Literary Criticism - C.E. Bressler

l i t e r a r y  CRITICISM   An  An I n t r o d u c t i o n   to Theory Theory and Practi ce 

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Charles E. Bressler I n d i a na na W esl ey ey a n U n i v er s i t y  

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Foreword xi To the Read Re ader er xiii \

Defining Defi ning Criticism, Critic ism, Theory, Theory, and Literature Listening to a Con versation 1 Eave sdrop ping on a Literature Literature Classroom 2 Can a Text Hav e More Than One Interpretati Interpretation? on? How to Becom e a Literary Critic 5 Wh at Is Literary Criticism? 6 W hat Is Literary Theory? 7 Ma king Me aning from Text Text 9 The Read ing Process and Literary Theory 10 Wh at Is Literature? 12 Literary The ory and the Definition of Literature Literature The Fun ction of Literature and Literary Theory Beginn ing the Formal Study of Literary Theory

2 A Historical Histor ical Survey of Literary Criticism Introduction 19 Plato (c. (c. 42 7- 34 7 BCE) 20 Aristotle (38 4-3 22 BCE) 22 Horace (65 -8 BCE) 24 Longinu s (First Centu ry CE) 25 Plotinus Plotinus (204 -270 CE) 26 Dante Alighieri (1265-13 21) 27 Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) 28 Sir Philip Philip Sidney (1554-1586 ) 29  John  Jo hn Dryd Dr yden en (1 6 3 1 -1 7 0 0 ) 30  Jose  Jo sep p h A dd ison is on (1 6 7 2 -1 7 1 9 ) 32 Alexander Pope (1688-1 744) 33 Willia Wil liam m Wordsworth (177 0-18 50) 34 Percy Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-18 22) 37 Hip poly te A do lph e Taine (1828—1893) Matthew Arnold (1822 -1888 ) 40 Henry Henry James (1843-1916 ) 42 Mikhai Mikhaill Bakhtin Bakhtin (189 5-197 5) 44 Modern Literary Criticism 40 V

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1 4

14 15 17

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VI

 ,

  Contents

Russian Russian Formalis Form alism m and New Ne w Criti Cr iticis cism m Introduction Russinn Russinn Formalism Form alism

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48

duintf duin tf the the Gap between Russian Form alism and New Applying Russian Russian Form alism to a Lit era ry Text 51 B

New Criticism 52 Historical Development 56 Assumptions Methodology 60 Questions Questions for Analysis Critiques and Responses

54

63 63

4 Reader-orient Reader-oriented ed Criticism 65 Introduction Historical Development 7. A. Richards 70

Louise M. Rosenblatt Assumptions 73 75 Methodology Structuralism 76

69

72

Ge r a l d Pr i n c e

Phenomenology

65

76

77 

H a n s R o b e r t  J a u s s 78  W o l f g a n g   Is e r 78

Subjective Criticism

80

No r m a n Ho l l a n d D a v i d Bl e i c h 80

 A Two-step Two-step Methodology Method ology Questions Questions for Ana lysis Critiques Critiques and Resp onse s

80

81 82

83

5 Modemity/Postmodernism:

Structuralism/ 

P o st st st r u ct ct u r a l i sm : D ec o n st st r u c t i o n  

Modernity 85 Poststruc Poststructural turalism ism or Po stm od ern ism 88 Modernity Modernity to M odern ism 90 Structur Structurali alism: sm: Its Historical D ev elop m en t Pre-Saussure Pre-Saussurean an Linguistic Ling uisticss 91 Saussu Saussure' re'ss Linguistic Revolut Rev olution ion 92 Thee Structur Th Structuree o f Language 93 Langue Langue and Parole 96 s Redefinitio Redefinition n o f  96 Assumptions of Structu 98 M r/h0? 0lw8 0lw8ie iess o f S ^u ct 100 C/awrfe Levi-Strauss

Roland Barthes

p

101 101

85

91

Contents

Vladimir Propp and Narratology Narratolo gy U)2 Tzvclan Todarov Todarov and Gerard Genetic 105 105  Jonathan Culler 1044 10 705  A Model of o f Interpretatio Interpretation n From Structuralism Stru cturalism to Poststructura Posts tructuralism: lism: Deconstruction Deconstru Deco nstruction: ction: Its Its Historical Developm ent 107 707 Deconstruction: Its Beginnings Beginnings  Derrida's Derrida's Starting Place: Structuralism 108 108 Derrida's Derrida's Interpretation o f Saussure’ Sauss ure’ss Sign 109 Assu mp tions of Deconstruction 1099 10 Transcendental Signified Signifie d 109 Logocen Logoce n trism 110 Binary Oppositions Opposition s 110 110 Phonocentrism 111  Metaphysics o f Presence Presence 111 Methodology 112  Acknowledging Binary Operatio Operations ns in Western estern Thought Thought 112  Arche-writing 112 Supplementation 114 Differance 114 De constru ctive Suppo sitions for Textual Textual Analysis 1166 11 Deconstruction: A New Reading Strategy 117  117   American Deconstructio Deconstructionists nists 118 Qu estions for Ana lysis 1199 11 Structuralism 119 Deconstruction 120 Critique s and Response s 1200 12 Structuralism 120 Deconstruction 121

6 Psychoanalytic Criticism Introduction 123 Historical Development Sigmund Freud 125

123 123

125

125 Mo d e l s o f t h e H u m a n Ps y c h e : D y n a m i c Mo d e l Ec o n o m i c M o d e l 126 126 T y po g r a p h i c a l  M o d e l s 127 F r e u d ' s P r e -O e d i pa pa l  D e v e l o pm en en t a l P h a s e T h e O e d i p u s , C a s t r a t i o n , a n d E l e c t r a  C o m pl pl e x e s 128 129 T h e Si g n i f i c a n c e o f D r e a m s L it e r a t u r e a n d P s y c h o a n a l y s i s 130

Carl G. Jung Jun g North rop Frye Fry e  Jacques Lacan '

130 132 1333 13

L a c a n 's M o d e l o f t h e H u m a n P s y c h e L a c a n a n d T e x t u a l  A n a l y s i s 136

134

The Present State of Psycho analytic Criticism Assumptions 137

1366 13

105

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Contents i Jo  Methodologies Questions for Analysis Critiques and Responses

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Feminism

141 141

143

Introduction 143 Historical Development

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Virginia Woolf 148 Simone de Beauvoir 149 Kate Millet ISO Feminism in the 1960 s, "70s, and '80s Elaine Showalter 152 Geographical Strains o f F'emin ism 153 A m i k k AN

154

B r it is h

15 5

Fr in c m

15 5

Present-day Feminist Criticisms Assumptions 159 Methodology 160 Q uestion s for An alysis 161 Critiques and R e s p o n s e s 161

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Marxism

150

157

165

Introduction 165 Historical Dev elopm ent 166 AuJ/7 Marx and Friedrich Engels  166 Russia and Marxism 170 Georg Lukdcs 171 The Frankfurt School 171  Antonio Gramsci 172 Louis Althusser 173 M arxist Theo rists Today 174 Assumptions 176 Methodology 178 Qu estions for An alysis 179 Critiques and Respo nses 180

9 Cultural Poetics or New Historicism Introduction 181 A Ne w -Critical Lecture 181 Old Historicism 182 The New Historicism 183 Historical De velopm ent 183 Cultural Ma terialism 187 New Historicism 188

181

Contents

Assumptions

188

Michel Foucault 198 Clifford Geertz 190 Texts, Histo ry, and Interpretation

191

 What Cultural Poe tics Rejects 192  W hat Cultural Po etics Does and Accepts Methodology 193 Questions for Analysis 195 Critiques and Responses 195

1 0 Postcolonialism

192

197

Postcolonialism: "T he Emp ire Writes Ba ck" Historical De velopm ent 200 Assumptions 203 Methodology 206 Qu estions for An alysis 208 Critiques and Respo nse 209

11 African-American Criticism

199

210

Historical Develop men t, Assum ptions, and M ethodology Qu estions for An alysis 218 Critiques and Respon ses 218

12 Queer Theory: Gay and Lesbian Criticism Historical De velopm ent and Assum ptions Que er Critical Theo rists 227 Qu estions for An alysis 228 Critiques and Respo nse 229

13 Ecocriticism

211

220

224

230

W hat Is Ecocriticism? 231 Historical De velopm ent 232 Assumptions 234 Methodology 235 Qu estions for An alysis 236 Critiques and Respo nses 237

Literary Selection

239

"Young Goodm an Brown (1835)," Nathaniel Haw thorne

Readings on Literary Criticism

249

"The Formalist Critics," Cleanth Brooks 250 "Structure, Sign and Play in the D iscourse of the Human Scienc es," Jacques Derrida 256

239

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Contents

"I leroie ItlhiuH'entrism: The? Idea o f U n i v er s a l i t y i, Charles I.arson 272 IJh?r,ltlJ y   "Criteria of Nej;ro Art," 276 "Queer Theory," Annamario Jagose 284 "John Keats and Nature, mi Uco cr i t i cnl I n q u i r y "   Charles Ngiewih T U K E   288 7'

Glossary Index

301 332

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Fo r

ewo r d

The dramatist, poet, novelist, and critic ( )s
xi

Foreword

Bressler begins his text with a chapter defining criticism,   followed by a chapter that surveys critical history from Plato fourth century BCE to Mikhail Bakhtin in the twentieth century CE  A(t forming a foundation  for   literary theory, Bressler then focuses each s u b *   quent chap ter on a major school of criticism , arran gin g them in order of their chronological births. Accordingly, each chapter is subdivided into the major theorists, their philosophies, and terminology derived from the primary and secondary texts. This fifth edition of Literary Criticism   also contains revised and updated chapters on Russian Formalism and New Criticism, Reader-oriented Criticism, Modernity and Postmodernism (Structuralism and Deconstruction), Psychoanalytic Criticism, Feminism, Marxism, and Cultural Poetics   and New Historicism.

Some of the most exciting additions to this new edition are the separate chapters on Postcolonialism, African-American Criticism, Queer Theory, and Ecocriticism. To date, this is the only introductory text to literary criti cism that contains a separate chapter devoted to Ecocriticism, presenting quintessential background information to the rising theory as well as key questions p osited by m any ecocritics. In addition to the theoretical material, Bressler uses Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown" to illustrate how to use literary theory to interpret a text. To apply each theoretical stance to other texts, Bressler also provides a list of questions from that ch ap te r's theoretical perspective to highlight the theory's concepts on a practical level. Also new to this fifth edition are five scholarly essays on literary  theory and criticism that appear in the Readings section at the back of the text. Included in this section are foundational essays by such critics as nth Brooks and Jacques Derrida. Over the past fifteen years, Bressler's text has risen to one of the best selling introductory texts for literary criticism in the United States. Students and teachers alike have discovered Bressler's deep yet understandable approach to the many abstract and difficult theoretical concepts of literary a.so an approachable source for app ly.ng theory to text

^  A. R hone

Indiana University o f Pennsylvania Indiana, PA

To

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R eader 

Like the first four editions, this new edition of Literary Criticism   is designed as a supp em en tal te xt for introductory co urses in literature, literary criticism, an ot er cou rses in the hum anities, be they undergraduate or graduate. In all five e itions, the pu rpo se of this text has remained the same: to enable students to approach literature from a variety of practical and theoretical perspectives and to equip them with a theoretical and a practical under standing o f how critics develop their interpretations. The boo k's overall aim is to take the mystery out of working with and interpreting texts. My hope is that this particular text will allow students to join in the conversations taking place at the various literary tables around the world. As in the four previous editions, this fifth edition holds to several key premises. First, I assume that there is no such thing as an "innocent" reading of a text. Whether our responses to texts are emotional and spontaneous or well reasoned and highly structured, all our interpretations are rooted in un derlying factors that cause us to respond in a particular way to a particular text. What elicits these responses and how a reader makes sense of a text are what really matters. Knowing literary theory allows us to analyze both our initial and all further responses to any text and to question our beliefs, our values, our feelings, and eventually our overall interpretation of a text at hand. To understand why we respond to texts in certain ways, we must first understand literary theory and its practical application, literary criticism. Second, because our responses to texts have theoretical bases, I believe that all readers have a literary theory. Consciously or unconsciously, we, as readers, have developed a mindset that provides us with certain expecta tions when reading various kinds of texts. Somehow we usually make sense of any text we are reading. The methods we use to frame both our private (personal) and our public interpretations involve us directly in literary the ory and criticism, automatically making us practicing literary critics, whether we know it or not. My third premise rests on the observation that each reader's literary theory and accompanying methodology (i.e., literary criticism) is either conscious or uncon scious, m ost nearly comp lete or incomplete, informed or ill-informed, unified or eclectic. Because an unconscious, incomplete, illinformed, and eclectic literary theory more frequently than not leads to illog ical, unsound, and haphazard interpretations, I believe that a well-defined, logical, and clearly articulated literary theory will enable readers to develop their own methods of interpreting texts—their personal hermeneutics—and xiii

xiv

To the Rea der

help them as readers to order, clarify, and justify their appraisals of any text in a consistent manner. Unfortunately many readers cannot articulate their own literary theory and have little or no knowledge of the history and development of the everevolving principles of literary criticism. The goal of this text is to introduce such students and readers to literary theory and criticism, to its historical de velopment, and to the various theoretical positions or schools of criticism that will enable them as readers to make conscious, informed, and wellthought-out choices about their own methods of interpretation. But why a new edition? Like many other academ ic studies, literary criti cism is an ever-developing discipline. Since the fourth edition of this text, much creative scholarship in literary theory and criticism has been written, published, and debated. This new edition highlights many of these concerns developed by literary theorists and allows you, the reader, to participate in the cutting-edge discussions taking place in such areas as cultural poetics, cultural studies, postcolonialism, African-American criticism, queer theory, and ecocriticism. In addition, this fifth edition includes new critical terms that will help readers understand more fully the various concepts being dis cussed by the advocates of the different schools of literary criticism. Like its predecessors, this new edition introduces students to the basic concerns of literary theory in Chapter 1, which now includes a more detailed discussion of the nature and concerns of theory and criticism. Chapter 2 places literary theory and criticism in historical perspective, beginning with the writings of Plato and ending with one of the giants of literary criticism of the twentieth century, Mikhail Bakhtin. Chapters 3 through 9 have been re vised, adding new terminology where appropriate. Each of these chapters presents the major schools of criticism that have been developed and con tinue to develop in the twenty-first century: Russian Formalism, New Criticism, Reader-oriented Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Feminism, Marxism, New Historicism or Cultural Poetics, and Cultural Studies. In the fourth edition, Chapter 10 covered three schools of criticism. In this new edition, each of these schools has its own chapter: Chapter 10 details Postcolonialism; Chapter 11, African-American Criticism; and Chapter 12, Queer Theory. In addition, a new chapter has been added that highlights one of the most recent and ever-developing theo ries, Ecocriticism, found in Chapter 13. To maintain consistency and for ease of study, each of the chapters is identically organized. We begin with a brief Introductory Section that is fol lowed by the Historical Development of each school of criticism. The Assumptions Section, which sets forth the philosophical principles on which each school of criticism is based, then follows. Next comes the Methodology Section, which serves as a how-to manual for explaining the techniques used by the various schools of criticism to formulate their interpretations of texts based on their philosophical assumptions.

To the Read er

xv

After the Methodology Section, a newly revised Questions for Analysis Section appears in Chapters 3 through 13. This feature provides students vvit i ey ll l*^s ll)lls ° of a text in order to view that text from the persp ectiv eo it sc oo o criticism under discussion. Some of the questions also as s ut cuts to app ly their newfoun d kn owledge to Nathaniel Hawthorne s short story "Young Goodman Brown," a copy of which can be found at the back of the book. Following this section in Chapters 3 through 13, I have inc ut t a Cr itiqu es and Responses passage that explains the key concepts of each school of criticism. Included in this section are concerns raised by other schools of criticism that do not necessarily agree with the assumptions of the school under discussion. By adding and updating this section to each chapter, you, the reader, will be better able to join in the discussions and debates concerning which theories and practices you will ultimately use in your interpretive methodology. All chapters in this new edition have undergone careful revision and editing. In every chapter key terms appear in boldface type and are included in the updated glossa ry that appears at the back of the book. Because Literary Criticism   is an introductory text, the explanations of the various schools of criticism should be viewed not as exhaustive, but as a first step toward de veloping an understanding of some rather difficult and at times provocative concepts, principles, and methodologies for textual analysis. Toward the end of the text, readers will discover a new section: Readings on Literary Criticism. Included in this section are five primary scholarly essays that highlight different schools of criticism. For example, readers will find Jacques Derrida's essay "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" that launched deconstruction theory in America. By including these essays, readers will now have direct access to scholarly works that have helped shape literary theory and criticism, both historically and at the present time.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Because I believe in the intertextuality of texts, I readily acknowledge that the creation of this text and its previous editions involves an intricate web of relationships with many people. First, to those students who enrolled in my literary criticism classes, I say a huge thank you. Your thoughtful questions, class presentations and discussions, and seemingly countless essays hav e all helped me clarify my thinking about many complex theoretical issues. Without you, this book could not have been written. I am also deeply grateful to Indiana Wesleyan University. By awarding me a Hines Fellowship, the university provided me with released time from teaching for the researching and writing of this text. In particular, special

xvi

To the Read er

thanks must go to Dr. Jerry Pattengnle, Assistant Provost for Scholarship and Public Engagement; Dr. Mary Brown, Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature; and Dr. David Riggs, Executive Director for the  John Wesley Honors College for their encouragement and oftentimes daily support. In addition, my colleagues at the John Wesley Honors College—Ms Sara Scheunemann, Dr. Rusty Hawkins, Dr. Lisa Toland, and Dr. Todd Ream—have all cheered me along the way as I authored this text. Special mention must also be made of Luke L. Nelsen, a John Wesley Honors student for his helpful editing, and to Dr. Jason Runyan and Professor Timothy Esh for their frequent and much needed words of encouragement, coffee times, and lunches. And special thanks goes to my friend and colleague Zachary A. Rhone, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, for his careful reading of the manuscript and his enlightening suggestions. Words of great praise have been earned by my faithful and bold editor at Pearson, Vivian Garcia, and to her editorial assistant, Heather Vomero. Their necessary prodding to keep on schedule, their kind words, and their shepherding of this new edition through all its various stages of production are extremely appreciated. Also, I wish to thank the following scholars for their thoughtful and insightful comments during the development of the fifth edition: Quentin Bailey, San Diego State University; Steven J. Gores, Northern Kentucky University; Tamara F. O'Callaghan, Northern Kentucky University; Dr. Christine Marie Neufeld, Eastern Michigan University; Dr. Brian Whaley, Utah Valley University; and Zak Sitter, Xavier University. Most of all, I want to express my undying gratitude, appreciation, and love for my best friend, my favorite vice president and academic dean, and my wife, Darlene G. Bressler. You are indeed my joy, my life's companion, and my best and most beloved critic. Thank you for your patience and support during all the various stages of this project. And to the apple of my eye, my daughter, Heidi Elizabeth Bressler, I say thank you, and I love you. How proud I am of you, and what great joy you bring me because you are you! Your many encouraging words helped keep me on track throughout the writing of this book. Without the help and encouragement of my thoughtful and gifted students of the John Wesley Honors College, my colleagues, my friends, and my family, this book could not have been written. Any errors in this edition, however, are solely mine. Charles E. Bressler  Indiana Wesleyan University  Marion, Indiana

1 ef ining C r it icism heor y, D ,T and

Lit er at ur e

Criticism should be a casual conversation. W. H. Auden, The Table Talk ofW. H. Auden

L IS T E N IN G T O A C O N V E R S A T I O N

magine for a moment that you are sitting at the food court of a local shop ping mall. Your seat is front and center, the chair located closest to the mall's walkway where all the shoppers have to pass you by as they continue seeking out those bargains w hile chatting with their friends. Sipping on your energy-boosting fruit drink, you begin reading your copy of the local news paper. As you read, you cannot help but overhear a conversation between a middle-aged woman and her teenage son as they stop in front of you: "Mom, can I have five dollars to go to the arcade while you shop for shoes for your dinner party next week ?" "No! I want you to come with me to the store to help me pick out my new shoes. I want to buy something a little daring, and I need your support." "But, Mom, what do I know about shoes for you? I promised to meet some of my friends at the arcade around noon, and it is already 12:49!" "Tim, I really want you to come, but if you want to go to the arcade, just go. Here's the money." As you look up, the smiling teen grabs the bills from his mother's hand and saunters cockily to the arcade. As his mom is walking away with a somewhat saddened look on her face, you wonder how she is feeling. Is she disappointed? Angry? Hurt? Did she really expect her son to join her as she tried on pair after pair of shoes? Should she even have asked him to go with her in the first place? And what about Tim? Is he a spoiled brat? Does he hold a part-time job after school? Is he an only child, or is he the first or the

I

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Chapter 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

last bom of many? These and similar questions keep popping into your head as you watch both mother and son separate and travel in opposite directions. By listening to this parent-child conversation, you became, in a real sense, a part of it. For a moment the concerns of the two participants became part of your world. You looked at them, evaluated their social positions, thought about their feelings, and conjectured about the social structure of their family. And even your personal feelings were temporarily affected, for you observed that as Tim walked away, a saddened look appeared on his mother's face. The conversation being over, you then returned to your read ing of the newspaper. Briefly, however, you became an observer of this mother and son's story. As if they were in a story, you "read" not only what was said, but what was left unsaid, for you imagined their feelings, their de sires, and the results of their interaction. You filled in the gaps about their characters while simultaneously developing them not as they really were, but as you personally imagined them to be. Being an outsider, you quickly became a participant in the actions of their tale, asking questions about the nature of the characters, the events of their story, and their and your emo tional responses to the story line. Although you were not literally reading a text, you asked the same kinds of questions that a literary critic asks when reading a work of fiction. Like a literary critic, you became an evaluator; an interpreter; and for a moment, a participant in the story itself. As you overheard the voices of the two characters—the mother and son—in their story, similarly literary critics eavesdrop on the multiple con versations in literary works. To help them articulate and analyze their eaves dropping, critics assign names to the various elements of the multiple con versations of which they become a part: author, reader, narrator, narratee, and so forth. One such critic, the Russian writer, essayist, and literary theo rist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) coined the term dialogic heteroglossia ("many voices in multiple conversations") to explain the various conversa tions occurring in one such literary genre, the novel. All genres, however, have developed such technical vocabulary to explain not only their con stituent elements but also avenues to discovering their meanings. Let us now eavesdrop on another conversation taking place about a short storv.  j

EAVESDROPPING ON A LITERATURE CL ASS RO OM

Having assigned her literature class Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and knowing O'Connor's canon and her long list of curious protagonists, Dr. Lisa Toland could not anticipate whether her students would greet her with excitement, silence, bewilderment, or frustra tion when asked to discuss this short story. Her curiosity would soon be

C luiptrr 1 • Debiting

Theory, dnd Literature

3

satisfied, tor as she stood before tlit* ('lass, she asked a seemingly simple, diivct question: W hat do you believe O 'Co nn or is trying to tell us in this story ? In oth er w ord s, h ow do you, as readers, interpret this text?" Although some students stared out the window while others suddenly found the covers of their anthologies fascinating, a few raised their hands. Given a nod from Dr. Toland, Alice was the first to respond. "I believe O'Connor is trying to tell us the state of the family in rural Georgia during  the 1950s.  Ju st look at how the ch ildren, Ju ne Star an d John Wesley, behave . They don't respect their grandmother. In fact, they mock her." "Bu t she deserves to be m ock ed," interrupted Peter. "H er life is one big act. She wants to act like a lady—to wear white cotton gloves and c a r r y   a purse—but she really cares only for herself. She is selfish, self-centered, and arrogant." "That may be," responded Karen, "but I think the real message of O 'Co nn or's story is not abo ut family or one particular character, bu t abou t a philosophy of life. O'Connor uses the Misfit to articulate her personal view of life. When the Misfit says Jesus has thrown 'everything off balance,' O 'Conn or is really asking each of her readers either to choose his or her own way of life or to follow the teachings of Jesus. In effect, O'Connor is saying we all have a choice: to live for ourselves or to live for and through others." "I don't think we should bring Christianity or any other religion into the story," said George. "B y analyzing O 'Co nn or's individual words— wo rds like tall, dark,  and deep— and noting how often she repeats them and in wha t con text, we can deduce that O 'Co nn or's text, not O'Conn or herself or her view o f life, is melan choly and a bit dark. But to equate O'C on no r's personal p hilo so phy about life with the meanin g o f this particular story is som ew hat silly." "But we can't forget that O'Connor is a woman," said Betty, "and an ed ucated one at that! Her story has little to do with an academic or pie-in-thesky, meaningless philosophical discussion, but a lot to do with being a woman. Being raised in the South, O'Connor would know and would have experienced prejudice because she is female. And as we all know, the Southern male's opinion of women is that they are to be kept 'barefoot, preg nant, and in the kitchen,' and to be as nondescript as Bailey's wife is in this story. Unlike all the other characters, we don't even know this woman's name. How much more nonuescriptive could O'Connor be? O'Connor's message is simple: Women are oppressed and suppressed. If they open their mouths, if they have an opinion, and if they voice that opinion, they w ill end up like the grandmother, with a bullet in their head." "I don't think that's her point at all," said Barb. "I do agree that she is writing from personal experience about the South, but her main point is about prejudice itself—prejudice against African Americans. Through the voice of the grandmother, we see the Southern lady's opinion of African Americans: They are inferior to whites, uneducated, poor, and basically ignorant. O'Connor's main point is that we are all equal."

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Chapt er 1 • Defining Criticism , Theory, and Lite ratu re

"Yes, I agree," said Mike. "But if we look at this story in the context of all the other stories we have read this semester, I see a theme we have often discussed: appearance versus reality. This is O'Connor's main point. The grandmother acts like a lady—someone who cares about others __ but inwardly she cares only for herself. Basically, she's a hypocrite." "I disagree. In fact, I disagree with everybody," shouted Daniel. "I ljj
C A N A T E X T H AV E M O R E T H A N O N E IN T E R P R E TA T I O N ?

A quick glance at the discussion of O'Con nor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" in Dr. Toland's classroom reveals that not all readers interpret texts in the same way. In fact, all of the eight students who voiced their understandings of the story gave fundamentally different interpretations. Was only one of these eight interpretations correct and the remaining seven wrong? If so, how can one arrive at the correct interpretation? Put another way, if there is only one correct interpretation of a text, what are the hermeneutical principles (the rules of interpretation) readers must use to discover this interpretation? Should each of the eight students attempt to reconstruct the intentions O'Connor held while writing her story or the meaning her story had for her readers in the 1950s (hermeneutics of recovery)? Or should each student attempt to examine O'Connor's unspoken but implied assumptions con cerning politics, sexuality, religion, linguistics, and a host of other topics (hermeneutics of suspicion)? By so doing, O'Connor's work can then have multiple interpretations. Are all of these various and often contradictory inter pretations valid? Can and should each interpretation be considered a satisfac tory and legitimate analysis of the text? In other words, can a text mean anything a reader declares it to mean, or are there guiding principles for inter preting a text that must be followed if a reader is to arrive at a valid interpreta tion? And who can declare that one's interpretation is valid or legitimate? English professors? Professional critics? Published scholars? Any reader?

Chapter 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

5

Need a reader, however, be thinking of any of these particulars when reading a text? Can t one simply enjoy a novel without considering its inter pretation? Need one be able to state the work's theme, discuss its structure, or analyze its tone to enjoy the actual act of reading the work itself? These and similar questions are the domain of literary criticism: the act of studying, analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, and enjoying a work of art. At first glance, the study of literary criticism may appear daunting and for midable. Jargon such as hermeneutics, Aristotelian poetics, metaphysics of presence, deconstruction, and many other intimidating terms confront the would-be literary critic. Nevertheless, the actual process or act of literary criticism is not as ominous as it may first appear.

HOW TO BECOM E A LITERARY CRITIC

When the students in Dr. Toland's class were discussing O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," each of them was directly responding to the instructor's initial question: What do you believe O'Connor is trying to tell us in and through this story? Although not all responses were radi cally different, each student viewed the story from a unique perspective. For example, some students expressed a liking for the grandmother, but others thought her a selfish, arrogant woman. Still others believed O'Connor was voicing a variety of philosophical, social, and cultural concerns, such as the place of women and African Americans in Southern society, or adherence to tenets of Christianity as the foundation for one's view of life, or the structure of the family in rural Georgia in the 1950s. All had an opinion about and, therefore, an interpretation of O'Connor's short story. When Dr. Toland's students stated their personal interpretations of O'Connor's text, they had become practicing literary critics. All of them had already interacted with the story, thinking about their likes and dis likes of the various characters; their impressions of the setting, plot, and structure; and their overall assessment of the story itself, whether that as sessment was a full-fledged interpretation that seeks to explain every facet of the text or simply bewilderment as to the story's overall meaning. None of the students, however, had had formal training in literary criticism. None knew the somewhat complicated jargon (discourse) of literary theory. And none were acquainted with any of the formal and informal schools of literary criticism. What each student had done was to have read the story. The reading process itself produced within the students an array of responses, taking the form of questions, statements, opinions, and feelings evoked by the text. It is these responses coupled with the text itself that are the concerns of literary criticism and theory.

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Chapter 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literatu re

Although these students m ay need to master the terminology, the m philosophical approaches, and the diverse methodologies of formal litc  ^ criticism to become trained literary critics, they auto ma tically became ^ ary critics as they read and thought about O'Connor's text. They needed *** formal training in literary criticism or w orking und erstan ding of literary tg10 ory. By mastering the concepts of formal literary criticism and theory ho ° ever, these students, like all read ers, can b eco m e critical read ers who W* better able to understand and articulate their own reactions and anal  ^ those of others to any given text. ^ e

 W H A T IS LIT E R A R Y C R IT IC IS M ?

Matthew Arnold, a nineteenth-century literary critic, describes literary criti cism as "A disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world." Implicit in this definition is that literary criticism is a disciplined activity that attempts to describe, study, analyze,  justify, interpret, and evalua te a work of art. By necessity, Arnold would argue, this discipline attempts to formulate aesthetic and methodological principles on which the critic can evaluate a text. Anyone who attempts to evaluate texts in this fashion is a literary critic, a term derived from two Greek words, krino, meaning "to judge" and krites, meaning "a judge or jury person." A literary critic, or kritikos, is, therefore, a "judge of literature." The first recorded such judge is the fourth century BCE teacher Philitas, who arrived in Alexandria in 305 BCE to tutor a child who would become King Ptolemy II.Whenjudging literature, Philitas was actively engaged in the dis ciplined activities of literary criticism. When we consider its function and its relationship to texts, literary criti cism is not usually considered a discipline in and of itself, for it must be related to something else—that is, a work of art. Without the work of art, the activity of criticism cannot exist. And it is through this discerning activity of criticism that we can knowingly and deliberately explore the questions that help define our humanity, critique our culture, evaluate our actions and feel ings, or simply increase our appreciation and enjoyment of both a literary work and our fellow human beings. When analyzing a text, literary critics ask basic questions such as these about the philosophical, psychological, functional, and descriptive nature of the text itself: •

Does a text have only one correct meaning?

•

Is a text always didactic; that is, must a reader learn something from every text?

•

Can a text be read only for enjoyment? Does a text affect each reader in the same way?

C ha pte r 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

7

How is a text influenced by the culture of its author and the culture in which it is written?  What part or function does gender play in the writing or the reading of a text? How do our personal feelings affect our interpretation of a text? Can a text become a catalyst for change in a given culture?

Since the time of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle and continuing to the present day, critics and readers have been hotly debating the answers to these and similar questions. By asking questions of O'Connor's or any other text and by contemplating answers, we, too, can participate in this on going conversation. We can question, for example, the grandmother's mo tives in O Con nor s A Goo d Man Is Hard to Fin d" for wan ting to take her cat on the family s vacation. Or we can ask if the presence of the Misfit and his companions is the primary reason the grandmother experiences her epiphany. No matter what question we may ask concerning O'Connor's text, we are participating in the ongoing debate of the value and enjoyment of O Connor s short story while simultaneously engaging in literary criti cism and function ing as practical literary critics. Traditionally, literary critics involve themselves in either theoretical or practical criticism. Theoretical criticism formulates the theories, principles, and tenets of the nature and value of art. By citing general aesthetic and moral principles of art, theoretical criticism provides the necessary frame work for practical criticism. Practical criticism (also known as applied criticism) applies the theories and tenets of theoretical criticism to a particular work. Using the theories and principles of theoretical criticism, the practical critic defines the standards of taste and explains, evaluates, or justifies a par ticular piece of literature. A further distinction is made between the practical critic who posits that there is only one theory or set of principles a critic may use when evaluating a literary work—the absolutist critic —and the relativistic critic, one who uses various and even contradictory theories in critiquing a text. The b asis for either kind of critic, or any form of criticism, is literary theory. Without theory, practical criticism could not exist.

 W H A T IS L IT E R A R Y T H E O R Y ?

When reading O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," we necessarily interact with the text, asking many specific, text-related questions and, oftentimes, rather personal ones as well. For example, such questions as these may concern us, the readers:• •

What kind of person is the grandmother? Is she like my grandmother or any grandmother I know?

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Chapter 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

•

What is the function or role of June Star? John Wesley? Bailey? The children's mother? Why was the grandmother taking Pitty Sing, the cat, on the family vacation? What is the significance of the restaurant scene at The Tower? Right before she is shot, what does the grandmother recognize about the Misfit? What is the significance of this recognition?

• • •

Such questions immediately involve us in practical criticism. What we tend to forget during the reading of O'Connor's short story or any other text is that we have already read other literary works (intertextuality). Our re sponse to any text—or the principles of practical criticism we apply to it—is largely a conditioned or socially constructed one; that is, how we arrive at meaning in fiction is, in part, determined by our experiences. Consciously or unconsciously, we have developed a mind-set or framework that accommo dates our expectations when reading a novel, short story, poem, or any other type of literature. In addition, what we choose to value or uphold as good or bad, moral or immoral, beautiful or ugly within a given text actually de pends on this ever-evolving framework. When we can clearly articulate our personal philosophical framework when reading a text and explain how this mind-set directly influences our values and aesthetic judgments about a text, we are well on our way to developing a coherent, unified literary theory— the assumptions (conscious or unconscious) that undergird our understand ing and interpretation of language, the ways vve construct meaning, and our understanding of art, culture, aesthetics, and ideologies. Whereas literary criticism involves our analysis of a text, literary theory concerns itself with our understanding of the ideas, concepts, and intellectual assumptions upon which rests our actual literary critique. Because anyone who responds to a text is already a practicing literary critic and because practical criticism is rooted in the reader's preconditioned expectations (his or her mind-set) when actually reading a text, every reader espouses some kind of literary theory. Each reader's theory may be con scious or unconscious, whole or partial, informed or ill informed, eclectic or unified. An incomplete, unconscious, and therefore, unclear literary theory more frequently than not leads to illogical, unsound, and haphazard inter pretations. On the other hand, a well-defined, logical, and clearly articulated theory enables readers to develop a method by which to establish principles that enable them to justify, order, and clarify their own appraisals of a text in a consistent manner. A better understanding of literary theory can be gained by investigating the etymology of the word theory   itself. Derived from the Greek word theoria,   the word theory  means a "view or perspective of the Greek stage. iterary theory, then, offers to us a view of life, an understanding of why we interpret texts the way we do. Consider the various places in the theater that we, t e audience, may sit. Depending on our seats—whether close to the

F ti r 1

Defining Criticism , Theory, and Literature

view will sitting' r, •. „ . _. exactly is influencing us during the reading . Ur CU UIY *s ** our understandin g of the nature of literature 1 ‘ * ° Ur P ° 1 lca ' rel*gious, or social views? Is it our family backgroun . ics e an sim ilar qu estions (and their answers) will directly and indirectly and consciously and unconsciously be affecting our interpretation an our en joym ent, o r lack thereof, of a text. To be able to articulate such un derlying a ssu m ptio ns abo ut how we read texts will enable us, the readers, to establish for ourselves a lucid and logical practical criticism. A well-articulated literary theory also assumes that an innocent reading of a text or a sheerly emotional or spontaneous reaction to a work does not exist because literary theory questions the assumptions, beliefs, and feelings of readers, asking w hy  they respond to a text in a certain way. In a very real sense, literary theory causes us to question our commonsense interpretation of a text, asking us to probe beneath our initial responses. According to a consistent literary theory, a simple emotional or intuitive response to a text does not explain the underlying factors that caused such a reaction. What elicits that response, or how the reader constructs meaning through or with the text, is what matters.

M A K I N G M E A N I N G F R O M T E XT

How w e as rea ders co nstruct m eaning through or with a text depend s on the mental framework each of us has developed and continues to develop con cerning the nature of reality. This framework or worldview consists of the assumptions or presuppositions that we all hold (either consciously or un consciously) about the basic makeup of our world. For example, we all struggle to find answers to such questions as these: • • • •

What is the basis of morality or ethics? What is the meaning of human history? What happens at the moment of death? Is there an overarching purpose for humanity s existence?

• •

What is beauty? Truth? Goodness? Is there an ultimate reality?

Interestingly our answers to these and other questions do not remain static, for as we interact with other people, our environment, our culture, and our own inner selves, we are continually shaping and developing our personal philosophies, rejecting form er ideas and replacing them w.th newly discovered

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Chap ter 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

ones. It is our dynamic answers—including our doubts and fears about th answers—that largely determine our response to a literary text. ese Upon such a conceptual framework rests literary theory. Whether th framework is well reasoned or simply a matter of habit and past teachin ** readers respond to works of art via their worldview. From this philosophic ^ core of beliefs spring their evaluations of the goodness, worthiness, and value of art itself. Using their worldviews either consciously or uncon sciously as a yardstick by which to measure and value their experiences readers respond to individual works of literature, ordering and valuing each separate or collective experience in each text based on the system of beliefs housed in their worldviews.

THE READING PROCESS AND LITERARY THEORY The relationship between literary theory and a reader's personal worldview is best illustrated in the act of reading itself. When reading, we are constantly interacting with the text. According to Louise M. Rosenblatt's text The Reader, the Text, the Poem  (1978), during the act or event of reading, A reader brings to the text his or her past experience and present personality. Under the magnetism of the ordered symbols of the text, the reader marshals his or her resources and crystallizes out from the stuff of memory, thought, and feeling a new order, a new experience, which he/she sees as the poem. This be comes part of the ongoing stream of the reader's life experience, to be reflected on from any angle important to him or her as a human being.

Rosenblatt declares that the relationship between the reader and the text is not linear, but transactional; that is, it is a process or event that takes place at a particular time and place in which the text and the reader condition each other. The reader and the text transact—not simply interact—creating mean ing, for meaning does not exist solely within the reader's mind or within the text, Rosenblatt maintains, but in the transaction between them. To arrive at an interpretation of a text (what Rosenblatt calls the poem), readers bring their own "temperament and fund of past transactions to the text [what some critics call forestructure] and live through a process of handling new situations, new attitudes, new personalities, [and] new conflicts in value. They can reject, revise, or assimilate into the resource with which they en gage their world. Through this transactional experience, readers con sciously and unconsciously amend their worldviews. Because no literary theory can account for all the various factors ineluded in everyone s conceptual framework, and because we as readers all have different literary experiences, there can exist no metatheoiy—no single overarching literary theory that encompasses all possible interpretations of a

l

Ch apte r 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

11

text suggested by its readers. And there can be no single correct literary the ory, for in and of itself, each literary theory asks valid questions of and about a text, and no one theory is capable of exhausting all legitimate questions to be asked about any text. The valid and legitimate questions asked about a text by the various lit erary theories differ, often widely. Espousing separate critical orientations, each theory focuses primarily on one element of the interpretative process, although in practice different theories may address several areas of concern in interpreting a text. For example, one theory may stress the work itself, be lieving that the text alone contains all the necessary information to arrive at an interpretation. This theory isolates the text from its historical or sociolog ical setting and concentrates on the literary forms found in the text, such as figures of speech (tropes), word choice (diction), and style. Another theory may attempt to place a text in its historical, political, sociological, religious, and economic settings. By placing the text in historical perspective, this the ory asserts that its adherents can arrive at an interpretation that both the text's author and its original audience would support. Still another theory may direct its chief concern toward the text's audience. It asks how readers7 emotions and personal backgrounds affect each reader's interpretation of a particular text. Whether the primary focus is psychological, linguistic, myth ical, historical, or from any other critical orientation, each literary theory es tablishes its own theoretical basis, then proceeds to develop its own method ology whereby readers can apply the particular theory to an actual text. In effect, each literary theory or perspective is like taking a different seat in the theater and thereby obtaining a different view of the stage. Different literary theories and theorists may all study the same text, but being in different seats, the various literary theorists will all respond differently to the text—or the performance on the stage—because of their unique perspectives. Although each reader's theory and methodology for arriving at a text's interpretation may differ, sooner or later groups of readers and critics de clare allegiance to a similar core of beliefs and band together, founding schools of criticism. For example, critics who believe that social and histori cal concerns must be highlighted in a text are known as Marxist critics, whereas reader-oriented critics (sometimes referred to as reader-response critics) concentrate on readers' personal reactions to the text. Because new points of view concerning literary works are continually evolving, new schools of criticism—and, therefore, new literary theories—will continue to develop. One of the more recent schools to emerge in the 1980s and 1990s, New Historicism or Cultural Poetics, declares that a text must be analyzed through historical research that assumes that history and fiction are insepa rable. The members of this school, known as New Historicists, hope to shift the boundaries between history and literature and thereby produce criticism that reflects what they believe to be the proper relationship between the text and its historical context. Still other newly evolving schools of criticism, such

12

Ch apter 1 • Defining Critici sm, Theory, and Literature

as postcolonialism, African American studies, gender studies, queer theory and ecocriticism, continue to emerge and challenge previous ways of think ing about and critiquing texts. Because the various schools of criticism (and the theories on which th > are based) ask different questions about the same work of literature, these theoretical schools provide an abundance of options from which readers can choose to broaden their understanding not only of texts but also of their so ciety, their culture, and their own humanity. By embracing literary theory we learn about literature, but more important, we are also taught tolerance for other p eop le's beliefs. By rejecting or ignoring theory, we are in danger of canonizing ourselves as literary saints who possess divine knowledge and who can, therefore, supply the one and only correct interpretation for a given text. When we oppose, disregard, or ignore literary theory, we are in danger of blindly accepting our more frequently than not unquestioned prejudices and assumptions. By embracing literary theory and literary criticism (its practical application), we can willingly participate in that seemingly endless historical conversation about the nature of humanity and of humanity's concerns as expressed in literature. And in the process, we can begin to question our concepts of ourselves, our society, and our culture and how texts themselves help define and continually redefine these concepts.

 W H A T IS L IT E R A T U R E ?

Because literary criticism presupposes that there exists a work of literature to be interpreted, we could assume that formulating a definition of literature would be simple. This is, however, not the case. For centuries, writers, literary historians, and others have debated about but have failed to agree on a definition for this term. Some assume that literature is simply anything that is written, thereby declaring a city telephone directory, a cookbook, and a road atlas to be literary works along with Pride and Prejudice   and the  Adv en tu res o f Huckleberry Finn.  Derived from the Latin littera,  meaning "letter," the root meaning of the word literature  refers primarily to the written word and seems to support this broad definition. Yet such a definition eliminates the important oral traditions upon which much of our literature is based, including Homer's Iliad  and Odyssey,   the English epic Beoxvidf,  and many Native Am erican legends, among many other examples. To solve this difficulty, others choose to define literature  as an art, thereby leaving open the question of its being written or oral. This definition further narrows its meaning, equating literature to works of the imagination or creative writing. To emphasize the imaginative qualities of literature, some critics choose to use the German word for literature, Wortkunst,   instead of its English equivalent, because Wortkunst   automatically implies that the

Cha pter 1 • Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

13

imaginative and creative aspects of literature are essential components of the word literature  itself. By this definition, written works such as a telephone directory or a cookbook can no longer be considered literature; these kinds of works are superseded by poetry, drama, fiction, and other imaginative writing. Some scholars believe that the imaginative qualities of a work of lit erature were first articulated for Western literature in a work written by the French Baroness Madame de Stael, a German Romantic theorist, who in 1800 authored On Literature Considered in Its Relations with Social Institutions. Although the narrowing of the definition of literature accomplished by equating it to the defining terms of art seemingly simplifies what can and cannot be considered a literary work, such is not the case. That the J. Crew and Victoria's Secret clothes catalogues are imaginative (and colorful) writ ing is unquestioned, but should they then be considered works of literature? Who declares whether a written docum ent is a work of art? Many readers as sume that if an imaginative work of fiction is published—be it singly or in an anthology—such a work is worthy to be read. It has, after all, been judged acceptable as a literary work and has been published and presumably ap proved by an editorial board. This belief that published works are deemed worthy to be dubbed literature is called the hyperprotected cooperative principle, that is, published works have been evaluated and declared liter ary texts by a group of well-informed people who are protecting the overall canon of literature. But even this principle does not stop many from arguing that some published works are unworthy to be called works of art or litera ture. Specifying and narrowing the definition of literature to a "work of art" does not, then, immediately provide consensus or a consistent rule about how to declare a text a "work of literature." Whether one accepts the broad or narrow definition, many argue that a text must have certain peculiar qualities before it can be dubbed "literature." Those who hold this view believe that an artist's creation or secondary world often mirrors the author's primary world, the world in which the writer lives and moves and breathes. Because reality or the primary world is highly structured, the secondary world must also be so structured. To achieve this structure, the artist must create plot, character, tone, symbols, conflict, and a host of other elements or parts of the artistic story, with all of these elements working in a dynamic relationship to produce a literary work. Some would argue that it is the creation of these elements—how they are used and in what context— that determines whether a piece of writing is literature. Still other critics add the "test of time" criterion to their essential compo nents of literature. If a work such as Dante s Divine Comedy or La Dizuna Commedia (1308-1321) withstands the passage of time and is still being read centuries after its creation, it is deemed valuable and worthy to be called lit erature. This criterion also denotes literature s functional or cultural value. If people value a written work, for whatever reason, they often declare it to be literature whether or not it contains the prescribed elements of a text.

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Cha pter 1 • IVtining Criticism, Theory, and Literature.

What this work may contain is a peculiar aesthetic quality that is, some element of beauty—that distinguishes it as literature from other forms of writing. Aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that deals with the concept of the beautiful, strives to determine the criteria for beauty in a work of art. Theorists such as Plato and Aristotle declare that the source of beauty is inherent within the art object itself; other critics, such as David Hume, main tain that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And some contemporary theorists argue that one's perception of beauty in a text rests in the dynamic relationship between the object (the text) and the perceiver (the reader) at a given moment in time. Wherever the criteria for judging beauty of a work of art finally resides, most critics agree that a work of literature does have an app ealing aesthetic quality. While distinguishing literature from other forms of writing, this ap pealing aesthetic quality directly contributes to literature s chief purpose: telling a story. Although it may simultaneously communicate facts, litera ture's primary aim is to tell a story. The subject of this story is particularly human, describing and detailing a variety of human experiences, not stat ing facts or bits and pieces of information. For example, literature does not define the word courage  but shows us a courageous character acting coura geously. By so doing, literature concretizes an array of human values, emo tions, actions, and ideas in story form. It is this concretization that allows us to experience vicariously the stories of a host of characters. Through these characters, we observe people in action, making decisions, struggling to m ainta in th eir humanity in often inhumane circumstances, and embody ing for us a variety of values and human characteristics that we may em brace, discard, enjoy, or detest.

