Background
Fish, Stanley Eugene was born on April 19, 1938 in Providence. Son of Max and Ida Dorothy (Weinberg) Fish.
( Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin, first published in 19...)
Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin, first published in 1967, set a new standard for Milton criticism and established its author as one of the world's preeminent Milton scholars. The lifelong engagement begun in that work culminates in this book, the magnum opus of a formidable critic and the definitive statement on Milton for our time. How Milton works "from the inside out" is the foremost concern of Fish's book, which explores the radical effect of Milton's theological convictions on his poetry and prose. For Milton the value of a poem or of any other production derives from the inner worth of its author and not from any external measure of excellence or heroism. Milton's aesthetic, says Fish, is an "aesthetic of testimony": every action, whether verbal or physical, is or should be the action of holding fast to a single saving commitment against the allure of plot, narrative, representation, signs, drama--anything that might be construed as an illegitimate supplement to divine truth. Much of the energy of Milton's writing, according to Fish, comes from the effort to maintain his faith against these temptations, temptations which in any other aesthetic would be seen as the very essence of poetic value. Encountering the great poet on his own terms, engaging his equally distinguished admirers and detractors, this book moves a 300-year debate about the significance of Milton's verse to a new level.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674004655/?tag=2022091-20
( In 1967 the world of Milton studies was divided into t...)
In 1967 the world of Milton studies was divided into two armed camps: one proclaiming (in the tradition of Blake and Shelley) that Milton was of the devil's party with or without knowing it, the other proclaiming (in the tradition of Addison and C. S. Lewis) that the poet's sympathies are obviously with God and the angels loyal to him. The achievement of Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin was to reconcile the two camps by subsuming their claims in a single overarching thesis: Paradise Lost is a poem about how its readers came to be the way they are--that is, fallen--and the poem's lesson is proven on a reader's impulse every time he or she finds a devilish action attractive or a godly action dismaying. Fish's argument reshaped the face of Milton studies; thirty years later the issues raised in Surprised by Sin continue to set the agenda and drive debate.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067485747X/?tag=2022091-20
( The discipline of literary criticism is strictly defin...)
The discipline of literary criticism is strictly defined, and the most pressing issues of our time—racism, violence against women and homosexuals, cultural imperialism, and the like—are located outside its domain. In Professional Correctness, Stanley Fish raises a provocative challenge to those who try to turn literary studies into an instrument of political change, arguing that when literary critics try to influence society at large by addressing social and political issues, they cease to be literary critics at all. Anyone interested in the debate over the place of cultural studies in the field of literary criticism, or the more general question of whether academics can become the "public intellectuals" many aspire to be, needs to read Fish's powerful and unconventional argument for restoring discipline to the academy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067471220X/?tag=2022091-20
( In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the soci...)
In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the sociology of knowledge, no issue has been more central to current debate than the status of our interpretations. Do they rest on a ground of rationality or are they subjective impositions of a merely personal point of view? In Doing What Comes Naturally, Stanley Fish refuses the dilemma posed by this question and argues that while we can never separate our judgments from the contexts in which they are made, those judgments are nevertheless authoritative and even, in the only way that matters, objective. He thus rejects both the demand for an ahistorical foundation, and the conclusion that in the absence of such a foundation we reside in an indeterminate world. In a succession of provocative and wide-ranging chapters, Fish explores the implications of his position for our understanding of legal, literary, and psychoanalytic interpretation, the nature of professional and institutional culture, and the place of reason in a world that is rhetorical through and through.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0822309955/?tag=2022091-20
( Stanley Fish is an equal opportunity antagonist. A the...)
Stanley Fish is an equal opportunity antagonist. A theorist who has taken on theorists, an academician who has riled the academy, a legal scholar and political pundit who has ruffled feathers left and right, Fish here turns with customary gusto to the trouble with principle. Specifically, Fish has a quarrel with neutral principles. The trouble? They operate by sacrificing everything people care about to their own purity. And they are deployed with equal highmindedness and equally absurd results by liberals and conservatives alike. In this bracing book, Fish argues that there is no realm of higher order impartiality--no neutral or fair territory on which to stake a claim--and that those who invoke one are always making a rhetorical and political gesture. In the end, it is history and context, the very substance against which a purportedly abstract principle defines itself, that determines a principle's content and power. In the course of making this argument, Fish takes up questions about academic freedom and hate speech, affirmative action and multiculturalism, the boundaries between church and state, and much more. Sparing no one, he shows how our notions of intellectual and religious liberty--cherished by those at both ends of the political spectrum--are artifacts of the very partisan politics they supposedly transcend. The Trouble with Principle offers a provocative challenge to the debates of our day that no intellectually honest citizen can afford to ignore.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674005341/?tag=2022091-20
university dean English educator
Fish, Stanley Eugene was born on April 19, 1938 in Providence. Son of Max and Ida Dorothy (Weinberg) Fish.
Bachelor of Arts, University Pennsylvania, 1959; Master of Arts, Yale University, 1960; Doctor of Philosophy, Yale University, 1962.
Instructor, University of California, Berkeley, 1962-1963; assistant professor, University of California, Berkeley, 1963-1967; associate professor, University of California, Berkeley, 1967-1969; professor, University of California, Berkeley, 1969-1974; Kenan Professor of English and Humanities, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1978-1985; department chairman, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1983-1985; Arts and Science Distinguished Professor of English and professor of law, Duke U., Durham, North Carolina, 1985-1998; department chairman, Duke U., Durham, North Carolina, 1986-1992; executive director, Duke U. Press, Durham, 1994-1998; dean, University of Illinois College Liberal Arts and Sciences, Chicago, since 1999.
( In 1967 the world of Milton studies was divided into t...)
( The discipline of literary criticism is strictly defin...)
( Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin, first published in 19...)
( In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the soci...)
(The foremost theoretical statement and practical criticis...)
( Stanley Fish is an equal opportunity antagonist. A the...)
Member Modern Language Association, American Academy Arts and Sciences, Milton Society (honorary scholar 1991), Spenser Society.
Married Adrienne A. Aaron, August 23, 1959 (divorced 1980). 1 daughter, Susan.; married Jane Parry Tompkins, August 7, 1982.