Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)
Studies - Zsolt K. Virágos: The Twilight Zone of Myth-and-Literature Studies: Analogy, Anomaly, and Intertextuality
side of the coin. The other is the above-mentioned triangulation process of how intertextual linkage is generated: the oscillation between poles of similarity, partial identity, anomaly, etc. is grasped and sorted out by the externally situated, "extratextual" observer, i.e., the reader, the critic, the cultural consumer whose main epistemological tool in generating meaning is analogical reasoning, which in turn can be both "correct" and "incorrect," likely to be tinged by conative impulses or the simple desire to find meaning that appears to be coherent or simply "satisfying." Hence the enormous creative, but also abusive, potential of analogous combinatory operations. Thus, analogy, because it is a form of generating indirect knowledge, has privileged epistemological potentials as a tool of choice between rival forms, and also as the structural means of setting up and operating paradigms. It is not by accident that the doctrine of analogy has been a privileged form of cognition and rhetoric in religious dogma for centuries. Neither should it be surprising —although this is almost always ignored —that the creative and enriching potentials of analogy and paradigmatic operations provide the rationale for most intertextual claims. And hence the enormous responsibility of the "extratextual" perceiver who wields the instrument of analogy as a tool of choice between rival forms. Pinpointing the excesses of compulsive symbol seeking and deep reading has generated a minor industry in what J. C. Furnas has identified as "academic busywork" (520) and what I elsewhere called "interpretive overkill" (Virágos). It is partly understandable that the joy of discovery may prove difficult to contain when the myth critic is involved in practising a strategy of interpretation which is virtually foolproof. "This strategy," Meyer H. Abrams has observed, "to be sure, has a single virtue: it cannot fail" (50). The temptation to offer pregnant surmises and to stimulate new growth of meaning through manipulating the pretentious metaphor, to isolate a pervasive archetype from unintentional myths at the expense of blurring like trying to talk about a game of soccer or baseball without ever actually being allowed to mention the ball" (Falck xii). 4 It might also be useful to consider the theoretical ramifications of the following statement: "Paradoxical as it may seem, paradigms ... make all forms of creativity possible" (Curtis viii). 284