L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y A N D T H E D E F IN I TI O N O F LITERATURE

Is litera ture sim ply a story that contains certain aesthetic and literary qual ities that all somehow pleasingly culminate in a work of art? If so, can texts be considered artifacts that can be analyzed, dissected, and studied to dis cover their essential nature or meaning? Or does a literary work have ontological status; that is, does it exist in and of itself, perhaps in a special neo-Platonic realm? Or must it have an audience, a reader, before it be comes literature? And can we even define the word text? Is it simply print on a page? If pictures are included, do they automatically become part of the text? Who determines, then, when print becomes a work of art? The reader? The author? Both? The answers to these and similar questions have been long debated, and the various responses make up the corpus of literary theory. Literary theory offers a variety of methodologies that enable readers to interpret a

Ch apt er 1 . Defining Crltlclwm, Theory, and U„ ,r0,ure

15

• « ' from different and often conflicting p„in(„ „f view. By an doing it asks pertinent and often controversial questions concerning the philosoph ical assu m ptio ns surro un din g the nature of the reading process the epistemological nature of learning, the nature of reality itself, and a host of related concerns. Such theorizing empowers readers to examine their per sonal worldviews, to articulate their individual assumptions about the na ture of reality and to understand how these assumptions directly affect their interpretations not only of a work of art but also of the definition of literature itself. Although any definition of literature is debatable, most would agree that an exam ination of a tex t's total artistic situation would help us decide what constitutes literature. Th is total picture of the work involves such ele ments as the work itself (e.g., an examination of the fictionality or sec ondary world created within the story), the artist, the universe or world the work supposedly represents, and the audience or readers. Although readers and critics will emp hasize one, two, or even three of these eleme nts while deem ph asizing the others, such a conside ration of a text's artistic sit uation immediately broadens the definition of literature from the concept that it is simply a written work that contains certain qualities to a defini tion that must include the dynamic interrelationship of the actual text and the readers. Perhaps, then, the literary competence of the readers them selves helps determine whether a work should be considered literature. If this is so, then a literary w ork m ay be more functional than o ntological, its existence and, therefore, its value being determined by its readers and not by the wo rk itself. Overall, the definition of literature depends on the particular kind of lit erary theory or school of criticism that the reader or critic espouses. For Formalists, for example, the text and text alone contains certain qualities that make a particular piece of writing literature. On the other hand, for reader-oriented critics, the interaction and psychological relationships be tween the text and the reade r help determine whether a docum ent should be deemed literary. A working knowledge of literary theory can thus help all readers formulate their ever-developing definition of literature and what they believe constitutes a literary work.

T H E F U N C T I O N O F L IT E R A T U R E A N D L I T ER A R Y T H E O R Y

Critics con tinua lly d ebate literature's chief function. Tracing their arguments to Plato, many contend that literature's primary function is moral, its chief value being its usefulness for cultural or societal purposes. But others, like Aristotle, hold that a work of art can be analyzed and broken down into its various parts, with each part contributing to the overall enjoyment of the

lb

i C'riticisn'i, Theory, Chapter 1 • lVfiiu ng

and

Literature

• , i text is found with in the tevr • work itself. For these fiT w o Tk itself, m its m o st s im p l e t o r ^ f .... ^,.literature ie f func tion to/ ^ach th<-> or is inseparably Imked to tnt literatures schu''^* iuncllc'n

we a'ad? lead uo us dhectly to Ute •o,« #ngwets answers iea^ «t*cuiy to literarv Such questions and their varmu ^ only with ontological quJ . theory because literary ' ' ' ^ . “ " “ sts) but also with ep.stemolog.cal issU(Si tions (e.g., whether a text re‘ C nowing). When we ask, then, if literature's (e.g., how we know or ways we are really asking epistemologiCal chief function is to entertain or to t Qr to be entertained, We ^ questions. Whether we read a te ^ »Unow" that text, can say that once we have read a /^ ^   distinct ways. The first way We can know a text, howe ' analysis. When we have studied, involves the typical literature c a arrived at an interpretation, we can analyzed, and critiqued a text a he text On the other hand, when we then confidently assert that we n ^ j ames mystery novel to discover stay up all night turning the PaS^ that we know the text because we have who the murderer is, we can a ^ its seCondary world, consum ed by its spent time devouring its page ' seeking the resolution of its tensions. characters, and by novel s end e a ^ ly seek g Qther ^ entertain__  r , ” • * “ » • « > »» two The d ifferent ways. can uuu both be translated “to know" French verbs savoir   and rnnnaitre connaitre  can and can highlight for us the difference between these two epistemological goals or ways of knowing a text. Savoir  means "to analyze (from the Greek analuein,  "to undo") and "to study." The word is used to refer to knowing

something that is the object of study and assumes that the object, such as a text, can be examined, analyzed, and critiqued. Knowledge or learning about

is the ultimate goal. Connaitre,  on the other hand, implies that we intimately know or have experienced the text. Connaitre is used for knowing people and refers also to knowing an author's canon. Both knowing persons and knowing all a writer's works imply intimacy, learning the particular qualities of one per son or author, the ins and outs of each. Indeed, it is this intimacy that one often experiences while reading a mystery nove l all night lo ng. It is knowing or knowledge o f that the word means. To know how to analyze a text, to discuss its literary elements, and to apply the various methodologies of literary criticism means that we know that text (savoir).   To have experienced the text—to have cried along with or about its characters, to have lost time and sleep immersed in the secondary world it creates, and to have felt our em otion s stirred by th e text als0 means that we know that text (connaitre).  From one way of knowing/ we

C hap ter 1 • Defining C ritlci.sm, Theory, and Literati!re

17

learn facts or information; from tlu* other, we encounter and participate in an intimate experien ce. At tinus, we have actually known the text from both these perspectives.  While an alyzing and critiquing a text (navoir),  we have often (and perhaps mom often than not) simultaneously experienced it, becoming emotionally involved with its characters' choices and destinies (contmitrc)  and imagining  ourselves to be these characters or at least recognizing some of our own characteristics dram atized by the characters. To say that we know a text is no simple statement. Underlying our private and public reactions and our scholarly critiques and analyses is our literary theory, the fountainhead of our most intimate and our most public declarations. The formal study of literary theory, therefore, enables us to explain our responses to any text and allows us to articulate the function of literature in an academic and a personal way.

B E G I N N I N G T H E F O R M A L S T U D Y O F LIT E R A R Y T H E O R Y

This chapter has stressed the importance of literary theory and criticism and its relationship to literature and the interpretative pro cesses. It has also articulated the underlying premises of why a study of literary theory is essential:• •

•

•

•

Literary theory assumes that there is no such thing as an innocent reading of a text. Whether our responses are emotional and spontaneous or well reasoned and highly structured, all such interactions with and about a text are based on underlying factors that cause us to respond to that text in a particular fashion. What elicits these responses or how a reader makes sense of a text is at the heart of literary theory. Because our reactions to any text have theoretical bases, all readers must have a literary theory. The methods we use to frame our personal interpretations of any text directly involve us in the process of literary criticism and theory, automati cally making us practicing literary critics. Many readers have a literary theory that is more often than not unconscious, in complete, ill informed, and eclectic; therefore, readers' interpretations can easily be illogical, unsound, and haphazard. A well-defined, logical, and clearly articu lated literary theory consciously and purposefully enables readers to develop their own m ethods of interpretation, perm itting them to order, clarify, and justify their appraisals of a text in a consistent and logical manner. T oda y m a ny cr it ic s use th e te rm s literary criticism   and literary theory   inter changeably. Still others use the terms literary theory   and Continental philosophy synonymously. Although the semantic boundaries between literary criticism and literary theory (and sometimes Continental philosophy) are a bit blurred, literary criticism assumes that literary theory exists and that literary criticism rests on literary theory's concepts, ideas, and ever-developing principles.

IS

Chapter I • lYfining Criticism, Theory, and Literature

It is the goal of this text to enable readers to make such conscious formed, and intelligent choices, and in doing so, refine their own nu-th, ? of literary interpretation and more precisely understand their persona* and public reactions to texts. To accomplish this goal, this text will jntr duce readers to literary theory and criticism, its historical development and the various theoretical positions or schools of criticism, enabling read ers to become knowledgeable critics of their own and others' interpreta tions. By becoming acquainted with diverse and often contradictory approaches to textual analysis, readers will broaden their perspectives not only about themselves but also about others and the world in which they live.

ist or ical . S ur vey  AH

of 

r it icism Lit er ar y C No poet, no artist, has his [or her] complete meaning alone.

T. S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

INTRODUCTION uestions about the value, the structure, and the definition of literature undoubtedly arose in all cultures as people heard or read works of art. Such practical criticism probably began with the initial hearing or reading of the first literary works. The Greeks of the fifth century BCE were the first, however, to articulate and develop the philosophy of art and life that serves as the foundation for most theoretical and practical criticism. Assuredly, hearers and performers of the Homeric poems commented on and inter preted these works before the fifth century BCE, but it was the fifth-century Athenians who questioned the very act of reading and writing itself while pondering the purpose of literature. Some scholars date the origin of literary criticism by citing the performance of Aristophanes' play, The Frogs  in 405 BCE. The play was performed as a part of a contest among dramatists, with Aristophanes receiving first prize. To win the contest, a literary judge or  judges had to declare The Frogs   the "best" play, thus initiating literary criti cism. By so doing, these early critics began a debate about the nature and function of literature that continues to the present day. What they inaugu rated was the formal study of literary criticism. From the fifth century BCE to the present, numerous critics—such as Plato, Dante Alighieri, William Wordsworth, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jacques Derrida, Louise Rosenblatt, Stephen Greenblatt, Judith Butler, Lawrence Buell, and a host of others, have developed principles of criticism that have had a major influence on the continuing discussion of literary criticism. By examining these critics' ideas, we can gain an understanding of and participate

Q

19

20

Ch apter 2 • A Historical Surv ey of Liter ary Criticism

in this critical debate while acquiring an appreciation for and a w0rkine knowledge of both practical and theoretical criticism. o

PLATO (C. 427-3 47 BCE)

Alfred North Whitehead, a modern British philosopher, once quipped that "all of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato." Although others have indeed contributed to Western thought, Plato's ideas, expressed in his Ion, Crito,  the Republic, Laws,  and other works, laid the foundation for many, if not most, of the pivotal issues of philosophy and literature, including the con cepts of truth, beauty, and goodness; the nature o f reality; the structure of society; the nature and relations of being (ontology); questions about how we know what we know (epistemology); and ethics and morality. Since Plato's day, such ideas have been debated, changed, debunked, or simply accepted, but none has been ignored. Before Plato, only fragmentary comments about the nature and value of literature can be found. In the plays and writings of the comic dramatist Aristophanes, a contemporary of Plato's, a few tidbits of practical criticism arise but no clearly articulated literary theory. It is Plato who systematically begins for us the study of literary theory and criticism. Plato's theories and criticis m, how ever, would be more clearly articulated and developed several hundred years later by the philosopher Plotinus (204-270 CE), who reintro duced Plato's ideas to the Western world, known today as Neoplatonism. Nevertheless, Plato's writings form the foundation upon which literary theory rests. The core of Platonic thought resides in Plato's doctrine of Essences, Ideas, or Forms. Ultimate reality, he states, is spiritual. This spiritual realm, what Plato calls The One, is composed of "ideal" forms or absolutes that exist whether or not any mind posits their existence or reflects their attributes. It is these ideal forms that give shape to our physical world because our material world is nothing more than a shadow, a replica, of the absolute forms found in the spiritual realm. In the material world, we can, therefore, recognize a chair as a chair because the ideal chair exists in this spiritual realm and pre ceded the existence of the material chair. Without the existence of the ideal chair, the physical chair, which is nothing more than a shadow or replica representation, imitation, reflection—of the ideal chair, could not exist. Such an emphasis on philosophical ideals earmarks the beginning of the first articulated literary theory and becomes the foundation for literary criti cism. Before Plato and the establishment of his Academy (the name of the school he founded in 387 BCE), Greek culture ordered its world through poetry and the poetic im agination— that is, by hearing such epics as the IhW and Odyssey or by attending the play cycles, the Greeks saw good characters

ChtiphT 2 • A I listorical Su rvc»y of Literary Criticism

21

in act«on pt*rfo r m ing good deeds. From such stories, they formulated their theor.es t goodness and other similar standards, thereby min* the presenta um‘* 1" H 1 or i iscovering truth: observing good characters actit.g justly, honora ■>v, aiu courageously and inculcating these characteristics within thcn.se v is . it i the adv ent of Pinto and his Academy, philosophical inquiry ant a .struct thinking usurped the narrative as a method for discov ering trut .. Not by accident, then, Plato places above his school door the words, Let no one enter here who is not a geometer" (a master of geometry; one skilled in formal logic and reasoning). To matriculate at Plato's Academy, Plato s students had to value the art of reason and abstraction as opposed to the presentational mode for discovering truth. This art of abstract reasoning and formal logic not only usurps litera ture's role as an evaluating mode for discerning truth, but also condemns it. If ultimate reality rests in the spiritual realm, and the material world is only a shadow or replica of the world of ideals, then according to Plato and his followers, poets (those who compose imaginative literature) are merely imitating an imitation when they write about any object in the material world. Accordingly, Plato declares that a poet's craft is "an inferior who mar ries an inferior and has inferior offspring," because the poet is one who is now two steps removed from ultimate reality. These imitators of mere shad ows, contends Plato, cannot be trusted. While condemning poets for producing art that is nothing more than a copy of a copy Plato also argues that poets produce their art irrationally re lying on untrustworthy intuition rather than reason for their inspiration. He writes, "For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and then the mind is no longer in him." Because such inspiration opposes reason and asserts that truth can be attained intuitively, Plato condemns all poets. Because poets are untrustworthy and damned, their works can no longer be the basis of the Greeks' morality or ethics. Lies abound in the works of poets, argues Plato—critical lies about the nature of ultimate reality and dangerous lies about human reality In the Iliad,  for exam ple, the gods lie and cheat and are one of the main causes of suffering among humans. Even the mortals in these works steal, complain, and hate each other. Such writ ings, con tends Plato, set a bad e xam ple for Greek citizens and may lead nor mally law-abiding people down paths of wickedness and immorality. In the Republic,   Plato ultimately concludes that the poets must be banished from Greek so ciety In a later work, Laws, Book VIII,  Plato recants the total banishment of poets from society, acknowledging the need for poets and their craft to "celebrate the victors" of the state. In this work, Plato then asserts tlurt only those poets "w h o are them selves good and also honourable in the state can be tolerated. In making this statement, Plato decrees poetry s function value in and for his society: to sing the praises of loyal Greeks. Accordingly,

22

Ch ap ter 2 • A Historical Surv ey of I.iterary Cr iticism

poets must be supporters of the state or risk exile from their homul Being mere imitators of reality— in effect, go od ba rs these artisans and their craft must be religiously censured. Bv directlv linking politics and literature in a moral and reasoned vvorij, view, Plato and his Ac ademy founded a co m plex the ory of literary critiCiSrn that initiated the debate, still ongoing, on the value, nature, and worth of the

ARISTOTLE (384-322 BCE) Whereas literary criticism's concern with morality began with Plato, its em  phasis on the elements of which a work is composed began with Plato's fa mous pupil, Aristotle. Rejecting some of Plato's beliefs about the nature of reality, Aristotle opts for a detailed investigation of the material world. Th e so n of a m edical doctor from Th race, Aristo tle reveled in the physical wo rld. A fter studying at Plato's Academy and m astering the philosophy and the te chn iqu es o f inquiry taught there, Aristotle fo und ed the Lyceum, a school of scientific and philosophical thought and investigation in 335 BCE. Unlike Plato's private Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum (its name originating from the A the nia n p ublic exercise park or gym nasium whe re Aristotle taught) was open to the general public and free to all. The Lyceum is also known as the Peripatetic School of Athens, taking its name from the Greek word  peripatein, meaning walk, because Aristotle supposedly lectured his pupils while stro lling the tree-lined grounds of the park. Ap plyin g his scientific methods of investigation to the study of literature, Aristotle answers Plato's accusations against poetry in a series of lectures known as the P oet i cs. Unlike exoteric treatises meant for general publication, the Poetics   is an esoteric work, one meant for private circulation to those who attended the Lyceum. Although it lacks the unity and coherence of Aristotle's other works, it remains one of the m ost im porta nt critical influences on literary theory and criticism. Aristotle's Poetics   has become the cornerstone of Western literary criti cism. By applying his analytic abilities to a definition of tragedy, Aristotle began in the Poetics   a discussion of the basic components of a literary work that continues to the present day. Unfortunately many critics and scholars mistakenly assume that the Poetics   is a how-to manual, defining and setting the standards for literature (particularly tragedy) for all time. Aristotle's pur pose, however, was not to formulate a series of absolute rules for evaluating a tragedy, but to state the general principles of tragedy, as he viewed them in his time, while responding to many of Plato's doctrines and arguments. Even his title, the Poetics,   reveals Aristotle's purpose because in Greek the word p o et i k es  means "things that are made or crafted." Like a biologist/ Aristotle dissects tragedy to discover its constituent or crafted parts.

C ha pte r 2 • A l  listorical S urvey of Literary C riticism

23

At the beginning o f the Poetics,  Aristotle notes that "epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and most forms of flute and lyre playing all happen to be, in general, imitations." Although all of these imitations differ in how and what they imitate, Aristotle agrees with Plato that all the arts are imitations. In particular, the art of poetry exists because people are imitative creatures who enjoy such imitation. Whereas Plato contends that the aesthetic pleasu re po etry is capab le of arousing can underm ine the structure of society and all its values, Aristotle strongly disagrees. His disagreement is basically a metaphysical argument concerning the nature of imitation itself. Whereas Plato decrees that imitation is two steps removed from the truth or realm of the ideal (the poet imitating an object that is itself an imitation of an ideal form), Aristotle contends that poetry is more universal, more general than things as they are, asserting that "it is not the function of the poet to relate what has h appened , but what m ay happen— what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity." It is the historian, not the poet, who writes of wh at has already happen ed. The p oet's task, declares Aristotle, is to write of wh at could hap pen. "Poetry, therefore, is a more philosoph ical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular." In arguing that poets present things not as they are, but as they should be, Aristotle rebuffs Plato's concept that the poet is merely imitating an imitation, for A ristotle's poet, with his em phasis on the un iversal, actually attains something nearer to the ideal than does Plato's. In Aristotle's view, not all imitations by poets are the same because "writers of greater d ignity imitated the noble actions of noble heroes; the less dignified sort of writers imitated the actions of inferior men." "Comedy," writes Aristotle, "is an imitation of base men [. . .] characterized not by every kind of vice but specifically by 'the ridiculous,' some error or ugliness that is painless and has no harmful effects." It is to tragedy, written by poets imitating noble actions and heroes, that Aristotle turns his major attention. Aristotle's com plex d efinition o f tragedy as found in the Poetics  has perplexed and frustrated many readers: Tragedy is, then, an imitation of a noble and complete action, having the proper magnitude; it employs language that has been artistically enhanced by each of the kinds of linguistic adornment, applied separately in the various parts of the play; it is presented in dramatic, not narrative form, and achieves, through the representation of pitiable and fearful incidents, the catharsis of such pitiable and fearful incidents. When placed in context with other ideas in the Poetics,   this complex definition high lights A risto tle's chief con tributions to literary criticism:1 1. Tragedy, or a work of art, is an imitation of nature that reflects a high form of art in exhibiting noble characters and noble deeds, the act of imitation itself giving us pleasure.

of Literary C'ritU 24

Ch apter 2 • A Historical Survey

i , m-g.-iy,   """'lie for,,, and an o„d. with e.uh of the part- being ‘ I y g * r"«""y 1 '"H.t., 1 . y' thin,. is an o*a„ic wholo, will, its various par » >1 > 3. In tragedy, concord for form inusl hop, von to ‘ ' n  w(|0 jh ' ' " luiv of tl,o drama because tl,o tragic I,on, inns ' ■ . t n'',Vr„|y S,HKl and just, yol whoso misfortune is brought abm" nol 1^ , rdepravity, b > by sonu- error or frailty, f lo must bo one who is h.«My rontmu o,l and prospor„„v. Furthermore, all tragic heroes have a tragic flaw, or iam« %,  i«i i
......   ....

Interestingly, nowhere in the Poetics  does Aristotle address the didactic value of poetry or literature. Unlike Plato, whose c ic con cern is e su ject matter of poetry and its effects on the reader, Aristotle emphasizes literary form or structure, examining the com ponent parts o f a trage y and how these parts must work together to produce a unified whole. From the writings of these philosopher-artists arise the concerns, ques tions, and debates that have spearheaded the development of most literary crit icism. By addressing different aspects of these fourth-century BCE critics ideas and concepts, other literary critics from the Middle Ages to the present have formulated theories of literary criticism that force us to ask different, but also legitimate, questions of a text. Nevertheless, the shadows of Plato and Aristotle and their concerns loom over much of what these later theorists espouse.

HORACE (65-8 BCE) With the passing of the glory that was Greece and its philosopher-artists came the grandeur of Rome and its chief stylist, Q uin tus H ora tius Flaccus, or s.mply Horace. Friend of Emperor Augustus and many other members of the Roman aristocracy, Horace enjoyed the wealth and influence of these associates. In a letter to the sons of r • , Hnracp i u lu h,s fnen ds and patrons, Maecenas, no race articulated what became thp off;,s;..i r . Middle A pps ° " Utl canon ° f literary taste during the ing this letter and his  Ars P o e tic (The Ar. f N eoc lass.c period . By readany medieval knight, and even such lit . a" y Rom an ar,stocr" t' itc rnry masters as the e i g h t e e n t h -

Chap ter 2 • A Historical Surve Su y of Literary Criticism

25

century scholar-poet Alexander I> ope could learn the standards of good or proper literature. »ly acquainted with Aristotle's works, his

maintains, one should write about traditional subjects in unique ways. In'addition, the poet should avoid all extremes in subject matter, diction (word choice), vocabulary, and style. Gaining mastery in these areas could be achieved by reading and following the examples of the classical Greek and Roman auth ors. For exam ple, because au thors of antiquity began their epics in the m iddle of things, all epics mu st begin in medias res. Above all, writers should avoid appearing ridiculous and must aim their sights low, not attempt ing to be a new Virgil or Homer. Literature's ultimate aim, declares Horace, is "dulce et utile,"  to be "sw eet and u sefu l." T he b est w ritings, he asserts, both teach and delight. To achieve this goal, poets must understand their audiences; the learned reader may want to be instructed, whereas others may simply read to be amused. The poet's task is to combine usefulness and delight in the same literary work. Often oversimplified and misunderstood, Horace opts for giving the would-be writer practical guidelines for the author's craft while leaving un attended and unchallenged many of the philosophical concerns of Plato and Aristotle. For H orace , a po et's g reatest reward is the adulation of the public.

L O N G I N U S ( FIR S T C E N T U R Y C E)

Although his d ate o f birth and national origin remain controversial, Longinus (sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Longinus) garners an important place in lit erary history for his treatise On the Sublime,  a response to a work by Caecillus of Calacte, a Sicilian rhetorician. Probably a Greek, Longinus often peppers his Greek and Latin writings with Hebrew quotations, making him the first lifprarv critic to borrow from a different literary tradition than his own and

26

Cha pter 2 • A Historical Surve y of Lite rary Criticism

a repeated examination, and which it is difficult or rather impossible to stand and the mem ory of wh ich is strong and hard to efface ." Simpl Wlt^ Longinus defines the sublime as "the echo of greatest of spirit" while identifying its five key elements: ( 1 ) the pow er of forming great co n ce p t $° (2) vehement and inspired passion; (3) the due formation of figures, such^' word order and appropriate audience; (4) noble diction; and (5) dignify elevated composition. Longinus also contends that all readers are innately**^ pable of recognizing the sublime, for "Nature has appointed us to be no ba<* or ignoble animals [.. .] for she implants in our souls the unconquerable l0v of whatever is elevated and more divine than we." When our intellects, 0Ur emotions, and our w ills harm oniously re spond to a given work of art, We know, says Longinus, that we have b een touched by the sublime. Until the late seventeen th century, few people considere d Longinus's On the Sublime  important or had even read it. By the eighteenth century, its sig nificance was recognized, and the treatise was quoted and debated by most public authors. Emphasizing the author (one who must possess a great mind and a great soul), the work itself (a text that must be composed of dignified and elevated diction while simultaneously disposing the reader to high thoughts), and the reader's response (the reaction of a learned audience in large part determines the value or worth of any given text), Longinus's criti cal method foreshadows New Criticism, reader-oriented criticism, and other schools of tw entieth-century criticism.

PLOTINUS (204-270 CE)

Born in Egypt in 204 CE, Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism, traveled to Alexandria in his mid-twenties, where he was taught by Longinus's teacher, Ammonius Saccas. Ammonius sparked Plotinus's inextinguishable love for philosophy, and in 244 CE, Plotinus left Ammonius in an attempt to discover Persian and Indian wisdom firsthand. Accompanying the Emperor Gordian on an expedition to Persia, Plotinus hoped to engage Persia's leading philosophers in dialogue. Plotinus never reached Persia because Emperor Gordian was as sassinated. Plotinus then traveled to Rome, where he taught philosophy for the next twenty years. Urged on by his most famous student, Porphyry, Plotinus began to write his own treatises in an attempt, he believed, to articulate clearly other scholars garbled misinterpretations of Plato, who m Plotinus declared to be the ultimate authority on all philosophical matters. At the time of his death in 270, Plotinus had authored fifty-four treatises, all of which were collected, edited, and named the Enneads  by his student and friend Porphyry. Through dialogues with his students, and especially Porphyry, Plotinus developed and clearly articulated the most pivotal concept stemming from the teachings of Plato: The One. Plato mentions The One only briefly in armemdes,  also referring to parts of this concept, such as the Good, in the

C ha ptiT 2 • A l lintork.il Surv ey of Lite rary C'ritU ism

27

^ p u b l i c .  Simultaneously The One is "unique and absolutely uncomplex" Init also "absolutely transcendental." Both to and from The One all thirds flow, and it is the complete origin of everything. Humanity's goal, both Plato md Plotinus believed, was to achieve unity with The One through contemplation and study. * Because unity w ith Th e O ne is the goal of humanity, Plotinus assorts that humanity exists in other forms of being: Intelligence (nous),  Soul (psyche), d Matter (physis)— w hich are separate from The One but also stem from it. Intelligence corresponds with Plato's realm of ideas. In this mode, people comprehend ideas and co nce pts through the intellect, not the senses. Within this level of intellect emerg es co gnitive identity. By thinking and co nceptu alizing, Intelligence also conceptualizes itself. This dimension Plotinus refers to as "the realm of number," giving this name to the next domain, the Soul. In Plotinus's p hiloso phic sy stem, the Soul refers to the overarching Soul that runs through not only humanity but also the entire creation. According to Plotinus, all souls form only one Soul; such unity allows all souls to intercomm unicate by extrase nso ry means. Th e Soul, however, has a selfish desire to possess itself, resulting in Matter, the third or lowest mode of being. For Plotinus, Ma tter is at first praisew orthy beca use creation is able to kn ow T he One only be cau se o f its overflow into matter. But matter is also fallen, for it is the lowest form of existence, one that is more frequently than not separate from The O ne. Plotinus's complex philosophy becomes pivotal to literary criticism because of its adoption and adaptation by many scholars and philosophers throughout the subsequent centuries. Immediately following Plotinus, Porphyry of Tyre and his contemporaries continue the journey toward transcendence. In the fourth century, St. Augustine, accompanied by Boethius in the fifth century, blended Plotinus's concepts of Neoplatonism with Christianity. This blending of Neoplatonism and Christianity eventually influenced medieval scholars such as St. Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhard. Not surprisingly, centuries later the American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau borrow and amend some of Plotinus's key concepts, incorporating these ideas into the key assumptions of Am erican R om anticism. Alongside Plato and Aristotle, many scholars consider Plotinus one of the greatest philo so ph ers of antiquity. Clearly, it is the writings and teaching of Plotinus that fo rm m uch of the Western perception of Plato and his works.

DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321)

Born in Floren ce, Italy, during the M iddle Ages, Dante is one of the most significant con tributo rs to literary criticism since Longinus an otinus an the appearance of their texts On the Sublime  and the Enneads, approximately

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Chapter 2 • A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

one thousand years earlier. Like Longinus, Dante's concern is thc eutiee for poetry. Banished from his native Florence for political reasons, Dante wrot*. of his works in exile, including his masterpiece, Commedia  (c. 13](g.]32]^ a ny La DivinaCommedia, or The Divine Comedy.   Written in three named Inferno  (c. 1314), Purgatorio(c. 1319), and Paradtso   (c. 1321) The (and the world depicted in it) mirrors Dante's contemporary world anT'dy concept of Christianity. Even before the third part of The Divine Corned *   h‘s published, Dante was already being heralded as Tuscany's greatest poet ^ Was introduction to the Paradiso, the third and last section of the Commedia 0  Sari wrote a letter to Can Grande della Scala explaining his literary theory. K n ^ today as Letter to Can Grande della Scala,   this pivotal work of literary th°Wn states that the language spoken by the people (the vulgar tongue or tjle60r^ nacular) is an appropriate, acceptable, and beautiful language for writin ^ Until the publication of Dante's works, Latin was the universal 1 guage, and all important works—such as histories, Church documents ^ even government decrees— were written in this official Church tongue Oni^ frivolous or popular works appeared in the vulgar language of the com ^ people. But in his Letter, Dante asserts and establishes that the vemacular°n both an excellent and appropriate vehicle for works o f literature. In the Letter, Dante also notes that he uses multiple levels of interpretatio or  symbolic meaning in The Divine Comedy.  Since the time of St. Augustine and throughout the Middle Ages, Church theologians, writers, and priests had followed a tradition of allegoric reading of Scripture that interpreted man of the Old Testament laws and stories as symbolic representations (allegories) of Christ's actions. Such a semiotic interpretation— reading of signs—had been applied only to Scripture. Until Dante's Commedia, no secular work had used these principles of symbolic interpretation. Praising the lyric poem and ignoring a discussion of genres, Dante estab lished himself as the leading critic of the Middle Ages. Because he declared a people's common language or the vernacular to be an acceptable vehicle of expression for writing literature, literary works found an ever-increasing audience. 6

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO (1313-1375) Little is known of the early life of Giovanni Boccaccio. Bom the illegitimate son of a wealthy merchant from Florence, Italy, in 1313, Boccaccio moved to Paris in his late teens to pursue his studies of the new humanistic literature appearing on the literary scene. In Paris he wrote some of his first vernacular poetry and was exposed to the works of Petrarch. But D ante was Boccaccio's poet-hero," and like Dante, Boccaccio often wrote in the vernacular. He

Chapter 2 • A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

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eventually returned to Florence, where he and most other Europeans experienced the Black Death of 1348 (a disease that killed about 25 t X m o“T ™

n ™

(

eVC'ntS ° f ‘hiS ,ime in his most famous w ^k ,

Deuimeron (1358), a frame narrative consisting of one hundred tales. By 1360,

Boccaccto was the center of Florentine culture, being one of the founders of the Renaissance. In 1373, he delivered the now famous Lecturae Danlis (' Reading o Dante ), the first lecture series ever dedicated to a European vernacular text, Dante s Cotntnedia.  Boccaccio's most influential scholarly work is his De Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, or On the Genealogy of the Gods of  the Gentiles  (1374), a collection of classical myths and legends. It is this work that serves as a wind ow into literary criticism of the 1300s. In this mammoth encyclopedia of myths, Boccaccio successfully maneuvers through the scholasticism of the late medieval ages and the humanism of the dawning Renaissance, a shift of focus from God and the afterlife to the present moment, focusing primarily on the problem of the human condition. For Boccaccio, myths reflect both truth and reality, while simultaneously having moral and religious value. Particularly in books fourteen and fifteen of The Genealogy o f the Gods, Boccaccio defends poetry and classical myth, stating that the purpose of poetry is to improve life by revealing both truth and God, thereby disavowing Plato's beliefs that poetry is useless or full of lies. Poetry, asserts Boccaccio, comes from “the bosom of God" and “moves the minds of a few men from on high to a yearning for the eternal." The poet is like a philosopher who seeks truth through contemplation rather than reason. In similar fashion, the poet is equal to the theologian who seeks knowledge about God Himself. And the truth found by the poet in poetry or literature lies in allegory, revealing its truthfulness “in a fair and fitting garment of fiction." Even Christ Himself, Boccaccio points out, used stories or literature to reveal truth. Boccaccio's defense of poetry had an immediate and lasting impact on literary theory and criticism, especially throughout the Renaissance. Boccaccio's concerns, critical writings, and collection of myths continue to appear in texts for the next several centuries, including those of Chaucer, Spenser, Jonson, Milton, and Shelley, to name a few. And it is Boccaccio's defense of poetry that paves the way for one of the most famous defenses of all, Sir Philip S idney 's Defense o f Poesy.

S IR P H I L I P S I D N E Y ( 1 5 5 4 -1 5 8 6 )

The paucity of literary criticism and theory during much £ is remedied by the abundance of critical activity during the Renaissance, pecially by the critic and writer Sir Philip Si ney. eentleman of Considered the representative scholar, writer, “ td fh e to . great Renaissance England , Sidney has been appropriately named g

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Chapter 2 • A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

Fnelish critic-poet. His work A»  Apology fo r Poetry (published 1595; Gri naUT o e T u e o f Poesy) is the definitive formulation of Renaissance 1 * 4 theory and the first influential piece of literary criticism in English histo^  With Sidney begins the English tradition and history of literary criticism. As evidenced in An Apology fo r Poetry, Sidney is eclechc, borrowing and often amending the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Horace, and a few of his con temporary Italian critics. He begins his criticism by quoting from Aristotle; "Poesy therefore is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word mimesis, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth." Eight words later, he adds a Horatian note, declaring poesy s chief end to be "to teach and delight." Like Aristotle, Sidney values poetry over history, laW/ and philosophy, but he takes Aristotle s idea one step further in declaring that poetry, above all the other arts and sciences, embodies truth. For poetry alone, he declares, is a teacher of virtue, moving the mind and spirit to both teach and desire to be taught. And the poet is the most persuasive advocate of virtue, and none other exposes vice so effectively. Unlike critics before him, Sidney best personifies the Renaissance period when he delineates his literary precepts. After ranking the different literary genres and declaring all to be instructive, he proclaims that poetry excels all because poetry is "the noblest of all w'orks of [humankind]. He mocks other genres (e.g., tragicomedy) and adds more dictates to Aristotelian tragedy by insisting on unity of action, time, and place. Throughout  An Apology fo r Poetry,  Sidney stalwartly defends poetry against those who would view' it as a mindless or immoral activity. For Sidney, creative poetry is akin to religion, for both guide and achieve their purpose by stirring the emotions of the reader. The poet, says Sidney, not only affirms morality, but by engaging the reader's emotions, blends truth w'ith symbolism, delighting "every sense and faculty of the w'hole being." By the essay's end, a passionate and somewhat Platonically inspired poet places a curse on all those who do not love poetry. Sidney concludes, "I conjure you all . . . no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of Poesy. . . Thus doing, your name shall flourish in the printer's shops ... you shall dwell upon superlatives." England did indeed rise up and take notice, for in the twenty-five years after An Apology for Poetry, thirty-seven new works of drama and poetry took England by storm. And echoes of Sidney's emotionality reverberate throughout the centuries in English literature, especially in British romantic writings of the early 1800s.

 JO HN DRVDEN (1631-1700) ; * 8liSh W r i , e r - , 0 h " D ' y d e n - p „ e , laureate, dramatist. z

;, f, h e N e ix ia s s ta i^ Johnson, , h e w ; d  Dr. Samuel a cy1‘zand thetto Renaissance.

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31

lexicographer who authored Dictionary o f the English Language (1755) a work considered to be “one of the greatest single achievem ents of scholarship " at tributes to Dryden “the improvement, perhaps the completion of our meter the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our senti ments." The most prolific writer of the Restoration (the name given to that period of English literature from 1660 to 1700), Dryden excelled in almost all genres, including literary criticism. In effect, says one critic, Dryden "brought literary criticism out of the church and into the coffee house." And T. S. Eliot, the great twentieth-century poet and essayist, asserts that Dryden wrote “the first serious literary criticism in English by an English poet." Dryden's lasting contribution to literary criticism,  An Essay o f Dramatic Poesy (1668), highlights his genius. The structure of Dryden's  An Essay o f Dramatic Poesy   dramatizes Dryden's keen literary talent: During a naval battle between the English and the Dutch, four men are floating down a barge on the Thames River, each setting forth a different aesthetic theory among those prominently espoused in Renaissance and Neoclassical literary criticism. The Platonic and Aristotelian debate concerning the nature or inherent condition of art as an imitation of nature itself begins the discussion. Nature, argues one debater, must be imitated directly, whereas another declares that writers should imi tate the classical authors such as Homer because such ancient writers were the best imitators of nature. Through the voice of Neander, Dryde n presen ts the benefits of both positions. A lengthy discussion then ensues over the Aristotelian concept of the three unities of time, place, and action within a drama. Should the plot of a drama take place during one twenty-four-hour cycle (time)? And in one lo cation (place)? Should it be only a single plot, with no subplots (action)? The position that a drama must keep the three unities unquestionably wins the debate. Other concerns center on the following: 1. The language or diction of a play, with the concluding emphasis being placed on "proper" speech 2. Issues of decorum, that is, whether violent acts should appear on the stage, with the final speaker declaring it would be quite "improper" 3. The differences between the English and French theaters, with the English drama winning out for its diversity, its use of the stage, and its Shakespearian tradition 4. The value of rhymed as opposed to blank verse in the drama, with rhymed verse the victor—although Dryden later recanted this position and wrote many of his tragedies in blank verse. A reflection of his age in his life and works, Dryden sides with politesse (courteous formality), clarity, order, decorum, elegance, clev erness, and wit as the controlling characteristics of literary works.

Overall, Dryden's contribution to literary criticism is immense. First, he de velops the study of literature in and of itself, not obsessing over its mora

32

Chapter 2 . A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

. (hl*0|oeical worth. Second, he creates a natural, simple prose style ?h" , ' s ouides and affects modern criticism and wr.tmg in genJ ' f Third by making use of a variety of critical p er sp ec tiv es -fr om Creek 0 French-—Dryden brings all of these critical perspectives best msigh,s into ihe still infant discipline of English literary criticism. And finally, Dryden advocates for the establishing of objective principles of criticism, while si. multaneously moving the emphasis of criticism away from the construc tion of a work into its more modern emphasis on how readers and critics appreciate texts.

 JO SEPH ADDIS ON (1672-1719) Essayist, poet, dramatist, politician, and literary critic Joseph Addison was born on May 1, 1672, the son of the rector of Milston, Wiltshire, England. After graduating from Charterhouse, a prominent English boarding school, Addison attended Magaden College, Oxford University, graduating in 1693. Receiving a royal pension and multiple political appointments throughout his life, this Latin poet and classical scholar saw his popularity rise in 1704 with the publication of his poem "The Campaign." Working alongside other critics such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope, Addison highlights the concept of the "greatness of literature" in his essays and newspaper articles, appealing to the common readers of England. His clas sical training served him well throughout his life, fostering his reading and criticism of literature. His literary criticism first appeared in the newspaper begun by Richard Steele and Addison, The Tatler,  and its successor, The Spectator.  Although his critical essays were rather sparse in The Tatler, Addison's critical commentaries blossomed in The Spectator,  filling the newspaper with classical and contemporary readings while simultaneously tempering the readings' tone, diction, and content for popular readers, making his writing "polite." Throughout his essays, Addison more frequently than not acknowl edges the superiority of the ancient critics compared with the modern ones, paying homage to Aristotelian and Longinian ideas, among others. In Spectator 25,  for example, he writes, "It is impossible for us who live in the later Ages of the World to make Observations in Criticism, Morality, or in any Art or Science, which has not been touched upon by others." In short, the past critics have already said all there is to say, and to write after them is to expound upon and justify their past criticism. Bdievmg that "philosophy was the elegant common sense apt to mou [humankind]," Addison becam e known as the "B ritish Virgil," and clo it sa n d Lh mdy, Ma,rCUS Aureliu s" who brou ght "philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies,

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33

at tea-tables and coffee-houses" (Spectator 10).  Avoiding lofty or pious language in his criticism, Addison s literary goal was "to endeavor to en liven morality with wit and to temper wit with morality" (Spectator 10). And his audience, he declared, was the common person, especially the women of England , no ting, there are none to whom this paper will be more useful (Spectator 10).  Whereas other English criticism of the time focuses on the author and the rules of literature, Addison highlights the sublime  or what he calls the  gre atn ess   of literature: "By  grea tn ess   I do not mean only the Bulk of any single Object, but the Largeness of the whole View, considered as one entire Piece" (Spectator 412).  For Addison, great ness in literature is not mechanical superiority, but the prowess to display the immensity of life in a way that transcends imagination. Greatness, or the sublime, comes from both "great ideas and vehement passions." The aim of the literary critic, attests Addison, is not to dissect the writer of ge nius, but to look at what occurs in the interaction of literature and its audience. Our curiosity, says Addison, is one of the strongest and most lasting appetites implanted in us. Because of such curiosity, a critic's writ ings must be necessarily broad, touching on politics, sciences, arts, society, and any other concern pertinent to humanity. And the audience of such writings should be the general public, enlightening ordinary people with well-written prose combined with wit while simultaneously introducing them to the study of genius, the sublime, greatness, and audience re sponse over the mechanics of a text. Unlike his contemporary critics and authors such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope, Addison aimed to enlighten the common British citizen by giving to each of them the writings of the classical authors presented in sim ple, clear prose that could and would be discussed in the coffeehouses and at the tea tables throug hout G reat Britain.

A L E X A N D E R P O P E ( 1 6 8 8 -1 7 4 4 )

A Roman Catho lic fam ily in Protestant-controlled England bore a healthy in fant who was soon deformed and twisted in body by spinal tuberculosis. Born at the beginning of the Neoclassical age (English literature from 1660 to 1798) and becom ing its literary voice by age twenty, Alexander Pope em bod ies in his writings eighteenth-century thought and literary criticism. His early poems such as "Pastorals" (1709), The Rape of the Lock  (1712), and "Eloisa to Ab elard " (1717) establish him as a major British poet, but with the publication of his Essay on Criticism   (1711), he becomes for all practical pur poses the "litera ry po pe " of England. .  ,. , In this essay Pope , unlik e previou s literary critics and theon sts, direc y addresses critics rather than poets as he undertakes to codify Neoclassica

34

Ch ap ter 2 • A Historical Surv ey of Literary Criticis

literary criticism. Toward the end of the essay, however, he does speak ,o

both critics and poets. According to Pope, the Solden ^ age of Hom er, Aristotle, Ho race, and discov ered the truth about unerring N task first to know and then to copy these cop y natu re is to copy them [the

Pope asserts that the chief requireme

criticism is the classical age „inus. These are the writere wh* g „ (he critlc and thg J * > ^ and nQt natu re becauP s , „ “ good poet is natural genius

b

, n

( .1

s'

cou pled with a know ledge of the classics an an u , 111 es of poetry (literature). Such knowledge must be " rth P al en es s and grace because "Without good breeding truth is disapproved/That only Natural genius and good breeding being e ^ h s h e d , t l« critic/ poet must then heed certain rules, says Pope. To be a g cri i P * e n\ust follow the established traditions as defined by the ancients. No rprisingly, Pope spells out what these rules are and how they should be applied to eighte enth-c entury verse. Great concern for poetic diction, the establishment of the heroic couplet as a standard for verse, and the personification o ab stract ideas, for example, now become fixed standa rds whe reas emotional ou tbrea ks and free verse are extraordinaire and consic ercc onre ll' w Governed by rules, restraint, and g.H>d taste, poetry, as defined by Pope, seeks to reaffirm truths or absolutes already discovered by the classical writ ers The critic 's task is de ar: to validate and maintain classical value s in the ever-shifting flux of cultural change. In effect, the critic becomes the custodian and defender of good taste and cultural values. Bv affirming the imitation of the classical writers and through them of nature itself and by establishing the acceptable or standard criteria of poetic la n eu a ce Pope grounds his criticism in both mimetic (imitation) and rhetoric (patterns of structure) literary theories. By the end of the 1700s, however, a major shift in literary theory occurs.

