It occurred to me today (as a friend was mentioning that he always resented literary criticism's tendency to butcher the text it analyses) that literary criticism is a lot like dissecting a cadaver. The (unintentional but necessary) mutilation of a body is used to develop skills that will be later used to keep bodies functioning normally and intact.
The goal is integration, a healthy body. If you don't ever progress beyond dissecting, the skill will never be productive.
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