definition, and form--and these all change over time.  These three aspects can never--objectively--dictate the difference between genre simply because the blurred borders would be far larger than the body of texts.  Only a certain degree of 'subjective embracement' (if you'll continue to allow me to develop my own terminology) can sufficiently contain these genres.  I know...it sounds silly...be more subjective to be more accurate...just bear with me.Think of the idea of context and content.  Definitions are only limited to single words...by placing words in particular situations we can change their meaning.  Therefore, the structure of a sentence at any time can blur the actuallity of a group of definitions.  Further, place that sentence within a paragraph...the meaning of that sentence can change depending upon the placement and content of that paragraph.  Again...I'm sure you know where this is going...any group of obvious 'knowns' can quickly become unknowns when a system is complex.  The idea is using a similar complex system...like a type of unknown key in cryptography used to open a code...a subjective theory can be used to identify and predict other subjective situations.  It's a matter of being more than a sum-of-parts...a mode of thought that scientists are increasingly beginning to realize...though perhaps kicking and screaming.  A foundation in basics is important and a good way to be level headed but objecting to a quite workable idea as being "incapable of rendering truth"--truth being far beyond science even--seems a bit short sighted.I think we are a bit off track regardless, I just hate to think that an entire body of knowledge is being spurned based on a technicality.  I don't feel Celebrim's argument are sound--as of yet--but lets not dismiss an argument based on a mistrust of accepted dogma...even if it is heavily flawed.  Most self important people take themselves too seriously--regardless of discipline.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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