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H (1 77 0-1 85 0) By the close of the eighteenth century, the world had witnessed several major political rebellions, among them the American and French Revolutions, along with extreme social upheavals and prominent changes in philosophical thought. During this time, a paradigmatic shift occurred in how people viewed the world. Whereas the eighteenth century valued order and reason, the emerging nineteenth-century worldview emphasized intu ition as a proper guide to truth. The eighteenth-century mind likened the world to a great machine, with all its parts operating harmoniously, but in the nineteenth century, the world was perceived as a living organism that

C ha p ter 2 • A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

35

« aS a'htT r,thrOWir 8 a n u e,erna "y bo om ing . For the rationalistic mind of h° UScd ,he “ nters of art and literature and f r n Sta n d a rH rUry' a

sa . ‘ * S,° btsie. In contrast, the emerging nineteenth-century c t z e n saw rura places as fundamental, as the setting in which a person cou, i sco v et  e inner self. Devaluing the empirical and rationalistic met o ° ° t e p re vio us century, the nineteenth-century thinker be leve a ru cou d be attained by tapping into the core of our humanity or our transcendental natures, best sought in our original or natural setting. buch radicai changes found their spokesperson in William Wordsworth. Born m Cockermouth, Cumberlandshire, and raised in the Lake District of En gland W ordsw orth com pleted his formal education at St. John 's College, Cambridge, in 1791. After completing his grand tour of the Continent, he published Descriptive Sketches  (1793), then met one of his literary admirers and soon-to-be friends and coauthors, Samuel T. Coleridge. In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poems that heralded the beginning of British romanticism. In the ensuing fifteenyear period, Wordsworth wrote most of his best poetry, including Poems in Two Volumes  (1807), The Excu rsion  (1814), M iscellaneo us Poems  (1815), and The Prelude  (1850). But it is Lyrical Ballads  that ushers in the Romantic age in English literature and shifts the focus of both literary theory and criticism. In an explanatory preface written as an introduction to the second edi tion of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth espouses a new vision of poetry and the beg inn ing s o f a radical chan ge in literary theory. His purpose, he notes, is "to choose incidents and situations from common life, and [. . .] describe them in language really used by [people] in situations [. . .] the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement." Like Aristotle, Sidney, and Pope, W ordsw orth con cerns him self with the elements and subject matter of litera ture bu t chan ges the emp hasis: Comm on m en and women people his poetry, not kings, queens, and aristocrats, because in "humble and rustic life," Wordsworth asserts, the poet finds that "the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under re straint, and spea k a plainer and more emphatic language." Not only does Wordsworth suggest a radical change in subject matter but he also d ram atically shifts the focus of poetry s proper language. Unlike Pope and his predecessors, Wordsworth chooses "language really used by [p eo p le]" —-everyday speech, not the inflated poetic diction of heroic couplets, complicated rhyme schemes, and dense figures of speech placed in the mouths of the typical eighteenth-century character. Wordsworth s rus" c h a s M i ch a e l a nd L uk e in h is p oetic n arra tiv e "M i ch a el," sp eak in the sim ple, everyd ay d“ ™ ” ^ e' r^ s of p oetry 's su bject and language. In add ition to reshaping a e tocu ali „ ood poetry is the spontaneous W ordsworth redefines poetry its‘ ■ gid ® Da^te< and Pope, who decree o v e r f lo w o f p o w e r f u l f e e li n g s .  J  d r ea S o n e d , W o r d s w o r t h n o w th a t p o e t r y s h o u l d be r e s t r a i n e d , c o n t r o ll e d , a n d r e a s o n e ,

36

Chapter 2 • A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

highlights poetry's emotional quality. Although Wordsworth does not aban don reason and disciplined thought, for him, the effective use of a passionfilled imagination becomes the central characteristic of poetry. In altering poetry's subject matter, language, and definition, Wordsworth redefines the role of the poet. I he poet is no longer the pre server of civilized values or proper taste, but he is a man speaking to men: a man [. . .) endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more comprehensive soul than are supposed to be common among mankind." Wordsworth's poet "has acquired a greater readiness and power in express ing what he thinks and feels, and especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement. Such a poet need no longer follow a prescribed set of rules because this artist may now freely express his or her own individualism, valuing and writing about feelings that are peculiarly the artist's. Because Wordsworth defines poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings [. . .] [taking] its origin from emotion recollected in tran quility," Wordsworth's new kind of poet cratts a poem by internalizing a scene, circumstance, or happening and "recollects" that occasion with its accompanying emotions at a later time when the artist can shape the remem brance into words. Poetrv, then, is unlike bioloev or one of the other sciences because it deals not with something that can be dissected or broken down into its constituent parts, but primarily with the imagination and feelings.

Intuition, not reason, reigns. "-fenc e Pbv in su ch p a .

have one

J™

* £ * » * > > * * * * * * , Wordsworth ,v r„ i ”1

he would decide by his own f r ' V ’ ls- that in judging these poems a  W'hat will probablv be thn ^ &enuir>ely, and not readers’ res po nd V V „r .W .h hope, that I® who would freely dispense u-, . ° ns of 1 b Poems will not depend on critics to rely on their own feelines irH r? v U'1tl0ns' VVordsworth desires his readers  f  eltwh ^ *i ° " n irru8 ‘nations as thev the same emotions the poet tranquility" the subject or circu T ™   ^ S3W and then later "recollected in declares Wordsworth the nonr ar,.j c’rXes of the poem itself. Through poetry,

This subjective e x p e r i e „ « S T * 1 , emotions. ’ rom the preceding centuries' m " nn^ emo^ons leads Wordsworth away and toward a new develoompn/'^'r1*’ '1nd dlet°rica! theories of criticism which emphasizes the individual t**1 f^rary theory: the expressive school, share in this individuality. Bv Pyl V° the artist and the reader's privilege to emotions and the imagination J T T * SUch individuality and valuing the ays the foundation for English l? ^ lmate concems in poetry, Wordsworth ary criticism and theory for both T ant,cism and broadens the scope of liter* h the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Y 

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37

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)

One of the strongest and most vocal voices of British Romanticism, Percy Shelley was born in Sussex, England, in 1792, the eldest child of a wealthy country squire. Educated at an academy in London, Shelley enrolled in Oxford University, where he found intellectual companionship with Thomas  Jefferson Hogg (1792-1862), who became a lifelong friend. After mastering the works of Plato and the writings of William Godwin (1756-1836), espe cially Political Justice   (1793), Shelley and Hogg authored a pamphlet titled "The Necessity of Atheism," the contents of which resulted in Hogg's and Shelley's expulsion from Oxford. Ironically Shelley was not an atheist, but wanted to establish the right to debate the beliefs of Christianity. Such disputes and quarrels with the establishment of both Church and state followed Shelley the remainder of his life, including an unhappy mar riage to Harriet Westbrook, an elopement with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and a variety of other events esteemed disgraceful by Britain's citi zenry. Yet Shelley produced some of the best known Romantic poems— "Ozymandias" (1817), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819), and "Adonais" (1821), to name a few—and a pivotal text of literary criticism,  A Defence o f  Poetry (1821), written in response to a whimsical attack on Romantic poetry by Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), a good friend of Shelley's and a poet, essayist, and scholar in his own right. Of all the Romantic poets, Shelley, by far, is the greatest devotee of Plato, embracing Plato's beliefs and establishing himself as the voice of Neoplatonism in British Romanticism. In  A Defence o f Poetry,   Shelley's in debtedness to Plato quickly becomes obvious. Shelley, for example, adopts and adapts Plato's concept of the Ideal Forms, the belief that all things around us are merely representations or shadows of Truth, of the Ideal world, and of spiritual reality—what Plato names The One. Shelley blends Plato's concept of spiritual reality with his own understanding, asserting that poetry is by far the best way to gain access to the Forms and to ultimate Truth. Disavowing Neoclassicism's allegiance to order and reason, Shelley emphasizes the individual and the imagination. For Shelley, Plato's Forms intertwine with the Romantic ideal of the imagination. In his poetic craft, po etry is less concerned with reason and rationality and more concerned about the spiritual and the transcendental. Now the imagination and the emotions, not didactic structural elements, become center stage in interpreting a text, with Shelley redefining poetry as "the expression of the imagination." For him, "poetry is ... that from which all spring, and that which adorns all; and that which if blighted, denies the fruit and the seed, and withholds from the barren world the nourishment and succession of the scions of the tree of hfe " Poetry is not only an outstanding art form, but a teacher and a guide to ruth, one embodied in nature and the individual, not in science or reason or Philosophy. Shelley believes that philosophy and history stem from poetry,

38

Cha pter 2 • A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

„ e,t„»r:nr niare to these disciplines. And poets, the with poetry occupying s \ f \jfe: architects, painters, musir crafters of poetry, are tound in all waiKS oi i e X s , l *   lawmakers. If true to fheir craft, p « . s w.U lead people toward Truth—the Truth of the spiritual nature of ultimate reality and of Plato's The One—opening the minds of their readers to the u nseen beauty all around them. T . . For Shelley, there is nothing more sacred and perfect than poetry. In his creative theory, the poet is the greatest among all the various kinds of artists because the poet alone can see the future in the present and, as Shelley notes, “participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one," becoming more than just an ordinary person. His passion for both the poet and poetry and their role in the world as teacher and prophet who can lead us to ultimate Truth represents a paradigmatic shift in thought from the Age of Reason or Neoclassicism to British Romanticism, a new direction in literary criticism that profoundly affects literary theory and criticism to this, our present age.

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE (1828-1893)

Wordsworth's romanticism, with its stress on intuition as a guide to ultimate truth and its belief that emotions and the imagination are the essential elements of good poetry, dominated literature and literary criticism throughout the first three decades of the nineteenth century, and its influence still continues today. With the rise of the Victorian era in the 1830s, reason, science, and a sense of historical determinism began to supplant Romanticism 's emphasis on intuition and the imagination as avenues to truth The growing sense of historical and scientific determinism found its authoritative voice and culminating influence in Charles Darwin and his text On the Origin of  Species(1859). Humankind was now demystified because we now knew our origins and understood our physiological development. Science it seemed, had provided us with the key to our past and an understanding of the present and would help us determine our future if we relied on the scientific method in all our human endeavors. Science's methodology, its philosophical assumptions, and its practical applications found an admiring adherent and a strong voice in French historian and literary critic Hippolyte A. Taine. Born in Vouziers, France, Hippolyte Taine was a brilliant but unorthodox student at the EcoleNormale Supericure in Paris. After finishing his formal education, he taught in various schools throughout France, continuing his investigations in both aesthetics and history. During the 1850s, he published various philosophical and aesthetic treatises, but his chief contribution to literary criticism and his tory is his text the History of English Literature, published in 1864. In this work

Ch apter 2 • A Historical Survey of Literary  Criticism

39

Taine crystallizes what is now known as the historical approach to literary analysis. rr  J  *n P ro d u ctio n to the History o f English Literature, Taine uses a scientific simile to explain his approach to literary criticism: What is your first remark on turning over the great, stiff leaves of a folio, the yellow sheets of a manuscript—a poem, a code of laws, a declaration of faith? This, you say, was not created alone. It is but a mould, like fossil shell, an imprint, like one of those shapes embossed in stone by an animal which lived and perished. Under the shell there was an animal, and behind the document there was a man. Why do you study the shell, except to represent to yourself the animal? So do you study the document only in order to know the [person].

For Taine, a text is like a fossil shell that naturally contains the likeness of its inhabiter, who in this case is the author. To study only the text (e.g., discovering its date of composition or the accuracy of its historical references or allusions) without considering the author and his or her inner psyche would result in an incomplete analysis. An investigation of both the text and the author, Taine believes, would result in an accurate understanding of the literary work. Taine asserts that to understand any literary text, we must examine the environmental causes that joined together in its creation. He divides such influences into four main categories: race, milieu, moment, and dominant faculty. By race, Taine posits that authors of the same race, or those born and raised in the same country, share peculiar intellectual beliefs, emotions, and ways of understanding. By examining each author's inherited and learned personal characteristics, Taine believes we will then be able to understand more fully the author's text. In addition, we must also examine the author's milieu or surroundings. English citizens, he asserts, respond differently to life than do French or Irish citizens. Accordingly, by examining the culture of the author, Taine proposes that we would understand more fully the intellectual and cultural concerns that inevitably surface in an author's text. Further, Taine maintains that we must investigate an author's epoch or moment—that is, the time period in which the text was written. Such information reveals the dominant ideas or worldview held by people at that particular time and, therefore, helps us identify and understand the literary characters' actions, motivations, and concerns more fully than if we did not have such information. Finally, Taine decrees we must examine each author's individual talents or dominant faculty that makes him or her different from others who share similar characteristics of race, milieu, and moment. For Taine, a work of art is "the result of given causes" and can best be represented by using the following formula: race + milieu + moment + dominant faculty = work of art. Taine argues that we

40

Chapter 2 •A Historical Survey of l iterary Criticism

cannot appreciate art as it "really" is without considering all four of these stated elements.

MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)

In the "Preface to Lyrical Ballads,"  Wordsworth declares that "poetry is the breath and S e r spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassroned expression S S S is the countenance of all science." Such a lofty statement con cerning the nature and role of poetry finds an advocate m Matthew Arnold, the self appointed voice for English Victorianism (1837-1901), the literary epoch immediately following Wordsworth and Shelley s Romanticism. Born during the Romantic era, Matthew Arnold was the son of an English educator. Following in his family's tradition, Arnold attended Oxford University, and upon graduation accepted a teaching position at Oriel College. He spent most of his professional life (nearly thirty-five years) as an inspector of schools. By age thirty-five, he had already written the ma  jority of his poetry, including "Dover Beach (1851)/' "T he Scholar-Gipsy (1853)," and "Sohrab and Rustum (1853)," some of his most famous poems. During Arnold's early career, reactions against Romanticism and its ad herents arose. Writers, philosophers, and scientists began to give more cre dence to empirical and rationalistic methods for discovering the nature of their world rather than to Romantic concepts of emotion, individualism, and intuition as pathways to truth. With the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Originof Species in 1859 and the writings of philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and German theologian and philosopher David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874), science seemingly usurped the place of Romanticism's "religion of nature" and the beliefs of most other traditional religions. At the same time, philosophy became too esoteric and therefore less relevant as a veh.de for understanding reality for the average Victorian Into this void stepped Arnold, proclaiming that poetry can provide the necessary truths, values, and guidelines for society. r Fundamental to Arnold's literary criticism is his reapplication of classi cal criteria to literature. Quotes and borrowed ideas from Plato Aristotle Longinus, and other classical writers pepper his criticism. From Aristotle's Poetics,  for example, Arnold adapts his idea that the best poetrv is of a "higher truth and seriousness" than history-or any other human subject or activity, for that matter. Like 1lato, Arnold believes that literature re flects the society in which it is written and heralds its values and concerns. Like Longinus, he attempts to define a classic decreeing that such a work belo ng s to the "high est or best class. And in support of many of his other ideas, he cites the later "classical writers such as Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton.

Chaj. tt r 2 • A Historical Survey

o f 

Literary Criticism

41

For Arnold, poetry-not religion, science, or philosophy-is humankind s crowning activity. He notes, "More and more |human|kind wdl discover that vve have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. W ithout poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now pas ses w ith us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. In the best of this poetry, he declares, we find "in the eminent de gree, truth and seriousness." Equating "seriousness" with moral excel lence, Arnold asserts that the best poetry can and does provide standards of excellence, a yardstick by which both Arnold and his society should  judge them selves. In his pivo tal essays The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1865) and The Stud y of Poetry ' (1888), Arnold crystallizes his critical po sition. Like Plato s critic, Arnold reaffirms but slightly amends the social role of criticism: to create "a current o f true and fresh ideas." To accomplish this goal, the critic must avoid becoming embroiled in politics or any other activity that would lead to a form of bias, for the critic must view society disinterestedly, keeping aloof from the world's mundane affairs. In turn, such aloofness will benefit all society because the critic will then be able to pave the way for high culture—a prerequisite for the poet and the writing of the best poetry. How, then, may the best poetry be achieved or discovered? By estab lishing objective criteria whereby we can judge whether any poem con tains or achieves, in Aristotelian terms, "higher truth or seriousness." The critic's task is "to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry." By com paring the newly written lines to classical poems that contain elements of the "sublime," the critic will instantly know whether a new poem is good or bad. In practice, such apparent objectivity in criticism becomes quite subjec tive. Whose judgments, for example, shall we follow? Shall lines written by Homer and Dante be considered excellent? How about Sidney's or even Aristophanes'? Need the critic rank all past poets in an attempt to discover who is great and who is not in order to create a basis for such comparisons and value judgments? And whose moral values shall become the yardstick by which we judge poetry? Arnold's only? Such "objective" touchstone theory redefines the task of the literary critic and introduces a subjective approach in literary criticism. No longer  just being the interpreter of a literary work, the critic now functions as an au thority on values, culture, and tastes. This new literary "w atchd og must guard and defend high culture and its literature while simultaneously defin ing what high culture and literature really are. Decreeing the critic to be the preserver of society's values and poetry to be its most important activity, Arnold became the recognized spokesperson for Victorian England and its literature. Even modern-day literary criticism

42

Chapter 2 • A. Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

w p e r e d with some of his distinct Warn and pntpagate the best that has been known and th o u g , to see the Obtect as m i t U it really is.” "culture and anarchy, a rf >'=; cite a few. By talcing Wordsworth's concept of the poet one step further, Arnold separated berth the critic and the poet from sooety m order to create a type of poetry and criticism that could supposed y rescue socie y rom 1 s baser elements and preserve its most noble characteristics. Opp osed by some modem critics whose analyses stop short of considering literary criticism of the previous two centuries, Arnold's criticism serves as either a rallying point or a standard of opposition by which theorists can now measure their own critical statements. More than any other critic, Arnold helps establish “culture" and, in particular, literature as the highest object of veneration among civilized peoples.

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916) While Arnold was decreeing how poetry would rescue humanity from its baser elements and would help lead us to truth, literary works were also being written in other genres, particularly the novel. Throug hou t both the Romantic and Victorian eras, for example, people in England and America were reading such works as Withering Heights  (1847), Vanity Fair   (1848), The House of the Seven  Gables (1851), and Great Expectations  (1860-61). Few were providing for either the writers or the readers of this genre a body of criticism comparable to that continually being formulated for poetry. As Henry James notes in his critical essay “The Art of Fiction" (1884), the English novel “had no air of having a theory, a conviction, a consciousness of itself behind it—of being the expression of an artistic faith, the result of choice and comparison." It was left to James himself to provide us with such a theory. r Born in New York City in 1843, Henry James enjoyed the privileges of education, travel, and money. Throughout his early life, he and his family (including his brother William, the founder of American pragmatic philoso phy) traveled to the capitals of Europe, visiting the sites and meeting the leading writers and scholars of the day. Having all things European early injected into his life and thought, James believed he wanted to be a lawyer and enrolled in Harvard Law School. Quickly discovering that writing, not law, captivated him, he abandoned law school for a career in writing, by 1875, the early call of Europe on his life had to be answered, and James, a bachelor for life, settled permanently in Europe and began in earnest his writing career. Noted for his short stories—“The Real Thing" (1892), “The Beast in the  Ju n g le " (190 3), and “The Jolly Corner" (1908), to name a few— and his

Cha pter 2 • A Historical Survey o f  Literary Criticism

43

n0l e^ QJ ie (187 ' The P°rtrail 0fa   Bostonians 0880-81), TheTurn of the Screw  (1898), among others-James's fav (1885- 88 ) and theme is the conflict he perceives between Europe and America. The seasoned aristocracy with its refined manners and taste is often infiltrated in his sto ries by the naive American who seemingly lacks refined culture and discern ment. Though a very involved practicing writer, James was also concerned with developing a theory of writing, particularly for the novel. Indeed, in his critical essay The Art of Fiction, he provides us with the first well-articulated theory of the novel in English literature. In "The Art of Fiction," published in a book of critical essays titled Partial Portraits (1888), James states that "a novel is in its broadest definition a per sonal, a direct impression of life: that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression"; fur thermore, "the only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting. The ways in which it is at liberty to accomplish this result [are] innumer able." From the start, James's theory rejects the romantic notion of either Wordsworth or Coleridge that the readers suspend disbelief while reading a text. For James, a text must first be realistic, a representation of life as it is and one that is recognizable to its readers. Bad novels, declares James, are either romantic or scientific; good novels show us life in action and, above all else, are interesting. Bad novels, James continues, are written by bad authors, whereas good novels are written by good authors. Unlike weak authors, good writers are good thinkers who can select, evaluate, and imaginatively utilize the "stuff of life" (i.e., the facts or pictures of reality) in their work. These writers also recognize that a work of art is organic. The work itself is not simply the amassing of realistic data from real-life experiences but has a life of its own that grows according to its own principles or themes. Writers must acknowl edge this fact and distance themselves from directly telling the story. Shunning the omniscient, third-person narrator as a vehicle for telling a story, James asserts that a more indirect point of view is essential so the au thor shows characters, actions, and emotions to readers rather than telling us about them. By showing rather than telling us about his characters and their actions, James believes that he creates a greater illusion of reality than if he were to present his story through one point of view or one character. Ultimately James declares that the reader must decide the worth of the text, and nothing of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion likiHg of a work of art or not liking it: the most improved criticism will not abol ish that primitive, that ultimate test."  j Thanks to Henry James, the genre of the novel becomes a respectable ]Opic for literary critics. With his emphasis on realism and "the stuff of °lebat^ meS E l a t e s a  theory of fiction that is still discussed and

ofUte^Critie>sm .,1sur^y

Chapter 2 •A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

. i . AH's'°r a

 __ Bakhtin  _______  Mikhail ““luitui daV uteraly literary theorist, ,dern-day Bakhtinn....... himself represent _ „ lliP Bakhti represent. ....... ^pieseiv -.ther modem-aay , because theory L t tc Bakh tin has ir,tho n^ y°' rary 'he°r^ s . Bakhtin has been been dubbed! dubbed a rhaps"1. p ^ n t- J ^ ' peS and m‘e * iteI. a semi otici an, an artist a .

ll

------------... rary *«***/ -an “*'* a cul^ pW£adf,nic dlSa ph'los0ptlfter arv nisw* historian, ethicist, -  *and c \ ,u„ ''er>e 1 historian' F foe, 3a llte mnst original thinkers nf ithe ne of the most original thinkers of guisb a * ; a Marxist cn ie is ont:

 , ,.Hte attention duri ng his lifetime, except mtiethcen,u7. htin received htt Russia, 10 a m,ddle-class famiW,  _ ______  ,, lr^,y in Peirnarad ' ironically. Bax ^ Rnrn D before B,1’ ,r years. Bo' " m ' Pssa moving to Petrograd to study haps m nis ‘ yilnius and uo e Leaving the university without ^  Nevel then to Vitebsk, where ditingrew«P f st Petersburg m :he UrUVte studies, he ‘hen, ^ L bsk, he was surrounde d by a groupof np^hng*' h00iteachet At V ■ !tural influences of the Russian worked,fwho addressed the s o c i a l ^ Today tWs group of scholars,in. ellectua rule under Josep v N Voloshinov, is known as the Takhhn, F N- Medvedev and Uningrad. Here Bakhtin LMin Circle. By 1924,t h e f ° “P(p‘ teomyelitis in his leg) and his lackol  J J e d financially as ^g'pre vente d him from finding work. In 1929 he oper political credentials pre _it .n s -n the underground Russian as arrested for supposedly P Psiberia for ten years, he appealedhis rth„dox Church.S.-ntenceakeninR phys ical cond ition and was thensenS s U ^ o f t^ a ie x U e m Throughout the 1930s, Bak ■acher at Mordovia State e icape further imprisonment

^ - ^ bookkceper then asa c in Saransk, moving oftento

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varioUs political purges. In 1938his» ,

to be am pu tate d. Although he

■omyelitis advanced, causing ■ R f 8 his scholarly work dramatically  ;as plagued with pain for the ms of h al ite , tas defended h s doe nproved after the amputation. In And from the late 1940s w® aral dissertation on Rabelais and hi ' ordov Pedagogical lnsti^ lis retirement in 1961, Bakhtin taught at me Russian acade ^ l o w ! University of Saransk. In the latter part of the W5 ^ nics and scholars were once again mtere producin!, a newedition han surprised to discover that he was stlU aU . , jtlonal works on Ra*! . nis 1929 study of Dostoevsky along with ^ the "poster sch and the Renaissance culture, Bakhtin qui<*jy 0f his mam* P for Russian scholarship. After his death m l , h* ^self. Bv the became available, few being edited by the au found scholars and '90s, Bakhtin was regarded as one of the most p twentieth century. , bis first work, Uais His most renowned academic writings inc u e j- ssertation' 1 Dostoevsky's Poetics (1929, 2nd ed., 1963); his doctora

45

 , i_ijs vjorld,  that was successfully defended in 1946 but not published a" .. w 6 8 ‘ and The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin   (edited, Unt's|ated, and published in 1981). Since Bakhtin's death in 1975, many othe r

tran* bes and essays have been translated and published, but the core of his sPe* istic and literary theories can be discovered in the earlier works. '^Central to Bakhtin's critical theory is the concept of the dialogic. rding to Bakhtin, all language is a dialogue in which a speaker and a ACC° e r form a relationship. Lang uage is alwa ys the pro duc t of at least llsteneople in a dialogue, not a monologue. And it is language that defines tW° P individuals. Our personal consciousness consists of the inner conus as . we have only in our heads, con vers atio ns with a vari ety of VefSa that are significant for us. Ea ch of these voic es can re spon d in new V°dexciting ways, d eveloping who we are and continually helping shape an we become. In one very real sense, no individual can eve r be " mpletely understood or fully known. That any person alwa ys has the C°pabiiity to change o r neve r fully be known in this world Bakhtin label s unfinalizability. . , Because Bakhtin posits that all language is a dialogue, not monologic, he  , the term heter oglossi a (a translation of the Russian word raznorecie,  Waning "other or different to ngue s" or "mul tiian gua ged nes s") to dem on strate the multiplicity of languages that operate in any given culture. Bakhtin thus expands the traditional definition of the word language  from being defined only as the spoken tongue of a given, cultural people. For Bakhtin, all forms of social speech that people use in their daily activities constitute heteroglossia. Professors speak one way while lecturing to their classes, another to their spouses, another to their friends, another to the clerk at the store, another to the server at a restau rant, and anot her to the police of ficer who gives the professor a speedin g ticket. E ach individ ual speech act is a dialogic utterance that is oriented toward a particular listener or audience, demonstrating the relationship that exis ts b etween the sp eake r and listener. In his essay "Discourse in the Novel" (1935), Bakhtin applies his ideas directly to the novel. He believes that the novel is characterized by dialogued heteroglossia. Within the novel, multiple world views and a va riety of experiences are continually dialoguing with each other, resulting in rnulnple imeractions, some of which are real and others of which are imagcomment ° Uf’ 1 6 cBaracters utter ance s are indee d im por tant , it is the important FoTt hm^ h utte ranc es, Bakhtin asse rts, that are the most relationships form m t . eSe utter ance s- A ve rs e voices and inter acti ons and svageof the text pos ses^ e^sa vs^ khP Unity, Wh ateve r mea nmg the lanspeaker nor in the text K V Y BaPhtm' res‘des not in the intention of the between the listene^or r e a l T f " , betWeen the SPeaker or writer, or occurring, for even withjnt . uch dialogiz ed hetero glos sia is cont inua lly Process Bakhtin calls hybr idiza tion

‘W° differ ent langu age s clash,

Chapter 2 •A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism

. » rarv CntK'sm

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Bakhtin maintains that some no v e,., Dostoevsky, am polyphonic. In nonpolyphonic novels, the auth o f the novel while writing the nov el's beginnin g r ‘

^W s ‘■■‘ns and choices' a" d the au tho r a[ shoe ^ riter )Vel, the author's understandthe end'"* 01 haracters' actions ai knows all the c (ure. in this . ln \ ly ph on ic no ve l, there is >rk. In aa po the work's entire hlblted m the w ’ nor is the text a work........ and ing of truth. The truth ol ‘

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diversified, with no one voice speaking ex cathedra  or no one theory tena ciously held by all. At the end of the nineteenth century, most critics empha sized either a biographical or a historical approach to texts. Using Tame's historical interests in a text and Henry James's newly articulated theory of the novel, many critics investigated a text as if it were the embodiment of its historical artifact. In the yea rs that follow Arnold and Jam es, no author or a . sinele, univers ally reco gni zed voic e do m ina tes litera ry theo ry. Ins tea d, b distinctiveliterarv many literaryvoices voices give give rise to a host of differing and exciti ng 

nooverall out , worldview or ur _  ----- «,’cr'trviKinPSSPS nf thp an. creiuivn creati on in out1°i * ,he f novel is an activeerters, allowing for genu ine surprises for all “the v* polyphonic nuv*. ...

ways to examine a text  What follows in the twe ntie th and twe nty -fir st cen tur ies is a va rie ty of schools of criticism, with each school asking legitimate and relevant but dif ferent questions about a text. Most of these schools abandon the holistic approach to literary study, which investigates, analyzes, and interprets all elements of the artistic situation in favor of concentrating on one or more specific aspects. For example, modernism (and, in particular, the New Criticism, the first critical movement of the twentieth century) wishes to break from the past, deemphasizing the cultural and historical influences that may affect a work of literature. The text, these critics declare, will inter pret the text. On the other hand, Cultural Poetics, a school of criticism that first appeared in the 1980s and continues to develop its underlying assump tions and methodologies, argues that most critics' historical consciousness must be reawakened because, in reality, the fictional text and its historical and cultural milieu are amazingly similar. For these critics, a reader can never fully discern the truth about a historical or a literary text since truth itselfis perceived differently from one era to a nothe r. For those wh o e spo use the principles of Cultural P oetics, the text-o nly criticis m of the early and mid-twentieth century appears biased and incomplete. In the remaining chapters of this book, we will examine the most promi-

der, and characters—interact as thor, the readers, and the char acte rs, concerned. All participants—author, reader, andrequires characters— for truth a plurality of equals in creating the novel's "tru th," •.. . ,nteractas nsciousnesses. consciour.. -— ■■* *•---» ____  For Bakhtin, the polyphonic no.— nv truths not just one. Each character spe aks and thinks h is or her own truth Although one truth may be preferred to othe rs by a chara cter, a reader, the author, no truth is particularly certain. Rea ders wa tch as one character c nature of the novel implies that there are

•’ r, and trade rs listen to the mu ltitud e o f voice s heard by oinfluences r ‘ ’ -Wh at develops, anoint these * * ®, ! » each character as  ,h„ . says Bakhtin, is a carnivalistic atmosphere, a sense oi ...... ..

-------

-

■ i.uii„'Kmost significan t contributions to literary' ? of Bakhtin's most significant u ....  _____ ■ •» «avo|c ?l's polyphonic style, especially the novels Bakhtin, have a carnival sense of theory ana neips UWv. vo ic es are simultaneof Dostoevsky. Polyphonic novels, asserts the world, a sense of joyful abandonment w here man y vo ices aiv ^ ouslv heard and directly influence their hearers. Each participant tests both k- — ■ -----.■ the ideas and the lives iii;o«; c0f other ‘ participa nts, crea ting a so me wh at ‘seriocomic --

environment. Bakhtin's interest in language, culture, literature, religion, anu compasses much of conte mpo rary l itera ry theory' and criticism. His ideas become starting points for con versa tions and dialo gue sItural among compel theoriesvarious contemporary cu 1 have and often conflicting voices in ing 

of1 ,°1S° f twfnheth~and twenty-first-century interpretation. For each ine thSe , 1,VerSe schoo ls' we wiU not e t he te ne ts o f th e ph ilo so ph y u nd erl v-

-1

m o d e r n

^ t e S 1* M ° St' if n 0t a" ' h a ve b° rrOWed ’d e a s ' P ™ ciP 'e s . and amine closely w h a fh W thc orie s already discussed. We will extheYamend, and what m*3™ ? theSe paSt sch ools of criticis m , w hat historical development ™ Cept;\they ad d- We w ill also n ote e ac h sc ho ol's  _  »fcw ,« ulW llg c  ___  and its m J L w o rk i ng a s s u m p ti o n s, i ts p a r t ic u l a r v o c a b ul a ry , and its methodology for interpreting  g texts. By so doing, we will become in formedabout literary the oris ts a nd 1 a text. critics who articulate clearly o ur analyses

l it e r a r y c r it ic i s m

•n 1916) marks a tran* m and Wordsworthbefnr

^and to a less er de gre e He nry Jamessdea pcn od 'n literar y criticism. Like Dryden, P°P*'

a  'm' ^ rno*d wa s the recognized authority and tJ ing Itterary  critic of tbe major ideas of hi<* ^ 's theories arid criticism that ettl j 01 h' S P ra ' W l* t he p a— ss in g oaf A th ee p ^ iod o mo rW1 j J. b rrono a dld t,im p er

• ■-wforpro^ , $

any one person or set of ideas repr esen ting a v 0ice vie ° r , alV mrw/ompnl cpU nte^ movement ends, although although Bakhtin Bakhtin ss co w .nce —- rns - - a ec 0tne s1 After Arnold, literary theory and criticism

47

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l he essent i al sIni i l i ne of a i>oern fas di sti ngui ''h ed f rom the rati onal or logical  stri a h u e of the stat ement whit It w eabst rai t tw i n it ) resembl es that of archit ec-  ture

01

fhi i nt i ng: it is a />alt ern of resolv ed st resses.

Cleanth Brooks, The Well W rought U rn. Chapter 11

INTRODUCTION

B

v the end the nineteenth century, no >in^;lc* school of criticism dominated literary studies. For the most part, literary criticism was not even considered an academic activity. Academic research was more frequently than not governed by psychological or sociohistorical principles that attempted to show that a literary work was a social or political product encased in a particular history. Some scholars who rejected this view espoused a theory' that exulted the author, claiming a text to be the personal impressions and visions of its creator, a place where the author and the reader can imaginatively revel in the text and perhaps communicate with each other. And still others declared that a literary work should be read biographically, seeing the author's life and private concerns peeping throughout the text. But in the early part of the twentieth century, a radical break occurred in these traditional ways of interpretation with the emergence of a group of Russian scholars who articulated a set of interpretive principles known as Russian Formalism.

RUSSIAN FORMALISM

In the middle of the second decade of the twentieth century, two distinct groups of Russian scholars emerged in Moscow and Petrograd (St. Petersburg) who would radically change the direction of literary theory and criticism. Founded in 1915, the Moscow Linguistic Circle included in its 48

Cha pter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

49

practitioners such members ns Roman Jnkobson, Jan Mukarovsky, Peter Bogatyrev, and G. O. Vinokur. The following year in Petrograd, the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOYAZ) was formed, including in its membership Victor Shklovsky, Boris Hichenbaum, and Victor Vinogradov. Although the adherents of both groups often disagreed concerning the prin ciples of literary interpretation, they were united in their rejection of many nineteenth-century assumptions of textual analysis, especially the belief that a work of literature was the expression of the author's worldview and their dismissal of psychological and biographical criticism as being irrelevant to interpretation. These Russian scholars boldly declared the autonomy of literature and poetic language, ad vocating a scientific approach to literary interpretation. Literature, they believed, should be investigated as its own discipline, not merely as a platform for discussing religious, political, socio logical, or philosophical ideas. By radically divorcing themselves from previ ous literary approaches and advocating new principles of hermeneutics, these members of the Moscow Linguistic Circle and of the Society for the Study of Poetic Language are considered the founders of modern literary criticism, establishing what is known as Russian Formalism. Coined by opponents of the movement to deprecate Russian Formalism's supposedly strict methodological approach to literary interpre tation, the terms Formalism  and F o r m a l i s t  were first rejected by the Russian Formalists themselves, for they believed that their approach to literature was both dynamic and evolutionary, not a "formal" or dogmatic one. Nevertheless, the terms ultimately became the battle cry for the establish ment of what they dubbed a science of literature. The first task of the Russian Formalists was to define their new science. Framing their theory on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, the French lin guist and founder of modern linguistics, the Formalists emphasized the au tonomous nature of literature. The proper study of literature, they declared, is literature itself. To study literature is to study poetics, which is an analysis of a work's constituent parts—its linguistic and structural features—or its form. Form, they asserted, included the internal mechanics of the work itself, espe cially its poetic language. It is these internal mechanics or what the Formalists called devices that compose the artfulness and literariness of any given text, not a work's subject matter or content. Each device or compositional feature possesses peculiar properties that can, as in any science, be analyzed. For the Formalists, this new science of literature became an analysis of the literary and artistic devices that the writer manipulates in creating a text. The Formalists' chief focus of literary analysis was the examination of a text's literariness, the language employed in the actual text. Literary lan guage, they asserted, is different from everyday language. Unlike everyday speech, literary language foregroun ds itself, shouting, Look at me; I am special; I am unique." Through structure, imagery, syntax, rhyme scheme, paradox and a host of other devices, literary language identifies itself as

Formalistand New Criticism R u s s i a n Chap‘s . v cneech patterns, ultimately produc

,. ^ i'iariwtio :i ;arization. f deviations from ^■ervday ness ^T efam n. Coined Coined K,, b y "^ ^ or literariness, dt n g  feature of literann • *--. fami|iarization is the proces . US$j :ormahst Victor Shklovsky, defa mili arixa tion is th  ,ur itrange (ostranenie) the liar  , of the fami rau‘‘*“**' - - putting * ~ „the D olH   .^r° . CeS ’ stight s tra n ^ S >hklovsky called a  "* ‘ here of new perception. •> By R> making ^ ,r> new ’P (or rn ^ H V '-'1 what some .. Russian ,F o ‘"aiKf. c •• i ation down the act of perception of everyday vvord' ^|| . to *T'll,ar' '■~n{\slows - reader toreexamnu: reexamine me the imaj image. F0r ob. ’“[ '"fore ** the words "dazzling darkn ess," °ur atteXample Then we read in a t**™ pf ,hcse words. Our ordin ary experi “ aught by the unusual pa down because we must now unpack the^ evervdav language .s slow age whc n We do so. poetry wi,h > eaUed attention to itself as poetry and * ing of the author scht n   or readers to expe rien ce a small pa * companying poehc diet. literariness, allowing its £ 2 ^ the act of pe rception. oi ^ i , world in a new « . ,he constituent dev ices present in p0f In addition to narrative prose and declared that the structure of' {story) and syu zhet (p, ot) Fabu]a Shklovsky also analy d^ narrative has.twoasp and can be considered somewh at akin to Z raw material ottn outline contains the chronological seriesof s or Th" svu?.he. is the literary devices the writer u s ^ 6 f 1 a story (the tabula) into plot. By using such techniques as dig** transforma story di tions, the writer dramatic ally alters the fabula sums, su rp r^ t ^ literalure that now has the potential to provoke defamil' iari/atfon "to make strange" the language of the text and render a fresh

Llamili^”"0"

V iew ^ ^ ,lt" - *erarv theory isa reevaluation of the text itself. Bringing a sc.ent.fic approachto literary studies the Formalists redefined a text to mean a unified collection of various literary devices and conventions that can be objectively analyzed Literature is not'thev declared, the vision of an author or authorial intent Using linguistic principles, the Formalists asserted that literature, like all sci ences, is a self-enclosed, law-governed system. To study literature is tostudy a text's formand only incidentally its content. For the Formalists, formissu perior to content. As a group, the Russian Formalists were suppressed and disbanded in 1930 by the Soviet government because they were unwilling to view litera ture through the Stalinist regime's political and ideological perspectives. Their influencedid continue to flourish in Czechoslovakia through thework of the Prague Linguistic Circle (founded in 1926, its leading figure being  Roman Jakobson) and through the work of the Russian folktale scholar Vladimir Propp. Fortunately for the advancement of literary theory and crit icism, Russian Formalism resurfaces in the 1960s in French and American structuralism (see Chapter 5).

Chapter

3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

51

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN RUSSIAN FORMALISM AND NEW CRITICISM Russian Formalism is sometimes paired with the first modern school of Anglo-American criticism: the New Criticism. Dominating both American and British criticism from the 1930s to the 1950s, New Criticism can be con sidered a second cousin of Russian Formalism. Although both schools em ploy some similar terminology and are identified as types of Formalism, there exists no direct relation between them. New Criticism has its own unique history and development in Great Britain and the United States. Interestingly, in the 1940s, two leading Russian Formalists, Roman Jakobson and Rene Wellek, came to the United States and actively participated in the scholarly discussions of the New Critics. The interaction of these Russian Formalists with the New Critics does evidence itself in some of Russian Formalism's ideas being mirrored in New Critical principles.

APPLYING RUSSIAN FORMALISM TO A LITERARY TEXT Read carefully the following poem by the contemporary American essayist, poet, scholar, and editor Mary M. Brown. After reading the text several times, be able to apply, discuss, and demonstrate how the following terms from Russian Formalism can be used in developing an interpretation of this text: • • • • • •

poetics form dev ices l ite rari nes s foregrounding of literary language defamiliarization.

Early Spring A ubade  The branches outside this office window too often block the light, but today the early morning sun wavers, then prevails, stippling  this space with a tentative dawn that crawls toward an even more fragile day. All the failures of my life on earth are erased in this quivering  grace that works its lacy way through its own curious birth. This is the one appointed hour

52

Chap ter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

that comes and gives and goes again—too soonthe briefest visit, that leaves this faltering glow, the gift of a faint, definite urging, the finest power we have—so close, this close to Love. Mary M. Brown

NEW CRITICISM

If Brown's poem "Early Spring Aubade" were taught in many high school or introductory-level college literature courses, the instructor would probably begin the discussion with a set of questions that contain most, if not all, of the following: What is the meaning of the title? What is the title's relation ship to the rest of the poem? Where is the office located in line 1? What is the meaning of the word stippling in line 3? Are there other words in the text that need to be defined? In line 4, how can the dawn "crawl toward an even more fragile day"? What is the relationship that Brown establishes between  failures  and grace? What kind of birth occurs in the poem? What is the gift re ferred to in the penultimate line of the poem? How is Brown defining the word Love in the poem's last line? What relationships between words or concepts is Brown establishing in the text? What of the poem's physical structure? Does the arrangement of the words, phrases, or sentences help establish relationships among them? What is the poem's tone? How do you know this is the tone, and what devices does Brown employ to establish this tone? What tensions does Brown create in the poem? What ambiguities. Does Brown successfully resolve these tensions by the poem's end? Based on the answers to all of these questions, what does the poem mean? In other words, what is the poem's form or its overall meaning? Upon close examination of these discussion questions, a distinct patte*1' or methodology quickly becomes evident. This particular interpretive mode begins with a close analysis of the poem's individual words, including hot denotative and connotative meanings, then moves to a discussion of p°sS1 ble allusions within the text. Following this discussion, the teacher/critic searches for any patterns developed through individual words, phrases, clauses, sentences, figures of speech, and allusions. The critic's sharp eY also notes any symbols (either public or private) that represent something else. Other elements for analysis include point of view, tone, and any o poetic device that will help the reader understand the dramatic situatl° j After ascertaining how all the aforementioned information interrelates a ^ finally coalesces in the poem, the critic can then declare what the P° means. The poem's overall meaning or form depends almost solely #g text in front of the reader. No library research, no studying of the aut 1

Chapter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

53

life and times, and no other extratextual information is needed, except, per haps, a dictionary. The poem itself contains all the necessary information to discover its meaning. This method of analysis became the dominant school of thought and in terpretative methodology during the first two-thirds of the twentieth cen tury in most high school and college literature classes and in both British and American scholarship. Known as New Criticism, this approach to literary analysis provides the reader with a formula for arriving at the correct inter pretation of a text using—for the most part—only the text itself. Such a formulaic approach gives both the beginning student of literature and acad emicians a seemingly objective approach for discovering a text's meaning. Using New Criticism's clearly articulated methodology, any intelligent reader, say its adherents (called New Critics), can uncover a text's hitherto so-called hidden meaning. New Criticism's theoretical ideas, terminology, and critical methods are, more often than not, disparaged by many present-day critics who them selves are introducing new ideas concerning literary theory. Despite its cur rent unpopularity, New Criticism stands as one of the most important English-based contributions to literary critical analysis. Its easily repeatable principles, teachableness, and seemingly undying popularity in the litera ture classroom and in some scholarly journals have enabled New Criticism to enrich theoretical and practical criticism while helping generations of readers to become close readers of texts. The term New Criticism came into popular use to describe this approach to understanding literature with the 1941 publication of John Crowe Ransom's The New Criticism,  a wrork that contained Ransom's personal analysis of several of his contemporary theorists and critics. Ransom him self was a Southern poet, a critic, and one of the leading advocates of this evolving movement. While teaching at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1920s, Ransom, along with several other professors and students, formed the Fugitives, a group of scholars and critics who believed in and practiced similar interpretative approaches to a text. Other sympa thetic groups, such as the Southern Agrarians (also in Nashville, Tennessee), soon formed. In The New Criticism,  Ransom articulates the principles of these various groups and calls for an ontological critic, one who will recog nize that a poem (used as a synonym in New Criticism for any literary work) is a concrete entity, as is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or the score of Handel's  Messiah or any chemical element, such as iron or gold. Like these concrete objects, a poem can be analyzed to discover its true or correct meaning independent of its author's intention or of the emotional state, val ues, or beliefs of either its author or its reader. Because this claim rests at the center of the movement's critical ideas, it is not surprising that the title of Ransom's book quickly became the official name for this approach to liter ary analysis.

