A warning when studying literature

Gyler mentions this early on in her book on the Inklings:

…comparing texts and finding similarities creates a number of problems. For one thing, any measure of similarity is by nature highly subjective. As Goran Hermeren makes clear, “Our knowledge and expectations determine what similarities (or differences) we notice”…Studies based on this method of research tend to focus on the small and particlar: specific images, common characters, parallel events, invented names. Weightier issues such as purpose, theme, technique, and the like are much harder to compare by looing at textual features side by side. Sharles Moorman offers this word of warning “All to often, studies [of influence] are notable only for the amount of irrelevant minutiae they are able to uncover”

-Diana Gyler, The Company They Keep, p.35

Wow. Scholarly research focussing on small particular things publishing mostly irrelevant minutiae. Say it ain’t so.

This same thing happens in Biblical scholarship too I think. When you use a language concordance to look up verses where the same word occurs and then patch together verses from all over the place to make your point. Chances are, those verses aren’t at all talking about the same thing. Context, context.”Purpose, theme…”, is much harder. Yeah.