The procedures followed by scholars studying literature are often unsatisfactory: the cont

rol over a cognitive project as a whole is often lost. The literary scholar seems to be collecting data, which is a preliminary operation, without making use of them. Like a diligent ant gathering food it will never eat, the contemporary literary scholar seems intent upon writing footnotes of a book s/he will never try to read.

I propose that at the outset of a research project it is necessary to render explicitly the questions the scholar will try to answer, what methods will be used and the reason why s/he thinks that it may be worthwhile answering such questions. More over, the work of the people concerned with the study of literature seems casual. For instance, much research is devoted to one author, often on the occasion of an anniversary. Now there is no reason to think that our observations will be more valid, urgent, appropriate, useful, or interesting if the author of the texts we are concerned with was born or died or the texts were written fifty, one hundred, or two hundred years ago. This seems to be celebration and not research producing knowledge. It does not seem to make any sense to determine one's research program by looking at the calendar. The widespread habit of limiting the scope of a research project to a single author often leads to a confined understanding of the author and the texts, which, in turn, offers marginal results. The average literary scholar considers these results satisfactory. But for what purpose are they satisfactory？

Often the research strategies and methods of the literary scholar are repetitive. A new operation that is anologous to previous ones is often considered worthwhile. It is on these premises that many texts concerning literature are produced and accepted. I propose instead that in a concrete project that tries to produce knowledge, any statement needs verification. But there is a point where it is unnecessary to repeat the same operation on new data, because the result has already been established: rather than additional confirmation of what is already known, it is the exploration of what is still unknown that deserves priority. Contemporary literary research seems to be based on habits that originated in the past and that bear little resemblance to research projects as they are intended now in other fields. If our main aim were the proposal of some objects as cultural models, then it would be useful to our purpose to try to attract our society's attention toward these objects and the persons who produced them. It would be reasonable to perform. our actions on the occasion of anniversaries, because we would not be doing research, but celebration and propaganda. Celebration aims at confirming certitudes and strengthening bonds of solidarity among the participants. It does not produce knowledge, but it confirms what is already known. Legitimating by means of the power of words has been for many centuries the main job of the man of letters.

In the view of the writer, scholars studying literature need to ______.

A．research more diligently.

B．establish a clear purpose before commencing research.

C．decrease the number of footnotes.

D．avoid writing special works to celebrate anniversaries.