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Chap ter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

Called modernism, Formalism, aesthetic criticism, textual criticism, or ontological criticism throughout its long and successful history, N e w Criticism, like all schools of criticism, does not represent a coherent body of critical theory and methodology espoused by its followers. At best, N e w Criticism and its adherents (i.e., New Critics) are an eclectic group, e a c h challenging, borrowing, and changing terminology, theory, and practices from one another while asserting a common core of basic ideas. Their ulti mate unity stems from their opposition to the prevailing methods of literary analysis found in academia in the first part of the twentieth century.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

At the beginning of the twentieth century (often said to mark the start of m o d e r n i s m or the modernist period), historical and biographical research dominated literary scholarship. Criticism's function, many believed, was to discover the historical context of a text and to ascertain how the authors' lives influenced their writings. Such extrinsic analysis (examining elements outside the text to uncover the text's meaning) became the norm in the liter ature departments of many American universities and colleges. Other forms of criticism and interpretation were often intermingled with this prominent emphasis on history and biography. For example, some critics believed we should appreciate the text for its beauty. For these impressionistic critics, how we feel and what we personally see in a work of art are what really mat ter. Others were more philosophical, arguing a naturalistic view of life that emphasizes the importance of scientific thought in literary analysis. For ad vocates of naturalism, human beings are considered animals who are caught in a world that operates on definable scientific principles and who respond somewhat instinctively to their environments and internal drives. Still other critics, the New Humanists, valued the moral qualities of art. Declaring that human experience is basically ethical, these critics demanded that literary analysis be based on the moral values exhibited in a text. Finally, remnants of nineteenth-century romanticism asserted themselves. For the romantic scholar, literary study concerns itself with the artists' feelings, attitudes, and personal visions exhibited in their works. Known as the expressive school, this view values the individual artist's experiences as evidenced in a text. Along with impressionism, the New Humanism, and naturalism, eX; pressionism and its romantic view of life and art were rejected by the "Nnw Critics—and thus their name: critics who reacted against these "old" of criticism. In declaring the objective existence of the poem or text, the No Critics assert that only the poem itself can be objectively evaluated, not t ^ feelings, attitudes, values, and beliefs of the author or the reader. Beca11^ they concern themselves primarily with an examination of the work *tse

Chapter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

55

and not its historical context or biographical elements, the New Critics belong to a broad classification of literary criticism called Formalism. Like the Russian Formalists, the New Critics espouse what many call "the text and text alone approach to literary analysis. Although the New Critics do indeed investigate a text s historical content and an author's biographical, social, and cultural concerns, their approach to textual analysis emphasizes a close reading of the text itself. Both the Russian Formalists and the New Critics believe that every text and indeed all literature is a complex, rule-governed system of forms (literary devices) that are analyzable. Such an analysis will reveal with considerable objectivity the text's meaning. New Criticism's approach to textual criticism automatically leads to multiple and divergent views about the elements that constitute what the New Critics call the poem. Because many of the practitioners of this formal istic criticism disagree with each other concerning the various elements that constitute a poem and also hold differing approaches to textual analysis, it is difficult to cite a definitive list of critics who consider themselves New Critics. We can, however, group together critics who hold to some of the same New Critical assumptions of poetic analysis. Among this group are  John Crowe Ransom, Rene Wellek, William K. Wimsatt, Monroe Beardsley, William Empson, R. R Blackmur, I. A. Richards, Robert Penn Warren, and Cleanth Brooks. Thanks to the publication of the 1938 college text Understanding Poetry: An Anthology for College Students  by Brooks and Warren, New Criticism emerged in American universities as the leading form of textual analysis from the late 1930s until the early 1960s. Although New Criticism dominated literary theory and criticism in the 1940s and 1950s, its roots stem from the early 1900s. Two British critics and authors, T. S. Eliot and I. A. Richards, helped lay the foundation for this form of formalistic analysis. From Eliot, New Criticism borrows its insistence that criticism be directed toward the poem, not the poet. The poet, declares Eliot in his best-known essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919), does not infuse the poem with his or her personality and emotions, but uses lan guage in such a way as to incorporate within the poem the impersonal feel ings and emotions common to all humankind. According to Eliot, poetry is not a freeing of the poet's emotions, but an escape from them. Because the poem is an impersonal formulation of common feelings and emotions, the successful poem unites the poet s impressions and ideas with those common to all humanity, producing a text that is not simply a reflection of the poet's personal feelings. The New Critics also borrow Eliot's belief that the reader of poetry must be instructed in literary technique. Eliot maintains that a good reader per ceives a poem structurally, resulting in good criticism. Such a reader must necessarily be trained in reading good poetry (especially the poetry of the Elizabethans John Donne, and other metaphysical poets), and be well ac quainted with established poetic traditions. A poor reader, on the other

56

Chapter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

hand, simply expresses his or her personal emotions and reactions to a text. Such a reader is untrained in literary technique and craftsmanship. Following Eliot's lead, the New Critics declare that there are both good and bad readers or critics and good and bad criticism. A poor reader and poor criticism may argue that a poem can mean anything its reader or its author wishes it to mean. On the other hand, a good reader or critic and good criticism will assert that only through a detailed structural analysis of a poem can a reader discover the correct interpretation of a text. Eliot also lends New Criticism some of its technical vocabulary. Thanks to Eliot, for example, the term objective correlative  has become a staple in poetic jargon. According to Eliot, a writer can best express emotion through art by devising what Eliot calls an objective correlative, or a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, or reactions that can effectively awaken in the reader the emotional response the author desires without being a direct statement of that emotion. When the external elements are thus effectively presented in a poem, they coalesce, immediately evoking an emotion. The New Critics readily adopted and advanced this indirect or impersonal theory of the creation of emotions in poetrv. From Eliot's British contemporary’ 1. A. Richards, a psychologist, rhetorician, poet, and literary critic, New Criticism borrows a term that has become synonymous with its methods of analysis, practical criticism. In an experiment at Cambridge University, Richards distributed to his students copies of poems minus such information as the authors, dates, and oddities of spelling and punctuation, and asked them to record their responses. From these data, Richards identified the difficulties that poetry presents to its readers, including matters of interpretation, poetic techniques, and specific meanings. From this analysis, Richards then devised an intricate system for arriving at a poem's meaning, including a minute scrutiny of the text. It is this close scrutiny or close reading of a text that has become svnonvmous with New Criticism. From Eliot, Richards, and other critics, New Criticism borrows, amends, and adds its own ideas and concerns. Although few of its advocates would agree on many tenets, definitions, and techniques, a core of assumptions does exist, thereby allowing us to identify adherents of this critical approach

ASSUMPTIONS

New Criticism beg,ns by assuming that the study of imaginative literature valuable; to study poetry or any literary work is to engage oneself i" J aesthetic expenence (,.e„ the effects produced on an individual when CO templating a work of art) that can lead to truth. The truth discovers* through an aesthete expenence is distinguishable from the truth that scien<

C. hap ter 3 • Russian Formalism and Nrw Criticism

57

provides us. Science speaks propositionally, tolling us whether a statement is demonstrably either true or false. Pure water, in the language of science, freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, not 30 or 31. Poetic truth, on the other hand, involves the use of the imagination and intuition, a form of truth that, ac cording to the New Critics, is discernable only in poetry. In the aesthetic ex perience alone we are cut off from mundane or practical concerns, from mere rhetorical, doctrinal, or propositional statements. Through an examination of the poem itself, we can ascertain truths that cannot be perceived through the language and logic of science. Both science and poetry, then, provide differ ent but valid sources of knowledge and avenues to truth. Similar to many other critical theories, New Criticism's theory begins by defining its object of concern, in this case a poem. (New Critics use the word  poem  synonymously with work o f art;  however, their methodology works most efficiently with poetry rather than any other genre.) New Critics assert that a poem has ontological status— that is, it possesses its own being and ex ists like any other object. For the New Critics, a poem becomes an artifact, that is, an objective, self-contained, autonomous entity with its own struc ture. As William K. Wimsatt declares, a poem becomes a "verbal icon," or the New Critical assumption that a work of art achieves its meaning through the interrelationships of sound, texture, structure, rhetoric, and a host of other literary devices. Having declared a poem an object in its own right, the New Critics then develop their objective theory of art. For them, the meaning of a poem must not be equated with its author's feelings or stated or implied intentions. To believe that a poem 's m eaning is nothing more than an expression of the pri vate experiences or intentions of its author is to commit a fundamental error of interpretation, which the New Critics call the intentional fallacy. According to William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, the New Critics who coined this term, the design or intent of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging a literary work. Along with many other New Critics, Wimsatt and Beardsley believe that the poem is an object. Any literary work is a  public  text that can only be understood by applying the standards of public discourse, not simply the private experience, con cerns, and vocabulary of its author. In their widely read New Critical text Understanding Poetry,  however, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren temper the dogmatism of the intentional fallacy, asserting that understand ing the origin of a poem may indeed enhance its appreciation. They do insist, however, that a poem 's origin or historical setting must not be confused with a close reading of the actual poem itself. That the poem is somehow related to its author cannot be denied. In "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Eliot states the New Critical position on the relationship between the author and his or her work. The basis of Eliot's argument is an analogy. We all know, he says, that certain chemical re actions occur in the presence of a catalyst, an element that causes, but is not

58

Ch apte r 3 • Russian Form alism and New Criticism

affected by, the reaction. For example, if we place hydrogen peroxin mon household disinfectant, in a clear bottle and expose it to the >m. we will no longer have hydrogen peroxide. Acting as a ca ta ly st^ SraV$, rays will cause a chemical reaction to occur, breaking down the h ** SUn's peroxide into its various parts, while the sun's rays remain unaffected r° 8c‘n Similarly, the poet's mind serves as a catalyst for the reaction that the poem. During the creative process, the poet's mind, serving as th ^'e^s lyst, brings together the experiences of the author's personality (n ^ * 3 author's personality traits or attributes), into an external object and^ creation: the poem. It is not the personality traits of the author that c a|nevv to form the poem, but the experiences of the author's personality. In d'6^ guishing between the personality and the mind of the poet, Eliot assert hT the created entity, the poem, is about the experiences of the author that ^ similar to all of our experiences. By structuring these experiences, the poe^ allows us to examine them objectively. Dismissing the poet's stated or supposed intentions as a means of dis covering the text's meaning, the New Critics give little credence to the bio graphical or contextual history of a poem. If the intentional fallacy is correct then unearthing biographical data will not help us ascertain a poem's m e a n ing. Likewise, trying to place a poem in its social or political context will tell us much social or political history about the time when the poem was au thored. Although such information may indeed help in understanding the poem's sociological or historical context, the poem's real meaning c a n n o t re side in this extrinsic or outside-the-text information. Of particular importance to the New Critics is the etymology of individ ual words. Because the words of a poem sometimes change meaning from one time period to another, the critic often needs to conduct historical re search, discovering what individual words meant at the time the poem was written. For example, if a fifteenth-century poet called someone a "nice per son," the New Critics would investigate the meaning of the word in fifteenth-century usage, discovering that at that time nice meant foolish. The Oxford English Dictionary  (a dictionary that cites a word's multiple historical meanings chronologically) becomes one of the New Critic's most used tools. Placing little emphasis on the author, the social context, or a text's histor ical situation as a source for discovering a poem's meaning, the New Critics assert that a reader's emotional response to a text is neither important nor equivalent to its interpretation. The New Critics call such an error in judg ment the affective fallacy, a mistake in interpretation that confuses w h a t a poem is  (its meaning) with what it does. If we derive our standard of cut cism, say the New Critics, from the psychological effects of the poem,wea then left with impressionism or, worse yet, relativism, the belief that a p°e has innumerable valid interpretations. t)ie Where, then, can we find or discover a poem's meaning? According f New Critics, a poem's meaning does not reside in the author, the historic

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s o ci al c o n t e x t c f t h e p o e m , o r e v e n i n t h e r e a d er . B e c a u s e t h e p o e m i t se l f i s a n a r t i fa c t o r a n o b j e c t i v e e n t i t y , , t s m e a n i n g m u s t r e s i d e w i t h i n i t s o w n

structure, 1 1 \e poem itself. Like all other objects, a poem and its struclure can be analyzed saent,f.cally. Accordingly, careful scrutiny reveals that a poem s structure operates according to a complex series of laws. By closely analyzing thts structure, the New Critics believe that they have de vised a methodology and a standard of excellence that we can apply to all poems to discover their correct meaning. It is the critic's job, they conclude, to ascertain the structure of the poem, to see how it operates to achieve its unity, and to discover how meaning evolves directly from the poem itself. New Criticism sees the poet as an organizer of the content of human ex perience. Structuring the poem around the often confusing and sometimes contradictory experiences of life, the poet crafts the poem in such a way that the text stirs its readers emotions and causes its readers to reflect on the poem's contents. As an artisan, the poet is most concerned with effectively developing the poem's structure because the artist realizes that the meaning of a work emerges from its structure. The poet's chief concern, maintain the New Critics, is how meaning is achieved through the various and sometimes conflicting elements operating in the poem itself. The chief characteristic of a poem—and therefore of its structure—is co herence or interrelatedness. Borrowing their ideas from the writings of Samuel T. Coleridge (Biographia Literaria,   1817), the New Critics posit the organic unity of a poem—that is, all parts of a poem are necessarily interre lated, with each part reflecting and helping to support the poem's central idea. Such organic unity allows for the harmonization of conflicting ideas, feelings, and attitudes, and results in the poem's overall oneness. Superior poetry, declare the New Critics, achieves such oneness through paradox, irony, and ambiguity. Because such tensions are necessarily a part of every one's life, it is only fitting and appropriate, say the New Critics, that superior poetry presents these tensions while at the same time showing how they are resolved within the poem to achieve the text s organic unity. Because the poem's chief characteristic is its oneness, New Critics believe that a poem's form and content are inseparable. For the New Critics, form is more than the external structure of a poem; a poem's form encompasses and simultaneously rises above the usual definition of poetic structure (i.e., whether or not the poem is a Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnet, or a lyric, or any other poetic structure having meter, rhyme, or some other poetic pat tern). In New Criticism, form is defined as the overall effect the poem creates. Because all the various parts of a poem combine to create this effect, each poem's form is unique. When all the elements of a poem work together to form a single, unified e ff e c t- th e poem's f o rm -N e w Critics declare that the poet has written a successful or good poem, one that possesses organic unity. Because all good and successful poems have organic unity, it would be inconceivable to try to separate a poe m's form and its content, maintain t e

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Cha pter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

New Critics. How can we separate what a poem says from how it Say Because all the elements of a poem, both structural and aesthetic, work gether to achieve a poem's effect or form, it is impossible to discuss the 0v*°~ all meaning of a poem by isolating or separating form and content. Ver~ For the New Critic, it is also inconceivable to believe that a poem's inte pretation is equal to a mere paraphrased version of the text. Labeling such^ erroneous belief the h e r e s y o f p a r a p h r a s e , a term coined by Cleanth Brook* in his book The Well Wrought Urn,  New Critics maintain that a poem is not simply a statement that is either true or false, but a bundle of harmonized tensions and resolved stresses, more like a ballet or musical composition than a statement of prose. No simple paraphrase can equal the meaning of a poem because the poem itself resists through its inner tensions any pr0se statement that attempts to encapsulate its meaning. Paraphrases may help readers in their initial understanding of a poem, but such prose statements must be considered working hypotheses that may or may not lead to a true understanding of the poem's meaning. The New Critics insist that such paraphrased statements about a poem must never be considered equivalent to the poem's structure or form.

METHODOLOGY

Believing in both the thematic and structural unity of a poem, New Critics search for a poem's meaning within the text's structure by finding the tensions and conflicts that must eventually be resolved into a harmonious whole and that inevitably lead to the creation of the poem's chief effect. Such a search first leads New Critics to the poem's diction or word choice. Unlike scientific dis course with its precision of terminology, poetic diction often has multiple meanings and immediately sets up a series of tensions within the text. For example, many words have both a denotation, or dictionary meaning, and connotation(s), or implied meanings. A word's denotation may be in direct conflict with its connotative meaning determined by the context of the poem. In addition, it may be difficult to differentiate between the various denotations or connotations of a word. For example, if someone writes that "a fat  head enjoys the fat   of the land," the reader must note the various denotative and connotative differences of the word fa t . At the start of poetic analysis, then, conflicts or tensions exist by the very nature of poetic diction. New Critics call this tension ambiguity, or language's capacity to sustain multiple meaningsAt the heart of literary language or discourse, claim the New Critics, is ambigu ity. At the end of a close reading of a text, all such ambiguities must be resolved. Even a surface level of understanding or upon a first reading, a poem, from a New Critic's perspective, is a reconciliation of conflicts, of oppose meanings and tensions. Because a poem's form and content are indivisible, it

Chapter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

61

is the critic s task to analyze the poetic diction to ascertain such tensions. Although various New Critics give a variety of names to the poetic elements that make up a poem s structure, all agree that the poem's meaning is de rived from the oscillating tensions and conflicts that are brought to the sur face through the poetic diction. For example, Cleanth Brooks claims that the chief elements in a poem are paradox and irony, two closely related terms that imply that a word or phrase is qualified or even undercut by its context. By definition, a paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement that must be resolved on a higher metaphysical level. The New Critics broaden this definition, maintaining that literary language by its very nature is ambiguous. Literary discourse, unlike normal or everyday language, is able to sustain multiple meanings. For Brooks, the discourse of poetry is "the language of paradox." Similarly, the New Critics enhance the meaning of the word irony.  Irony is a figure of speech in which the words express a meaning that is often the direct oppo site of their literal meaning. In New Criticism irony is the poet's ability to recognize incongruities, and it becomes New Criticism's master trope be cause it is essential for the production of paradox and ambiguity. Some New Critics use the word tension to describe the opposition or conflicts operating within a text. For these critics, tension implies the conflicts between a word's denotation and its connotation, between a literal detail and a figurative one, and between an abstract and a concrete detail. Because conflict, ambiguity, or tension controls the poem's structure, the meaning of a poem can be discovered only by contextually analyzing the poetic elements and diction. Furthermore, because context governs meaning, mean ings of individual words or phrases are necessarily context related and unique to the poem in which they occur. It is the task of the critic to unravel the various apparent conflicts and tensions within each poem and ultimately to show that the poem possesses organic unity, thereby demonstrating how all parts of the poem are interrelated and support the poem's chief paradox. This paradox, which New Critics often call form or overall effect, can usually be expressed in one sentence that contains the main tension and the resolution of that tension. It is this "key idea" to which all other elements of the poem must relate. Although most New Critics would agree that the process of discovering the poem's form is not necessarily linear (because advanced readers often see ambiguities and ironies upon a first reading of a text), New Criticism provides the reader with a distinct methodology to discover a text's central paradox or tension. These guided steps allow both novices and advanced lit erary scholars to enter the discussion of a text's ultimate meaning, each con tributing to the poem's interpretation. From a New Critical perspective, one begins the journey of discovering a text's correct or valid interpretation by reading the poem several times and by carefully noting the work's title (if it has one) and its relationship to the text. Then, by following the prescribed steps listed here, the reader can ascertain a text's meaning. The more practice

62

Cha pter 3 • Russian Formalism and N ew C riticism

a reader has at following this me thodo logy an d the m ore oppo rtunities he she has to be guided by an advanced reader and critic, the more adept tfT ^ H p r will undoubtedly become at textual analysis: Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6 Step 7

Examine the text's diction. Consider the de notation s, connotations, and etymological roots of all words in the text. Examine all allusions found within the text by tracing their roots to the pri mary text or source, if possible. Analyze all images, symbols, and figures of speech within the text. Note the relationships, if any, among the elements, both within the same cate gory (e.g., between images) and among the various elements (e.g., be tween an image and a symbol). Examine and analyze the various structural patterns that appear within the text, including the technical aspects of p ro so d y , or the principles that govern the writing of poetry, such as rhyme, meter, rhythm, and so forth. Note how the poet manipulates metrical devices, grammatical construc tions, tonal patterns, and syntactic patterns of words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. Determine how these various patterns interrelate with each other and with all elements discussed in steps 1 to 3. Consider such elements as tone, theme, point of view, and any other ele ment—dialogue, foreshadowing, narration, parody, setting, and so forth— that directly relate to the text's dramatic situation. Look for interrelationships of all elem ents stated in step s 1-5, noting where tensions, ambiguities, or paradoxes arise. After carefully examining all of the above, state the po em 's chief, overar ching tension, and explain how the poem achieves its dominant effect by resolving this tension.

Because a l l p o e m s a r e unio.iP m tension is also unique. By u sjnV process of un cov erin g a poem 's chief Criticism, New Critics believe t h a f r e J prescribed m eth od olog y of New p r e ta tio n s o f a t ex t w i th in f or m a t io n ^ b e a b l e t o l u s t if y t h e ir in te r' ying e a e s th e t ic p r o c e s s t h a t a l l o w f , f a n e d f r ° m t b e t e x t a l o n e w h i le enD oem ,CC°+r ,n ^ t 0   S U c b N e w C r i t i c a l n 6 0 1 t 0  a r b c u l a t e t h e t e x t 's m e an in g. S nnrU? re b y Scru d n i 2 ing^Its l PetlnC1,P ,e S ' 3   § ° ° d critic e x a m i n e s a

meaning by reconcnt ^ ^ t r a t i n g h o w T l T * 8' r° ° tin8  OUt and sh° ^ bad critics irn iK g tbese tensions into tbe P oem su pp ort s its overall as historical u °St? wbo insist on imnoQ- 3   Unifled whole. By implication,

These critics hi] ,.°8raphical information ^ mainly extrinsic evidence, such frequently than not th e’^ , ^   *he text i t s e l f disCOVer its nieani,lg; °f a work of art: iron ^ ° S° fad to discu ss 1Clts. lts ow n meaning. More

their analysis decl i y' parad°x, and amhi ° r examine the definitive aspects Asserting that i r. °  t
s believe tin tVi P ,e Meanings ‘ 1 Xt u,l,rn»M y has one b? wntoI»g ica l sta tu s, the

1nc only one correct interpret^011

Ch apte r 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

63

and that the poem itself provides all the necessary information for revealing its meaning. By scrutinizing the text and giving it a close reading, and by providing readers with a set of norms that will assist them in discovering the correct interpretation of the text, New Criticism provides a teachable, workable framework for literary analysis.

Q U E S T IO N S F O R A N A L Y S I S To apply the assum ptions and m ethodolog y of New C riticism , read carefully Nathaniel Ha w thorn e's short story "Young Goo dm an Bro w n" (located at the back of this text). After reading the story, answer each of the following questions as they relate to Haw thorn e's tale. W hen you have com pleted your an swers, be prepared to discuss your findings or what the New Critics call your interp retation of this sh ort story. •

• • • • •

•

• • • • • •

If the text has a title, what is the relationship of the title to the rest of the poem? Before answering this question, New Critical theory and practice assume that the critic has read the text several times. What words, if any, need to be defined? What words and their etymological roots need to be scrutinized? What relationships or patterns do you see among any words in the text? What words in the text possess various connotative meanings? Do these various shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text? What allusions, if any, are in the text? Trace these allusions to their appropriate sources and explore how the origins of the allusions help elucidate meaning in this particular text. What symbols, images, and figures of speech are used? What is the relationship between any symbol and/or image? Between an image and another image? Between a figure of speech and an image? A symbol? What elements of prosody can you note and discuss? Look for rhyme, meter, and stanza patterns. What is the tone of the work? From what point of view is the content of the text being told? What tensions, ambiguities, or paradoxes arise within the text? What do you believe the chief paradox or irony is in the text? How do all the elements of the text support and develop the text's chief paradox?

c r it iq u e s a n d With the

emergence

r e s po n s e s o f N e w C r i t i c i s m i n t h e l l M ( )s c a m e t h e b i r t h a n d g r o w t h

° f li te r a t u r e d e p a r t m e n t s in c o l l e g e s a n d

u n i v e r s i t i e s a c r o s s A m e r i c a . I ts

M e th o d o l o g ic a l a n d s o m e w h a t s c ie n t i fi c a p p r o a c h

to li te r a tu r e g a i n e d

64

Ch ap ter 3 • Russian Formalism and New Criticism

enormous support as monies for academic research expanded and as arm .a forces personnel returned to America from the battlefields of Europe afte World War 11. As the influence of English literature expanded, there arose^a practical need for a consistent and a convenient form of literary criticism Brooks and Warren's text Understanding Poetry: An Anthology for College Students  (1938) provided such consistency. College professors could now focus upon a single text (particularly poetry but also any text written in any genre) that could be easily studied and analyzed by following the prescribed "formula" as developed by the New Critics. No longer did students have to know the sociohistorical background of any given text because now the text itself was the object of examination. Such a formulaic approach to literary analysis, which excludes most exter nal evidence from its analytic methodology, readily opens itself to criticism. Some critics assert that different perspectives for understanding a text's mean ing do indeed exist and can help broaden what constitutes literature. Examining authors' lives, for example, can illuminate their works. Psychology, sociology, and history, claim many critics, do impact both individual writers and their works, helping to fill a vacuum created by examining only the text. Without such analyses, argue many critics, we will miss out on many relevant and important meanings and purposes of texts. By dismissing such externaltext analyses, the New Critics may indeed be contradicting their own claims that the meaning of a text is context-bound. For example, a work's sociohistori cal context, assert New Criticism's challengers, is indeed part of its context and, therefore, its meaning. Other critics argue that the methodology espoused by New Criticism is elitist. To arrive at the so-called "correct" interpretation of a text, a reader much first learn the vocabulary and the correct procedures for such analysis. Do the feelings or ideas of an actual reader who has not mastered New Criticism's theory really matter? Can such feelings or beliefs lead to a valid interpretation of a text? Need the interpretation of a text always be so ob  jective as claim the New Critics? Must all "good" texts possess organic unity? And can New Criticism's search for a text's organic unity blind the critic to im portant elements of a text that do not contribute to such unity? Albeit New Criticism's insistence on the objective nature of literary interpretation, individ ual readers who may or may not be trained in New Critical methodology wiU most certainly find a variety of ways to make meaning of a particular text. Despite these and other criticisms, the influence of New Criticism on twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary analyses remains. All schools o criticism, for example, espouse a close reading of a text. And New Criticism s terminology and its understanding of a literary work of art have influenced'" either directly or indirectly—all modern schools of literary criticism. W h a t o t h e r a d v a n t a g e s o r d i s a d v a n t a g e s d o y o u s e e in u s i n g the p r » u I ' p i e s o f N e w C r it ic i s m t o c r i t i q u e a l i t e r a r y w o r k ? S e e R e a d i n g s o n L i t er a r y C r i t i c i s m a t t h e b a c k o f t h e t e x t fo r a  p

i

'^

e s s a y o n N e w C r i ti c i sm , " T h e F o r m a l i s t C r i t i c s , " a u t h o r e d b y o n e of N* C r i t i c i s m ' s le a d i n g s c h o l a r s C l e a n th b r o o k s .

R eader or ient ed C r it icism

The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million—a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the  pressure of the individual will. Henry James, Preface to the New York edition of Portrait o f a Lady

INTRODUCTION

magine, for a moment, that you and three of your closest friends are once again eight years old. All of you have been invited to a birthday party at another friend's house three blocks away. For four weeks you have been eagerly anticipating the big event. Unlike you and your three friends, the birthday party celebrant is the child of millionaires and lives in a mansion containing thirty-four rooms and has let it be known that the party would be the biggest and best you have ever attended. Not surprisingly, rumors that the celebration would include a circus with clowns and animals dressed in human clothes and accompanied by a host of costumed people and the full trappings of a Barnum and Bailey production have been circulating among the four of you for weeks. But today is Saturday, the day of the big event. Meeting at your house at 9:30 a.m., you and your friends excitedly walk the three blocks to the birthday house. Upon arrival, you see that the front door is completely covered with red aluminum foil with no door knob visible. Even the doorbell is shielded from view by the bright foil covering. Quickly one of your friends dashes to the back of the house, hoping to gain access through the back door. With head hung low, this friend returns in about a minute with the news that the back door is also covered with red foil. Being the nearest to the front window to the right of the door, you peek into the house—and what a sight you see! On the tile near the fireplace sleeps a lion. To the left of the lion is a cage containing a leopard licking a block of ice. And directly below the window is the longest snake you have

I

65

«

Chapter 4 • Reader-oriented Criticism

. friends to com e and see the animals, but tK ever seen. You scream for you view into the house. To your righ, N too, have each discovered th w ,edge and is peering through a D' e of your friends is standing o h den is clearly visible, but no on hole window. Through thts n o signs of any p there—no decorations, no mo Bu( another friend has found a u gloomy and most certamly house,s front door. Climbing up the ladder der and placed it to the le window and sees at least fifte! ' this friend gazes into t e th donkey while they are drinkin laughing children, playing Pm -the tad ° , t h ^ . ^ chjps ^ purple punch and ea mg h vjew into the party house: runnine the fourth child has discovered ano he t c - ^ ^ ^ ™mg   taTnof“

ts wrapp ed^ funny-looking paper, some with big bows, „,her

“ "T h e door being barred^aTl four children have discovered a way to see into the same house, each of the openings being of a d i fferent size and shape, with each opening providing a different view. Where one chdd is longing to pet the lion, the leopard, and the snake, another is saddened by the apparent emptiness of the house. Another, however, is eager to gain entrance and join the many children eating and playing, and the last friend is joyous at the sight of the mountain of presents. The same house but different \iews. The same house but different reactions to each view into its contents. According to Henry James (1843-1916), this house represents a literary text—a story, a novel, a poem, or an essay—with each window being an in dividual reader's distinct view into or impression of that literary work. Like the four children peering into the house's windows and seeing different views, readers will read the same text but "s ee " unique scen es, coming away from the text with various impressions and interpretations. Each will most certainly be reading the same text, but all will gain entrance into the mean ing of that text through different apertures and come away with a variety of differing and sometimes contradictory interpretations. Now imagine that you and other members of your college-level, intro ductory literature class have been asked to read Nathaniel Hawthorne s short story Young Goodman Brown" (1835), part of which reads as follows: And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on the ro r^ n-fTT 6

^ thlS dark world' A basin was hollowed, naturally, in

lur; dphSht? or was it blood? or, pare to lav the mark nf k d th ShaPe of Evd dip his hand, and pre takers of the mystery of sin m!T UP°n foreheads' that theY might be Par' deed and thought, than thev r re.^onscious of the secret guilt of others, both in look at his pale wife and Faith^f, n°Wbe tEeir own. The husband cast one glance show them to each oth 3 ^ bat polluted wretches would the next what they saw! er' S U Bering alike at what they disclosed an

C hap ter 4 • Reader-oriented Criticism

67

"Faith! Faith! cried the husband. "Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!" Whether Faith obeyed, he knew not. Hardly had he spoken, when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind, which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock and felt it chill and damp, while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew. The next morning, young goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minis ter was taking a walk along the graveyard, to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint, as if to avoid an anathema. Old deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God doth the wizard pray to?" quoth goodman Brown. Goody Close, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine, at her own lattice, catechising a little girl, who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child, as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him, that she skipt along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But, goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting. Had goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting? Be it so, if you will. But, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young goodman Brown. Several class members are now voicing their interpretations of this con cluding portion of Hawthorne's story. Student A declares that Goodman Brown's struggle is obvious; Brown finds himself engrossed in the age-old ten sion of appearance versus reality, a theme that has permeated Western litera ture for centuries. It is ambiguity, maintains Student A, that unites the short story and shows how every character and every event contribute to the text's organic unity. For example, in commanding his wife to "Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One," Brown attests both to the struggle between and the reality of good and evil. When, however, Brown finds himself "amid calm night and solitude," he convinces himself that his wife—and, in fact, all mem bers of his Salem village—did not resist the Wicked One. For Brown, main tains Student A, all except himself are hypocrites, and all except himself have been baptized into evil. And yet his personal revelation concerning the pres ence and the mystery of evil in the lives of others seemingly affects only him and no other Salem villager, neither any member of the clergy nor even Brown's wife. Perhaps, says the narrator, Brown merely fell asleep in the forest and the events he experienced are simply a dream. All elements of the story, declares Student A, point to and demonstrate Hawthorne's use of ambiguity as the key to unlocking the meaning of this tale.

valid criticisms of Hawthorne's text, J ey haV(f ov« rl™k(ed1 cha"ge that takes place in Goodman Brown himself. After the events of that fateful night in the forest-cither real or imagined-no longer do we see a Goodman Brown who trusts in the goodness of humanity. We now have a character whose entire life—his thoughts and actions—is one of despair, a life that sees no good in anyone. Everyone in the Salem village, Brown believes, is living a lie because all are hypocrites. And for the rest of his life he remains a solemn person who casts suspicious and supposedly knowing glances at his peers and his wife, all of whom, he believes, have pledged their allegiance to evil. And thus Brown's "dying hour was gloom," just like his life after the forest scene. With a quiver in her voice, Student D remarks that Goodman Brown re minds her of her friend Rita. Whenever Rita's husband meets her in public— at the mall, grocery store, or McDonald's—he gives her a quick stare then looks the other way. Even when they are at home together, he prefers to sit in his study watching a movie on his computer than sitting with her and their two children in the family room watching one of the children's favorite movies. Like Faith Brown, says Student D, Rita has no idea what she has done to distance herself from her husband. Nightly she cries herself to sleep, wishing her husband would hold her. In "Young Goodman Brown," asserts Student D, Hawthorne has successfully captured the predicament of some twenty-first-century wives, women whose lives are filled with despair and they know not why. Each of these four students sees something slightly different in aww  fmm  m0;r

....... jc^iving different impressions, and coming

Cha pter 4 • Reader-oriented Criticism

69

central theme. Using the tenets of New Criticism, Student A posits the organic unity of the text. For this student, learning and applying literary terminology and searching for the correct interpretation are of utmost importance. Unlike Student A, who applies a given set of criteria to the text in an at tempt to discover its meaning, Students B, C, and D become participants in the interpretive process, actively bringing their own experiences to bear upon the text s meaning. Student B's interpretation, for example, highlights the theoretical difference between a text's meaning (the author's intentions) and its significance or relevance to present-day readers. Student C's ap proach begins filling in the gaps in the text, hypothesizing how Goodman Brown will act toward his peers and family based on his either real or imag ined experience in the forest. Whether Student C is correct or not about Brown's actions throughout the rest of his life remains an open question. Student D's theoretical framework objectifies the text and its meaning based on the reader's personal experiences with prejudice. Although Students B, C, and D differ in their various approaches, none views the text as an objective entity that contains its own meaning (as does Student A). For these readers, the text does not and cannot interpret itself. To determine a text's meaning, these students believe they must become active readers and participants in the interpretive process. The various theoretical assumptions and methodologies they used to discover the text's meaning exemplify reader-response criticism, now frequently referred to as readeroriented criticism .

H I ST O R IC A L D E V E L O P M E N T

Although reader-oriented criticism rose to prominence in the United States in the early 1970s and still influences much contemporary criticism, its his torical roots can be traced to the 1920s and 1930s. But such precise dating is artificial because readers have obviously been responding to what they have read and experienced since the dawn of literature itself. Even the classical writers Plato and Aristotle were aware of and concerned about the reader's (or viewer's) reactions. Plato, for example, asserts that watching a play could so inflame the passions of the audience that the attendees would forget that they were rational beings and allow passion, not reason, to rule their actions. Similarly in the Poetics , Aristotle voices concern about the effects a play will have on the audience's emotions. Will it arouse the spectators' pity or fear? Will these emotions purge the viewer? Will they cleanse a spectator of all emotions by the play's end? Like Plato's and Aristotle's audience-centered concerns, such interest in audience response to the artistic creation dominates much present-day literary criticism. Critics who emphasize such audience ^sponse frequently involve themselves in rhetorical criticism, focusing on

70

Chapter 4 • Reader-oriented Cr.ttcism

the strategies, devices, and techniques authors use to elicit a particular reacti0nUnidne Z ^ a b0oth0 Plato's and A risto tle's co n ce rn s ab ou t audience response— as well as the concern of man y cn t.c s w h o follow m them p a th sis the assumption that the audience or the reader is passive. As it watching a play or reading a book were a spe cta tor sp ort , re ad er s sit p a ss u ely, absorbing  the contents of the artistic creation and allo w in g it to d o m in a te their thoughts and actions. From this point of view, the r ea d er b rin gs little to the plav or text, with the text providing all that is needed to arrive at a valid interpretation. From Plato's time until the beg innin g of the ro m a n tic mo vem ent in British literature in the earlv 1800s , such a pa ss iv e v ie w of t he rea de r domi nated literary criticism. Although manv critics recognized that a text did in deed have an effect on its readers, criticism concerned itself primarily with the text. With the advent of British rom an ticism , em p h a si s sh ifted from the text to the author. The author now became the genius who could assimilate truths that were unacknowledged or unseen by the general populace. And as the nineteenth century progressed, concern for the author continued, with literary criticism stressing the imp orta nce of th e a u th o r' s life, times, and social context as chief aids in textual analysis By the beginning of the twentieth cen tury, em p h as is in tex tua l analysis m d n n rt i.v in ii

m in

i

th tin. as ce nd an ce of Nuvv C riti cis m s theory

.hat could be - ‘o n o m o u s - a n objective entity believed, the text would reveal Us r ‘ Studied th or oug hly , the New Critics historical or social context m in >^ ° m ea ni ng- Ext rin sic fac to rs, such as pretation was the actual text the SOIJ evvha t, but the key to a text's interbal icon, the text itself, declared th^ N ^ ! n ha n d. N ow con sid ered a ver' discover its meaning. We need o n ^ Cri tics, co n ta in s w h at is needed to correct techniques to unlock its m l the tech ™ca l vo ca bu lar y and the Declaring a text an autotelic artifT wan autonomous object that can be an , ^ 3 teXt ex ists in ow n right as edge the effects a text could h a v e ? y2e d)' the N ew C ritics did acknowl' erary work, they decreed, t a not H ' " * * * * ■ Studying^ the eje ct s of a lit' a ; r Ss-ve’“ ,d?

.oPbtt

Phtr SiS-

* :^ * c

“ s tu d y l^ tS e lf . * *

w C e n "; T id not bring person r e ° f ,he text aSain ^ < en8ased ln textual analy st exPe rien ces or private emotion5

I- A. Richards In the midst of New r ■ ■ analysis that would lastr; tlCiSm's rise to h  A retd t; A- Rich« d s
nl,ke "'nny of h "

° ther>- becam e interested in%

Formalist friends who d is a v o ^

Ch apter 4 • Reader-oriented Criticism

71

any significant relationship betw een a rea de r's pe rsonal feelings and a te xt's interpretation, Richards set about to investigate such a relationship. Using a decidedly reader-oriented approa ch to textual analysis, Richards distributed to his classes at Cambridge University copies of short poems of widely di verse aesthetic and literary value, w ithout citing their authors and titles but with various editorial changes that updated spelling and pronunciation. He then asked his students to record their free responses to and evaluations of each of these texts. What surprised Richards was the wide variety of seem ingly incompatible and contradictory responses. After collecting and analyzing these responses, Richards published his findings, along with his own interpretations of the examined texts, in Principles of Literary Criticism   (1924). Underiving Richards's text is his as sumption that science, not poetry or any other literarv genre, leads to truth— that is, science's view of the world is the correct one. Poems, on the other hand, can produce only "pse ud o-sta tem ents " about the nature of reality. But such pseudo-statements, declares Richards, are essential to the overall psy chological health of each individual. In fact, according to Richards, human beings are basically bundles of desires called appetencies. In order to achieve psychic health, one must balance these desires by creating a pe rso n ally acceptable vision of the world. Richards observes that religion was once able to provide this vision, but has now lost its effectiveness to do so. Borrowing from the thoughts of the nineteenth-century poet Matthew Arnold, Richards decrees that poetry, above all other art forms, can best har monize and satisfy hum ank ind's app etencies and help create a fulfilling a nd intellectually acceptable worldview. After creating this substantially affective system o f analysis, wh ich gives credence to a reader's emotional response to a text, Richards then abandons this same reader-oriented approach in his own analysis of his students' re sponses. Like the New Critics who were to follow him in the next several decades, he asserts that "the poem itself" contains all the necessary informa tion to arrive at the "right" or "more adequate" interpretation. Through tex tual analysis— that is, by closely e xam ining the poem 's d iction, imagery, and overall unity—Richards believes a reader can arrive at a better or more nearly correct interpretation of a poem than one derived from personal re sponses to a text. Despite this seemingly complete departure from his initial reader-oriented methodology, Richards recognizes the contextual nature of the reading process. In his text Practical Criticism: A Study o f Literary Judgmen t  (1929), Richards ac knowledges that a reader brings to the text a vast array of ideas amassed through life's experiences, including previous literary experiences, and applies SUch information to the text to develop an interpretation. These life experiences Provide a kind of reality check for the reader, either validating or negating the Authenticity of the experiences as represented in the text. In so doing, the reader ec°mes an active participant in the creation of a text's meaning.

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Louise M. Rosenblatt

In the 1930s, Louise M. Rosenblatt, literary theorist, author, scholar, and renowned professor of literacy, further develops Richards's earlier assump tions concerning the contextual nature of the reading process. In her text Literature as Exploration  (1938), Rosenblatt asserts that both the reader and the text must work together to create meaning. Unlike the New Critics, she shifts the emphasis of textual analysis away from the text alone and views the reader and the text as partners in the interpretative process. For Rosenblatt, a text is not an autotelic artifact, and there aie no generic literary works or generic readers who must master the Formalists methodology with its accompanying complex and often dense terminology to gain the so-called correct interpretation of a text. Instead, Rosenblatt declares, there are mil lions of potential individual readers of the potential millions of individual texts. Readers bring their individual personalities, their memories of past events, their present concerns, their particular physical conditions, and all of their personhood to the reading of a text. Disavowing New Criticism s affec tive fallacy and other such beliefs, Rosenblatt asserts the validity of multiple interpretations of a text shaped not only by the text but also by the reader. In the late 1930s, Rosenblatt's ideas seemed revolutionary, too abstract, and simply off the beaten, acceptable critical path. Although New Criticism dominated literary practice for the next thirty years or so, Rosenblatt contin ued to develop her ideas, publishing in 1978 The Reader, the Text, the Poem■ The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. This work became a pivotal force in helping to cause a paradigm shift in the teaching of literature. As articu lated by Rosenblatt, the key element in the interpretive process now change from focusing almost exclusively on the text alone to a reader's individ^ response to a text. In this work, Rosenblatt clarifies her earlier ideas and pr^ sents what has become one of the main critical positions held by many me rists and practical critics today. According to Rosenblatt, the reading process involves both a reader an^ text. The reader and the text participate in or share a transactional e x p ^ " ' The text acts as a stimulus for eliciting various past experiences, thouffV and ideas from the reader, those found in both the reader's everyday e tence and in his or her reading experiences. Simultaneously, the text  M  4 the reader s e x p e n s e s by functioning as a blueprint that selects, orders those uleas that best conform to the text Through this expenence, the reader and the text produce a new creation, what R < * ^ a calls the poem. For Rosenblatt- ™ 4 , . . I 1 , UU)imt and manv other reader-oriented ,,4 jf$*  ^

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For Rosenblatt, readers can and do read in one of two ways: efferentlu  or aesthetically. When we read for information—for example, when we read the directions for hea ting a can of soup we are engaging in effer en t reading (from the Latin effere  "t o carry a w ay "). During this process, we are interested only in newly gained information that we can "carry away" from the text, not in the actual words as words themselves. When we read efferently, we are motivated by a specific need to acquire information. When we engage in aesthetic reading, we exp erien ce the text. We note its every word, its sounds, its patterns, and so on. In essence, we live through the transactional experi ence of creating the poem. Of primary importance is our engagement or our unique "live d- thro ug h" experien ce with the text. Rosenblatt adds that at any given moment in the reading process a reader may shift back and forth along a continuum b etw een an efferent and an aesthetic mode of reading. When reading aesthetically, Rosenblatt maintains that we involve our selves in an elaborate give-and-take encounter with the text. Though the text may allow for many interpretations by eliciting and highlighting different experiences of the reader, it simultaneously limits the valid meanings the poem can acquire. For Rosenblatt, a poem 's m eaning is not a smorgasbord of infinite interpretations; rather, it is a transactional experience in which sev eral different yet probable meanings emerge in a particular social context and thereby create a variety of "poems." What differentiates Rosenblatt's and other reader-oriented critics' con cerns from other critical approaches (especially New Criticism) is their purposive shift in emphasis away from the text, as the sole determiner of meaning and toward the significance of the reader as an essential participant in the reading process and the creation of meaning. Such a shift negates the Formalists' assumption that the text is autonomous and can be scientifically analyzed to discover its meaning. No longer is the reader passive, merely applying a laundry list of learned, poetic devices to a text in the hope of dis covering its intricate patterns of paradox and irony, which, in turn, will lead, supposedly, to the one correct interpretation. For reader-oriented critics, the reader is an active participant along with the text in creating meaning. It is from the literacy experience (an event that occurs when a reader and print transact), they believe, that meaning evolves.

ASSUMPTIONS Similar to most approach.-* to literary analysis, reader-oriented cri.totsm does provide us with a unified body of theory or a sm,;le n.ethodoloK>ca! ap proach for textual analysis. What those who call themselves reader-response Cr’hcs, reader-oriented critics, reader cr,tics, or audience-oriented cnt.es •**M* is a concern for the reader. Ilelievin,; that a literary work s interpretation

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Chap ter 4 • Reader-oriented Criticism

pxt interact and/or transact, these critics asis created when a reader and a text-----»er study of textual analysis must consider both the reader rt that the proper so and the text, not simply a text in isolation. For these critics, Reader + Text = Meaning (Poem) O n l y i n c o n t e x t , w i t h a r e a d e r a c ti v e l y in v o l v e d i n t h e r e a d i n g p r o c e s s with the text, does m eaning em erge. M e a n i n g , d e c la r e r e a d e r -o r ie n t e d c r i ti c s , i s c o n t e x t - d e p e n d e n t a n d in tri c a t e ly a s s o c i a te d w i th t h e r e a d i n g p r o c e s s . L i k e l i t e r a r y t h e o r y a s a w h ole several theoretical models and their practical applications exist to explain m § P r o c es s— o r h o w w e m a k e s e n s e o f p r i n t e d m a t e r i a l . U s i n g these

into threrbroad ^ ^ rlurr|erous aPProaches to t h e literacy experience philosophy a hoH ' A ’” ” ' E ach ca te § o ry emphasizes a somewhat different L s e v a r i e s rrmX °u aSSUmPtio ns- a " d a m e th o d o l o g y t o explain what X r ^ e d

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a ll h old to s o m e t f X t a m e PpreseS 3  d ' f f e re n t a P P r < ) a d l to textual analysis, questions. All for e x a m n l o c ^ o p p o s i ti o n s a n d c o n c e r n s a n d a s k sim ilar p en s, th ey a sk, w hen a p e r s o n ' p ^ c k s ^ ^ ^ ^ r ea d in § Process- W h a t haP‘ other way, their chief interest i u P n nte d m ater ial an d read s it? Put anor transact. During this exchan ^ ^ ° CCUrs w ^e n a tex t and a read er interact orize w hether the reader, the t e x t '   reader' orien ted c ritics inv estiga te and thet e x t s i n t e rp r e t a ti o n . I s i t t h e r e ^ f 0 ™ 6  corr>bination fina lly d eterm ines the der, or does the text m an inulaL W h ° maniPulates the text, they ponsom e w ord, phrase, or imag e tnVa tahon, or d o e s th e r ea d e r a p p ro a ch collection of learned reading shatepi hon on the text? Is the rea d fn t pX

6   r.e a d e r t o p r o d u c e m e a n i n g ? Does

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wed ctah, berate‘y "V *> misdeadTh ^ predictable mistakes? And are ready

° r l i n e a r , and is it p r e d i c t th er* y causing reade rs to make

■"•farces: Ana are reader's responses always predictable? Such questions then lead reader-oriented critics to a further narto u anu developing of terminology. They ask, for exam ple , wha t is a tex ; > simply the words or symbols on a i« rLl * * between what is V ct Ja liy X h T f ‘? ge? How' "'e y ask, can we differe'"And wh" read,irya " , w ! . 'f and wl' at is in the mind of the1- ’ 1- ,

it y? Although reade restxVn »'»' ,l‘,UU r s' or an* all responses of c
Ch apter 4 • Reader-oriented Criticism

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Reader-oriented critics also ask questions about another person: the au thor. What part, if any, does the author play in a work's interpretation? Can the author s attitudes toward the reader, they wonder, actually influence a work's meaning? And if a reader knows the author's clearly stated inten tions for a text, does this information play any part in creating the text's meaning, or should an author's intentions for a work simply be ignored? The concerns, then, of reader-oriented critics can best be summarized in one question: What is the reading process—that is, how does the reader con struct meaning or make sense of a text? The answer to this question is per plexing because it involves investigating such factors as these: • • •

The reader—including his or her view of the world, background, purpose for reading, knowledge of the world, knowledge of words, and other such factors The text, with all its various linguistic elements Meaning, or how the text and the reader interact or transact so the reader can make sense of the printed material.

How reader-oriented critics define and explain each of these elements will, in fact, determine their approach to textual analysis. Furthermore, their definitions and explications also help determine what constitutes a valid interpretation of a text for each critic. Although many reader-oriented critics allow for a wide range of legiti mate responses to a text, most agree that reader-oriented criticism does not mean that any and all interpretations are valid or of equal importance. The boundaries and restrictions placed on possible interpretations of a text will vary, depending on how the critic defines the multiple elements of the read ing process. It is these definitions and assumptions that allow us to group reader-oriented critics into several broad subgroups.

met h o d o l o g y Although reader-oriented critics employ a wide variety of critical approaches— from those espousing their own particular and modified form of New Criticism to postmod ern p ractitioners such as deconstructionists—m ost ad herents of reader-oriented theory and practice fall into three distinct groups. While members within each group may differ slightly, each group spouses its own distinct theoretical and methodological concerns. Student B's interpretation at the beginning of this chapter represents the focus of the first group. Similar to all reader-oriented critics, this group believes that the reader mu*t be an active participant in the creation of meaning. For these critics, however, the text has more control over the interpretative process than does ‘he reader. A few of these critics lean toward New Critical theory, asserting

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Chapter4 - R«der-orien.edCriticism

a«> more valid than others, while others d i f f e r that some and its significance. For them, the text's me£ ate between a text m 8 author.s intenhon, while its significance cai, ing can be synon^ , or historical period to another. Notwithstanding C S r " t h e majority of critics in this firs, group belong to a school „8f criticism known as structuralism.

