Back in 1949, Wimsatt and Beardsley stated that if a reader doesn't have knowledge of a poem's linguistic background, he or she had no right to judge the poem publicly. How times have changed!
Now that I have reached upper division courses in the English major, I can agree with this statement. It's not fair to a work of literature to judge it without investigation. However, our postmodern culture begs to differ. We can see evidence of this in various aspects of our 21st century society.
We need look no further than amazon.com to see scores of uninformed readers making critical, public judgments of literature. The customer review option makes it possible for absolutely anyone to influence the decisions of shoppers solely on the basis of opinion. This is an example of one such review on Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury:
"I tried to understand it, I even tried to re-read it, but I must need a translator from the South, because it was the most unreadable book I ever tried to read. The only part I remember was a girl sitting on a bed wishing she had boy parts. Give me a break! I know it is sacrilege to say Faulkner should be on this worst books list, but his writing doesn't do it for me."
The Internet has served as the great equalizer in our culture. The ease with which it transmits information makes it significantly easier to critique literary works publicly without the need of a publisher's approval. With the absence of a filter, all critical judgments become equally true and equally authoritative. The average high school student has the same amount of critical clout as the professor with a PhD.
Perhaps this development appeals to some people because of the easily obtained visibility that it promises. However, I see this outgrowth of postmodernism as dangerous. In my opinion, it shows what happens when democracy is exaggerated and taken too far.
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As much as I love my postmodern right to say whatever I want about a work, I do agree with your criticism. Whether I defend the reader's response or the author's intention largely depends on the day, the point is that I feel that real criticism must include both these approaches, as well as others. I think you can't authoritatively say anything about a book or a poem unless you come at it from several angles. The review you posted regarding Faulkner was grossly incomplete in its scope, it might be more fair to say that Faulkner remains unapproachable to some readers (within a more fair and balanced critique). For while an author should not have to "dumb down" for readers, it shouldn't take a reader four hours to understand one sentence (if you pardon the hyperbole).
On a side note, I do LOVE when I come across an uninformed critic (heavy sarcasm). One of my favorite musicals is Into the Woods, and when I read the article about it in The Swinging Bridge I disagreed enough with the critic's opinion to write an email to them. (It's been so long, I can no longer paraphrase the article.) Imagine my shock when the critic told me that they hadn't had time to attend the entire performance, so they wrote the review having only watched part of the show! I can only assume that this uninformed critic's negative assessment of the show influenced whether or not some students would see it.
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