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its principles in the linguistic formulation of Newspeak in 1984, I am surprised to have searched Orwell scholarship unsuccessfully for a specifically rhetorical treatment of the essay. Briefly analytic (and critical) is AlbertJ. Brouse's 1974 note registering his disagreement with Orwell's criticism of Harold Laski's prose in the former's list of not especially bad examples of English as it is now habitually written. Brouse feels that Orwell should be stripped of the golden essay award for the most anthologized essay in college texts on the basis of a miscount of negatives in one of the pieces Orwell attacks (Brouse argues that there are really seven negatives in the sentence rather than, as Orwell would have it, five). The closest to a developed analysis is Cleo McNelly's 1977 On Not Teaching Orwell, in which the first two sentences of Politics are shown, in a long paragraph, to be rhetorically complex, and thus, from McNelly's perspective (following Mina Shaughnessy's Errors and Expectations of the same year), unsuitable for the basic or developmental writing student, as is the entire essay, in that Orwell will fail [the student] as a guide, if not as a model as well (557). Shaughnessy writes of Orwell's plain style, To urge a student to emulate such 'simplicity' without exploring it thoroughly is to push him far beyond his verbal resources and encourage the very formalese a writer such as Orwell was careful to avoid (196-97). McNelly's and Shaughnessy's points, in terms of my essay, bear, as noted, on the uses of Politics as a model or

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I he postmodern penchant for reflexivity has affected all arenas of social research, including composition and rhetoric.Sandra Harding explains the importance of reflexivity as she defines feminist methods: The beliefs and behaviors of the researcher are part of the empirical evidence for (or against) the claims advanced in the results of research.This evidence . . .must be open to critical scrutiny no less than what is traditionally defined as relevant evidence....This kind of relationship between the researcher and the object of research is usually discussed under the heading of the "reflexivity of social science."(9) Reflexivity encourages a questioning of the most basic premises of one's discipline.Charles Bazerman, whose essay "The Interpretation of Disciplinary Writing" appears in Writing the Social Text, describes the fruits of interrogating one's discipline: "By reflection one can come to know the systems of which one is part and can act with greater self-conscious precision and flexibility to carry forward and, if appropriate, reshape the projects of one's discipline" (37).

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In past decade and a half, feminist critics-including Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, and Elaine Showalter-have focused on Charlotte and Emily Bronte and their literary treatment of contemporary issues, especially their concern with women's education, women's employment, and women's identity during a period in which both law and custom gave women significantly fewer rights and privileges than men. Their younger sister, Anne, has not fared as well with either readers or critics, and consensus seems to be that she is not worth reading. Tom Winnifrith, for example, describes her as most obvious and crude of three sisters and as a moralist, not an artist: For in her views on marriage as in other spheres Anne Bronte is a much more blatant preacher of unorthodox attitudes than her sisters; she is also a much less good novelist and therefore gave reviewers less opportunity of softening their attacks on doctrines which she appeared to be thrusting down their throats. (116) Though feminist critics who have done so much to explore works of other Brontes have rarely given Anne more than passing notice, an earlier critic, Inga-Stina Eubank, devotes more attention to Anne and argues that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a feminist novel though not in the obvious sense. Contrasting Tenant to other nineteenth-century feminist novels, Eubank suggests that Anne may not always be in control of her feminist sentiments, for she does not focus her novel on question of married women's rights to control their own property, to enter universities, or to seek employment except in a few limited professions: And yet, through very nature of its central concern, this novel is feminist in deepest sense of word. Without any thought of what ought to be proper sphere of a woman writer, it analyses passion (and Helen even 'tells her love,' first to Huntingdon and then to Markham), exhibits profligacy and demonstrates vice, as demanded by its theme. (84) Almost a century and a half after pubication of Tenant, it is difficult to use external evidence to prove degree of Bronte's feminism, for-unlike Charlotte-Anne left few letters that clarify views expressed in her novels. How

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Anne Cassebaum, A Comment on "The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing", College English, Vol. 51, No. 6 (Oct., 1989), pp. 636-638

The battle for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people is long since lost, but a different sort of battle involving hearts and minds has been joined in our undergraduate literature courses. An influential and increasingly vocal element in our profession is suggesting that these courses should be organized around questions raised by critical theory rather than around the texts themselves in their traditional groupings by genres, themes, and historical periods. Not surprisingly, the suggestion is being met with something less than enthusiasm on the part of those who believe, Stanley Fish notwithstanding, that there are numerous texts in their classes, and that some sort of minimally mediated encounter with each should be the starting point of literary education. These textophiles are alarmed over what seems to them a potentially fatal neglect of heart, of emotional immediacies and humanistic sympathies, in the introductory process, while the theorophiles brood over the slight rendered to mind if the presence of unacknowledged preconceptions is condoned at any stage. Since such preconceptions are inevitably present and can be demonstrated by a rigorous logic not suited to matters of the heart, it would seem that the strategic prospects of the text-defenders are bleak. Nonetheless, I would like to enlist myself in their ranks, and see whether there might not be valid arguments for a provisional privileging of the text over its theoretical contexts, at least for students unfamiliar with either. In a casual conversation some years ago with William Gass, who has managed-like Iris Murdoch-to combine the careers of novelist and philosophy teacher, I asked whether he also taught occasional literature classes. His unequivocal no was followed by an explanation that I find apropos of some of our current professional dilemmas. He didn't care, he said, whether his philosophy students liked Plato or not; he was concerned only that they understand Plato's thought. But when some sophomoric ephebe-or words to that effectannounced that he didn't like Henry James, he felt an immediate, visceral surge Dwight Eddins is a professor of English at the University of Alabama. His articles have appeared in such journals as ELH and Modern Language Quarterly. He has just finished a book on Thomas Pynchon.

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Robert D. Narveson, George Bellis, Two Comments on "Textual Harassment of Marvell's Coy Mistress: The Institutionalization of Masculine Criticism", College English, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Apr., 1989), pp. 424-429

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Jeanie C. Crain, A Comment on "The Wyoming Conference Resolution: Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing", College English, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), pp. 96-99