Structuralism

Basing their ideas on the writings of Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of modem linguistics, structuralists often approach textual analysis as if it wer a science. The proponents of structuralism—Roland Barthes Gerard Genette, Roman Jakobson, Claude Levi-Strauss, Gerald Prince, and ’lonathan Culler in his early works—look for specific codes within a text that allow meaning to occur. These codes or signs embedded in the text are part of a literal ^ T M a ° ws meanin8 occur in all facets of society including

r - - r■

sirens are signs or codes in our sodetv thaT^' BH*h ligh' a" d ^   th3t provide us Wlth ways of interpreting and ordering our world mined system for ascertaining m^CS/3 reader brings to the text a predeterlike the sirens and the red liehn ear^lng (a complex system of signs or codes text. The text becomes im portant app^es ‘his sign system directly to the rea er that have preestablished a n d ** contains signs or signals to the a efv! therefore' more c o n c e r n ^ T interPretations. Many strucanalvsk^u^ ^as deve^°ped (called l 3 ° Ut overall system of meaning about inte^ ^ concentrate their ffan^ue ^ linguists) than with textual acceptabler^ tm8 3ny siSn (such as a ^ ° n What a reader needs t0 to push bothd!etal Standards. Because^*d sign or a word) in the context o the **d er to t h l attention on a l w * ^ structuralism ha^ik St*C^ eo ry of com ^ ^ rs lT e n tu

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theory and practical the°ries oH ite rarv ^

structuralists see* ackgroun d and concentrate the a" d interpretation. SWJ many other twentieth-

eanwhile, the idea^'f* ^   Wil1 be exn ^ 10801' itS significance t0 trate ‘he method^ 8 °f, 0ne leading * P 0red at length in the next chap‘s Ceia,dP. ^ Stru«urafifm S,rUCtura^t, Gerald Prince, will s‘ructuraIi'nC* a" ,he

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Chap ter 4 • Reader-oriented Criticism

77

on.il pronouns, audience, and so forth. Prince noted that critics ^Questions about the story s point of view—omniscient, limited, ofh'n >n and so on—but rarely do they ask about the person to whom the 'r_ spe
Phenomenology Student C represents the second major group of reader-oriented critics. For the most part, these theorists follow Rosenblatt's assumption that the reader is involved in a transactional experience when interpreting a text. Both the text and the reader, they declare, play somewhat equal parts in the interpre tative process. For them, reading is an event that culminates in the creation of the poem. Many adherents in this group—George Poulet, Wolfgang Iser, Hans Robert Jauss, Roman Ingarden, and Gaston Bachelard—are often associated with phenomenology. P h e n o m e n o l o g y is a modern philosophical tendency that emphasizes the perceiver. Objects can have meaning, phenomenologists maintain, only if an active consciousness (a perceiver) absorbs or notes their existence. In other words, objects exist if, and only if, we register them in our consciousness. Rosenblatt's definition of a poem directly applies this theory to literary study. The true poem can exist only in the reader s consciousness, not on the printed page. When reader and text transact, the poem and, therefore, meaning are created; they exist only in the consciousness of the reader. Reading and textual analysis now become an aesthetic experience wherein both the reader and the text combine in the consciousness of the reader to ust work, filling in the gaps in the text < act>ons, personality traits, and motives

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Chapter 4 • Reader-orient Reader-oriented ed Criticism Criticism

reader-response reader-response critics, Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgan Wol fgang g Iser, will serve serve to to il lustrate phenomenology's methodology. methodology. Hans Robert Jauss Writing toward the end of the 1960s, the German critic Hans Robert Jauss emphasizes that a text's tex t's social so cial histor his tory y must mus t be con consid sidered ered when interpreting a text. Unlike New Critical scholars, Jauss declares that critics must examine how any given text was accepted or received by its con temporary readers. Espousing a particular kind of reader-oriented criticism known as reception theory, Jauss asserts that readers from any given histor ical period devise for themselves the criteria whereby they will judge a text. Using the term horizon of expectations to include all of a historical period s critical vocabulary and assessment of a text, Jauss points out that how any text is evaluated from one historical period to another (from the eighteenthcentury Age of Enlightenment to the nineteenth-century Romantic period, for example) necessarily changes. For example, Alexander Pope's poetry was heralded as the most nearly perfect poetry of its day, for heroic couplets and poetry that followed prescribed forms were judged superior. During the Romantic period, however, with its emphasis on content, not form, the criti cal acclaim and reception of Pope's poetry was not as great. Accordingly, Jauss argues that since each historical period establishes its own horizon of expectations, the overall value and meaning of any text can never become fixed or universal. Readers from any given historical period establish for themselves, Jauss maintains, what they value in a text. A text, then, does not have one and only one correct interpretation because its supposed meaning changes from one historical period to another. A final assess ment about any literary work thus becomes impossible. For Jauss, the reader's reception or understanding and evaluation of a text matters greatly. Although the text itself remains important in the inter pretive process, the reader, declares Jauss, plays an essential role. Wolfgang Iser Ise r The German phenomenologist phenom enologist W olfgang Iser borrows an and amends Jauss's ideas. Iser believes that any object—a stone, a house, or a poem—does not achieve meaning until an active consciousness recogni** or registers this object. It is thus impossible to separate what is known («* object) from the mind that knows it (human consciousness). Using th** phenomenological ideas as the basis for his reader-oriented theory and  p *  t.ce, Iser Iser declares declares that the the critic's job is not to dissect or explain ex plain the tes test. t. ^ behoves that that once a text is read, the object and the reader rea der the perceived * essentially one ! Icnce, the critic's criti c's role is to examin exa minee and explain exp lain the text text feet on the reader. r differentiate s Im t  , however, differentiates

two kimts of renders Tin- first is tire tire b o f1* f1* read.-, who "embodies all those ,m-dispositions necessary for a work wo rk to exert exert ise ise its e f f e c t - ,, ^disposition ^disp ositionss l.,id l.,id down not by an ernp ernp'r 'r““ outside reality, but by the text itself. Consequently, (he implied te.rdr" I '

Cha pter 4 • Read er-oriented Criticism

, root rootss firmly firmly planted in the stru ctu re of the tex t (Iser, 19 78 ), has his or he implied reader is the rea de r im pli ed by th e text , o ne w h o is the overa ll effects of the text. Th e sec on d kin d o f other words t r e a d e r   or the person who physically picks up the text predispose Ka^ e \ \ it It is this this reader reader as opp osed to the the im plied read er w ho co m es to aa text shaped by parti particul cular ar cultural cultural and person al norm s and preju dice s. B y itine the implied reader, Iser affirms the necessity of examining the text  jn°  jn°the interpretive p roce ro cess ss.. A t the th e s a m e tim ti m e , b y a c k n o w l e d g i n g t h e a c t u a l declar ares es the the validity of an ind ividu al r ea d er's res po ns e to th e tex t. reader, Iser decl Like Jauss, Iser disavows the New Critical stance that a text has one and only one correct meaning and asserts that a text has many possible interpre tations. For Ise Iser, texts, texts, in and o f them se lve s, d o no t po ss es s m ea n in g . W h e n a text is concretized by the reader (the phenomenological concept whereby the text regi regist ster erss in the read er's co ns cio u sn ess ), the rea de r a u to m at ic a lly views the text from his or her personal worldview. Since texts, however, do not tell the reader everything that needs to be known about a character, a sit uation, a relationship, and other such textual elements, readers must auto matically fill in these “gaps," using their own knowledge base, grounded as it is in a part partic icul ular ar worldview. In add ition, each read er c rea tes his or h er o w n horiz rizon o f expecta expe cta tions tio ns —that is, a reader's expectations about what will or may or should happen next. (Note the variation in meaning Iser gives this term compared with Jauss, who coined it.) These horizons of expectations change frequently because at the center of all stories is conflict or dramatic tension, often resulting in sudden loss, pain, unexpected joy or fear, and at times great fulfillment. Such changes cause a reader to modify his or her orizon of expectati expectations ons to fit a tex t's p articu lar situ ation . F or e xa m ple , w h en , m Chapter 31 of the  A d v e n tu r e s o f H u c k le b e r r y F in n ,  Huck declares that he Wl not write write a letter letter to to Miss W atson tellin g he r the loc atio n o f Jim , H u ck openly chooses to side with Jim against the precepts of Huck's society. A - - may ^ en assu assume me tha thatt Huck will wi ll trea treatt Jim Jim diffe differe rent ntly ly,, for for now Jim, the novT ^* ^*aS 3 c^ance to be co m e a free p ers on . A cco rd in g to Iser, th e r ea d er ha s sho esta stakbshed kbshed a horizon of expe ctation s. W hen , how ever, in jus t a few ft-ade C^aPters' aPters' Tom Sa w ye r talk s H uc k into ch ain ing Jim to a t ab le, the Huck •ma^ necessarily reformulate his or her horizon of expectations, for  j ls not h ea tin ti n g Jim Ji m as a free fr ee m a n , b u t o n c e a g a in a s a s la v e , ally sense of the text, in filling in the tex t's ga ps , and in co nt inu va|U(, (> (>Pt)n Pt)ng g new new h ori zo ns o f exp ec tat io ns , th e re ad er u se s h is o r h er o w n ^Cc ^Ccord^St< m/ Pc>rs Pc>rson onal al and p u b lic e x p er ie n ce s, an d p h ilo so p h ic a l b el ie fs , cm, 'nHt° ca ch reader m akes “co n crete " the text, and each con inkand kandU U)n *S P( rson ab thereb y a llo w in g th e new cr ea tio n— the te x t's m ea n- ( ^(-c ^(-ctt on the read er— to be uniq ue ti( <>' l * r , the read er is is an activ e, essentia esse ntia l play er in the tex t's in terpre ter pre tap ^ i t i n g par part of the the tex textt as the the story story is read read and and concreti concretized zed and, ind.s ind.s-ns
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Chapter 4 • Reader-oriented Reader-oriented Criticism

Subjective Criticism Stud Studen entt D re p a in t s the the thir third d grou group p of read readerer-or orien iented ted criti critics cs who who p i* * ^ greatest emphasis on the reader in the interpre inte rpretat tative ive p ess For these these pSy pSy. chological cholog ical or subjective critics, the reader s though tho ughts, ts, belief bel iefss and expe experi ri.. ences play a greater part than the actual text in shaping a work s meaning Led by Norman Holland and David Bleich, these critics assert that we shape and find our self-identities in the reading process. Norman Holland Holl and Using Freudian psychoana psycho analysi lysiss as the foundation foundat ion fo for his theory and practices formulated in the early 1970s, Norman Holland be lieves that at birth we receive from our mothers a primary identity. We personalize this identity through our life's experiences, transforming it into our own individualized identity ide ntity theme that becomes the lens le ns through whic which h we see the world. Textual interpretation, then, becomes a matter of working out our own fears, desires, and needs to help maintain our psychological health. Like Rosenblatt, Holland asserts that the reading process is a transaction between the text and the reader. The text is indeed important because it con tains its own themes, its own unity, and its own structure. A reader, however, transforms a text into a private world, a place where one works out (through the ego) his or her fantasies, which are, in fact, mediated by the text so they will be socially acceptable. acceptable. For Holland, all interpretations are subjective. Unlike New Criticism, his reader-oriented approach asserts that there exists no such thing as a correct interpretation. From his perspective, there are as many valid interpretations as there are readers because the act of interpretation is a subjective experi ence where the text is subordinated to the individual reader. David Da vid Bleich Ble ich The founder of "subjective "subjectiv e criticis crit icism, m,"" David Da vid Bleich agrees with Holland's psychological explanation of the interpretive process, but Bleich devalues the role the text plays, denying its objective existence. Meaning, Bleich argues, does not reside in the text but is developed when the reader works in cooperation with other readers to achieve the text's collective meaning (what Bleich calls "the interpretation"). Only when each reader is able to articulate his or her individual responses about the text within a group, then and only then can the group, working together, negoti' ate meaning. Such communally motivated negotiations ultimately deter mine the text's meaning. For Bleich, the starting point for interpretation is the reader's responses to a text, not the text itself. Bleich states that these responses do not consth tute the text's meaning because meaning cannot be found within a text or within responses to the text. Rather, a text's meaning must be developed  fro* and out of the reader's responses, working in conjunction with other read ers responses and and with past past literary and life experiences. experien ces. In other other w o*» o* »

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Bloich differentiates between the reader's response(s) to a text (which for Bleich can never be equated to a reader's interpretation) and the reader's in terpretation or meaning, which must be developed communally in a class room or similar setting. For Bleich and his adherents, the key to developing a text's meaning is the working out of one s responses to a text so these responses will be chal lenged and amended and accepted by one's social group. Subjective critics such as Bleich assert that when reading a text, a reader may respond to some thing in the text in a bizarre and personal way. These private responses will, through discussion, be pruned away by members of the reader's social group. Finally, the group will decide what is the acceptable interpretation of the text. As in Student D's interpretation cited at the beginning of this chapter, the reader responds personally to some specific element in the text, seeks to objectify this personal response, and then declares it to be an interpretation of the text. Only through negotiations with other readers and other texts—a pro cess critics call intertextuality—can a reader develop the text's meaning.

A Two-step Methodology

Although reader-oriented critics all believe the reader reader plays a part in discov d iscov ering ering a text's meaning, mean ing, just how small or large large a part is debatable. debatable. Espousin E spousing g various various theoretical assumptions, these critics critics must necessarily have different methodologies for textual analysis. According to the contemporary critic Steven Mailloux, all reader-oriented critics share a two-step procedure, which they then adapt to their own theories. First, these critics all show that a work gives a reader a task or something to do, and second, such tasks rep resent the reader's response(s) or answer(s) to that task. Returning, for example, to Student D: At the beginning of the chapter, Student D's argument shows that she saw something in the text that triggered her memories of her friend Rita. Her task is to discover what in the text trig gered her memory and why. She moves, then, from the text to her own thoughts, memories, and experiences. These personal experiences temporarily overshadow overshadow the text, but she realizes that her her personal reactions must mus t in some so me way become acceptable to her peers. She, therefore, compares Rita to Faith Brown and herself to Rita, thereby objectifying her personal feelings while having her interpretation deemed socially respectable in her interpretive community—a term coined by the reader-oriented critic Stanley Fish to desig nate a group of readers who share the same interpretive strategies. Stanley Fish (1938-), a contemporary reader-oriented critic, has coined the term affective stylistics or reception aesthetics to describe his reading strategy. Like other theorists, Fish's approach to texts has developed through time, with Fish periodically appending his theoretical and practical con cerns. Presently, Fish argues that meaning inheres in the reader, not the text.

82

Chapter 4 • Redder-oiic Redder-oiicuti'd uti'd Criticism

•i1> i1>s ;n the read readin ing g com c ommu muni nity ty to which an A hrxt'sme ahinfrhe decU m .^ sh c#n# the inte nterpretive c o m * * * individual individual reader reader belongs, belongs, or dept dept.„d .„den entt on a reader s subje su bject^ ct^ The interpretation of a text rprclive rprcli ve commu com munit nities ies It is this this com. experience experience in one or mo more re of't invest inve st meani me aning. ng. Unlike Un like the the munity or communities commu nities that u ^ a text is an illusion, illusion , for the the ,ext ,ext is Critics, Fish declares that the o t ) ^ rea reader/ er/ wh while ile engaged eng aged in the reada tabula rasa, a blank slate upo Fish, the text tex t being bei ng held by the rea reader ing process, writes the actual tex . projectS proj ectS his or her he r understan understanding ding is like a Rorschach blot on which tl ^ ^ one or more interpretiv§ as filtered through cultural ass communities. In effect, it is tne "

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membership in this broad c l a s s ,I r e a d e r - o r i e n t e d theory and de analysis provides its ow own n i eo ° f ? criticism. critici sm. Such Suc h an eclect ecl ectic ic memb emberervelops vel ops its unique methods ot practica prac ticall c of maderader-or oriiship heralds the continued growth and ongoing y pntpd criticism.

QUESTION S FOR ANALYSI ANALYSIS S

Since reader-oriented critics use a variety of methodologies, no particular listing of questions can encompass all their concerns. Nevertheless, by asking the following questions of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," you can participate in both the theory and practice of reader-oriented criticism: criticism: • • • • • •

Who is the the actu actual al rea reader? Who is the the iim mplie lied re reader? er? Who is the the ide ideal rea read der? Who is the narrate rateee? What What are are som some gap gapss you you see see iin n tthe he text? text? Can Ca n you you list list sever several al horizo horizons ns of expectations and show how they chan change ge in Hawthorne's text from its beginning to its conclusion?

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Using Using Bteich Bteich s subjective criticism, criticism, can you you state state the the diffe differen rence ce betw between een your your re re sponse to Young Goodman Brown" and your interpretation? In a classroom classroom setting, develo develop p your your class's inte interpre rpretiv tivee strateg strategies ies for for arrivin arriving g at at the meaning of "Young Goodman Brown." As you you interpret interpret Yo Youn ung g Goodma Goodman n Brown, Brown,"" can can you you cite cite the the interpret interpretive ive com munity or communities to which you, the reader, belong? By so doing, you will be identifying how this community or communities have influenced your interpretation.

CRITIQUES AND RESPONSES

Like most schools of criticism that have emerged since the 1960s, readeroriented oriented criticism is a collective noun embodying embod ying a variety of critical positions. Unlike New Criticism's "text and text alone" approach to interpretation that claims that the meaning of a text is enclosed in the text itself, readeroriented critics emphasize the reader of a text, declaring that the reader is  just as much mu ch (or mo more) re) a prod pr oduc ucer er of meani me aning ng as is the text tex t itself. itse lf. To var v ary y ing degrees, the reader helps create the meaning of any text. In approach ing a work, the reader brings to the interpretive process his or her forestructure, one's accrued life experiences, memories, beliefs, values, and other characteristics that make an individual unique. In making sense of the text—what we call the interpretation—the elements of the reader's forestructure interact, transact, or intermingle (depending on the reader's theoretical stance), thereby producing the actual interpretation. Because reader-oriented critics agree that an individual reader creates the text's meaning, reader-orientated criticism declares that there can be no one cor rect meaning for any text, but many valid interpretations. What the reading process is and how readers read are major concerns for all reader-oriented critics. Their answers to these and similar questions, however, are widely divergent. Reader-oriented criticism has been harshly critiqued by scholars who believe that the text, not the reader, creates meaning. If multiple interpreta tions tio ns of the the same text can exist ex ist side by side, how can we ever say what a text tex t means? means? Can a text actually act ually mean anything an ything a reader says it means? Are there no clearly delineated guidelines for interpretation? Are there no fixed val ues in any text? If the reader is the producer of meaning, then the reader's physical or mental condition while reading a text will directly influence the interpretation, producing an array of bizarre and, more frequently than not, misguided and pointless interpretations. In response, reader-oriented critics provide a wide range of answers, from Wolfgang Iser's gap theory, to Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory, to Stanley Fish's rather relativistic assumption that no text can exist until either the reader or an interpretive community creates it.

84

Cha pter 4 • Reade r-oriented Criticism

Presently render-oriented criticism is not as popular as it was in u l%0 s or 70s. Although its theoretical assumption. < nt,cal theorists^ Louise Rosenblatt, David Bleieh, Hans Robert Jauss, Wolfgang ISer a Norman Holland—still influence literary criticism and in all probability wi^ continue to do so for decades, many read er-or itn e cri ic s  now emphashow certain groups read, asking such que stion s as ese. Do AfriCan Americans read differently from Caucasians? How o wo me n read? How d0 men read? How do gays or lesbians read? In other words, different schools of literary criticism such as feminism, gender studies, and queer theory haye embraced the principles of reader-oriented criticism, once again turning the attention of theorists and critics to the reading pro cess and the reader.

oder nit y/P ost m oder nism M t r uct ur al S

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econst r uct ion D Everyone, left to his [or her] own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in lan guage which is veryfa r from the truth. Ferdinand de Saussure, Lectures on General Linguistics

We are all mediators, translators.  Jacques Derrida, Interview

MODERNITY  Modernity is that which is ephemeral, fugitive, contingent upon the occasion; it is half of art, whose other half is eternal and unchangeable. Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life"

For many historians and literary theorists alike, the Enlightenment (or the Age of Reason in the eighteenth century) is synonymous with modernity (from the Latin word modo, meaning "just now"). That its roots predate this time period is unquestioned, with a few scholars even dating its be ginnings to 1492, coincident with Columbus's journeys to the Americas, and its overall spirit lasting until the middle of the twentieth century. At the center of this view of the world lie two prominent features: a belief that reason is humankind's best guide to life, and that science, above all other human endeavors, can lead humanity to a new promised land. Philosophically, modernity rests on the foundations laid by Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a French philosopher, scientist, and mathemati cian. Ultimately, declares Descartes, the only thing one cannot doubt is one's own existence. Certainty and knowledge begin with the self. "I think; therefore, I am" thus becomes the only solid foundation on which

85

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Chapter 5 • Modernity/Postmodernism

knowledge and a theory of knowledge can be built. For Descartes tional essence freed from superstition, from human passions, e raone's oftentimes irrational imagination will allow humankind to dis^01*1 truth about the physical world. c° ver  Whereas Descartes' teachings elevated to new heights of the individ rational essence and humankind's ability to reason, the scientific Writin8s and discoveries of both Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Sir Isaac Ne (1643-1727) allowed science to be likewise coronated. Thanks to Bacon hT* scientific method has become part of everyone's elementary and h e school education. It is through experimentation, conducting experime t making inductive generalizations, and verifying the results that one c discover truths about the physical world. And thanks to Newton, the ph^ ical world is no longer a mystery, but a mechanism that operates accordin to a system of laws that can be understood by any thinking, rational human being who is willing to apply the principles of the scientific method to the physical universe. Armed with an unparalleled confidence in humankind's capacity to reason—the ability to inquire and to grasp necessary conditions essential for seeking out such undoubtable truths as provided by mathematics—and the assurance that science can lead the way to a complete understanding of the physical world, the Enlightenment (i.e., modern) scholar was imbued with a spirit of progress. Anything the enlightened mind set as its goal, so these scholars believed, was attainable. Through reason and science, all poverty, all ignorance, and all injustice would be finally banished. Of all Enlightenment thinkers, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) may best exemplify the characteristics of modernity. Gleaned from self-portraits con tained in his autobiography (first published in France in 1791, titled  Memoires De La Vie Privee, with the English translation appearing in 1793, ti tled The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin),  Franklin is the archetypal modern philosopher-scientist. Self-assured, Franklin declares that he "pulled himself up by his own bootstraps," overcoming poverty and igno rance through education to become America's first internationally known and respected scientist-philosopher-diplomat. Believing in the power and strength of the individual mind, he delighted in the natural world and de cided early in life to know and explore all possible aspects of his universe. In this process, he abandoned superstitions and myths, placing his trust in science to lead him to truths about his world. Through observations, experi ments, and conclusions drawn upon the data discovered by using the scien tific method, Franklin believed he could obtain and know the necessary truths for guiding him through life. Similar to Descartes, Franklin does not abandon religion and replace it with science. Holding to the tenets of deism, he rejects miracles, myths, an much of what he called religious superstitions. What he does not reject: is belief in the existence of God. He asserts, however, that God leaves it

Ch apter 5 • Modernity/Pcwtmod ernism

87

human*** to each individual, to become the master of his or her own fate. According to Franklin, individuals must find salvation within themselves. By u « nj? one s God -g.yen talent for reason and joining these rational abili ties to the principles of science, each person, declares Franklin, can experi ence and enjoy human progress. For Franklin and other enlightened minds, truth is to be discovered sci entifically, not through the unruly and passionate imagination or through one s feelings or intuition. Indeed, what is to be known and discovered via the scientific method is reality: the physical world. All people, declares Franklin, must know this world objectively and must learn how to investi gate it to discover its truths. Self-assured, self-conscious, and self-made, Franklin concludes that all people possess an essential nature. It is humanity's moral duty to in vestigate this nature contained within ourselves and also to investigate our environment through rational thinking and the methods of science so we can learn and share the truths of the universe. By devoting ourselves to science and to the m agn ificent re sults that will necessarily follow, Franklin proclaims that human progress is inevitable and will usher in a new golden age. Franklin and modernity's spirit of progress permeated humankind's be liefs well into the twentieth century. For several centuries, modernity's chief tenets—that reality can be known and investigated and that humanity pos sesses an essential nature characterized by rational thought—became the central ideas upon w hich many philosophers, scientists, educators, and writ ers constructed their worldviews. Briefly put, modernity's core characteris tics are as follows: • • • • • • • •

The concept of the self is a conscious, rational, knowable entity. Reality can be studied, analyzed, and known. Objective, rational truth can be discovered through science. The methodology of science can and does lead to ascertaining truth. The yardstick for measuring truth is reason. Truth is demonstrable. Progress and optimism are the natural results of valuing science and rationality. Language is referential, representing the perceivable world.

In particular, writers and literary theoreticians—New Critics, structural ists, and others—believed that texts possessed some kind of objective exis tence and could, therefore, be studied and analyzed, with appropriate conclusions to follow from such analyses. Whether a text s actual value and meaning were intrinsic or extrinsic was debatable; nevertheless, an aesthetic text's meaning could be discovered and articulated. Such a basic assumption concerning a text's meaning was soon to be challenged by principles es poused by what has been dubbed postmod ernism.

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Chapter 5 • Modernity/Postinodernism

POSTSTRUCTURALISM OR POSTMODERNISM

 postmodernism as incredulity toio Simplifyi ng to the extreme, I define  metanarratives.  Jean-Fran«;ois Lyotard, "The Postm odern

C onditj 0 „

What is truth? How can truth be discovered? What is reality? Is thef* a  jective reality on which we can all agree? I so, ow can we est invests ' this reality so all humanity can understand the world in which we aVef * prosper from such knowledge? Until the late s (wit a few notable P ceptions), the worldview espoused by modernity and sy m b o lic iX' Benjamin Franklin provided acceptable and workable answers to these qu y tions. For Franklin and other modern thinkers, the primary form of dis course is like a map. The map itself is a representation of reality as known discovered, and detailed by humanity. By looking at a map, a traveler wh holds these assumptions can see a delineated view of the world and obtain an accurate picture of reality itself: the mountains, the rivers, the plains, the cities, the deserts, and the forests. By placing his or her trust in this represen tation of reality, the traveler can then plot a journey, feeling confident in the accuracy of the map and its depictions. For the modern mind, objective real ity as pictured on the map was knowable and discoverable by any intelligent person who wished to do so. With the inception of deconstruction as authored and portrayed in  Jacques Derrida's poststructural view of the world in the mid-1960s, however modernity's understanding of reality is challenged and turned on its head by postmodernism, meaning "after modernity" or "just after now," from its Latin root meaning "just now." For Derrida and other postmodernists, there is no such thing as "objective reality." For these thinkers, all definitions and depic tions of truth are subjective, simply creations of human minds. Truth itself is relative, depending on the nature and variety of cultural and social influences in one s life. Because these poststructuralist thinkers assert that many truths exist, not the truth, they declare that modernity's concept of one objective real ity must be disavowed and replaced by many different concepts, each a valid and reliable interpretation and construction of reality. Postmodern thinkers reject modernity's representation of discourse (the map) and replace it with a collage. Unlike the fixed, objective nature of a map, a collage s meaning is always in flux, always changing. Whereas the viewer of a map relies on and obtains meaning and direction from the map itself, the viewer o a collage actually participates in the production of meaning. Unlike a map, which allows one interpretation of reality, a collage permits many poS' comhhT!n'n8S7 he VICWer (or " reader") can Simply juxtapose a variety " “ 7 ° f lma8es. thereby constantly changing the meaning o f* * collage. Each v.ewer, then, creates his or her own subjective picture of real#

Chapter 5 • Modernity/Postmodernism

89

To say postmodernism popped onto the American literary scene with the coming of Derrida to America in 1966 would, of course, be inaccurate. Although historians disagree about who actually coined the term, there is general agreement that the word first appeared in the 1930s. Its seeds, how ever, had already germinated far earlier in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900). As Zarathustra, the protagonist of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883), proclaims the death of God, simultaneously the death knell begins to sound for the demise of objective reality and ultimate truth. World Wars I and II, a decline in the influence of Christianity and indi vidualism, and the appearance of a new group of theologians led by Thomas Altizer, who in the 1950s echoed Nietzsche's words that God is dead, all con tributed to the obsolescence of objective reality and of the autonomous scholar who seeks to discover ultimate reality. Beginning in the 1960s and continuing to the present, the voices of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), the French cultural histo rian Michel Foucault (1926-1984), the aesthetician Jean-Fran^ois Lyotard (1924-1998), and the ardent American pragmatist Richard Rorty (1931-2007) declare unequivocally the death of objective truth. These leading articulators of postmodernism assert that m odernity failed because it searched for an ex ternal point of reference—God, reason, and science, among others—on which to build a philosophy. For these postmodern thinkers, there is no such point of reference because there is no ultimate truth or inherently unifying element in the universe and, thus, no ultimate reality. According to postmodernism, all that is left is difference. We must ac knowledge, they say, that each person shapes his or her own con cepts of real ity. Reality, then, becomes a human construction shaped by each individual's dominant social group. There exists no center, nor one all-encompassing ob  jective reality, bu t as many realities as there are people. Each pe rson 's inter pretation of reality will necessarily be different. No individual or group can claim it alone understands or possesses absolute truth. Tolerance of each other's points of view, therefore, becomes the postmodern maxim. Because postmodern philosophy is constantly being shaped, reshaped, defined, redefined, and articulated by its adherents, no single voice can ade quately represent it or serve as an archetypal spokesperson, as Franklin does for modernity. By synth esizing the beliefs of Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and Rorty, however, we can hypothesize what this representative postmodern thinker would possibly espouse: I believe, like my forebears before me, that we, as a race of people, will see progress, but only if we all cooperate. The age of the lone scholar, working dili gently in the laboratory, is over. CTooperation among scholars from all fields is vital. Gone are the days of individualism. Gone are the days of conquest. Now is the time for tolerance, understanding, and collaboration. Because our knowledge always was and always will be incomplete, we must focus on a new concept: holism. We must realize that we all need each

•tv/Postmodernism Chapter 5 •M°llt r

90

s on the nature of reality. We must

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S ^ w e have finally come“ ^ . ^ e truth is perspectival, depending upon

luusTlearnto^accepteacj^°*ggba soctety^temniuif lrom each other while celelive side by side, in a pluralism brating our differences. undiscoverable-absolute truth-and  We must stop trying to dtscover , hl for one person may not be right for openly acknowledge that wha “ pen-mindedness, not closed-mmdedness; tolanother. Acceptance, not cntrcrsm, op ^ bKome ,he gu,dmg pnncples of erance, not bigotry; and k m noth^ ,vcs and others for not having pos eur lives. When we stop' then will we be able to spend more time sessing, o, knowing truth, * » “ Waning, as ,oge,her we work and play, interpreting our lives and givmg 

. . , arp aDDiied to literary interpretation, the postWhen such Principles PP as the   meaning-or, especially, the modernist reall^ S * aesthetic text exists. Like looking at a collage, meancorrect meaning o fan aes with a text because meaning does not ing develops as a reader ^ ^ reader's view of truth is perspec-

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A skepticism or rejection of grand metanarratives to explain reality The concept of the self as ever-changing No objective reality, but many subjective interpretations Truth as subjective and perspectival, dependent on cultural, social, and pers influences • No "one correct" concept of ultimate reality • No metatheory to explain texts or reality • No "one correct" interpretation of a text.

M O D E R N I TY TO M O D E R N I S M

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Rooted in the philosophy and ideals of the Enlightenment, modern* y

its accompanying philosophical, political, scientific, and ethical idea  L*it vides much of the basis for intellectual thought from the 1700s to the m

Ch ap ter 5 • Mod

c rn it y / Postmodernism

91

of the twentieth century. World War I, however, marks a

of modernity s core beliefs, such as the objective status of reality and the fixed nature of aesthetic forms. Employing unconventional stylistic tech niques such as stream of consciousness and multiple-narrated stories, artists and writers began to emphasize the subjective, highlighting how "seeing " or "reading" actually occurs rather than investigating the actual object being seen or read. Characterized by a transnational focus, literary artists blurred the established distinctions among the various genres, rejecting previously established aesthetic theories, choosing to highlight unconscious or subcon scious elements in their works by employing the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Decentering the individual and introducing ambiguity and fragmentation, modernism began to see life as a collage rather than a map. Partly in answer to the growing skepticism and the rising sense of mean ingless of both life and art, a new way of examining reality and language arose in France in the 1950s, structuralism, a term coined in 1929 by the Russian Formalist Roman Jakobson. Structuralism asserts an overall unity and significance to every form of communication and social behavior. Grounded in structural linguistics (the science of language), structural ism uses the techniques, methodologies, and vocabulary of linguistics, offer ing a scientific view of how we achieve meaning not only in literary works but also in every cultural act. To understand structuralism, we must trace its historical roots to the linguistic writings and theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss professor O 4-1 1 V1 Af 1 T f 1 C h i e C C 1 _   and linguist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is his sci entific investigations of language and language theory that provide the basis for structuralism's unique approach to literary analysis. i V W  *

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STRUCTURALISM: ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT Pre-Saussurean Linguistics Throughout the nine linguistics, was the philologists, d es cr ib e- , ---- ,

92

Chapter 5 • Modem ity/Postmodem ism

to discover similarities and relationships. Their approach to lane was diachronic-that is, they traced language change throUgho panses of time, discovering, for example, how a particular p^U* such as a word or sound, in one language had changed etymoi^^^on' phonologically over several centuries and whether a similar o be noted in other languages. Using a cause-and-effect relation h^e c°^ld basis for their research, the philologists' main emphasis was the tv* ^ the development of languages. r'Ist°riCaj Such an emphasis reflected the nineteenth-century philologi ical assumptions concerning the nature of language. Langua S lieved, mirrored the structure of the world it imitated and, t h e r e f R e  structure of its own. Known as the mimetic theory of language thT ^ n° tic hypothesis asserts that words (either spoken or written) are" 1S things in the world, each word having its own referent—the ob' for or idea that is represented and/or symbolized by that word this theory, the symbol (a word) equals a thing: 0rding t0 Symbol (word) = Thing

Saussure's Linguistic Revolution

In the first decade of the 1900s, a Swiss philologist and teacher, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), began questioning these long-held ideas and, by so doing, triggered a reformation in language study. Through his research and innovative theories, Saussure changed the direction and subject matter of linguistic studies. His Course in General Linguistics, a compilation of his 1906-1911 lecture notes published posthumously by his students in 1916, is one of the most influential works of modem linguistics and forms the basis for structuralist literary theory and practical criticism. Through the efforts of this pioneer of modern linguistics, nineteenth-century philology evolved into the more multifaceted science of twentieth-century linguistics. Saussure began his linguistic revolution by affirming the validity and ne cessity of the diachronic approach to language study used by such nine teenth-century philologists as the Grimm brothers and Karl Vemer. Using this diachronic approach, these linguists discovered the principles governing con sonantal pronunciation changes that occurred in Indo-European languages (the language group to which English belongs) over many centuries. Wh^ not abandoning a diachronic examination of language, Saussure introduced the synchronic approach, a method that focuses on any given language3 one particular tim e-a single mom ent-and that emphasizes the whole s a of a particular language at that time. Attention is on how the language and ^wnnlH *1' n0t ° nJ tracin8 the historical development of a single d occur in a diachronic analysis. By highlighting the activity

^

Chapter 5 • Modernity/Postmodernism

93

language system and how it operates rather than its evolution, Saussure drew attention to the nature and composition of language and its constituent parts. For example, along with examining the phonological antecedents of the English sound b asin the word toy (a diachronic analysis), Saussure op a new avenue of investigation, asking how the b  sound is related to other sounds in use at the same time by speakers of Modern English (a synchronic analysis). This new concern necessitated a rethinking of language theory and a reevaluation of the aims of language research, and it finally resulted in Saussure s articulating the basic principles of mod em linguistics. Unlike many of his contemporary linguists, Saussure rejected the mimetic theory of language structure. In its place, he asserted that language is primarily determined by its own internally structured and highly system atized rules. These rules govern all aspects of a language, including the sounds its speakers will identify as meaningful, the grouping of various combinations of these sounds into words, and the process whereby these words may be arranged to produce meaningful communication within a given language.

The Structure of Language According to Saussure, all languages are governed by their own internal rules that do not mirror or imitate the structure of the world. Emphasizing the systematized nature of language, Saussure asserts that all languages are composed of basic units called ernes. The task of a linguist is to identify these units (sometimes called  paradigm s or models)  and/or to identify their rela tionships among symbols— like the letters of the alphabet, for example— in a given language. This task becomes especially difficult when the ernes in the linguist's native language and those in an unfamiliar language under inves tigation differ. According to Saussure, the basic building block or unit of language is the phoneme—the smallest meaningful (significant) sound in a language. The num ber of phonem es differs from language to language, w ith the least number of total phonemes for any one language being around eleven (Rotokas, a language spoken by approximately four thousand people in Bougainville, an island east of New Guinea) and the most being 112, found in several tonal languages. American English, for example, consists of ap proximately forty-three to forty-five phonemes, depending on the specific dialect of American English being spoken. Although native speakers of American English are capable of producing phonemes found in other lan guages, it is these forty-five distinct sounds that serve as the building blocks of American English. For example, the first sound heard in the word  pin is the /p/ phoneme, the second /I/, and the last /n/. A phoneme is identified in writing by enclosing the grapheme—the written symbol that represents the phoneme's sound—in virgules or diagonal lines.

94

Chapter 

5  .

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*  

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Telling the difference among suu,.u,,. o -------- , “‘^nation the pronunciation pronunciati of a phoneme ch an ge s the m ea nin g of a g ro u p 0 f p h o W   ----- -•— »;hpn a sim ple variation prnn ei^es n-mie vau«»^“ in u‘ aMphonem e's s‘Pronunciaa word), 01 the letter t represents the sound /./, bu, is there £ £ £ enunciation for this sound whenever and wherever .. appears it, „ tip,for instance, pronounc Enelish word? Is the t in the word tZ to v ?Obviously not-the first t is aspirated, or pronounced with a greater force of air, more than the t in slop. In either word, however, a speaker „| English could still identify the /t/ as a phoneme or a distinct sound. If we place the 1 in tip with a d , we now have dip, the difference between the two words being the sounds A / and /d/. Upon further analysis, we find that these sounds are pronounced in the same location in the mouth but with one difference: whereas /d/ is voiced or pronounced with the vocal cords vibrat ing, /t/ is unvoiced, with the vocal cords remaining basically still. This differ ence between the sounds /t/ and /d/ allows us to say that /1/ and /d/ are phonemes or distinct sounds in English. Whether the eme is a sound or a min imal unit of grammar such as the adding of an s in English to form most plurals or any other distinct category of a language, Saussure's basic premise operates: within each eme, distinctions depend on differences. How phonemes and allophones arrange themselves to produce m e a n ingful speech in any language is not arbitrary but is governed by a pre scribed set of rules developed through time bv the speakers of a la n g u a g e . For example, in Modern American English (1755 to the present), no E n g lis h word can end with the two phonemes /m/ and /b/. In Middle E n g lis h (1100-1500), these phonemes could combine to form the two terming sounds of a word, resulting, for example, in the word lamb, where the /»/ and /b/ were both pronounced. Over time, the rules of spoken English have changed so that when lamb  appears Modern r r   ------  --- in m u u v w i a iEnglish, ^ i/b/i has^ lost'5 n h nn o m iP nn _ , - _ O ' , , phonemic value. The study of the rules governing the r t sd v  ) o f t h e p r 0 ' sound in a linguistic system is called phonology, and the duction of these sounds is known as phonetics. , |anguagelS, In addition to phonemes, another major buildin g block o ^arrUtxabca the morpheme, the smallest part of a word that has lexical significance. Lexical refers to the base or root meaning of .word, « * * *  

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refers to those elements of language that express relationship, among words or groups of words, such as the inflections {-ed|, {-«), and |-ing) that carry tense, number, gender, and so on. (Note that in print, morphemes a * placed in braces .) Sinulnr to the phoneme, the number of lexical and grammatical morphemes varies from language to language. In American English, the number of lexical morphemes far outdistances the relative handful of grammatical morphemes (ten or so). For instance, in the word reaper,  {reap) is a lexical morpheme, meaning "to ripple flax" and |-er) is a grammatical morphem e, meaning 'one wh o." All words must have a lexical morpheme (hence their great number), but not every word need have a grammatical morpheme. How the various lexical and grammatical mor phemes combine to form words is highly rule-governed and is known in modern linguistics as the study of morphology. Another major building block in the structure of language is the actual arrangement of words in a sentence, a language's syntax. Just as the place ment of phonemes and morphemes in individual words is a rule-governed activity, so is the arrangement of words in a sentence. For example, although native speakers of English would understand the sentence "John threw the ball into the air," such speakers would have difficulty ascertaining the mean ing of "Threw air the into ball the John." Why? Native speakers of English have mastered which strings of morphemes are permitted by syntactic rules and which are not. Those that do not conform to these rules do not form English sentences and are called ungrammatical. Those that do conform to the established syntactic structures are called sentences or grammatical sentences. In most English sentences, for example, the subject ("John") pre cedes the verb ("threw"), followed by the complement ("the ball into the air"). Although this structure can at times be modified, such changes must follow tightly prescribed rules of syntax if a speaker of English is to be understood. Having established the basic building blocks of a sentence—phonemes, morphemes, words, and syntax—language also provides us with one addi tional body of rules to govern the various interpretations or shades of mean ing such combinations of words can evoke: semantics. Unlike morphemes (the meanings of which can be found in any good dictionary) and unlike the word stock of a language—its lexicon—the semantic features (the proper ties of words that show facets of meaning) are not so easily defined. Consider, for example, the following sentences: g r a m m a tic a l

"Giuseppe is a nut." "I found a letter on South Washington Street." "Get a grip, Rusty." To understand each of these sentences, a speaker or reader needs to un derstand the semantic features that govern an English sentence because each of the above sentences has several possible interpretations. In the first sentence, the speaker must grasp the concept of metaphor; in the second, lexica

*

C h a p « 5 . M o d e m i .y / P ^ o d e m .s m

96

t - n a j . 'I V* »

ambiguity; and in the third, idiomatic structures. Unless the turns are consciously or unconsciously known and understood or listener, problems of interpretation may arise. As with the ^ blocks of  language, an understanding o f semantics is nece ° tiler communication in any language. ssary fQji c^'ear

Langue and Parole

Bv age five or six, native speakers of English or any other language hav S l y and unconsciously mastered them language s complex syste^ mles or its gramma^-their language's phonology morphology, synt m« semantics—which enables them to, parhc.pate m language communfca^ In effect, these young native speakers have mastered their language . scriptive grammar—that is, the actual use of a language by its speaker without reference to established norms of correctness or “good" or "ba(j. usage. They have not, however, mastered such advanced elements as all the semantic features of their language, nor have they mastered its prescriptive grammar: the prescribed rules of English usage often invented propagated, and enforced by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century purists who believed that there were certain constructions that all educated people should know and employ, such as using the nominative form of a pronoun after an intransitive linking verb as in the sentence "It is I." What these fiveor six-year-old native speakers of a language have learned Saussure dubs langue, the structure of the language that is mastered and shared by all its speakers. Although langue emphasizes the social aspect of language and an under standing of the overall language system, Saussure calls an individual's actual speech utterances parole—that is, linguistic features such as loudness or soft ness that are overlaid on language's structure, its langue. For example, two speakers can utter the same sentence, such as "I see a rat." One speaker shouts the words while another whispers them. Both utterances are examples of parole and how individuals personalize language. Speakers can generate countless examples of individual utterances (parole), but these will all be gov erned by the language's system, its langue. It is the task of the linguist aussure believes, to infer a language's langue from the analysis of many in* stances of parole. In other words, for Saussure, the proper study of linguist^ is e system ( angue), not the individual utterances of its speakers (parole)-

Saussure's Redefinition of a Word t!’ai lan8ua8 « a * systems that operate a cc o rd in g ^ ■"able rules and that they need to be investigated both diachronic#'

1

Chap ter 5 • Mod ernity/Postmodernism

Sign =

97

Signifier Signified

For example, when we hear the sound ball, the sound is the signifier and the concept o f a ball that com es to our minds is the signified. Like the two sides of a sheet of paper, the linguistic sign is the union of these two elements. As oxygen combines with hydrogen to form water, Saussure says, so the signifier  joins with the signified to form a sign that has properties unlike those of its parts. Accordingly for Saussure, a word represents a sign, not a referent in the objective world. Unlike previous generations of philologists who believed that we perceive things (word = thing) and then translate them into units or mean ing, Saussure revolutionizes linguistics by asserting that we perceive signs. Furthermore, the linguistic sign, declares Saussure, is arbitrary: the rela tionship between the signifier (ball) and the signified (the concept of ball) is a matter of convention. The speak ers of a language have simply agree t at the written or spoken sounds or marks represented by bal wi equa t e concept ball.  With few exceptions, proclaims Saussure, there is no natural link between the sig nifier and the signified, nor is there any natura re a ion s hip b e t w e e n t h e l i n g u i s t ic sign and what it represents. . . If, as Saussure maintains, there is no natural link between the linguistic sign and the reality it represents, how do we know the deference between one sign and ano ther? In other words, how does language create mea g. We know what a sign means, says Saussure, because .: dtffers from all other signs By com paring and co ntrasting one sign with other stgns, we learn to dfstinguish each individual sign. Individual signs, then, can have mean.ng

Wrthrn the system of sou nd

from

tail,  and  pipe.

U kw Se ,' wTknow the"concept “bug" because U te e ^ m “truck," “grass," and “kite." As Saussu re declares, In language only differen ces ." , . differential, Saussure conBecause signs are arbitrary, convert i ^ ^ examination of isolated g _g lan eludes that the proper study of them . He as entities, but the system of relation ship 8 themselves. Because lanPle/that individual wo rds can not have mea ^ and other com ponents, 8uage is a system of rules governing soun / ^ that system. To know individual wo rds obtain their meanin gs / must study the system anguage and how it functions, Saussure declares, w

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(langue), not individual utterances (parole) that operate according lo lh? For Saussure, language is the primary sign system whereby we structure our world. Language's structure, he believes, is not unlike that of any other sign system of social behavior, such as fashion, table manners, and sports. Like language, all such expressions of social behavior generate meaning  through a system of signs. Saussure proposed a new science called semiology to study how we create meaning through these signs in all our social behav ioral systems. Since language was the chief and most characteristic of all these systems, Saussure declared, it was to be the main branch of semiology. The investigation of all other sign systems would be patterned after lan guage because like language's signs, the meanings of all signs are arbitrary, conventional, and differential. Although semiology never became the important new science Saussure envisioned, a similar science was being proposed in America almost simul taneously by philosopher and teacher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Called semiotics, this science borrowed linguistic methods used by Saussure and applied them to all meaningful cultural phenomena. Meaning in society, this science of signs declares, can be systematically studied, both in studying  how this meaning occurs and in understanding the structures that allow it to operate. Distinguishing among the various kinds of signs, semiotics contin ues to develop today as a particular field of study. Because it uses structural ist methods borrowed from Saussure, semiotics   and structuralism   are terms often used interchangeably, although the former denotes a distinct field of study, and the latter is more an approach and method of analysis.

