Summary of articles by J. Corner and Eagleton Walton
The author of the essay ‘Disclosure on Theory 1: Sounding the depths – origins, theory and representations, James Corner is an assistant professor in landscape architecture. He is also a graduate school of fine arts, university of Pennsylvania and a B.A holder with honors from Manchester polytechnique. On top of that, he is also a holder of M.L.A and Urban design diploma from the same university. This particular journal was published in September 1990
landscape design theory and criticism,
landscape representation,
Phenomenology and hermeneutics.
Other works by the same author includes:
‘Meaning, genre and context: the problematic of ‘public knowledge’ in the new audience studies’. This book was published by Mass media and Society in 1991.
‘The art of record: A critical introduction to documentary’. This book was published in the year 1997 and entails the need for documentation mainly in film-making.
‘Non-pharmacological intervention for breathlessness in lung cancer’. This work was done in co-operation with H. Plant and R. Ahearn. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of non- pharmacological intervention for breathlessness on lung cancer on breathlessness ratings and patient functioning.
On the sited journal, J. Corner tries to explain what a theory is in the landscape architecture. He argues that a theory can be said to be a conceptual matter not the reality. ‘A theory is not dichotomy or paradox, but a scantly understood relation’. However, he argues that there is a great difference between crafts and motivation, between skill making and what motivates the skill. He explains the origin of theory system from the Greeks as the first conceptual system. This conceptual approach of a theory was radically altered by the scientific revolution in the 18th century. He outlines how some of the early scientists contributed to the radical conceptualization of what a theory are. These scientists include: Galileo Galilee, Rene Descartes, Johannes Kepler and Alexander.
The way of thinking on landscape also started changing around the same time. This was in the way people reasoned about landscape as it was earlier thought. The landscape only could not convey any enough information about an idea thus the architecture came into existence. In conclusion, he says that use of symbols is the fundamental operation making up human existence.
Terry Eagleton is a British literacy theorist. He is viewed as one of Britain’s highly influential living literary critic. Currently, he is a distinguished English professor in English department at Lancaster University. Formerly, he has served at National University of Ireland as a visiting professor. He was also formerly known as Thomas Walton, a professor of English literature, Oxford University.
He has authored more than forty publications which include:
Literary theory: an introduction. This book was published in 1983.
The ideology of aesthetic. 1990.
The illusions of postmodernism. 1996.
The drive into his career can be attributed to his educational background. He studied at Cambridge as a student of left-wing literacy critic, Raymond Williams. He later conformed into a Marxist and published a book counter to his mentor’s relation. He later authored a number of theological articles. Throughout his works, he remains strongly rooted in Marxist traditions.
In his work ‘What literature is’ he starts by first trying to differentiate facts from fiction. He illustrates this by his questioning about philosophy being unimaginative. He defines literature as being what it is due to the ways it uses language. He portrays it as a special use of language that follows certain rules and can be claimed as violation of ordinary language. He explains the origin and evolution of literacy work as an outcome of the complete transformation of ordinary language to give birth to literature. He says that formalists first viewed literature as an assemblage of deviant rules in ordinary language and later as a set of deviations from the ordinary language. He illustrates literature as a language that:
Explains much about itself.
Gives a general state of affairs without immediate practical goal.
Based on ideology.
Some philosophers even claim of literature as a weed to the ordinary language. This weed, literature, can roughly be viewed as the predecessor of English since English language has a set of rules and many other similarities as literature.
