Students, as they began to write on the writings of others, were not to say anything that was not derived from the text they were considering. They were not to make any statements that they could not support by a specific use of language that actually occurred in the text. They were asked, in other words, to begin by reading texts closely as texts and not to move into the general context of human experience or history. Mere reading, it turns out, prior to any theory, is able to transform critical discourse in a manner that would appear deeply subversive to those who think of the studying of literature should really be studying of a combination of ethics, sociology, psychology and intellectual history.

        There are, after all, more important things than mere reading--there is life, for instance. Only specialists could have built their distinctive professional virtue— textual impeccability—into a theory of interpretation. And the current practice of close reading has lasted, not because it is commonsensical, but because specialists have appointed themselves the policemen of their own field. In an age of specialization, the specialist usually frightens off the amateurs. But this triumph of professionalism is not necessarily a triumph of intelligence or truth.

        What is at stake, then, is clearly the nature of reading; the question is not whether to be or not to be close but how to read in such a way as to break through preconceived notions of meaning in order to encounter unexpected otherness— in order to encounter objective truths through grounding in language and immersion in the literature, history, and culture of a society. For it is the question of the nature of the act of reading that can either illuminate or repress.