ASSUMPTIONS OF STRUCTURALISM Borrowing the linguistic vocabulary, theory, and meth ods from Saussure a * to a smaller degree from Peirce, structuralists—their studies being various ] ca led structuralism, semiotics, stylistics, and narratology to name a fe*' beheve that codes, s.gns, and rules govern all human social and cu«> eua,!;.T /fT h 8 com munica>i<>n. Whe the r tha t communication is « * > .. Stma.ized c o 2 r ! , & t a d % . «» literature, each »•••

, / o  j behind these* . . ... to discover how all the p a r t s ,'ullVu,ual practices themselves. T Structuralists find ,n‘ ‘ •* u,H<'ther and functio n, function. . s c0 the various ponents of a system wu ln relationsh ip am ong the v< ol1 le btC V W '" ' n nPpiied to litera tu re , th is princip .1

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revolutionary. studu of of literature tu t ^ intoFor thpstructuralists, rmvlitinnc the *proper * htUt1y now involves m< mry "> t° the conditions surrounding the act of interpretation itself (how literature conveys meaning), not an in-depth investigation of an indi vidual work^Smce an individual work can express only those values and be|icfs Of he system of which  ,t is a part, structuralists emphasize the system (langue) whereby tex s relate to each other, not an examination of an isolated text (parole). They be liev e that a study of the system of rules that govern literary interpretation becomes the critic's primary task Such a belief pre sup poses that the structure of literature is similar to the structure of language. Like language, say the structuralists, literature is a self-enclosed system of rules that is composed of language. Literature, like language, needs no outside referent except its own rule-governed, but so cially constrained, system. Before structuralism, literary theorists discussed the literary co nv ention s that is, the various genres or types of literature, such as the novel, the short story, or poetry. Each genre, it was believed, had its own conventions or acknowledged and acceptable way of reflecting and interpreting life. For examp le, in poetry, a poet could write in nonsentences, using symbols and other forms of figurative language to state a theme or to make a point. For these prestructuralist theorists, the proper study of litera ture was an examination of these conventions and of how either individual texts used applicable conventions to make meaning or how readers used these same conventions to interpret the text. Structuralists, however, seek out the system o f codes that they believe conveys a text's meaning. For them, how a text conveys meaning rather than what meaning is conveyed is at the center of their interpretive methodology—that is, how a symbol or a meta phor, for example, imparts meaning is of special interest. For instance, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," most readers assume that the darkness of the forest equates with evil and that images of light rep resent safety. Of particular interest to the structuralist is how   (not that)  dark ness comes to represent evil. A structuralist would ask why darkness more frequently than not represents evil in any text and what sign system or code is operating that allows readers to interpret darkness as evil intertextually or in all or most texts they read. To structuralists, how a symbol or any other lit erary device functions is of chief importance, not how literary devices imi tate reality or exp ress feelings. . In addition to emphasizing the system of literature and not individual texts, structu ralism cl aim s it dem ystifies literature. By explaining iterature as a system of signs encased in a cultural frame that allows that system to operate, say the structuralists, a literary work can no longer be considered a mystical or magical relationship between the author and the reader, a place where author and reader share e m otion s, ideas, and truth. A scientific and an objective analysis of how readers interpret texts, not a transcendental, m u itive, or transactional respo nse to any one text, leads to meaning Sim ilar y an author's in tention s can no long er be equated to the text s overall meaning

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Chapter 5 • Mixiemity/P<»tm»dernism

bocdiiM-1meaning is determined by the- system that governs,he w,jto I , M„ ,1 author's personal quirks. And no longer can the text be a,?. a" mints,1an object whose meaning is contained solely within itself. All ^ d ‘ .,re structuralists, am part of the shared system of meaning ,hat K textual, not text specific. In other words, all texts refer readers to „lh(.r * * Meaning, claim the structuralists, can be expressed only through ,his sha £ system of relations, not in an author's stated .mentions or the reader'* vate or public experiences. . Declaring both isolated text and author to be of little importance, *trUf turalism attempts to strip literature of its magical powers or so-called hidda, meanings that can be discovered by only a small, elite group 0f highl" trained specialists. Meaning can be found, it declares, by analyzing the sy$. tem of rules that comprise literature itself.

METHODOLOGIES OF STRUCTURA LISM Like other approaches to textual analysis, structuralism follows neither one methodological strategy nor one set of ideological assumptions. Although most structuralists use many of Saussure's ideas in formulating their theo retical assumptions and foundations for their literary theories, how these as sumptions are employed when applied to textual analysis varies greatly. A brief examination of five structuralists or subgroups will help highlight structuralism's varied approaches to textual analysis.

Claude Levi-Strauss One of the first scholar-researchers to implement Saussure's principles of lin guistics to narrative discourse in the 1950s and 1960s was the French anthro pologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009). Attracted to the rich symbols in myths, Levi-Strauss spent years studying myths from around the world. Myth, he assumed, possessed a structure like language. Accordingly, each individual myth was an example of parole. What he wanted to discover was myt s angue, its overall structure that allows individual examples (parole) ° ‘on a" d have mean‘ng. In his work "The Structural Study of Myths' i f.VI raus®presents his structural analysis of why myths from di * serts,

runmnTthnmvh

s i m i W - A u

m y , h s ' s im i ia r it ie s

re si d e ' h e as'

myths' U vi-Stranss identified recurrent them«

sPZ „ V S 3 v , h ' h0mn SUCh ,hemes transcended culture and tures, which he called^ nVnt^S an^ ^ear*s of all people. These basic e mythemes, are similar to the primary building b

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101

of language, the phonemes. Like phonemes mvti, through their relationships within the mythic f'nd ™eanin8 in an d such relationships often involve oppositions For f i f nd. ,ke Phonemei»/  phonemes are similar in that they are Z ^ Z T ^ '   th? / b / and denly stop a stream of air. They differ or onnnc y USI”8 the ^'P®to sud_  pect: whether the air passing through the w i n d m ° nly one as* p,ced and unvoice! vibrating vocal cords produce / b / a n d nnn.,;u a7 sPeecn/  mytheme finds its meaning through opposition. Hating or living Xnrtparents, falling m love with someone who does or who d L not love y 'u . and chenshing or abandoning one's children all exemplify the dual or opposing  nature of mythemes. The rules that govern how t h L mythemes may combined constitute my th s structure or grammar. The meaning of any indiv,dual myth, then, depends on the interaction and order of the mytLmes  W‘thm the story. Out of this structural pattern develops the myth's meaning.  When applied to a specific literary work, the intertextuality of myth be Lear,  the title character comes evident. For example, in Shakespeare's overestimates the value and support of children when he trusts Regan and Goneril, his two eldest daughters, to take care of him in his old age. He also underestimates the value and support of children when he banishes his youngest and most-loved daughter, Cordelia. Like the binary opposition that occurs between the / b / and / p / phonemes, the binary opposition of underestimating versus overestimating love automatically occurs when reading K ing Lear   because such mythemes have occurred in countless other texts and immediately ignite emotions within the reader. Like our unconscious mastery of our language's langue, we also master myth's structure. Our ability to grasp this structure, says Levi-Strauss, is in nate. Like language , myths are simply another way we classify and organize our world.

Roland Barthes Researching and writing in response to Levi-Strauss was his contemporary, the emin ent French stru cturalist Roland Barthes (1915—1980). Barthes con  tribution to structuralist theory is best summed up in the title of his most fa mous text, S/Z (1970). In Honore Balzac's Sarrasine, Barthes noted that the first s is pronounced as the s in snake, and the second as the z in zoo. Both phonemes, /s/ and /z/, respectively, are a minimal pair— that is, both are produced by using the same articulatory organs and in the same place in the mouth, the difference being that /s/ is unvoiced (no vibration of vocal cords) and /z/ is voiced (vibration of vocal cords when air is b owing through the breath chan nel). Like all minimal pairs— /p/and /b/, /t/ and /d/, and /k/ and /g/, for example—this pair operates in what Barthes

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Chapter 5 • Modernity/Postmodemism

calls binary opposition. Even within a phoneme, binary 0 for a phoneme is, as Sau ssure reminded us, a class exc. sounds called allophones, which differ phonetically __ t haTf*^ ^ entk^j changing the pro nunciation but not altering the recognizabt ^ sli8htly Borrowing and further developing Saussure's work, Barthes rf6 P^°neiJ>e all language is its own self-enclosed system based on binarv nn 6Cares that difference). 7 peratlons (i-e Barthes then applies his assumption that meaning develop difference to all social contexts, including fashions, familial relatio f°U^ ing, and literature, to name a few. When a p p l i e d t o literature, an ind^- ^ text is simply a message—an example o f p a r o l e —that must be inter'1 by using the appropriate codes or signs or binary operations that fomuh* basis o f th e entire system, the langue. Only through recognizing the code6 or binary operations within the text, says Barthes, can the message en coded within the text be explained. For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" most readers intuitively know that young Goodman Brown will come  fa c e - t o - fa c e w ith ev il when he enters the for est. Why? Because one code or binary operation that we all seemingly know is that light i m p l ie s g o o d a n d d a r k e v il. Brown thus enters the dark forest and leaves the light of his home, only to  fi n d th e "false light" of evil emanating  fr o m th e artificial light—the  fires that light the baptismal ser vice of those b e i n g baptized into Satan's legions. By finding other binary o p p o s i t i o n s w i t h i n t h e t e x t a n d showing how these oppositions interre late, the s t r u c t u r a l i s t can then decode Hawthorne's text and explain its meaning. S u c h a process abandons or dismisses the importance of the author, any historical or literary   period, or particular textual elements or  gen re s.   Rather than d i s c o v e r i n g  any e l e m e n t o f t ru th  within a text, this methodology shows the process o f   decoding a text in  relationship to the codes provided by the structure of language itself.

V l a d i m i r

P r o p p

a n d

N a r r a t o l o gy  

Expanding Levi-Strauss's linguistic m ode l o f myths, a group of structuralists called narratologists began another k i n d o f   structuralism: structuralist narratology, the science o f   narrative. Like Saussure and Levi-Strauss, these structuralists illustrate how a story's meaning develops from its overa structure, its langue, rather than from each individual story's isolate d   theme. Na rratology 's ove rriding concern is the narrative structure of a text. What is the interrelationship of a narrative's constituent parts, ask narratologists, and how are these parts constructed to shape the narrative itself?  What are the rules" that govern the form ation of plot? O f p o in t o f  view? O f  narrator. 'Jt audience?

Chap ters • Modernity/Postmod ernism

103

Like other critics, narratologists amend and borrow ideas from other reading strategies to help shape their ideas. Narratology borrows ele ments from both the French structuralists such as Ldvi-Strauss and from Russian Formalist critics such as Vladimir Propp (1895-1970). In his influ ential text  Morpholog y o f the Folktale  (1928), Propp investigates Russian fairy tales to decode their langue. According to his analysis, all folk or fairy tales are based on thirty-one fixed elements, or what Propp calls narrative functions or narratemes, that occur in a given sequence. Each function identifies predictable patterns that central characters, such as the hero, the villain, or the helper, enact to further the plot of the story. Any story may use any number of these elements, such as "accepting the call to adventure," "recognizing the hero," and "the punishing of the villain," among others, but each element occurs in its logical and prope r sequence. Other critics, notably Paul Vehvilainen, have simplified Propp's thirty-one functions into a five-point system that, like Propp's, always occur in the same order: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

A lack of something exists. This lack forces the hero to go on a quest to eliminate this lack. On the quest, the hero encounters a magical helper. The hero is subjected to one or more tests. After having passed the test(s), the hero receives a reward.

Like Propp's thirty-one narratemes, these simplified five basic functions can be applied to most fairy tales. Applying Propp's narratological principles to specific literary works is both fun and simple. For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown," Goodman Brown, the protagonist, is given a task to do: meet someone in the forest after dark. Upon entering the forest, Brown soon encounters the villain, who attempts to take Brown deeper and deeper into the heart of the forest. Various helpers appear to propel the plot forward, until the protagonist's or hero's task is com pleted, at which time Goodman Brown seemingly frees himself from the clutches of evil.

Tzvetan Todorov and Gerard Genette Another narratologist, the Franco-Bulgarian theorist and philosopher Tzvetan Todorov (1939-), declares that all stories are composed of gram matical units. For Todorov, the syntax of narrative—how the various gram matical elements of a story combine—is essential. By applying a rather intricate grammatical model to narrative—dividing the text into semantic, syntactic, and verbal aspects—Todorov believes he can discover the narrahve's langue and establish a grammar of narrative. He begins by asserting

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that the grammatical clause, and in turn, the subject and verb • interpretive unit of each sentence and can be linguistically an^ the^si further dissected into a variety of grammatical categories to sh a4 narratives are structured. An individual text (parole) interests TodI^0VvaU

require a reader's special attention. (Jenette's live-part work Figures  /-y (a series written from 1967 to 2002) and particularly his text Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (1979) has strongly influenced structuralism's vocabulary and methodology in both America and France. Although these narratologists provide us with various approaches to texts, all furnish us with a metalanguage—words used to describe language— so we can understand how a text means, not what it means.  Jon ath an C uller By the m id-1970s, Jonath an C uller (19 44-), p rofesso r of En glish and compar ative literature at Cornell University, became the voice of structuralism in America and took structuralism in yet another direction. In his work Structu ralist Poetic: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the S tudy o f Literature (1975), C uller declare s th at abstra ct linguistic m odels used by narratologists tend to focus on parole, spending too much time analyzing individual stones, poems, and novels. What is needed, he believes, is a return to an investiga tion o f langue, Saussu re's main premise. According to Culler, readers, when given a chance, somehow will make sense ou t of the m ost bizarre texts because readers posse ss w hat Culler calls literar y c om pe tenc e. Th rough experiences with texts, Culler asserts, readers have internalized a set of rules that govern their acts of interpretationInstead of analyzing individual interpretations of a work, we must spen o u r  time, Culler insists, on an alyzing the act o f interpretation itself. We mus shift the focus from the text to the reader. How, asks Culler, does interpreta tion take place in the first place? Wh at system und erlies the very act of rea ing that allows anv other svstem to ooerate? aska, is jnPret a Work? In * “ W-U word: xr -

4

competence rea de rs use to inter'? What system  g u id es them ^ I. ^ making sense o°f the spoken 

m m r-

pter5 • Modernity/ P o s t m o d e r n i s m C u lle r m a i n t a in s t h a t e v e r y r e a d e r h o l d s tio ns w h e n r e a d i n g a n d i n t e r p r e t i n g t e x t s :

105

t o th r e e u n d e r ly i n g a s s u m p *

1 A text w ill be un ified. 2

A text will be them atically significant.

 3 .

A text's sign ifican ce can tak e the form o f reflection.

Accordingly, Culler then seeks to establish the system, the langue, that undergirds the reading process. By focusing on the act of interpretation itself to discover literature s langue, Culler believes he is returning structuralism to its Saussurean roots.

A Model of Interpretation A l th o u g h s t r u c t u r a l is t t h e o r i e s a b o u n d , a c o r e o f s t r u c t u r a li st s b e l ie v e s t h a t th e p r im a r y s i g n i f y i n g s y s t e m i s b e s t f o u n d a s a s e r ie s o f b i n a r y o p p o s i t io n s th at t h e re a d e r o r g a n i z e s , v a l u e s , a n d u s e s t o in t e r p r e t t h e t e xt . E a c h b i n a r y o p e ra tio n c a n b e p i c t u r e d a s a f r a c t io n , t h e t o p h a l f ( th e n u m e r a t o r ) b e i n g w h a t is m o r e v a l u e d

than

i t s r e l a te d b o t t o m

h a l f (t h e d e n o m in a t o r ) .

A c c or din g ly , in t h e b i n a r y o p e r a t io n li g h t / d a r k , t h e r e a d e r h a s l e a r n e d t o v alu e l ig h t o v e r d a r k , a n d i n t h e b i n a r y o p e r a t io n g o o d / e v i l, th e r e a d e r h a s s im i la rly le a r n e d t o v a l u e g o o d o v e r e v i l . H o w t h e re a d e r m a p s o u t a n d o r  g a n iz es t h e v a r i o u s b i n a r y o p e r a t io n s a n d t h e i r in t e r r e la t io n s h i p s f o u n d w i th in th e t e x t b u t a l r e a d y e x i s t in g i n t h e m i n d o f th e r e a d e r d e t e r m i n e s f o r th a t p a r t ic u l a r r e a d e r t h e t e x t 's i n t e r p r e t a t i o n .

No matter what its methodology, structuralism emphasizes form and structure, not the actual content of a text. Although individual texts must be analyzed, structuralists are more interested in the rule-governed system that underlies texts rather than the texts themselves. How  texts mean—not what texts mean—is their chief interest.

FROM STRU CTU RA LISM TO POSTSTRUCTU RALISM: DECONSTRUCTION Throughout much of the 1950s and 1960s, structuralism dominated European and American literary theory and criticism. While the application structuralist principles varies from one theoretician to another, all believe that language is the primary means of signification (i.e., how we achieve leaning through linguistic signs and other symbols) and that language comprises its own rule-governed system to achieve such meaning. Although lan8uage is the primary sign system, it is not the only one. Fashions, sports,

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Chapter 5 •Modemi.y/PostmodemUm

have their own language or codes wherebv dining, and other activities all na pected of them m a particular sitUa, the participants know what is o for examp le, con noisseurs of tion. When dining at an elegant res a from the finger bowl. Similar^ dining know that it is inappropn t it is indeed both appropriate and CUc! football fans know that during a g DOrt their team, tomary for them to shout and scream exp ectatio ns high light that an From a structuralist perspective such e x p e ^ ^ ^ ^ t h a t a„ d te co v eT tt ^ 'm te stmcturalbts declare that the proper study of reality and discover tnese nuts, mi uc individual practices, not the ind vidual meaning is the system behind such indiviaua F viaual practices themselves. Like attending a football g a m e o g at a f,ne res_  taurant, the act of reading is also a cultural and a social p e that contains its own codes. Meaning in a text resides in these codes that the reader has mastered before he or she even picks up an actual text. For the structuralist, the proper study of literature is an inquiry into the conditions surrounding the act of interpretation itself, not an investigation of an individual text. In the mid-1960s, this structuralist assumption that meaning can be dis covered through an examination of a text s structural codes was challenged by the maxim of undecidability: a text has many meanings and, therefore, no definitive interpretation. Rather than providing answers about the mean ing of texts or a methodology for discovering how a text means, a new ap proach to reading, deconstruction theory, asks a different set of questions, endeavoring to show that what a text claims it says and what it actually says are discemibly different. By casting doubt on most previously held theories, deconstruction declares that a text has an almost infinite number of possible interpretations. Furthermore, declare some deconstructionists, the interpre tations themselves are just as creative and may be as important as the text or texts being interpreted. With the advent of deconstruction and its challenge to structuralism and other established theories, a paradigmatic shift occurs in literary theory and criticism. Before deconstruction, literary critics—New Critics, some readeroriented theorists, structuralists, and others—found meaning within the liter ary text or the codes of the various sign systems within the world of the text and the reader The most innovative of these theorists, the structuralists, pro vided new and exciting ways of discovering meaning, but nonetheless, these theorists maintained that meaning could be found. Underlying all the prede-

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DECONSTRUCTION: ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT Deconstruction: Its Beginnings The term deconstruction  first emerged on the American literary stage in 1966 when Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), a French philosopher and teacher, read his paper Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" at a Johns Hopkins University symposium. (Derrida both borrows and amends the meaning of this word from a work titled Basic Problems of  Phenomenology  (1927), written by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.) In "Structure, Sign, and Play," (what many scholars believe to be the inaugural essay for deconstruction theory) Derrida questions and dis putes the metaphysical assumptions held to be true by Western philosophy since the time of Plato, and inaugurates what many critics believe to be the most intricate and challenging method of textual analysis yet to appear. Derrida himself would not want deconstruction construed as a critical theory, a school of criticism, a mode or method of literary criticism, or a phi losophy. Nowhere in Derrida's writings does he state the encompassing tenets of his critical approach, nor does he ever present a codified body of deconstructive theory or a practical methodology. Although he develops his views and ideas throughout his canon, Derrida believes that he cannot de velop a formalized statement of his "rules for reading, interpretation, and writing." Unlike a unified treatise, Derrida claims that his approach to read ing and literary analysis is more a "strategic device" than a methodology, more a strategy or approach to literature than a school or theory of criticism. Such theories of criticism, he believes, must identify with a body of knowl edge that adherents decree to be true or to contain truth. It is this assertion— that truth or a core of metaphysical ideals actually exists and can be believed, articulated, and supported—that Derrida wishes to dispute and "decon struct." His device is deconstruction, a term Derrida defines as "a position one has with regard to something." Because deconstruction uses previously formulated theories from other schools of criticism, coins many words for its newly established ideas, and challenges beliefs long held in Western culture, many students, teachers, and critics avoid studying its ideas, fearing the supposed complexity of its ana lytic apparatus. By organizing deconstruction and its assumptions into three workable areas of study rather than plunging directly into some of its com plex terminology, we can begin to grasp this approach to textual analysis.

lK.tf rvrridn borrows and then am,. Hirst, we will briefly ex'" '" '“winl' f()r his deconstructive strategy. n?ds from structuralism, the startu b P , h nges Derrida makes in W<*!?Xt we will investigate the rad icaU philosophy and metaphysics, >c master the new termin'?  Western metaphysics on its |a!sum ptions and their correspo"0 ’ ogv, coupled with the ^ P ^ ^ ^ nn analysis, of deconstruction 0 d n ing methodological approac es to tex>u ’   text derstand and use this approach to interpret g 

Derrida's Starting Place: Structuralism Derrida begins formulating his strategy of reading by critiquing Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics.  Derrida accepts Saussure's primary belief that language is a system of rules and that these rules govern every aspect of language. In addition, Derrida affirms Saussure s assump tion that the linguistic sign (Saussure's linguistic replacement for the word word) is both arbitrary and conventional. For example, most languages have different words for the same concept. The English word man, for instance, is homme in French. And in English we know that the meaning of the word pit exists not because it possesses some innate acoustic quality, but because it differs from hit, wit, and lit. In other words, the linguistic sign is composed of two parts: the signifier, the spoken or written constituent such as the sound  / t / and the orthographic (written) symbol t,  and the signified, the concept signaled by the signifier. It is this relationship between the signifier (e.g., the word dog) and the signified (the concept or the reality behind the word dog) that Saussure maintains is arbitrary and conventional. The linguistic sign is thus defined by differences that distinguish it from other signs, not by any innate properties. Believing that our knowledge of the world is shaped by the language that represents it, Saussure is insistent about the arbitrary relationship hetween the signifier and the signified. In establishing this principle, he undermines the long-held belief that there is some natural link between the word and the thing it represents-that is, the word's referent. Saussure asserts

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container, a s i g n i f ie d i n t h e p r e v i o u s s e n t e n c e , is n o w a s ig n i f ie r , it s s i g n i f ie d b e in g t h e c o n c e p t o f a n o b j e c t t h a t c a n b e f i l l e d .

ASSUMPTIONS OF DECONSTRUCTION Transcendental Signified Believing that signification is both arbitrary and conventional, Derrida now begins his process of turning Western philosophy on its head. He boldly as serts that the entire history of Western metaphysics from Plato to the present is founded on a classic, fundamental error. This great error is Western phi losophy's searching for what Derrida calls a transcendental s ignified, an ex ternal point of reference upon which one may build a concept or philosophy. Once found, this transcendental signified would provide ultimate meaning since it would be the origin of origins, reflecting itself and, as Derrida says, providing a "rea ssur ing end to the reference from sign to sign. It would, in essence, guarantee to those who believe in it that they do exist and have meaning. For example, if we posit that /or self is a transcendental signified, then the concept of self becomes the unifying principle upon which I struc ture my world. Objects, concepts, ideas, or even people take on meaning in my world only if I filter them through my unifying, ultimate sigm iee: s c f  Unlike other signifieds, the transcendental sigm 10 wou ^ other understood without comparing it to other signi i l k s or slgni . « words, its meaning would originate directly with itself, not d 'J^ c n tn ^ y ^ Nationally as does the meaning of all other sigm h s or ^ f meaning transcendental signified functions as or provides the center  of meaning,

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Ch ap ters • Modernity/Postmodernism V .• • — j -• » - —  

allowing those who believe in one or more of them to structure their m I d such centers of truth. By definition, a center of m e a n e r * not subject itself to structural analysis because by so doing „ v v o u ld ^ d place as a transcendental signified to *  1d > the concept self to be my transcendental signified, then learn that my self is composed of the id, the ego, and the superego, I could no l o n g ^ the self or I   to be my transcendental signified. In the pr cess of discovering three parts of my conscious and unconscious mind, 1 have both s t r u c t ^ analyzed and "decentered" self, thus negating it as a transcendental s i g ^

Logocentrism

According to Derrida, Western metaphysics has invented a variety of term that can function as centers: God, reason, origin, being, essence, truth, humo^u.

the basis for all our thoughts and actions Derrida readily admits that we can never totally free ourselves from our logocentric habit of thinking and our inherited concept of the universe. To decenter any transcendental signified is to be caught up automatically in the terminology that allows that centering concept to operate. For example, if the concept self functions as my center and 1 then discover my unconscious self, I automatically place in motion what Derrida calls a binary opposi tion" (two opposing concepts): the self   and the unconscious self. By decenter ing and questioning the self,  I cause the unconscious self   to become the new center. By questioning the old center, I establish a new one. Such logocentric thinking, declares Derrida, has its origin in Aristotle's principle of noncontradiction: A thing cannot both have a property and not have a property. Thanks to Aristotle, maintains Derrida, Western meta physics has developed an "either-or" mentality or logic that inevitably leads to dualistic thinking and to the centering and decentering of transcendental signifieds. The process of logocentric thinking, asserts Derrida, is natural but problematic for Western readers.

Binary Oppositions

other is decentered, Derrida mn *1 ^ ° un*ty automatically means that ana system of binary operations UC^ that Western metaphysics is based on oppositions). For each center at/ ConcePtual oppositions (also called binary ' an °PPosing center (e.g., God /h um ankin d, for

Chapter 5 • Modern! ■Tnity / Postmodernism

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phonocentrism

Derrida believes that establishing such conceptually based binary opposi tions as the basis for believing what is really real (one's worldview) is prob lematic at best. Instead, he wishes to dismantle or deconstruct the structure such binary oppositions have created. Derrida asserts that the binary oppo sitions on which Western metaphysics has been constructed since the time of Plato are structured so one element will always be privileged (be in a supe rior position) and the other unprivileged (in an inferior position). In this way of thinking, the first or top elements of the pairs in the following list of binary oppositions are privileged: man/wom an, human/animal, soul/body, good/bad. Key for Derrida is his assertion that Western thought has long privileged speech over writing. This privileging of speech over writing Derrida calls phonocentrism. In placing speech in the privileged position, phonocentrism treats writ ing as inferior. We value, says Derrida, a speaker's words more than the speaker's writing because words imply presence. Through the vehicle of spoken words, we supposedly learn directly what a speaker is trying to say. From this point of view, writing becomes a mere copy of speech, an attempt to capture the idea that was once spoken. Whereas speech implies presence, writing signifies absence, thereby placing into action another binary opposi tion: presence/absence. Since phonocentrism is based on the assumption that speech conveys the meaning or direct ideas of a speaker better than writing (a mere copy of speech), phonocentrism assumes a logocentric way of thinking, that the self is the center of meaning and can best ascertain ideas directly from other selves through spoken words. Through speaking, the self declares its pres ence, its significance, and its being or existence.

Metaphysics of Presence

112

G up terS • Modernity/Postmodernism

fromie foundations upon which such beliefs have been establish „ wnstructine the basic pa-m i** of metaphys.cs of presence, Derri(J H Z  he gives us a strategy for reading that opens up a variety pn-tations heretofore unseen by those who are bound by ,he Western thought. nts of

METHODOLOGY Acknowledging Binary Operations in Western Thought The first stage in a deconstructive reading is to recognize the existent the operation of binary oppositions in our thinking. According to Do ^ \ . ... , ., .  j  __: __ i c ___ d u i __ • ? ^ernda/ one of the most "violent hierarchies" derived from Platonic and Ar ist ot 1 thought is speech/writing, with speech being privileged. Consequentan speech is awarded presence, and writing is equated with absence. Beca ^ writing is the inferior of the two, writing becomes simply the s y m b o l s speech, a secondhand representation of ideas. Once any of these hierarchies is recognized and acknowledged, Derrid proposes that we can readily reverse its elements. Such a reversal ispossible because truth is ever elusive; we can always decenter the center if any is found. By reversing the hierarchy, Derrida does not wish merely to substitute one hierarchy for another and involve h im self in a negative mode When the hierarchy is reversed, says Derrida, we will then be able to exam ine those values and beliefs that give rise to both the original hierarchy and the newly created one. When Derrida examines each value or belief in the hi erarchy, he is putting these elements under a process he calls erasure—he is assuming, for the moment, that each of the signifiers is clear and definitive. He does realize that he is involving himself in a reading strategy because each value or belief is, according to Derrida, absent of any definitive meaning. Such an examination will reveal how the meaning of terms arises from the differences between them.

Arche-writing In Of Grammatology (1967), Derrida spends much time explaining why th1 speech/writing hierarchy can and must be reversed. Grammatology Derrida s term for the science of writing and his investigation of the orig^ language itself. In short, he argues for a redefinition of the term writing will allow him to assert that writing is actually a precondition for and p to speech. According to Derrida's metaphysical reasoning, language t e comes a special kind of writing that he calls arche-writing or a r c h il

Chapter 5 • Modernity/Postmodernism

113

Using; traditional Western metaphysics that is grounded in phonocenDerrida begins his reversal of the speech/writing hierarchy by noting that both language and writing share common characteristics. Both, for ex ample involve an encoding or inscription. In writing, this coding is obvious because the written symbols represent various phonemes. In language or speech, a similar encoding exists. As Saussure has already shown, there ex ists an arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified (be tween the spoken word cat,   for example, and the concept of cat itself). There is, then, no innate relationship between the spoken word and the concept, object, or idea it represents. N evertheless, once a signifier and a signified join to form a sign, some kind of relationship then exists between these compo nents of the sign. Accordingly, some kind of inscription or encoding has taken place between the spoken word cat   (the signifier) and its concept (the signified).

For Derrida, both writing and language are means of signification, and each can be considered a signifying system. Traditional Western metap hysics and Saussurean linguistics equate speech (language) with presence because speech is accom panied by the presence of a living speaker. The presence of a speaker necessarily links sound and sense and leads to understanding—one usually comprehends rather well the spoken word. Writing, on the other hand, assumes the absence of a speaker. Such absence can produce misun derstanding because writing is a depersonalized medium that separates the actual utterance of the speaker and his or her audience. This absence can lead to misunderstanding of the signifying system. All the more reason, Derrida asserts, that we broaden our understanding of writing. Writing, he declares, cannot be reduced to letters or other sym bols inscribed on a page. Rather, it is directly related to what Saussure be lieved to be the basic element of language: difference. We know one phoneme or one word because each is different from another, and we know that there is no innate relationship between a signifier and its signified. The phoneme /b/, for example, could have easily become the symbol for the phoneme /d/, just as the coined word bodt  could have become the English word ball. It is this freeplay or undecidability in any system of communica tion that Derrida calls w riting. The quality of play with the various elem ents of signification in any system of communication totally eludes a speaker s awareness when using language, for the speaker falsely assumes a position of supposed master of his or her speech. By equating writing with freeplay or the element of undecidability at the center of all systems of communication, Derrida declares that writing actuajly governs language, thereby negating the speech/writing hierarchy of Western metaphysics. Writing now becomes privileged and speech unprivi leged because speech is a kind of writing called arche-writing. Derrida then challenges Western philosophy's concept that human consciousness gives birth to language. Without language (or arche-writing),

Charter 5 • Modernity/l’ostmodernUm

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Wmahc. It is not Derrida s P » ^ Prrida wan ts to show the fragile basis thTt exist in Western thought- Ra * h ^ and [he possrbtlity of inverting these t the establishment of sudt hmra e and Ufe. Derrida uses the ten,, hierarchies to gain new ms ghte " ^ nship between elements m a bma,, supplement to refer to the “ n^ ' 6 h/wri,i„g opposrhon, wrthng supple, operation. For example, in the P ^ ,a ce of spe ech (arche-writing). ments speech and in actuahty in all bin ary opposthons. In the Supplementation, Derrida as:>e  , Westem thought would assert the truth/deception hierarchy, tor aUr'ibuting to deception a mere supple. tWnking asserts the purity of truthover supremacy of truth over decep mentary role. The logocentncj^ > more frequently than not contains deception. Upon examination, F ^  Derrida, w hen truth has been spoq{  tm th may simply not exist. In all at least some truth, and who is Y' " ^

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Chapter 5 • Moderni ty/Postm odern ism

115

The presence of such a transcendental signified would immediately es tablish the binary operation presence/absence. Since Western metaphysics holds that presence is supreme or privileged and absence unprivileged, Derrida suggests that we temporarily reverse this hierarchy, making it now absence/presence. With such a reversal, we can no longer posit a transcen dental signified. No longer is there an absolute standard or coherent unity from which knowledge proceeds and develops. All human knowledge and all self-identity must now spring from difference, not sameness, from ab sence, not presence. When a reversal of this pivotal binary operation occurs, two dramatic re sults follow: First, human knowledge becomes referential; that is, we can know something only because it differs from some other bit of knowledge, not because we can compare this knowledge to any absolute or coherent unity (a transcendental signified). Human knowledge must now be based on difference. We know something because it differs from something else to which it is related. By the reversal, nothing can be studied or learned in iso lation because all knowledge becomes context related. Second, we must also forgo closure—that is, since no transcendental signified exists, all interpreta tions concerning life, self-identity, and knowledge are possible, probable, and legitimate. But what is the significance of differance   when reading texts? If we, like Derrida, assert that differance   operates in language and also in writing (Derrida sometimes equates differance   and arche-writing), what are the im plications for textual analysis? The most obvious answer is that texts lack presence. As soon as we do away with the transcendental signified and re verse the presence/absence binary operation, texts can no longer have pres ence. In isolation, texts cannot possess meaning. Because all meaning and knowledge is now based on difference, no text can simply mean one thing. Texts become intertextual. The meaning of a text cannot be ascertained by examining only that particular text; instead, a text's meaning evolves  from that derived from the interrelatedness of one text to an interrelatedness of many texts. Like language itself, texts are caught in a dynamic, contextrelated interchange. Never can we state a text's definitive meaning because it has no "one" correct or definitive interpretation. No longer can we declare one interpretation to be right and another wrong because meaning in a text is always illusive, dynamic, and transitory. The search, then, for the text's "correct" meaning or the author's socalled intentions becomes meaningless. Since meaning is derived from dif ferences in a dynamic, context-related, ongoing process, all texts have multiple leanings or interpretations. If we assert, as does Derrida, that no tianscendental signified exists, then there can exist no absolute or pure meaning conveyed supposedly by authorial intent or professorial dictates. Meaning evolves as we, the readers, interact with the text, with both the readers and Ihe text providing social and cultural context.

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ChaP«5.Modemi.y/Pos.modemism

d e c o n s t r u c t iv e s u ppo s it io n s FOR

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

multiple interpretations and that a text reinterpreted countless

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m T p t t o t d t o t C l m n S s assert that the great jo y of textual analyst S i n discovering new interpretations each ..me a t ex, ts read and reread. Ultimately, a text's meaning is undecidable beca se each reading 0r rereading elicits different interpretations.

When beeinning the interpretive process, deconstructionists seek to override their own logocentric and inherited ways of viewing a text. Such revolutionary thinking decrees that they find the binary oppositions at work in the text itself. These binary oppositions, they believe, represent established and accepted ideologies that more frequently than not posit the existence of transcendental signifieds. These binary operations, then, restrict meaning because they already assume a fixed interpretation of reality. They assume, for instance, the existence of truth and falsehood, reason and insanity, good and bad. Realizing that these hierarchies pre suppose a fixed and a biased way of viewing the world, deconstruction ists search for the binary oppositions operating in the text and reverse them. By reversing these hierarchies, deconstructionists wish to challenge the fixed views assumed by such hierarchies and the values associated with such rigid beliefs. The technique of identifying the binary operations that exist in a text allows deconstructionists to expose the preconceived assumptions upon which most of us base our interpretations. We all, for example, declare some activity, being, or object to be good or bad, valuable or worthless, sig nificant or insignificant. These kinds of valu es or ideas auto matically operate when we write or read any text. In the reversal of hierarchies that form the basis of our interpretations, deconstructionists wish to free us from the us to see aS t°evMr pre'udiced beliefs- Such freedom, they hope, will allow recognizedteXt eXC1" ng " eW persPectives that we have never before rea d er

7 " ° ' be s i™ b ™ eou sly Perceived by the

Goodman Brown," for ex am o ^ ^ In Nathaniel H aw thorne's "Young character manY lieve that that the h fifty-year-o oeueve cnaracter who shepherds A readers be tty-y^ forest is Satan and, therefore n m3n ri° Wn t r o u g h his night's visit in terpretation of this character ecessai% an evil character. Brown's own 10 constructionist ideas, at I n J T *     ^ 1s uPP°rt this view. According to <* good/evil and God/Satan. But what

° pera tions are at WOfk? ^en f we reverse these hierarchies-

Chapter 5 • M()di*rnity/|»(„ t,m „J,.rrmm

117

rt»- sevtralI f i B U W may not he Satan and may nnt be evil! Such a new p e r speetive will dramatically change our interpretation of the text P LVconstruct.omsts nay that we cannot simultaneously see both of these p e r s p e c t i v esintht story. To discover where the new hierarchy Satan/God or evil/good will lead os in our interpretation, we must suspend our first inter p o l a t i o n .  We do not, however, forget it because it is locked in our minds. We simplv Shift our allegiance to another perspective. T h e p r o c e s s o f o s c i l l a t i n g b e t w e e n i n t e r p r e t a t io n s , l e v e l s , o r p e r s p e c tiv e s a l l o w s u s t o s e e t h e i m p o s s i b i l i t y o f e v e r c h o o s i n g a c o r r e c t i n t e r p r e  ta tio n b e c a u s e f r o m D e r r i d a s p e r s p e c t i v e , m e a n i n g is a n o n g o i n g a c t i v i t y th at is a l w a y s i n p r o g r e s s , a l w a y s b a s e d o n

diffcrance.

B y a s k in g w h a t w ill

h a p p e n if w e r e v e r s e t h e h i e r a r c h i e s t h a t f r a m e o u r p r e c o n c e i v e d w a y s o f th in k in g , w e o p e n o u r s e l v e s to a n e v e r - e n d in g p r o c e s s o f i n t e r p r e t a tio n , o ne th a t d e c r e e s t h a t n o h i e r a r c h y o r b i n a r y o p e r a t i o n i s r ig h t a n d n o o t h e r is w r o n g .

Deconstruction: A New Reading Strategy D e c o n s t ru c t io n i s ts d o n o t w a n t to s e t u p a n e w p h i lo s o p h y , a n e w l i te r a r y th e o ry o f a n a l y s i s , o r a n e w s c h o o l o f li te r a r y c r it ic is m . I n s t e a d , t h e y p r e s e n t a n e w r e a d i n g s t ra t e g y , o n e t h a t a ll o w s u s t o m a k e c h o ic e s c o n c e r n i n g th e v a rio u s l e v e l s o f in t e r p r e t a t io n w e s e e o p e r a t i n g i n a t e x t. A l l l e v e l s , t h e y m a in t ain , h a v e v a l id i t y . D e c o n s t r u c t i o n i s ts a l s o b e l ie v e t h a t th e i r a p p r o a c h to r e a d i n g f r e e s t h e r e a d e r f r o m i d e o l o g i c a l a l le g i a n c e s t h a t r e s tr ic t th e c o m  p r e h e n s io n o f m e a n i n g i n a t e x t . B e c a u s e m e a n i n g , t h e y b e l i e v e , e m e r g e s t h r o u g h i n t e r p r e ta t io n , e v e n t h e a u th o r d o e s n o t c o n t r o l a t e x t ' s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . A l t h o u g h w r it e r s m a y h a v e c le a r ly s t a te d i n t e n t io n s c o n c e r n i n g t h e i r t e x ts , s u c h s t a te m e n t s s h o u l d b e g iv en l it tle c r e d e n c e . L i k e l a n g u a g e i t s e l f, t e x t s h a v e n o o u t s i d e r e f e r e n t s o r t r a n s c e n d e n ta l s i g n i f ie d s . W h a t a n a u t h o r t h i n k s h e o r s h e s a y s o r m e a n s in a te xt m a y b e q u i t e d i f f e r e n t f r o m w h a t is a c t u a l ly w r it te n . D e c o n s t r u c t io n i s ts , t h e re fo re , l o o k f o r p l a c e s i n t h e t e x t w h e r e t h e a u t h o r m i s s p e a k s o r l o s e s co ntro l o f la n g u a g e a n d s a y s w h a t w a s s u p p o s e d l y n o t m e a n t to b e s a id . T h es e s l i p s o f l a n g u a g e o f te n o c c u r i n q u e s t i o n s , f i g u r a t i v e l a n g u a g e , a n d s t r o n g d e c l a r a t io n s . F o r e x a m p l e , s u p p o s e w e r e a d t h e f o l lo w i n g w o r d s . I m p o r t a n t S e n i o r s M e e t i n g  ."  A l t h o u g h

th e a u t h o r th i n k s t h a t r e a d e r s

w ill i n t e r p r e t t h e s e w o r d s t o m e a n t h a t it is im p o r t a n t t h a t a ll s e n i o r s b e p re se n t a t th i s p a r t i c u l a r m e e t i n g , t h e a u t h o r m a y h a v e m i s s p o k e n , th e s e w o rd s c a n a c t u a l l y m e a n t h a t o n l y i m p o r t a n t s e n i o r s s h o u l d a t t e n d t h i s m e e tin g . B y e x a m i n i n g s u c h s l i p s a n d t h e b i n a r y o p e r a t io n s t h a t g o v e r n th em , d e c o n s t r u c t io n i s t s a r e a b l e t o d e m o n s t r a t e t h e u n d e c i d a b i l i t y o f a t ex t's m e a n i n g .

118

Chapter

5 • Modernity /  1’ost modernism

At fir linear—th this is so, . .

Dbwver the binary operations that govern a text. Comment on the values, concepts, and ideas beyond these operations.

• • •

Reverse these present binary operations. Dismantle previously held worldviews. Accept the possibility of various perspectives or levels of meaning in a text base(j on the new binary inversions. Allow meaning of the text to be undecidable.

•

Although all these elements do operate in a deconstructionist reading they may not operate in this exact sequence. Since we all tend toward logo, centrism when reading, we may not notice some logocentric binary operations functioning in the text until we have reversed some other o b v i o u s binary oppositions and are interpreting the text on multiple levels. In addition we must never declare such a reading to be completed or finished because the process of meaning is ongoing, never allowing us to pledge allegiance to any one view. Such a reading strategy disturbs most readers and critics because it is not a neat, completed package, whereby if we follow step A through to step 2 we arrive at the reading of the text. Because texts have no external referents, their meanings depend on the close interactions of the text, the reader, and social and cultural elements both within the reader and the text, as does every reading or interpretive process. Denying the organic unity of a text, decon structionists declare the freeplay of language in a text. Since language itself is reflexive, not mimetic, we can never stop finding meaning in any given text, whether we have read such a text once or a hundred times. Overall, deconstruction solicits an ongoing relationship between the in terpreter (the critic) and the text. By examining the text alone, deconstruc tionists hope to ask a set of questions that will continually challenge the ideological positions of power and authority that dominate literary criticism. Furthermore, in the process of discovering meaning in a text, deconstruc tionists declare that criticism of a text is just as valuable as the text being read, thereby inverting the text/criticism hierarchy.

American Deconstructionists

 jj

•

tfi'wif.i..

the sometimes terse metaphv'sinl " " '~oauysm Cultur al Cr iu (1921-) (Cr,7,v,«,, i„the W,W1r^,s; V t ' s , t l rU^,i,,nis' G eo ffr ey S ,, strong voice of Barbara Johnson (1947 , n ‘ ? T o j J  mg™ih   and the phenomenological critic-turned H (77'<' C"" ™ ' D # w r " U n (192^ h t ' h “ "   ‘" f Rf,pC""'on; S<*fcn £m>/fer r St,rUC,i,mis,i•HilhsMiller sured that deconstruction would have a voire a 1982)' ^ critics asAmerican literary theory. Although the 1 a,nd an established place in ries such as Cultural Poetics and Postcolonhl ° ‘her Postst™ctural theoheard and advocated, deconstruction's ph S " ’' f * n0lV s,ron8'y being  Heal reading strategies form the basis ol m „ Ph'“ assumptions and pracof many postmodern literary pracHces. a 

q u e s t io n s f o r a n a l y s i s Structuralism When examining any text through the lens of structuralism, ask yourself the following questions: •

W h a t a r e t h e t e n s i o n s , th e b i n a r y o p p o s i t i o n s , h i g h l i g h t e d in t h e t e x t?

•

Is e a c h o f t h e s e t e n s i o n s m i n o r o r m a j o r?

•

W h a t d o y o u b e l i e v e i s t h e m a j o r o r p i v o t a l t e n s io n in th e w o r k ?

•

C a n y o u e x p l a i n th e i n t e r t e x t u a l i t y o f a l l t h e d i s c o v e r e d b i n a r i e s ?

•

D o e s t h is w o r k c o n t a i n a n y m y t h e m e s ? If s o , w h a t a r e th e y , a n d h o w d o t h e y h e lp y o u d i s c o v e r t h e t e x t 's s t ru c t u r e ?

The following questions apply your understanding of structuralism to Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown": •

W h a t a r e t h e v a r i o u s b i n a r y o p p o s i ti o n s o r o p e r a t io n s ? W h i c h o f t h e se b i n a r ie s c o nt ro l t h e s t o r y ' s s t r u c t u r e ? W h a t i s t h e c h i e f b in a r y ?

•

W h a t m y t h e m e s a r e e v i d e n t i n H a w t h o r n e ' s t ale ? H o w d o t h e se m y t h e m e s s h o w t h e i n t e r t e x t u a l i t y o f th i s p a r t i c u l a r t e x t w i th o t h e r l i te r a r y t e x t s y o u h a v e read?

•

H o w d o t h e v a r i o u s s e m a n t ic f e a t u r e s c o n t a i n e d i n " Y o u n g G o o d m a n B r o w n " d i r ec tl y re l a t e t o t h e c o d e s , s i g n s , o r b i n a r y o p p o s i t io n s y o u f i n d i n t h e t e x t?

•

U sin g "Y o u n g G o o d m a n B r o w n , " a p p ly a t le a st th re e d if fe re n t m e th o d s o f s tr ue f u ra li sm t o a r r i v e a t h o w t h i s p a r t i c u l a r t e x t a c h i e v e s m e a n i n g . In t h e f in a l a n a l y  s is , is t h e re a d i ff e r e n c e a m o n g t h e t h r e e m e t h o d o l o g i e s i n h o w t h e te x t a c h i e v e s i ts m e a n i n g ?

Choose another sign system—sports, music, classroom etiquette the codes that generate meaning.

and explain

120

Chapter

5 • Modernity /Postmodernism

D e c o n s t r u c t io n W h e n e x a m i n i n g a n y t e x t th r o u g h t h e le n s o f d e c o n s t r u c t i o n ^ practice,

ask yourself t h e

t'ory a

f o ll o w i n g q u e s t i o n s :

•

W hat are the binary operations or op po sitions that go vern the text’

•

W h a t i d e a s , c o n c e p t s , a n d v a lu e s a r e b e i n g e s t a b l i s h e d b y t h e k se U h Jnarjf»o

•

B y r e v e r si n g t h e e l e m e n t s i n e a c h o f t h e b i n a r i e s , c a n y o u c h a l l e ously held value system pos ited by the origin al bin ary ?

the pre^.

After reversing one or m ore bin aries in a giv en text, can you d origina l interp retation of tha t text?

ar,tle y0(Jr

• •

C a n y ou ci te t h r ee d i f f e re n t i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s f o r a t e x t o f y o u r c h o o p i n g a s e r ie s o f th r e e m a j o r b i n a r i e s c o n t a i n e d i n t h a t t e x t ? Sln8  

f],p

T h e fo l lo w i n g q u e s t io n s a p p l y y o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f d e c t h e o r y t o N a t h a n ie l H a w t h o r n e ' s " Y o u n g G o o d m a n B r o w n " -

° n s t ructi0n

W r i te a o n e -p a g e i n t e r p r e ta t io n o f H a w t h o r n e ' s s t o r y . A f t e r y o u h a v e c o m I y o u r i n te r p r e ta t io n , c it e t h e b i n a r y o p e r a t i o n s t h a t f u n c t i o n b o t h w it hin ^ chosen text and within your thin king to allow yo u to arriv e at you r perspectiv^ Using "Young Goodm an Brow n," reverse one o f the binary operations and re pret the text. W hen you are finished, reve rse tw o ad ditio na l binar ies and reinte the story. W hat differences exist betw een the two interpretation s? "

6

U s i n g " Y o u n g G o o d m a n B r o w n " a s y o u r t e x t , d e m o n s t r a t e e it he r how Hawthorne misspeaks or where the text involves itself in paradox,

sometimes

called aporia. Be specific. Be able to point to lines, figurative speech, or imagi n a t iv e l a n g u a g e t o s u p p o r t y o u r s t a t e m e n t s . ° Using the text of "Youn g G ood m an B row n," c ite at leas t four dram atically differ e n t i n t er p r e t at io n s , a ll b a s e d o n d e c o n s t r u c t i v e r e a d i n g s .

CRITIQUES AND RESPONSES Structuralism United States and in Europ^Bormw603016/ dominant theory in both the e aussure's linguistics, the texti 1?^’ an b i d i n g elem ents of Ferdinand psychoa nalysis of both Sigmund F r ^ ,COncerns R u ss ian Formalism, the  jea concern s of Michel Fo uc ault th ^/r 30(1 ^acclues Lac an , the epistemologL0U,S Althusser, and the multinlo !^ M arx ist c°n ce rn s o f the French theorist seemingly embraced all discinlino 1 dle narratologists, structuralism

t i f i c ' ^ X ^ ^ ^ bUt aIso to life itself yses to texts and culture •«.

3 Unifying a p p r o a c h notonly

^ P P ly in8 its "o b je ct iv e" and "scien

 U Pr°vided a new lens through which to

'

C h a p t e r s • Modemity/Postmodemism

; “

.p"

: ^

r

s

121

“^ ture and «*•■* ^

m u st b e f ir s t i n t e g r a te d a n d t h e n a n a l y z e d b y e x a m in i n g t h e ^ a l T s t m Z r e o f w h ic h it is a p a r t - a s s e r t s t h a t a l l lif e , i n c lu d i n g li te r a ry t e x ts , is c o n s t r u c t e d th at is , b a s e d o n a s e r i e s o f i n t e r r e l a t e d s y s t e m s . I t is th e s e s y s t e m s a n d t h e s t u d y o f t h e m - r a t h e r t h a n i n d i v i d u a l a c t i o n s o r a n is o la t e d t e x t - t h a t a re u l t im a te ly i m p o r t a n t . O v e r a l l, s t r u c t u r a l i s m i s l e s s im p o r t a n t to d a y t h a n i t w a s in t h e 1 9 6 0 s. O t h e r t h e o r i e s t h a t t a k e i n t o a c c o u n t t h e c u l t u r a l s i g n i f ic a n c e o f b o t h p e o p l e an d t ex t s h a v e o u t p a c e d

stru ctu ralism

t u r a li s m s g r e a t e s t s t r e n g t h m e a n in g

f o r s e v e r a l r e a s o n s . F ir s t, s t ru c 

i t s s t u d y o f th e sy s t e m s o r c o d e s t h a t s h a p e

i s a l s o it s g r e a t e s t w e a k n e s s . In h ig h l ig h t in g t h e v a r i o u s s y s te m s

o f m e a n in g , s t r u c t u r a l is m d e e m p h a s i z e s p e r s o n h o o d a n d i n d i v id u a l te x ts . C r itic s a r g u e t h a t s t r u c t u r a l i s m i s t h u s d e t e r m i n i s t ic ( f a v o r in g s y s t e m s o v e r e v e n t s o r a n i n d i v i d u a l ) a n d a h i s t o r i c a l. I t d o e s n o t a c c o u n t fo r h u m a n i n d i  v id u a l i t y o r f o r a n y i n d e p e n d e n t a c t s , n o r d o e s i t a d d r e s s t h e d y n a m i c a sp e ct s o f c u l tu r e s . I n d i v i d u a l t e x t s , a s s e r t s tr u c t u r a l is m 's c r it ic s , d o m a t te r . T h e c h a n g i n g f a c e s o f c u l t u r e t h a t a r e s im u l t a n e o u s l y r e f l e c t e d i n is o l a te d te xts a r e a l s o i m p o r t a n t . T e x t s , l ik e p e o p l e , a r e a t t im e s il lo g i c a l, b r e a k i n g fro m t ra d i t io n a n d s y s t e m s o f b e li e f . W ith t h e a d v e n t o f p o s t m o d e r n i s m a n d i t s e m p h a s e s o n t h e in c r e d u l i t y o f g ra nd m e t a n a r r a t iv e s a n d t h e s li p p e r y n a t u r e o f l a n g u a g e , st r u c t u r a li sm w i t h its lo g i ca l, o b j e c t iv e s t u d y o f s y s t e m s , s tr u c t u r e , a n d la n g u a g e b e g a n t o l o s e p o p u la rity . A l th o u g h s o m e s t r u c t u r a l is t s — p a r t ic u l a r l y th e n a r r a t o l o g i s t s — c o n ti n u e t o c o n t r i b u t e t o l it e r a r y

t h e o r y a n d c r i t ic i s m , l it e r a r y t h e o r i e s

g r o u n d ed in t h e p h i l o s o p h y a n d m e t h o d o l o g y o f p o s t m o d e r n i s m c u r r e n t l y r ec eiv e p r i m e a t t e n t i o n .

Deconstruction M a k in g it s a p p e a r a n c e o n t h e l i te r a r y s t a g e i n t h e la t t e r h a l f o f th e 1 9 6 0 s , d e c o n st r u c t io n t h e o r y e n t e r e d t h e a c a d e m y a t a ti m e w h e n q u e s t i o n i n g t e s ta tu s q u o w a s b o t h a c a d e m i c a l l y a n d c u l t u r a l l y a c c e p t a b l e , b e c o m i n g a s s o m e w o u ld a r g u e , th e n o r m . T h e f ir s t w o r d o f D e r r i d a ' s i n a u g u r a t io n s p e e c h f o r d e c o n s t r u c ti o n 's i n t r o d u c t io n i n A m e r i c a — " S t r u c t u r e , S i g n , a n d P l a y i n

e

D i s c o u r s e o f th e H u m a n S c i e n c e s " p r e s e n t e d a t J o h n s H o p k i n s U n i v e r s it y in 1966— is  perhaps,  a w o r d t h a t s u c c e s s f u l l y e n c a p s u l a t e s th e b a s ic i d e a u n d e r 

ly in g d e c o n s t r u c t io n t h e o r y . P e r h a p s , s a i d D e r r id a , w e c a n n o t m a k e e i th e r P o sit iv e o r n e g a t iv e d e f i n i t i v e s t a t e m e n t s . D i s a v o w i n g t h e e x i s te n c e o f a t r a n s ce n d e n ta l s i g n i fi e d , d e c o n s t r u c t i o n q u e s t io n s W e s te r n h u m a n i >i s p r c liv ity t o w a r d l o g o c e n t r i s m a n d i t s v a lu i n g o f o t h e r e le m e n t s a n d a " n p a s s ed b y D e r r i d a ' s c o n c e p t o f m e t a p h y s i c s o f p r e s e n c e

d c*e n d

‘

*o a sk th e w h a t - if q u e s t i o n : W h a t i f n o t r a n s c e n d e n t a l s ig n i fi e d e x . s t s ? W h a t

S . Mr* lh? vVhat if, indeed, all is based Ud„ • „ch entity as objective tnj e is arbitrary and difft.ren& if there no s» ? And what 1 *> and postmodernism be2a' «h,ch h -a n ity had ^ of . Z o n i n g of the g r ^ " 'e,an* ^ now open to question The exact q V Structured its existence. All texts have multiple meanS £ £ 5 > text “ “'^ " ‘i r l . ^ and snppery. Indeed a.l writers inss, and language .< * * dus they said, but almost what they were speak, revealing not what th y b a form Gf play, with each particafraid to say. And all meanings are often elusive, ipant handling slippery texts w da,g phiiosophy and literary theory Although some critics the>g which Western philosophy rests, would destroy the very^fou £ ^ and stiU does provide an enerdeconstruction theory did n not only by questioning all previous getic and rigorous readi g ' . Qf reading itself. Some of its critics readings but alsoby questioning postmodernism's seemingly however, point ou, ^ “ 2 " h e validity of grand metanarrativ« ^

T o ^ t” inecn^ u lit y toward such narratives), deconstruction is itself SenHally establishing a metanarrative, one based on mcredul.ty and doubt. In questioning the validity and existence of objectrve truth, it creates its own yardstick by which its own concept of truth can be measured. In advocating its antitheoretical position, it establishes one of its own and involves itself in circular reasoning. And while advocating for intertextuality, it more fre quently than not treats texts in isolation. Overall, deconstruction's vocabulary and methodology have been ap propriated by other disciplines and continue to elicit debate among literary theorists and educators alike. Some of its adherents have brought decon struction's analysis into politics and cultural events and concerns. Although other schools of literary criticism have developed since the publication of Derrida's inaugurating presentation "Structure, Sign, and Play" at Johns Hopkins University, deconstruction theory remains a significant force as it has become embedded in a variety of contemporary literary theories and practices. See Readings on Literary Criticism at the back of the text for the corner stone essay on postmodernism, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," authored by its leading proponent, Jacques Derrida.

P S Y C H O A N A LY T IC C R IT IC IS M

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me. A t tr ib u t e d t o S ig m u n d F r e u d

INTRODUCTION

ur dreams fascinate, perplex, and often disturb us. Filled with bizarre twists of fate, wild exploits, and highly sexual images, our dreams can bring us pleasure or terrorize us. Sometimes they cause us to question our feelings, to contemplate our unspoken desires, and even to doubt the nature of reality itself. Do dreams, we wonder, contain any degree of truth? Do they serve any useful function? The German organic chemist Friedrich August Kekule answers in the af firmative. For years, Kekule investigated the molecular structure of benzene. One night he dreamed that he saw a string of atoms shaped like a snake swallowing its tale. Upon awakening, he drew this serpentine figure in his notebook and realized it was the graphic structure of the benzene ring he had been struggling to decipher. When reporting his findings at a scientific meeting in 1890, he stated, "Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then we may perhaps find the truth." Giuseppe Tartini, an Italian violinist of the eighteenth century, similarly discovered the value of dreams. One night he dreamed the devil came to his bedside and offered to help him finish a rather difficult sonata in exchange for his soul. Tartini agreed, whereupon the devil picked up Tartini s violin and completed the unfinished work. On awakening, Tartini jotted down horn memory what he had heard in his dream. Titled The Devil s Trill Sonata, this piece is Tartini's best-known composition. Like numerous scientists and composers, many writers have claimed that they, too, have received some of their best ideas from their dreams.

O

123

124

Chapter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

r .w..mr>li» maintained that many of hk ia Kolvn I.ouis ^ ';vi'n^ m: ‘’ t, jirw ilyVnim bin nightmares. Simj[ar] '^ o r . . ..£  o w e d m u c h o f H i , . ; . anW. Dr.•W Jckyll' titiii of Others owed much of their Wrif nt*< (\ni  A h * Jh/
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S° '”That"our dreams"'and th o ^ o f others fascin ate us cannot be den^ Whether it is their bizarre and often erotic content or their seemjn , prophetic powers, dreams cause us to question and exploret that par, * *> minds over which we have ostensibly little control the unconscious. Without question, the foremost investigator of the unconscious and it, activities is the Viennese neurologist and psychologist Sigmund F,eud Beginning with the publication of The Interpretation o f Dreams in 1900, F ^ lays the foundation for a model of how our minds operate. Hidden from tf* workings of the conscious mind, the unconscious, he believes, plays a large part in how we act, think, and feel. According to Freud, the best avenue for discovering the content and the activity of the unconscious is through our dreams. In the interaction of the conscious and unconscious, argues Freud, we shape both ourselves and our world. Developing both a body of theory and a practical methodology for his science of the mind, Freud became the leading pioneer of psychoanalysis, a method of treating emotional and psychological disorders. During psycho analysis, Freud would have his patients talk freely in a patient-analyst set ting about their early childhood experiences and dreams. When we apply these same methods to our interpretations of works of literature, we engage in psychoanalytic criticism. Unlike some other schools of criticism, psychoanalytic criticism can exist side by side with any other critical method of interpretation. Because this approach attempts to explain the hows and whys of human actions without developing an aesthetic theory —a systematic, philosophical body of beliefs about how meaning occurs in literature and other art formsMarxists, feminists, and New Historicists, for example, use psychoanalytic methods in their interpretations without violating their own hermeneutics. t SyC ? a»na yt* Cntr m may *^en best be called an approach to literary & terpretat;<)n ther than a particular school of criticism. analvsis nJT h ls uncluestionably the founder of this approach tol'^r

riea and conr<»rn« A, pninaieu oui j J '  Jung's ideas, Northrop Fry e-a uth anaf,ytical Psychology. Using  literary criticism in the 1950 ! ° one of the nu)st influential (1957)—developed symbol! . S A,lt lt oni }/ of Cr i t i cism: F° u'  helped change the directi ° ° r   ar°betypal criticism in the mid-19 , e  h direction of twentieth-century literary an alyst * * 

Cha pter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

125

iOAils t h e F r e n c h N e o - F r e u d i a n p s v e h o a n iK ,u f i e xp a n d ed F r e u d 's t h e o r i e s in l ig h t o f n e w ly 'd e v e lo p e d i f n e u T p r i n c i p l e t h e r e b y r e v it a liz in g p s y c h o a n aly tic c r i t ic i s m a n T p ^ — 7 ^ ntinued i n f lu e n c e o n l it e r a r y c r it ic i sm to d i v lu ^ e n s u r in g i ts c r itic s s u c h a s J u l ia K r is te v a , L u c e Ir i g a r a y , a ‘n d £

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HISTORICAL d e v e l o p m e n t S ig m u n d

Freud

T he th e o r ie s a n d p r a c t ic e o f S ig m u n d F r e u d ( 1 8 5 6 - 1 9 3 9 ) p r o v i d e t h e fo u n  d a tio n f o r p s y c h o a n a l y t i c c r it ic is m . W h i le w o r k i n g w i th p a t ie n t s w h o m h e d ia g n o se d a s h y s t e r i c s , F r e u d t h e o r i z e d t h a t th e r o o t o f th e ir p r o b l e m s w a s p s y c h o l o g i ca l , n o t p h y s i c a l . H i s p a t i e n t s , h e b e l ie v e d , h a d s u p p r e s s ed i n c e s  tu o u s d e s i r e s t h a t t h e y h a d u n c o n s c i o u s l y r e f u s e d t o c o n f r o n t . S u f f e r in g fr om h is o w n n e u r o t i c c r i s i s in 1 8 8 7 , F r e u d u n d e r w e n t se l f- a n a l y s is . R e s u l t s fro m h is s e l f -a n a l y s i s , t o g e t h e r w i th h i s r e s e a rc h a n d a n a l y s e s o f p a t i e n t s , led F r e u d t o p o s i t t h a t f a n t a s i e s a n d w i s h f u l t h in k i n g a n d n o t o n l y a c tu a l e x  p e r ie n ce s p l a y a l a r g e p a r t i n t h e o n s e t o f n e u r o s e s . M o d e ls o f th e H u m a n P s y c h e : D y n a m i c M o d e l T h r o u g h o u t h i s l i f e t im e , F reu d d e v e l o p e d v a r i o u s m o d e l s o f t h e h u m a n p s y c h e , w h i c h b e c a m e t h e c h a n gin g b a s e s o f h i s p s y c h o a n a l y t i c t h e o r y a n d h i s p r a c t ic e . E a r l y in h i s c a  reer, h e d e v e l o p e d t h e d y n a m i c m o d e l , a s s e r ti n g t h a t o u r m i n d s a re a d i  c ho to m y c o n s i s t in g o f t h e c o n s c i o u s ( th e r a t io n a l ) a n d t h e u n c o n s c i o u s ( th e ir ra tio n a l) . T h e c o n s c i o u s , F r e u d a r g u e d , p e r c e i v e s a n d r e c o r d s e x te r n a l r e a l  ity a nd i s th e r e a s o n i n g p a r t o f th e m i n d . U n a w a r e o f th e p r e s e n c e o f t h e u n  c o n sc io u s , w e o p e r a t e c o n s c i o u s l y , b e l ie v i n g t h a t o u r r e a s o n i n g a n d a n a l y t ic sk ills ar e s o l e ly r e s p o n s i b l e f o r o u r b e h a v i o r . F r e u d is o n e o f t h e f ir s t to s u g  g est t h at it i s th e u n c o n s c i o u s , n o t t h e c o n s c i o u s , t h a t g o v e r n s a la r g e p a r t o f our action s. T h is ir r a t io n a l p a r t o f o u r p s y c h e , t h e u n c o n s c io u s , r e ce iv e s a n d s to r e s o u r h i d d e n d e s i r e s , a m b i t i o n s , f e a r s , p a s s io n s , a n d i r r a t i o n a l t h o u g h t s . F re ud , h o w e v e r , d i d n o t c o i n t h i s t e r m ; t h is h o n o r g o e s t o C a r l G u s t a v C a r u s . C aru s a n d m a n y o f F r e u d 's o t h e r c o n t e m p o r a r ie s v i e w e d t h e u n c o n s c i o u s a s a sta tic s y s te m t h a t s i m p l y c o l l e c t s a n d m a i n t a in s o u r m e m o r ie s . F r e u d d r a  m a tic ally re d e f in e d t h e u n c o n s c i o u s , b e l i e v i n g it t o b e a d y n a m i c s y s t e m t h a t n« t o n ly c o n t a i n s o u r b i o g r a p h i c a l m e m o r i e s b u t a ls o s t o re s o u r s u p p r e s se d and u n r e s o lv e d c o n f li c t s . F r e u d b e l i e v e d t h a t th e u n c o n s c io u s h o u s e s h u U n i t y ' s t w o b a s i c i n s t in c t s : e r o s , o r t h e s e x u a l i n s t i n c t ( la t e r re fe rr e d t o b y

, 26 

C h a p t t ’ r 6   • P s y c h o a n a l y t ic C r i t ic i s m

Fnuid os Hbldo) and

'"HHir-i:s^:h /r:rrs"“sg

desires that want to jnpvitiblv make themselves known thr V giiised truths Jp ds ofthTtirngue or our actions. Freud calls such miM^ S lip S - ThfT

8h T

in 8 ' y inn° ^

? X ' ™ ° ' * ™ d ia n actions such as accidental slips of the tongue, failures of memory, the mis. placing of objects, or the misreading of texts, Freud beheves we bring t0ou, conscious minds our unconscious wishes and intentions. It is especially in our dreams, our art, our literature, and our play that these parapraxes reveal our true intentions or desires.

Economic Model Freud's second model of the human psyche expands on but retains most of the ideas he had developed in the dynamic model. In both models, the conscious and the unconscious battle for control of a per son's actions, and in both models, a person's unconscious desires will force their way to the consciousness. In the economic model, Freud introduces two new concepts that both describe and help govern the human psyche: the pleasure principle and the reality principle. According to Freud, the pleasure principle craves only pleasures, and it desires instantaneous satisfaction of instinctual drives, ignoring moral and sexual boundaries established by soci ety. Freud calls an individual's instinctual and psychic energy cathexes, its chief aim being to maximize pleasure because the pleasure  prin cip le 's goalis immediate relief from all pain or suffering. The pleasure principle is usually not allowed free rein in an individual's psyche because it is held in check bv what Freud dubs the anti-cathexes or an anti-charge of energy governed by the reality principle, that part of the psyche that recognizes the need for**" cietal standards and regulations on pleasure. Freud believed that both these principles are at war within the human psyche. mynsc*°usness without disgujs,a . ^  tends that the third part of n m Previ°usly devised models, F ^ e$e  unK(*rs, images thouehi ^ Psyehe, the unconscious, holds the %ht8' and desires of human nature. * * * * *   i

Chapter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

127

desires are not housed in the preeonscious, they cannot be directly summ o n e d into the conscious state. These repressed impulses must, therefore, travel in disguised forms to the conscious part of the psyche and surface in their respective disguises in our dreams, our art, and in other unsuspecting  ways in our lives. But the most famous model of the human psyche is Freud's revised ver sion of the typographical model, the tripartite model, sometimes referred to as the structural model. This model divides the psyche into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The irrational, instinctual, unknown, and un conscious part of the psyche Freud calls the id. Containing our secret desires, our darkest wishes, and our most intense fears, the id wishes only to fulfill the urges of the pleasure principle. In addition, it houses the libido, the source of all our psychosexual desires and all our psychic energy. Unchecked by any controlling will, the id operates on impulse, wanting immediate sat isfaction for all its instinctual desires. The second part of the psyche Freud names the ego, the rational, logical, waking part of the mind, although many of its activities remain in the un conscious. Whereas the id operates according to the pleasure principle, the ego operates in harmony with the reality principle. It is the ego's job to regu late the instinctual desires of the id and to allow these desires to be released in nondestructive ways. The third part of the psyche, the superego, acts like an internal censor, causing us to make moral judgments in light of social pressures. In contrast to the id, the superego operates according to the morality principle and serves primarily to protect society and us from the id. Representing all of so ciety's moral restrictions, the superego serves as a filtering agent, suppress ing the desires and instincts forbidden by society and thrusting them back into the unconscious. Overall, the superego manifests itself through punish ment. If allowed to operate at its own discretion, the superego will create an unconscious sense of guilt and fear. It is left to the ego to mediate between the instinctual (especially sexual) desires of the id and the demands of social pressure issued by the superego. What the ego deems unacceptable, it suppresses and deposits in the uncon scious, and what it has most frequently repressed in all of us is our sexual de sires of early childhood.

Freud's Pre-Oedipal Developmental Phase In addition to his various mod els of the human psyche, Freud proposed several phases or stages of human development that he believed are important to the healthy growth of one s psyche. According to Freud, in our early childhood, all of us go through three overlapping phases: the oral, anal, and phallic stages. As infants, we experience the oral phase: When we suck our mother's breast to be fed, our duality (or libido) is activated. Through this activity our mouths develop mto an erotogenic zone that will later cause us to enjoy sucking our thumbs

Criticism

, 28 Ch..,*'' <■* I'»VchMnjly" .

,„ ,h e second or anal stage (somctimo,

aml still later in life 'n., ' 1MUS becomes an object of plcasu«. ' r> ^ ,hesadistic-anal phase ^ 8imultaneously, real! children learn the * - ' « ^ ' who arc separate from their mothers. DUr^> they are independent pc rson. enic zone because children bec„ "S this stage, the anus b«onu '• (hJ ; h defecation as a means of c x r sadistic, ex ilin g and d^ . y ®itement in discovering their independent ing both their anger and the children also learn that thev, fmm their mothers. By stage, a child's sexual h C L 'd to te d to ^ d the genitals when the child learns the pleasure tha, results from stimulating; one s f^topm ent, Freud asserts that the pleasur A, this point in a doId “ Being self-centered, sadistic, anda 6 S S f f i S d cares for nothing but his or her own pleasure. If . chi|(J fmwever is to grow up as a normal adult, he or she must develop a sense of sexuality, a sense of his maleness or her femaleness. Freud maintains tha, this awareness can be achieved by a successful handling of either the Oedipus or the Electra complex. The Oedipus, Castration, and Electra Complexes The formulation of the Oedipus complex is one of Freud s most significant contributions not only to psychoanalytic criticism but also to all literary criticism in general. Freud borrows the name from the play Oedipus Rex, written by the Greek dramatist Sophocles. In this play, Oedipus, the protagonist, is prophesied to kill his fa ther and marry his mother. His attempts to defy the prophecy fail, and the foretold events occur as predicted. According to Freud, the essence of Oedipus's story becomes universal human experience, illustrating a forma tive stage in each individual's psychosexual development when the child transfers his love object from the breast (the oral phrase) to the mother. Using Sophocles' plot as the basis for his Oedipus complex, Freud as serts in his Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Twenty-first Lecture) (1915-1917) that during the late infantile stage (somewhere between ages three and six), all infant males possess an erotic attachment to their mothers. Unconsciously, the infant desires to engage in sexual union with his mother, but he recognizes a rival for his mother's affection: the father. Already in the a. ,1C sta8e an<^ therefore, sexually aware of his own erogenous organs, the chdd perceives the father's attention to the mother as sexual. each must th pl^ ^Fk ^ °Pment *s to proceed normally, Freud maintains, selves their mothers v!^ castratl0n complex. From observing themike thdr fathers0whH^th8 , ^ boys know they havea vents the male child fro & eir mothers and sisters do not. What pre mother is fear of castration, C°/l.tlI?uin8 to have incestuous desires for ** desire, identifies with his fath

*   

^

child' thus' rePresses his

h,S father' a^d hopes someday to possess a woman as

Chapter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

129

hi* father now possesses his mother Un cess»‘‘l'y made the transition to m a n h o o d t h e b„y ha# now suc Whereas a boy must successfully .. come a normal man, a girl must success#,5 ?*“ *® the ^ ‘pus comnl..* » i she is to make the transition from a Kjri V negotiat<> the Electra comm ^ young girl is also erotically attracted to h 3 n° rmal *° m an Like T h* * ' *   A g n iz e s a nval for her mother's a f f o r d   m° ther' and like a boy .h ! ? 3

g,rl realizes that she is already castrated, a s t h e r ' ' ' t " he, father possesses that which she des res a ,her' “« < » * . she know! him and away from her mother. After the sT ™ * ' §he turns desires to idewilh h ° f ^ turns back toward the mother and ^ womanhood completed, the girl realizes tha^on mother, will possess a man. Through her " e day she'  too, like her fulfilled desire for a penis (penis envy) win h nshlps with a man, her un lack will be somewhat appeased. e mitlgated, and her sense of The process of becoming a man or a woman c . long and difficult, but it is necessary. For wifhT^L feUd maintained, may be from basing his or her life on the pleasure the chlId Passes sions are grounded in the immediate eraHfi^h r “nder whic^ all deciprinciple, under which societal needs and ih ° ° f Pleasure, to the reality guide decisions. During this stage Freud e operation of the superego bility and conscience appear fo/the first time ^ ^ 3 Child s moraI sensi* The Significance of Dreams According to Freud, even though the passage into manhood or womanhood may be successful, every adult has stored many painful memories of repressed sexual desires, anger, rage, and guilt in his or her unconscious. Because the conscious and the unconscious are part of the same psyche, the unconscious with its hidden desires and repressed wishes continues to affect the conscious in the form of inferiority feelings, guilt, irrational thoughts and feelings, and dreams and nightmares. In his magnum opus, The Interpretation of Dreams  (1900), Freud asserts that the unconscious will express its suppressed wishes and desires. Even though the conscious mind has repressed these desires and has forced them into the unconscious, such wishes may be too hard for the conscious psyche to handle without producing feelings of self-hatred or rage. The unconscious then redirects and reshapes these concealed wishes into acceptable social ac tivities, presenting them in the form of images or symbols in our dreams and/or our writings. In the process, the psyche creates a window to the id by allowing these softened and socially acceptable desires to seep into the con scious state. The psyche may create this window to the id in a variety of ways. Through the process of displacement, for example, the unconscious may switch a person's hatred for someone named Mr. Appleby onto a rotting aPple in a dream. Or through condensation, the psyche may consolidate

130

Chapter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism ce.

t h ro u g h d r e a m s , j o k e s , o r o t h e r m e t h o d s

t h e e g o m u s t a c t a n d b l o c k any

o u t w a r d r e s p o n s e I n s o d o in g , th e e g o a n d id b e c o m e i n v o l v e d i n a n inter, n a l b a t t le F r e u d c a ll s n e u r o s i s . F r o m a f e a r o f h e i g h t s t o a p o u n d i n g he ad  a c h e , n e u r o s is c a n a s s u m e m a n y p h y s i c a l a n d p s y c h o l o g i c a l a b n or m a litie s. F r e u d a s s e r t s th a t it is t h e j o b o f t h e p s y c h o a n a l y s t t o i d e n t i f y t h e s e u nre  s o l v e d c o n f li c ts t h a t g i v e r is e t o a p a t i e n t ' s n e u r o s i s . T h r o u g h p s y c h o an a ly t ic t h e ra p y a n d d r e am a n a l y s is , th e p s y c h o t h e r a p i s t a t t e m p t s t o r e tu r n t he pa t i e n t to a s t a t e o f w e l l- b e i n g o r n o r m a l c y . L i t e r a t u r e a n d P s y c h o a n a l y s i s F o r F r e u d , th e u n r e s o l v e d c o n f l i c ts t ha t give r i se t o a n y n e u r o s i s c o n s t i tu t e t h e s t u f f o f l i t e r a t u r e . A w o r k o f li te r a tu r e , he b e l i e v e s , i s t h e e x t e rn a l e x p r e s s i o n o f t h e a u t h o r ' s u n c o n s c i o u s m in d . A c c o r d i n g l y , l it e r a ry w o r k s m u s t t h e n b e t r e a t e d l ik e a d r e a m , a p p l y i n g p sy  choanalytic techniques to texts to uncover the author's hidden motivations, repressed desires, and wishes.

Carl G. Jung F r e u d 's m o s t fa m o u s p u p i l is C a r l G u s ta v J u n g ( 1 8 7 5 - 1 9 6 1 ) , a S w i s s p hy si c i a n , p s y c h i a t ri st , p h il o so p h e r , a n d p s y c h o l o g i s t. S e l e c t i n g J u n g a s h is fa vorite student and

s o n , " F r e u d a p p o i n t e d h i m h i s s u c c e s s o r . T o w a rd the

e n d o f t h e i r se v e n - y e a r , te a c h e r - d i s c i p l e r e l a t i o n s h i p ( 1 9 1 2 ) , h o w e v e r , Ju ng p r o p h e t ic a l l y

Zarathustra,

w r o te

to

F r eu d ,

q u o t in g

f ro m

N ietzsch e's

Thus Spflke

O n e r e p a y s a t e a c h e r b a d l y i f o n e r e m a i n s o n l y a p u p i l .” A year

la te r, th e p u p i l b r o k e a w a y f r o m h i s m a s t e r a n d e v e n t u a l ly b e c a m e o ne of t h e l e a d in g f o r c es in t h e p s y c h o a n a l y t ic m o v e m e n t .  J u n g 's d i s s a t i s f a c t io n w i t h s o m e e l e m e n t s o f F r e u d i a n p s y c h o a n a ly s is a r o s e f r o m t h e o re t ic a l d i f fe r e n c e s w i th F r e u d c o n c e r n i n g t h e i n te r p re t at io n of d r e a m s a n d th e m o d e l o f th e h u m a n p s y c h e . A c c o r d i n g t o F r e u d , a l l h u m a n be h a vio r, in c lu d in g d r c a m s ' is f u n d a m e n t a lly s e x u a l s i n c e it i s d r iv e n b y a n i l * d r e a l a h n 7 r e x c l7 s e X T o r I T c t r a Z r ^ T

ener8y' W h a t F r e u d c a l l s « b i d o . F r e u d i n t e r p r e t y .m 86X1,31 t 6 rm s ' « " « n g m o s t o f t h e m t o th e O e d i f*

b e h a v i o r is s e x u a l l y (l rf v en S) u n e da W ' l h .F l ? l ' d s b a s i c P ^ ' m i s e t h a t a ll d o e s a p p e a r b u t s o d o m a n y o t h er k i n d s o / ', a * Symbols o fT pivotal text, f ro m F r eu d . In t h is w o r k I nn , . a s w e ll a s s ex u a l o n es . J u n e ' s

r o lf 1

,I n 1 9 1 2  Jung p u b l i s h * "

° W' w l l I c h u l t i m a t e l y l e d t o h i s s e p a f ^

d l x ‘a m s

include mythological

a n a l y t ic c o m m u n i t y f o r t in . * a s c o u s c*d h i m t o b e b a n i s h e d f ro m t he j t h e n ex t h v e y e a rs . D u r i n g t h is t im e , h e f o r m * * * y

Ch ap ter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

131

his own model of the hu man psyche, which would become his most impor tant contribution to psycho logy and literary criticism. In forming his model of the human psyche, Jung accepts Freud's as sumption that the unconscious exists and that it plays a major role in our conscious decisions, but he rejects Freud's analysis of the contents of the unconscious. For Jung, the human psyche consists of three parts: the personal conscious, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The personal conscious and the personal unconscious comprise the individual psyche. The perso na l co ns cio us , or waking state, is that image or t oug t o which we are aw are at any given moment. Like a slide s h o ^ every i ^ m e n of our lives provides us with a new slide. As we view one s 1 e' e ^ . . slide vanishes from our personal consciousness, or no m8 the personal conscious. Although these vanished sl.des are forgotten by the personal conscious, they are stored and ^ ^ ^ ^ ‘^ e ^ n a l unconscious. Jung maintains that all con^ '° “^ 0^“ ®, sHde8show is different, unconscious. Since each person s moment y everyone's personal unconscious is ^ cej>s* nnff ^ nThum an consciousness In the depths of the psyche and blo ck ed o« unconscious, Ues the third part of Jung s model of th P Y ^ universai than the perthat part of the psyche that is more impe . Qf t^e pSyChe houses sonal conscious or the personal unconscious. g ^  t^e entire human the cumulative kno wledge, experiences, an ^ worl(j respond to certain species. According to Jung, people from a o ne j^ow s and apprecimyths or stories in the same way, not eca f collective unconscious are ates the same story, but because lying eep rcording to Jung/ this collective the species' memories of humanity s pas • jjective, universal, and imperunconscious is "a second psychic system o ^,, universal psychic sonal nature which is identical in all m ai human themes and cornaspect is an inherited receptacle of deep ,,p of archetypes, which are monalities. The se mem ories exist in ences—such as birth, death, rePattems or images of repeated human expe feW_-that express thembi«h, the four seasons, and motherhood, to ^ ^ fantasies. Archehjes *lves in our stories, our dreams, our rel 'jonS/ causing us to respond to are not ready-made ideas, but are hcrited genetically (a psy^ -c, s«">uli in certain ways. In addition, they a r e , collective unconsoous ......... certam way>“ “^m„king up an g ^ t dform u e of k i n e Up to  J   --------" \  _ _ Unhme9 ""uive not a biological, irfter'tance)^ b c,jeVes « “ (and arel >h eP ^ tha, have been ness for all humankind. J our anCest and s0rro - literature in ^untless typical experience type' C,f » Occurring Retypes -numerable experiences £ ^ * * . * . 1 ^ raCter IJJP * ^ Repeated countless times m ° imaged ° similar produce form of recurrent plot p at te rn tions * * e u n c o n ^ n i P ar
*-**■*•

i iiii

o 

*-

f

'4 T h e s e s o m e w h a t ' .1" *

% & * * “" * of   ,he 8,irri" K

" I U - one^genera thjn would arb from ° n ®oinena become myths 0r a0 ,’m” wch ‘» « Passenv such p peo ple's lives. )«n6 w„u,d res pon ses . Eventuul>y' ifieance ' ^ ^ expressions of tv>
co0tro«»1'

,u n ir r d d op in ^ l^ ^ eth o d s of analytica^pay^tulugy^y^^un^u^npply^his^fh^iries^^ S o d s to literature, the foremost archetypal critic or

Northrop Frye the pubHcation of h i s Northrop Frye (1912 archetypal criticism. A l t ft ? of the collective unconsci

W ith

w entieth century is Northrop Frye. *

o r k  A n a to m y o f C r i t i c i s m : F o u r Essays  i n 1 9 5 7 , ^ a m e ^ p r i m a r y a d v o c a t e o f t h e p r i n c i p le s of n e v e r d e c l a r e s a l le g i a n c e t o Ju n g s concep t '

y

b o r r o w s  J u n g ' s i d e a s a b o u t m y t h s an d p p r o a c h t o i n t e r p r e t a t i o n c a l l e d arche-

archetypes and deve ops a systemahc a p p ^ ^ .V ^ ^ typal or m ythic criticis • Uf lructurc o r m y t h i c d e v e l o p m e n t t h a t maintains that there exis s c significance o f a i l t e x t s . A l l li te r a t u r e , he e x p l i c i t l y a l l e g o r ic a l to explains both argues, is on a sliding sea , g © TH ^ r r h e t v o a l symbols f o u n d the most antiallegorical and antrexphert. T h e a * e t y p U sy „ , within literature help to emphasize a n d p o r t r a y t h e a l e g y^ ^ P b e c a u s e t h is kind story every author is telling. The overall s t r u c declares Frye, are to be derived from a r c h e t y p a l c r i t i c i s m b e c a u

C|*aptur 6 •[>HVr, Hychoanalvtir rr{.i l)fcrilic.smpa-s.,pp„s,.s a l,lrB1.rc() V fl,„u-n.al form and structure in l i t ' " - m t u r e a,  , wh(>. . . .  j eepe**  imagery and most abstract m , . / myth, for mvo 7Tu’ m° st  , 1) other forms of literature, myth is th ’Kof anVkind oHi* pt )**i 'SSi'« the most directly related through $ £ » *   a Frve believes that all of lite ntu r 8 nd “ story called the monomyth. This «>">plcte and whole be diaKranwd as a c rc!e containing four separate phases, with each nh son of the year and to peculiar cycles 0f ho Phase conwpondinK to a Z  phase located at the top of the circle, is i ” ‘ 1 ! ^ ^ r om a n c e our wishes are fulftlled, and we can achieveTotTh St<>ry- ,n ,his «ory, all the circle ts winter, or the antiromance nhas. haPpmess-At the bottom of h
 Jacques Lacan

Similar to Freud, Jacques Marie Emile

£

unconscious greatly affects our .“ " ^ “uclured, bubbling cauldron of dark tures the unconscious as a chaotic, un Lacan asserts that the unpassions, hidden desires, and S h e s t r u c t u r e of language. Like language, conscious is structured, much like t systematically anathis highly structured part of the h u m a n s claims Lacan, is that all intyzed. What we will learn from such an c < ' ^ ideal concept of a wholly thcit, an abstraction dividuals are fragmented; no one is w o t .■ unified and psychologically complete md.v.dual J» that is simply not attainable.

1M

C hapter 6 • Psyc hoan alyst: C riticism

Lacan's Model of the Human Psyche Similar to Freud, [ three-part model of the hum an p syc he . In F reu d s m o d el, th
of three pa rts, or orders: th*. * <>ur osvche consit> ord er. As in Freu d's f ^ U'FornLacan, the human and the r ^ others From birth u n t V ^ t order, the syn . interacts orim arily in the imaging,^ lnal . each of the funCt‘ ° " ta ln T o u r w is h e s o u r fan^ » « * . where* around six ^ p; yche that « q { Qur p sy ch ic d e v e l o p ^ - > t that is, in the part images. In this P receivm g our food, our Care' most important, our g ith our mo sta te, w e re ly on imag ' a»M r^ oy fu lty '■" ‘to m t e r . In world. Consequently, our . ■

x

- - S S S &

. t r s

- - ~

no* able ,o

Ua,e wh^

SO" '*uowing us to S mothers. This mirror image o f ^ discrete boim ' separate from o idea l, an illusion because unliv' dent bein8s ^ le and complete bemg^ ^ control of ourselves. We cannot selves as a image, we are not ea t w he n w e so desire. the actual nurrove ^ bodieS as we stagG/ w e com e to recognize cerfor e* amp* ' to Lacan, during the lves, w ha t La can calls objet petU a t n objects as being separate from t e) a » alth ou gh Lacan wished the S .<°te rm is usually translated o ) t c ts in clu d e e lim in atin g bodily ^ ase to remain untranslated. Th an’d our ow n speech sounds. When Ph ra our m other's voice and b ' ye arn for them . Lacan says such theseohjects or sou nd sw e no* in d this sense of lack will continue to

p a s s ^ dominates our Heve can fulfill all our wishes ’ o « T o,heorSa he.orefS

fulfill " 1 of hers. But we, like th at We ar e se p ara te entities who can ‘^ r s . kacan says that such total unity

andTwholeness are an illusion. be ing s w ho are sep arate from our Once we leam that we are 1 sec on d d ev elop m en tal phase, the mothers, w e are ready to m other dom inates the imag inary

S S *bd " s %

“

°^

hi this Phase, we learn language.

Ch» P * r 6 . P sy c h o s ,yticC[Wcjsm

13 5

is tenguage that shapra our Wenlity a s ^ a“ ,b^ . u” Lacan believ« ^vches. Using linguistic principles formulated bv l be!ngS* nd mold8°ur S a t i e s , Ferdinand de Saussure, Lacan declared, ^ 7 m° d7 n Lveen individual sounds and words on the basis of diff  d,f^’re" t,ate be’ ^ d m i g h t , for exam ple, because it is d i f f e r s L l ' 1 1 7 ™  We know ,he se it differs from Ml. Knowing and mastering this concept' enables us to enter and to pass through the symbolic order successfu y Lacan contends that m the symbolic order we learn to differentiate be tween male and fema e. This process of learning gender identity is based on difference and loss. Whereas in the imaginary order we delighted in the presence of our mother, in the symbolic order, we learn that our father comes to represent cultural norms and laws. He stands between us and our mother, and it is he who enforces cultural rules by threatening to castrate us if we do not obey. Since the castration complex is obviously different for boys and girls, the process of completing the symbolic order successfully is different for each sex. F o r L a c a n , w h a t s e x w e a r e i s b i o l o g i c a ll y d e t e r m i n e d , b u t o u r g e n d e r o r o ur s e x u a l it y is c u l t u r a l l y c r e a t e d . S o c i e t y d e c r e e s , f o r e x a m p l e , t h a t a li tt le b oy s h o u l d p l a y w i t h c a r s a n d a l i t t le g i r l w i th d o l ls . I t i s t h e f a t h e r , th e p o w e r s y m b o l , w h o e n f o r c e s t h e s e c u l t u r a l r u l e s a n d e n s u r e s w e fo l lo w th e m . B o t h s e x e s c o m e t o u n d e r s t a n d t h e ir o w n s e x u a l i t y b y o b s e r v i n g w h a t th ey a r e n o t , a b o y n o t i n g t h a t h e d o e s n o t d o t h e t h i n g s a y o u n g g i r l d o e s a n d v i c e v e r s a . E a c h m u s t r e c o g n i z e t h a t h e o r s h e w i l l fo r e v e r b e a s p l i n  te r e d s e lf , n e v e r a g a i n b e i n g a b l e t o e x p e r i e n c e t h e w h o l e n e s s a n d jo y o f b ein g o n e w i th h i s o r h e r m o t h e r i n t h e i m a g i n a r y o r d e r. F o r t h e b o y , e n t r y i n t o t h e s y m b o l ic o r d e r d i c ta t e s t h a t h e m u s t i d e n t if y w ith a n d a c k n o w l e d g e t h e f a t h e r a s b o t h t h e s y m b o l o f s o c ie t y s p o w e r a n d as th e o b j e c t th a t b l o c k s t h e b o y ' s d e s i r e f o r s e x u a l u n i o n w i t h h i s m o t h e r. F o r t h e g i r l , e n t r y i n t o t h e s y m b o l ic o r d e r a l s o d e c r e e s t h a t s h e , to o , a c k n o w l ed g e th e f a t h e r o r t h e m a l e a s t h e s y m b o l o f p o w e r in s o c ie ty . L i k e t h e boy, s h e w i s h e s t o r e t u r n t o t h e h a p p y s t a te o f u n i o n w i t h h e r m o t h e r in t e im a g in a ry o r d e r . U n l i k e t h e b o y , h o w e v e r , s h e m a i n t a i n s m o r e a c c e s s th a n h e to t h is p r e - O e d i p a l s t a g e a s s h e g r o w s u p . L a c a n d e c l a r e s t h a t e n t e r i n g t h e s y m b o l ic o r d e r i s a

. orm o

c a s n*

for b o th s e x e s . In L a c a n ' s v i e w , c a s t r a t i o n is s y m b o l ic , n o t l it e r a l, a n d r e p r e -

sents e a ch

p e r s o n 's l o s s o f w h o l e n e s s a n d h i s o r h e r a c c e p a n c e o

^ l e s . F o r t h e m a l e , it m e a n s a c c e p t i n g t h e f a t h e r , P os s e s s e s a p h a l lu s o r p e n i s . L i k e w i s e , t h e f e m a l e m iu st rno ^ fath er f ig u r e a s d o m i n a n t b u t a l s o a c c e p t h e r l a c d fe r e n tia tio n b e tw e e n s e x a n d g e n d e r , L a c a " Pouis, th e a c t u a l b i o l o g i c a l o r g a n , a n d t h e p

o

'

ap

,

ai

^ b e t w e e n th e

b e C o me s f o r L a c a n , t h e o b je c t t h a t g i v e s

lu P o s t s tr u c t u r a l t e r m s , t h e t r a n s c e n d e n t a s ig m i , p h allus is the W a n in g to a ll o t h e r o b j e c t s . I n o t h e r w o r d s , f o r L a c a n , m e p

136

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ch'H’"'r h

'

.

,

,

nor fomnles can ever

™  ,x-nis. g>v»'R I « " , (>f Lacan's theory and his Und*■ n and Textual Analysis At the 1 ^ anJ fragmentation. All of us hay' St'mdins of the hunian psyc je aje and for countless ob pet. but n,„h. longings for love, for P ^ * * 1 ^ the imaginary order and be at one w„h o can fulfill our desire >1’ ^ divided self, concerns Lacan when he ex“or mother. This fragnrentat.on, o ^ hold the possibility of cap,Ur. amines a literary text. For Lacan l ,Q th .magmary order and ing, at least for a moment, our dcs ^ ^ once whole and united w„h ^ regain that sense of pure |»yw mothers. , 0 j00ks for elements of the third and most In examining a text, Lacan a psyche/ the real order. On the remote and unreachable part o hvsical world, including the materone hand, the real order consis ,h/ other hand, the real order also symial universe and everything i n , ^ would say, the real order contains bolizes all that a person is n o . continually function for us as symbols of countless objet petit a, objects that c >mmu y entire physical ^ ...........

primordial verse are not and can never be ° really know them except through language,

 

........

we can never experienceor addition, as Lacan contends, ^ ^ Lacan-S ^

it is language that causes our r g capture  jouissance— that is, to call ory, literature has f ^ ^ ’^ ^ t V e s i r e t h a t somehow arises from deep ^ th in L tT n T o td o isV sy ch e and reminds us of a time of perfect wholeness when we were incapable of differentiating among images from the rea order More frequently than not, these experiences are sexual, although other images and experiences such as birth or death can serve this function. Such moments of joy Lacan frequently finds in the writings of Poe, Shakespeare, and Joyce.

THE PRESENT STATE OF PSYCHO AN ALY TIC C RITICISM Thanks primarily to Lacan, psychoanalytic criticism has enjoyed new P°P^ larity. In particular, feminist critics such as Sandra Gilbert and Susan (Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century ^ R o w e ls o f ! l ‘e Litem, Imagination,  1979), Jullia Kds 1982; Revolution in Toetic : and Luce 'rig a ra y ( A n E t h i cs4   SexualI 's i T T -   ,984>' ,r? ci!1m«>dels ntmu v *° ad aPt bo,h Freud's and Psychologicaj and concern5 c o n f l i c t s  a>lu me psychological '*— rjtics Lacan mshow »uuw the conflicts ---- .<,v.cato ifirS encountered by female writers in a male-dominated world. Other c -------

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'-•wapwr f) •

1sychoanalytic Criticism 1 3 7 h as FtMix Gviatteri (1930-1992) have continue » u „ "^ Lac an 's ideas, devising their own mod el (\ n h T ° b° th Freud'8 Although many present-day critics reject Freud's »L m hUma" psyche' ^ .ries preferring a less sexually centered c, haIlie-centered sexual ^ id's dream-work and the linguistic svmboli some st‘ll embrace 5 1 origin psychoanalyst. 8 ' Symbohcally interpretive methods of

a s s u m p t io n s

The foundation for m ost form s of psych oanalytic criticism belongs to Freud and his theories and techniques developed during his psychiatric practice. Whether any pr act icin g p syc ho an alytic critic uses the ideas of Jung Frye Lacan, or any o ther psy cho an alyst, all acknow ledge Freud as the intellectual center of this form of criticism . C e n t r a l t o p s y c h o a n a l y t i c c r i ti c is m is F r e u d ' s a s s u m p t i o n t h a t a ll a rt is ts , in c lu d in g a u t h o r s , a r e n e u r o t ic . U n l ik e m o s t o t h e r n e u r o t ic s , th e a r t is t e s  ca pes m a n y o f th e o u t w a r d m a n i fe s t a t io n s a n d r e s u lt s o f n e u r o s i s, su c h a s m a d ne s s o r s e l f - d e s t r u c t i o n , b y f i n d i n g a p a t h w a y b a c k t o s a n e n e s s a n d w h o le ne ss in t h e a c t o f c r e a t in g h i s o r h e r a r t. F re u d m a i n t a in s t h a t a n a u t h o r ' s c h i e f m o t iv a t io n f o r w r i ti n g is t o g r a t  ify s om e s e c r e t d e s i re , s o m e f o r b i d d e n w i sh t h a t p r o b a b ly d e v e l o p e d d u r in g the a u t h o r 's i n f a n c y a n d w a s i m m e d i a t e l y s u p p r e s s e d a n d d u m p e d i n t h e u n co n sc io u s. T h e o u t w a r d m a n i fe s t a t io n o f th i s s u p p r e s s e d w i s h b e c o m e s the li te r a ry w o r k i ts e l f . F r e u d d e c l a r e s t h a t t h e l it e r a r y w o r k is in d e e d t h e a u th o r's d r e a m o r f a n t a s y . B y u s i n g F r e u d 's p s y c h o a n a l y t ic te c h n i q u e s d e  v elo pe d f o r d r e a m t h e r a p y , p s y c h o a n a l y t ic c r i ti c s b e li e v e w e c a n " u n l o c k " the h i d d e n m e a n i n g s c o n t a i n e d w i th i n t h e s t o r y a n d h o u s e d i n s y m b o l s . O nly th e n c a n w e a r r i v e a t a n a c c u r a t e i n t e r p r e t a t io n o f t h e te x t. B e c a u s e F r e u d b e l ie v e s t h a t t h e l i t e r a r y t e x t is r e a ll y a n a r t i s t's d r e a m o r fan tasy, t h e te x t c a n a n d m u s t b e a n a l y z e d l ik e a d r e a m . F o r F r e u d , su c h a n u n d e rs ta n d in g o f a t e x t m e a n s t h a t w e m u s t a s s u m e t h a t th e d r e a m i s a d i s  g u ised w i s h . A l l o f o u r p r e s e n t w i s h e s , F r e u d b e l ie v e d , o r ig i n a t e d i n s o m e w ay d u r in g i n fa n c y . A s a n i n f a n t , w e l o n g e d t o b e b o t h s e n s u a l ly a n d e m o  tio na lly s a ti s f ie d . T h e m e m o r y o f t h e s e s a t i s f i e d i n f a n t il e d e s i r e s p r o v i d e s the f e r t ile g r o u n d f o r o u r p r e s e n t w i s h e s t o o c c u r . A l l p r e s e n t w i s h e s a r e , th ere fo re , r e -c r e a t io n s o f a p a s t i n f a n t i le m e m o r y — e s p e c i a ll y e l e m e n t s o f t h e O ed ip al p h a s e — b r o u g h t t o t h e s u r f a c e o f o u r u n c o n s c i o u s a n d c o n s c i o u s states t h r o u g h s e n s a t i o n s , e m o t i o n s , a n d o t h e r p r e s e n t -d a y s it u a t io n s . B u t t h e a c t u a l w i s h i s o f t e n t o o s t r o n g a n d t o o f o r b id d e n t o b e a c k n o w l  ed ged b y t h e m i n d 's c e n s o r , t h e e g o . A c c o r d i n g l y , t h e e g o d i s to r t s a n d h i d e s th e w i s h o r latent content o f t h e d r e a m , t h e r e b y a l l o w i n g t h e d r e a m e r t o r e me m b er a s o m e w h a t c h a n g e d a n d o f t e n t i m e s r a d i c a ll y d i f fe r e n t d r e a m . T h e

1M

Cha plet 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

d r e a m e r t e l ls th e d r e a m a

n

d u n i t th i s c h a n g e d d r e a m o r w f m r a J n t u r n , t h e d r e a m a n a l y s t m us t ^

c a l l s t h e d r e a m ' s nunife. back the various layers r m u l tip le la y e rs o f the «.u..».r .v ------------

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c o n v e r s a t i o n a n d c ar e fu l l y a

* triP

" analyst’s  j o b is m u c h

l ik e t h a U rf > , h i8 t( > ric a, u n c o v e r s a v a i u e u m s i o n c a i s it«e «la * „ ,« . yer by analyst m u s t p e a , back t h e v a r i o u s ^ ers0f

* ^ ' u k M h e ' Z a Z Z l ^ l T t Z p s y c h o a n a l y t i c c r i t i c b e l i e v e s t h a t an t h o r ’ s s t o ry i s a d m a m t h a t, o n t h e s u r f a c e , r e v e a l s o n l y t h e m a n t l e s , c o n , * ,, o t t h e t ru e t a le . H i d d e n a n d c e n s o r e d t h r o u g h o u t t h e s t o r y o n v a r to u s le vel, l ie s t h e l a te n t c o n t e n t o f th e s t o ry , i ts r e a l m e a n i n g o r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . M ore f r e q u e n t l y t h a n n o t , t h is la t e n t c o n t e n t d i r e c t l y r e l a t e s t o s o m e e l e m e n t and m e m o r y o f th e O e d i p a l p h a s e o f o u r d e v e l o p m e n t . B y d i r e c t l y a p p l yin g the t e c h n i q u e s e m p l o y e d i n F r e u d i a n d r e a m a n a l y s i s , t h e p s y c h o a n a l y t ic critic b e l i e v e s t h e a c t u a l , u n c e n s o r e d w i s h c a n b e b r o u g h t t o t h e s u r f a c e , re ve alin g t h e s t o r y ' s t ru e m e a n i n g . P s y c h o a n a l y s t s d o n o t a ll a g r e e w i t h F r e u d ' s b a s i c a s s u m p t io n s , as n o t e d e a r l ie r in t h i s c h a p t e r. F o r e x a m p l e , J u n g b e l i e v e s t h a t m y t h o lo g i ca l as w e l l a s s e x u a l i m a g e s a p p e a r i n o u r d r e a m s , a n d F r y e b o r r o w s t h i s as su m pt io n f r o m J u n g a n d d e v e l o p s a s c h e m a t i c f o r in t e r p r e t i n g a l l d r e a m s a n d stories. L a c a n , o n t h e o th e r h a n d , d i s a v o w s F r e u d 's a s s u m p t i o n t h a t t h e un co n s c io u s i s a c a u l d r o n o f b o i li n g p a s s io n s a n d a n n o u n c e s t h a t t h e u n co ns cio us i s a s h i g h l y s t r u c t u r e d a s la n g u a g e i t s e l f. B y a n a l y z i n g t h i s s t r u c t u r e , Lacan d e c l a r e s th a t n o o n e c a n a c h i e v e w h o l e n e s s b e c a u s e w e a r e a l l a n d w ill alw a y s r e m a i n f r a g m e n t e d i n d i v id u a l s w h o

are se ek ing

c om p le te ne ss .

N e v e r t h e l e s s , a ll o f t h e s e t h e o r i s ts w i t h t h e i r a c c o m p a n y i n g t h e o r i e s re la te in s o m e w a y t o F r e u d ' s p r e s u p p o s i t io n s .

METHODOLOGIES F i r s t in t r o d u c e d t o li te r a r y s t u d i e s i n t h e 1 9 2 0 s a n d 1 9 3 0 s , F r e u d ' s ps ych oa na l y ti c c r it ic i s m s t il l su r v i v e s t o d ay . A l t h o u g h i ts m e t h o d s h a v e b e e n ch alle ng ed , r e v i se d , a n d s u p p l e m e n t e d , p s y c h o a n a l y t i c c r i t i c i s m p r o v i d e s a s tim ulatin g a p p r o a c h t o l it e r a ry a n a l y s i s t h a t d e c r e e s t h a t w e h u m a n s a r e co m p l e x yet s o m e w h a t u n d e r s t a n d a b l e c r e a tu r e s w h o o f t e n f a i l t o n o t e t h e i n f lu e n c e of the u n c o n s c io u s o n b o th o u r m o t iv a t io n s a n d o u r e v e r y d a y a c ti o n s . , ° r s c v 7 a l d<* a d e s a f t e r i ts i n t r o d u c t i o n , p s y c h o a n a l y t i c cr it ic is m f c a n ^ l t T h " y ° "v !

Z

a U " ’ ° r’ K n o w n a s P s y c h o b i o g r a p h y , t h i s m eth o d °

u e h b i o e r T , y am a S S i " B b ' ° 8 r a p h > c a l i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t an

a te d t

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co lected w ,!,Z y t

T ' " Z  Usi"H

da“»a"d the author’s

w o r k s ) , p s y c h o a n a l y t i c c r i t i c s b e l i e v e d t h e y c o u l d t h e o r e t• « 11>,

Chapter 6 . Psychoanalytic Criticism

13 9

•truct the author's personality, with all its idiosvnrr,.^ conflicts, and more important, neuroses i/tu J ' ‘ntL*rnal and ex^toy declared, could illuminate an author's S i 3 the* ^ ' 1 the latent content comnu ui in me the autnor author'ss texts Rv TW "T.orks' "'"' K,vmg lading of the author, these critics assumed they J be b e S b l e to L e n t an author s canon Of particular interest to them were the hveTand S k s of such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, William Blake, and Leonardo da Vinci' to name a ew. In the 1950s, psychoanalytic critics turned their attention away from psychobiography to character analysis, studying the various aspects of char acters' minds found in an author's canon. Such a view gave rise to a more complex understanding of a literary work. Individual characters within a text n0w became the focus. Believing that the author had in mind a particular personality for his or her characters, such critics also noted that readers de velop their own conceptions of each character's personality. A character's motivations and actions, then, became more complex than simply attribut ing them to the author's ideas. How individual readers interpreted charac ters now became an integral part of the text's interpretation. Whereas the author creates a character, a reader re-creates the same character, bringing to the text and to an individual character all the reader's experiences and knowledge. The character simultaneously becomes the creation of the author and of the reader. To interpret the story, psychoanalytic analyses of both the author and the reader are, therefore, necessary. Today many psychoanalytic critics realize that the reader plays a major role in interpreting a work. Understanding ourselves from a Freudian point of view as well as the context in which we live is considered essential if we are to interpret a text. One of the most controversial psychoanalytic techniques used today in volves applying Freud's key assumption—that all human behavior is sexu ally driven—directly to a text. In the hands of novice critics, who are often ill- or misinformed about Freud's psychoanalytic techniques, everything in a text more frequently than not becomes a sexual image. For these critics, every concave image, such as a flower, a cup, a cave, or a vase, is a yonic symbol (female), and any image whose length exceeds its diameter, such as a tower, a sword, a knife, or a pen, becomes a phallic symbol (male). Consequently, a text containing a dance, a boat floating into a cave, or a pen king placed within a cup is interpreted as a symbol of sexual intercourse. Fromthis perspective, all images and actions within a text must be traced to the author's id because everything in a text is ultimately the hidden wishes °frhe author's libido. ... ,  , Another psychoanalytic approach is archetypal criticism, irs t  jj* d by Jung then later by Frye. In this form of analysis, critics exam'™ F * *» discover the various archetypes that they observe °m lung's view, these archetypes have the same meaning for all readers.

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Chapter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

s t

^

- 3

3

H,min^m e modem archetypal approaches to literature, critics focus on the mvthic concepts within texts. One such critic is Joseph Campbell (1904-1^87), a critic-scholar who has written extensively withm the field of mythology and literature concerning the ways that archetypal symbols p0, tray human experience. In his influential work The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) Campbell focuses on the journey of the archetypa ero in myths and in all literature as a whole. He asserts that psychoanalysts such as "Freud,  Jung, and their followers have demonstrated irrefutably that the logic, the heroes, and the deeds of myth survive into modern times." Accordingly, Campbell argues that the human psyche and modern literature directly relate to the ancient, primordial myths and themes. Because of this relation ship, we must probe literature for such themes. By understanding the an cient stories and themes, seeing their relationship to modern stories, and applying archetypal psychoanalysis, Campbell believes that we may better understand not only our world but also each other, and even our own inner psyches. Other psychoanalysts such as David Leeming and James Hillman employ Jung's and Campbell's ideas and ^heories in their works, spanning psychology, mythology, and literature. Another type of psychoanalytic criticism employed today is based on ideas developed by Jacques Lacan. A Lacanian critic attempts to uncover how a text symbolically represents elements of the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic orders. By identifying the symbolic representations of these or ders within the text, a Lacanian critic examines how each of these symbols demonstrates the fragmentary nature of the self. Such a demonstration, the critic believes, shows the reader that all individuals are in actuality splin tered selves. The overall purpose of a Lacanian analysis is to teach us that a fully integrated and psychologically whole person does not exist and that we must all accept fragmentation. Psychoanalytic criticism is also being employed by feminist critics. Using some of Freud s concerns but "rescuing" Freud from his male-dominated culKritmva “nder!*tand»"g are psychoanalytic critics such as Julia Kristeva. v M o Z h 7 \ Z l ail ame?dl COncePts from Freud, Lacan, anthropology LmanaLds. Ellbora?' ^ Phenomen»l»gy and develops a new science, posits that during a premirror st child experiences a l irL-

idea of the mirror staSe' Kristf ! ^a stage that she argues Lacan ignores),

o r s ig n if ic a n c e , m o v in g f m m T h i s l n ' k ^ m o l h e r t h a t shaPeS t h at is t il’d to o u r i n s ti n c ts it , i ' 7 o r n m * t o d e s i r e . A n e m o t io n a l ft

■nstmets thus develops, what Kristeva calls the semloH^'

C o p t e r s . psychMnalyt.cCriticUm 141

^at lie within ea ch of us.

QUESTIONS .

f o r a n a l y s is

B e ca u se p s y c h o a n a l y t i c c r i t ic i s m i s b a s e d o n m u l ti p l e m o d e ls o f t h e m i n d r a t h e r t ha n o n a n a e s t h e t i c t h e o r y , t h i s c r i t ic a l a p p r o a c h t o t e x t u a l a n a ly s i s c a n u s e t h e m e t h o d o l o g y o f a v a r i e t y o f s c h o o l s o f cr i ti c is m . E x p l a i n h o w t h e cr it ic a l m e t h  o d s o f N e w C r i t ic i s m , r e a d e r - o r i e n t e d c r i ti c is m , a n d d e c o n s t ru c t io n t h e o r y a n d practice can be used in a psychoanalytic reading of a text. What similarities do t he se sc h o o l s o f c r i t i c is m h a v e i n c o m m o n w i th p s y c h o a n a l y si s?

•

U sin g H a w t h o r n e 's s h o r t s to r y " Y o u n g G o o d m a n B r o w n , " a n aly z e th e p r o ta g o  n is t f ro m e a c h o f t h e f o l l o w i n g p e r s p e c t i v e s : F r e u d i a n , J u n g i a n , a n d L a c a n ia n .

•

U sin g H a w t h o r n e 's " Y o u n g G o o d m a n B r o w n , " id e nt ify t h e d iffe re nt im a g e s an d s tr u ct u ra l p a t t e r n s t h a t o c c u r i n t h e t e x t . T h e n , u s i n g y o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f p s y  c h o a n a ly t ic c r i t ic i s m , e x p l a i n t h e p r e s e n c e o f t h e s e i m a g e s a n d p a t t e r n s a n d a n a  l yz e h o w e a c h r e l a t e s t o a n o v e r a l l p s y c h o a n a l y t i c i n te r p r e t a ti o n o f t h e t e x t it s el f.

•

I nv es tig a te t h e l if e o f N a t h a n i e l H a w t h o r n e , a n d a p p l y th e p ri n cip l es o f p s y  c h o bi og r ap h y t o h i s s h o r t s to r y " Y o u n g G o o d m a n B r o w n . "

CRITIQUES AND RESPONSES In the past severa l de cad es, mu ch "F reu d bashing has occurred, growing from simply being an argument against Freud and his theories to a move ment. Whereas Freud was once declared a genius, nowadays he is often dubbed a "very troubled man," with his technique of psychoanalysis being declared a oseudnsrience bv many psychologists, physicians, linguists, epis-

142

Chapter 6 • Psychoanalytic Criticism

* nlore the workings of the human psyche through tu criticism continue® to explore Campbell, Julia Kristeva, Gilles Deh. the S i in >he relationships wrings ofJacques l£ £ FtMix Guattan, and a host of ot d the arts. 8 th« human psyche, culture, socte Y'P ' vided for present-day scholar*  f ^ n e s examine the human ^ Although fteud'theorists a springboar o y been criticized for multiple reasn 6 *."> « .6ly lr6um.JHy.li.ble mouulu.u el .I ,,, ,,,: cal knowledge Second, by emphasizing such an extensive body of theory befom a text can be analyzed, some critics argue that psychoanalytic crifr cism detracts from what should be a critic's firs concern: the text itself. Third, many critics believe that psychoanalytic criticism reduces a text to a collection of sexual and sensual urges, thereby denying the aesthetic quali ties that are inherent in a literary work and should receive a critic s attention. Fourth Freud is particularly masculine in his interpretation, asserting the predominance of the male, giving only a secondary nod to the female. His theories, critics assert, are sexually unbalanced. Although some may argue that Freud was a "male product" of his masculine times, it took the work of Lacan and other present-day psychoanalytic critics to rescue Freud from his masculine bias. Fifth, some argue that psychoanalysis is too simplistic in its attempt to understand the human psyche in all its complexities. Such ar guments, however, can be made for most models of the human psyche because, after all, they are simply models. And last, many declare that as a science, psychoanalysis is not objective or scientific. Freud himself was unshakeable in declaring the scientific validity of his own work, but even he was concerned about the "narrative" quality of many of his case histories. That Freud pioneered new avenues of exploration of the human psyche remains unquestioned. That literary theorists and critics continue to accept, reject, borrow, or amend his theories and their applications stands as a testa ment to Freud's continued importance, not only from a historical perspective but also from a practicing critic's point of view.

F  e m i n i s m

To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)

INTRODUCTION n the inaugural edition of one of the earliest American newspapers owned and operated by women, the Woman's Chronicle of Little Rock, Arkansas, Kate Cuningham, the editor, penned and published these words on Saturday, March 24,1888:

I

N o o n e is s o w e l l c a l c u l a t e d t o t h i n k f o r w o m a n k i n d a s w o m a n h e r s el f. I n t h e p ro v in c e o f a d m i n i s te r i n g to t h e w a n t s o f h e r s e x , n o o n e c a n b e s o w e l l a d ap te d a s s h e . H e r a d v a n c e m e n t i s in n o b e t t e r w a y p r o v e n t h a n b y h e r p r o g  re ss in m e d i c i n e a n d l it e r a t u r e , t o s a y n o t h i n g o f th e r e fo r m m o v e m e n t s w h i c h s he is s t e a d i l y c a r r y i n g o n f o r t h e b e n e f i t o f h e r s ex .

More than one hundred years later, another Arkansas woman and the former first lady of both Arkansas and the United States of America, a U.S. Senator from New York state, and the secretary of state under the Obama administration, Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke these words in September 2005 at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China: "It is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights." That Secretary Clinton voiced these words m°re than a century after Cuningham's newspaper proclamation is in deed telling. Were not Cuningham's words embraced by Americans in the •atter part of the 1800s? And why need Clinton be assuring women of the twenty-first century that their rights and the rights of all humanity males and females alike—are the same? Are not twenty-first-century

143

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Chapter 7 • Feminism

women and men equal in all respects? Feminist studies, feminist the()rU. h, and feminist critics all answer in one accord: No! As one of the most significant developments in literary studies in fL second half of the twentieth century, feminist literary criticism advoca* equal rights for all women (indeed, all peoples) in all areas of life; socian S politically, professionally, personally, economically, aesthetically, and ps^' chologically. Emerging to prominence in the 1960s, feminist criticism is 2 ' strand of feminist studies. Informed by feminist literary theory and schola^ ship, feminist criticism is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches t culture and literature that are of particular interest to women. Central to th diverse aims and methods of feminist criticism is its focus on patriarchy, the rule of society and culture by men. In her 1980 essay titled "Dancing through the Minefield"—one of the first works to articulate the theoretical assump tions of feminist theory and to survey its methodology—Annette Kolodny a feminist critic, articulates feminist criticism's chief tenet: W h a t u n i t e s a n d r e p e a t e d l y in v i g o r a t e s f e m i n i s t li t e r a r y c r i t i c is m . . . i s n eith er d o g m a n o r m e t h o d b u t a n a c u t e a n d i m p a s s i o n e d a t t e n t i v e n e s s t o t h e w a y s in which primarily male structures of power are inscribed or (encoded) within o u r l i te r a r y i n h e ri ta n c e [ a n d ] t h e c o n s e q u e n c e s o f t h a t e n c o d i n g f o r w o m en — a s c h a r a c t e r s , a s r e a d e r s, a n d a s w r i t e rs .

These male structures of power embrace phallocentrism, the belief that identifies the phallus as the source of power in culture and literature, with its accompanying male-centered and male-dominated patriarchal assumptions. In her landmark essay "Feminist Literary Criticism" (1986), Toril Moi, profes sor of English and theater studies at Duke University and a leading feminist theorist and critic, defines feminist criticism as "a specific kind of political discourse, a critical and theoretical practice committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism. According to Moi, one of feminist criticism's chief aims is to challenge and critique this patriarchal vision established in both culture and literature, denouncing and rejecting all phallocentric as sumptions. Judith Fetterley, another leading feminist theorist and critic, agrees with Moi's definition. In the introduction to Fetterley's influential text The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction (1978), Fetterley asserts t at eminist criticism is [also] a political act whose aim is not simfr/ ° irderPre* * e world but to change it by changing the consciousness of m T W.h° * ef   andtheir relation to what they read." According to Fetterley, nv iSt Cr‘tiCis "to become a resisting rather than an assent* min Ht y, u \ USal to assent' he begin the process of exorcizing  the malt mind that has been implanted in us." been i m ^ l a ^ canon whose

r

‘ts acc»n'panying phallocentric be l^ ,u*s' ,n lar8e P ^ t, in the Western \i&» l

e, acclaimed writers, philosophers, and scholars

Ch apter 7 • Feminism

145

, A brief historical su rvey of comments made and beliefs held by rtU>>tly *nale’ .•«.  _w riters  _______  le nds su pp ort to feminist criticism's belief th canonical u■ « >   _____  that a pa^ nonical m _  •ri" cM ViSi° n h“ been estah,i^ d ; n l h7 w VLz>tcrn » w «~ " ‘r    c™litnrarx, Lrary c a n o n :   P o n o t l et a w o m a n w i t h a s ex y r u m p d ec ei v e  

Uvrds; she is after your barn. The man who trustTn and coaxing " 'ists a womanwheedli”g trusts a deceiver. Hesiod, poet, eighth century BCE P l at o t h a n k s t h e g o d s f o r t w o b l es si n g s: t h a t h e h n a  

he had not been born a woman.

,.

a ot been born a slave and that Plato (c.427-c.347 BCE)

Si l e n ce g i v es t h e p r o p e r g r a c e t o w o m en .

Sophocles (497-40 6 BCE) T h e m a l e i s b y n a t u r e s u p er i o r , a n d t h e f em a l e i n f er i o r ; a n d t h e o n e r u l es a n d t h e   o t her i s r u l e d . W o m a n " i s m a t t e r , w a i t i n g t o b ef o r m e d b y t h e a ct i v e m a l e p r i n c i p l e   . . . M a n c o n s eq u e n t l y p l a y s a m a j o r p a r t i n r ep r o d u c t i o n ; t h e w o m a n i s m er el y   t he p a ssi v e i n c u b a t o r o f h i s s e e d . "  

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) W o m a n i s r ea l l y a n " i m p er f ec t m a n . . .

a n i n c i d en t a l b e i n g . . . a b o t ch ed m a l e ."  

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) A l t h o u g h a w o m a n i s a " b e a u t i f u l h a n d i w o r k o f g o d ," s h e d o es " n o t eq u a l t h e   gl o r y a n d d i g n i t y o f t h e m a l e ."  

Martin Luther (1483-1546 )

Frailty, thy name is woman. H a m l e t   by

Shakespeare (1564-1616 )

 Most women have no character at all. Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Women, women! Cherished and deadly objects that nature has embellished to torure us. . . whose hatred and love are equally harmful, and whom we cannot either  seek orflee with impunity.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1702 1778)

146

Chapter 7 • Feminism

Alary

W oiuiomr,,/)isa

»' W a lp o le , a u „ u , o f «

o ^ e a ^ , G ^ c „ „ v^

Nl„u,r M n M uomm «' be our slum ■■■They are our property.. .. What „ »w
Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and b ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, nen any. . . recreation. R o b e r t S o u t h e y , P o e t L a u r e a t e ( 17 7 4- 18 4 3)

Woman is a slave whom we must be clever enough to set upon a throne. H o n o r e d e B a l z a c ( 1 7 99 -1 8 5 0)

 Jane Austen's novels are "vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention . . . without  genius, wit or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow.” R a l p h W a l d o E m e r s o n ( 1 8 03 -1 8 82 )

Women writers are a ",damned mob of scribbling women " who only write anything worth reading if the devil is in them. N a t h a n i e l H a w t h o r n e ( 18 0 4- 18 6 4)

The woman author does not exist. She is a contradiction in terms. The role of the woman in letters is the same as in manufacturing; she is of use when genius is no longer required. P i e r r e - Jo s e p h P r o u d h o n ( 18 0 9- 18 6 5)

Woman is natural, that is, abominable. Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (1821-1867)

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

where behind f^ Z rT g ^ ea lty ^

' ' ' WUh a greedy littk m0UtH^ F r i e d r i ch N i e tz s c h e ( 1 8 4 4 -  1 90 ^)

Ch apter 7 • Ivm lrmm ar t i st '* m o st essen t i a l q u a l i t y a n d esf k \ uilhf m a r k s

K " - ''

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s

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t

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 gn ize’cor 

V a l e n ti n e d e S a i n t -P o i n t (1 8 7 5 - 1 9 5 3 )

Educating a woman is like pouring honey over a fin e Swiss watch. It stops working. K u r t V o n n e g u t , J r. ( 1 9 2 2 - 2 0 0 7 ) F e m i n i st l it e r a r y c r i t ic i s m c h a l l e n g e s s u c h p a t r i a r c h a l s t a te m e n t s w i th th eir a c c o m p a n y i n g m a l e - d o m i n a t e d , p h i l o s o p h i c a l a s s u m p t i o n s a n d s u c h g e n d er -b ia se d c r it ic i s m . A s s e r t i n g t h a t li te r a t u r e s h o u l d b e f re e f ro m b i a s e s o f race, c la s s, o r g e n d e r , f e m i n i s t c r i t ic i s m p r o v i d e s a v a r i e ty o f t h e o r e t ic a l f r a m e  w o rk s a n d a p p r o a c h e s t o i n t e r p r e t a t io n t h a t v a l u e s e a c h m e m b e r o f s o cie ty .

h is t o r ic a l d e v e l o pm e n t A c co rd in g t o f e m i n i s t c r i t ic i s m , th e r o o t s o f p r e j u d i c e a g a i n s t w o m e n h a v e lo n g b e e n e m b e d d e d i n W e s t e r n c u l t u r e . T h e a n c i e n t G r e e k s a b e t t e d g e n d e r d i s cr im in a tio n , d e c l a r i n g t h e m a l e t o b e t h e s u p e r i o r a n d t h e f e m a l e th e i n f e  rior. W o m e n , th e y m a i n t a i n e d , lu r e m e n a w a y f ro m s e e k in g t ru t h , p r e v e n t  in g t h em f r o m a t t a i n i n g t h e i r fu l l p o t e n t ia l . I n th e c e n t u r i e s th a t fo l lo w , o t h e r p h ilo so p h er s a n d s c i e n t is t s c o n t in u e s u c h g e n d e r d i s c r i m i n a t i o n . F o r e x a m 

The Descent o f Man

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a p a s t a n d l o w e r s t a te o f c iv i l i z a t i o n . "

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d ecla re s t h a t G o d c r e a t e d b o t h m a n a n d w o m a n a s e q u a l b e in g s . T h r o u g h o u t t h e f o l lo w i n g c e n t u r i e s , o t h e r f e m a l e v o i c e s a r ti c u la t e d t h e rig h t o f w o m e n t o b e h e a r d a n d a c k n o w l e d g e d a s s c h o l a r s , a r ti s ts , a n d w r it  ers. O n e su c h v o i c e w a s t h a t o f A p h r a B e h n ( 1 6 4 0 - 1 6 8 9 ) in t h e s e v e n t e e n t h c e n tu ry . B e h n , o f t e n

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148

Chapter 7 • Feminism

writer, was one of the most prolific dramatists, poets, and nov r Restoration, authoring works that highlight the amatory fiction of r Of U\ erature. According to the twentieth-century feminist Virginja women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphr °°lf' "All for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds " i ? • writers of her time, Behn used her fiction to bring to the forefr ** l^e lyze women's sexual desires directed toward both males a h ^ ar^aInnovative in the use of such narrative techniques as voice, visual ^ernaks frankness of subject matter, Behn published dramas (The Amor  CU6S' and 1671), poetry (On Desire, 1688), and novels (Oroonoko, 1688) that h°iMS^r'nce, the way for the British Romantic movement. Today her words 6 ^ pave tural studies scholars and many others with an abundance of text Cultinizp what it means to be human. S ^a*scruIn the late 1700s, another powerful, artistic female voice arose in opposi tion to the continued patriarchal beliefs and statements housed in society and the Western canon. Influenced by the French revolution and believing that women along with men should have a voice in the public arena, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) authored A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the first major published work that acknowledges an awareness of women's struggles for equal rights. Women, she maintains, must define for themselves what it means to be a woman. Women themselves must take the lead and articulate who they are and what role they will play in society by rejecting the patriarchal assumption that women are inferior to men. It was not until the Progressive Era of the early 1900s, however, that major concerns of feminist criticism took root in literature and criticism. During this time, women gained the right to vote and became prominent ac tivists in the social issues of the day, such as health care, education, politics, and literature, but equality with men in these arenas still remained outside their grasp.

Virginia Woolf day

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Chapter 7 • Feminism

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cannot obtain an education o r find p r o f i t s cannofeconomically afford a room of Z r eirxP ^ y m etx t AnH never flourish. Being able to afford her OWn' her innate ar ^H be^ause she £ d e and au tonom y needed to l | urt" ° W" "*>"> ^ wil1

Such a loss of artistic talent and person . suit o W s o p m i o n of  women: t ^ ^ rth' ar8” «  Woolf, is the iemen. Women,  Woolf declares, must t xn ,nteUect^ and estabhsh and define for them sehS th e fi^ p T * * ™ ° f female"« * ? ' T° do *>' ^ e y  must challenge the prevailing, false cultural n o t i l , 1 and develop a female discourse that will Z   about theirssexual identity  sh,p 'to the world of reality and not to the w^rW / * * * ? * their ^ t i o n this challenge, Woolf believes that Shakespeare s s is tZ ™ ' Z  Women acceP‘ and through women living today, even t h £ . ‘V6' « dishes and putting the children to b e d ~ ^ y ** wash*"g up the calamities such as the Great Depression of io->£°W' Societal and world 1940s however, changed ,he Z Z o 7 h u £ n ^ W° dd *■ » « in .he the advancement of these feminist ideals. * attenti»n and delayed

Simone de Beauvoir After World War II and the 1^44 publication of Second Sex by the French writer Simone de Beauvoir (190&-1986), feminist concerns once again are heard. Heralded as the foundational work of twentieth-century feminism, Beauvoir's text asserts that French society (and Western societies in general) are patriarchal, controlled by males. Like Woolf before her, Beauvoir be lieves that the male defines what it means to be human, including what it means to be female. Since the female is not male, Beauvoir maintains she be comes the Other, an object whose existence is defined and interpreted by e dominant male. Being subordinate to the male, the fema e iscovers a s e is a secondary or nonexistent player in the major socia ins i u ° culture, such as the church, government, and educationa s> ^ believes that women must break .he bonds of .he., pa^archal soc.ety and define themselves if they wish to become a sigmftcant buman t^rng m th own right, and .hey must defy - ' o ^ th ™ ™ " must ask themselves, "What is a woman ain ailows males to answer must not be "mankind,  for   such a term ^ such labehng 8 define women. Beauvoir rejects this RCTenclabe . * ^ ^ herse|f but assumes that "humanity is male and man defines as relative to him."

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Chapter 7 • Feminism

, .

wo,m.n must sue themselves as autonomy st reject the societal construct that mU* Beauvoir insis s ‘ ings. Women, she i ' w«men are the Other. Embedded in th!*” ar* the » * * < * -  . " r " * : : , , . , , males have the power to > .^stam nw ottsthe^u^t^ (< )

h:J ^ y 

S ; : must define themselves articulate their own S t r u c t * of what it means to be a woman, and reject betng labeled as

Kate Millett

With the advent of the 1960s and with its political activism and social con cerns, feminist issues found new voices, such as Mary Ellmann {Thinking about Women,  1968) and Kate Millett. With Millett s publication of Sexual Politics in 1970, a new wave of feminism begins. Millett is one of the first to challenge the ideological characteristics of both the male and the female. She asserts that a female is bom but a woman is created. In other words, one's sex is determined at birth, but one's gender is a social construct created by cul tural norms. Consciously or unconsciously, women and men conform to the societal constructs established by society. Boys, for example, should be ag gressive, self-assertive, and domineering, whereas girls should be passive, meek, and humble. Such cultural expectations are transmitted through media, including television, movies, songs, and literature. Conforming to these prescribed sex roles dictated by society is what Millett calls sexual politics, or the operations of power relations in society. In the West institutional power rests with males, forcing the subordination of women. Women, Millett main tains, must disenfranchise the power center of their culture: male dominance. By so doing, women will be able to establish female social conventions as de fined by females, not males, and in the process, they themselves will shape and articulate female discourse, literary studies, and feminist theory.

FEMINISM IN THE 1960s, '70s, and '80s In 1963 two works helped bring feminist concerns once again into the publ arena:  American Women, edited by Frances Bagley Kaplan and Margar ead, and The Feminine Mystique  by Betty Friedan.  American Women w, two years of i n v e s t i g a t i o n by the Pre side0 * ~ * r n u |t3tUS ° f W om on' c o m m is s io n e d by President John the workplace 1 CtailS ^reat inc(ll,nlity between men and women evidence of their ^ in socioty as a whole. Armed w i th v e r i f y inequality w o m e n asserted political pressure in C o n g * Cnmm

mmatin^ i^01^

Chapter

7 

• Feminism

15 1

U   Friedan (1921-2006), published lated two central questions, of feminist criticism thatL , n became popular "A woman has  gotto be able to say, and not (eel guilty, ‘Who I, and What C1want out ofh fe?  She imrstn t feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of 4  her own, outs.de of husband and children." By 1966, Friedan was elected president of the newly formed National Organization for Women (NOW) whose platform argued for equal opportunity for women "under the law," including educational and employment reforms; the right of choice concerning abortion, and a host of other social, political, and personal issues. During this time and throughout the 1970s, feminist theorists and critics began to examine the traditional literary canon, discovering copious examples of male dominance and prejudice that supported Beauvoir's and Millett's assertion that males consider the female "the Other." Stereotypes of women abounded in the canon: Women were sex maniacs, goddesses of beauty, mindless entities, or old spinsters. In addition, although Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and many other male authors found their way into the established canon, few female authors achieved such status. Those who did appear, such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman or Sarah Orne Jewett, were referred to as "local color writers," implying their secondary or minor position in the canon. Similarly, the roles of female, fictionalized characters were often limited to minor characters whose chief traits reinforced the male's stereotypical image of women. Female theorists, critics, and scholars such as Woolf and de Beauvoir were simply ignored, their writings seldom, if ever, referred to by the male crafters of the literary canon. Feminist theorists and critics of this era declared that male authors who created and enjoyed such a place of prominence within the canon had assumed that their ideal readers were all males. Women reading such works could easily be duped into reading as a man reads. In addition, because most of the university professors were men, more frequently than not female students were being trained to read literature as if they, too, were men. Hence, the feminists critics of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s announced the existence of a female ideal reader who was affronted by the male prejudices abounding m the canon. Questions now arose concerning the male and female qualities o literary form, style, voice, theme, and other aesthetic elements o texts. Throughout the 1970s, books that defined women's writings in feminine terms flourished. Having successfully highlighted the importance of gender feminist theorists uncovered and rediscovered a body of works auftored y females that their male counterparts had decreed mfenor and be par, of the canon. In America, for example, Kate Choptn s a„ eentury novel The Awakening (1899) as * [ J jX ' 's The Golden erninist text of this period, whereas in Engla

152

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7

• Feminism Feminism

.f. .f. K»»* ( 1

in ^r\V,T,n ,T,nU Uvers!tit !tit-s -s'!' '!'.'d .'d^ ^ii< ii< the reading p o p u ^ ' ^ ' i

by wom omen. en. Simulwiwcn Simulwiwcn»» y. literary literary history, history, ami to arti ar ticculai ulaiA A ,a' ,a' tion. tio n. to categ categor oriz izee and « p b m f c j , L,nlinist ,nlinist cri,ics. cri ,ics. * «*■ male aesthetic aesthetic became t rtecj rtecj j n print print by the establ est ablish ishment ment of Feminist c— " S s T u c h a s V V“ Sinches £ % *   Fem Feminist inist 11m mss ml ml such as Annette Annet te Kolodny's TH   )  p i ^ and Feminist SI,at SI, ate, e, to name a e w „ mOTaI„ u f e Z u , f i E«,y 'in Fcmmisl Criticfem (1977); Judith Fetterley s The Rcscstmg Reader: „ Feminist Approachto  A m e r i c a n F . c t i o n (1978); Nma, Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820> 1870 (1978); Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's edited work Shakespeare s Sisters. Feminist Essays on Women Poets (1979); and Gilbert and Gubar s The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination   (1979) helped shape the ongoing concerns and direction of feminist theory and crit icism, providing public venues for these discussions. Elaine Showalter

A leading voice of feminist criticism throughout the late 1970s and through the next several decades is that of Elaine Showalter. In  A Literatur Literaturee of o f Th Their  Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing  (1977), Showalter chroni cles three historical phases of female writing: the feminine phase (1840-1880), the feminist phase (1880-1920), and the female phase (1920-present). During the "feminine" phase, writers such as Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and George Sand accepted the prevailing social con structs that defined women. Accordingly, these authors wrote under male pseudonyms so their works, like their male counterparts', would first be pub lished and recognized for their intellectual and artistic achievements. During the feminist feminist or second second phase, female writers writers helped helped dra drama mati tize ze the pligh plightt of the slighted" wom woman, an, depicting the harsh and often of ten cruel cru el treatment treatment of of fe male ma le charac characters ters ^ the hands hands of their more powerf powe rful ul ma male le creations creations.. In the ronsfrurfr 1713

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ema^e wr*ters have rejec rejecte ted d both ot h the the femini feminine ne soc social ial phaSe and the seconda^ seconda^ 01 characters that domina dom inated ted the "fem "f emin inis ist" t" phase

selv selves es wit with h dev devel elop opin ing g a pf ™ lfe lf e r ly f T * ? a" d Cri Criti tics cs Presently concern themrienc riencee in art includin including g fe™ l e unders und ersta tandi nding ng of the female expeSuch a task necessarily includ^m analysis of hterary forms and techniques Show Showalt alter er uses ses to descr describe ibe the^ th e^al alee haTred h aTred^fw ^fw ^ miS° 8yny 8y ny in tGXtS'  3 * * * 

s h „ w a l le l e r M , e v e S th th a t f e m a l e w r it i t er e r s w e re r e H , u  the library canon by m ale p r o f e s s o r s  who f , erate,y erate,y excluded excluded from from WW   *b,i$hed Vrite iters suc h a s Su san W arn er (7%e (7%e (The Hidden H a n d , 1859), and m ! ^ ^uthworth  W , ^ * »» » » * F r« r « ™ » n M iVete n d O t h e r S t o r ie [ n g „ n d N u n a nd i e s , 1891; f t miTOf e au th o rs o f t h e s ec e c o nd n d h al a l f o f t h e n in in et et e e n th th ce c e n t, t, b y m o s ( P o p u l ar ar » • «* «* n ot ot d e em e m e d w o r th t h y t o be b e in in c lu lu d e d in in th th e e a ^ e " A m e ri ri « n f ic ic ttii o n , Showa owalte lter, m ust cease. In he r influenti influential al essav 4 Such e x c l u s i o n ,   says (1997 1997)), Show alter alter asse rts that feminist theorist theorist** ^ 3 Fem,nis Fem,nis'' Poetics" ?* * frame framewor work k for an aly sis o f  women's literature to h a fema le s ed   on the s ttu u d y o f f em em a l e e x p er e r ie ie n c e, e , r a th th e r t h an an t4 t4 ° P n e w m o d e ‘ s b a se t h e o ri e s ," a p r o c es e s s s h e n a m e s g y n o c r it i t ic ic is i s m r f t 0  ma,e   ma,e m o d e l s  an d S ho w alter e xp x p o se s e s t h e f a ls ls e c u lt lt ur ura l a s s u m o l 7 h g y no n o cr c r i t i c is is m , wome women n as dep icted in can on ical literature Sh , chara cteristics cteristics of gynocr gynocrit itic ics— s— a classification classification she give s to tho*« ° WaIter WaIter coins the wo rd L i e f r a m ew e w o rk rk f or o r t h e a n al al ys y s iiss o f w o m e n s ® h cs c s W h o " ^ s t r u c t a f e e els b ased on o n t h e s ttu u d y o f f em e m a l e ex e x p er e r ie ie n ce c e 4 4 4 7 ° d ev ev eJ eJ o P n ew ew m o d models and theories." Gynocritics a n d   ev e v n o rrin v ^ ^ f° aad daP f t o m a l e   models that address the nature o f   wo w o m en e n 's 's wr w r i t ' ^ P r o v i d e u s w i t h   four S i ca ca l t h e l i n -   guisti istic, c, the psy cho ana lytic, and the cultural 8 ' the b l o l o Si Each Each of Show aIter's aIter's m odels is sequential sequential *„h c the precedi preceding ng mo del or mo dels. The biolo gical f nd d ev eI ° P > n g  fem female body mark s itself on a t ex t bv Dm Dm !iH mo de] emphasizes ho w the

along with a p erson al, int intiima matte to to n ^ f t ! h° St °f JJiiterary ^^ges n«d for a female discourse, discourse, inv es.feaUn J m . H ,',' m° del >ddr >ddree“ <* 'he women and men use l a n g u a 4 .T h f s m o d 7 f b e t w e e n how write rite in a lang la nguag uagee d i s t i n c t t o  their heir gende genderr an d^ ri? ** **“ * 7 ™ " Create an and d this female female language langu age can be used I n ih d  ways in which t h e  ways model an analy alyzes zes thefema7e thefem a7e psyche and de " T ! 1" 88; 88 ; The the wri writing pr proces ocesss, e K ^ f e m g mS as o p p o s e d t o m a l e w r i t i n g   L h i u x  a”d f l u i d i t y o f f em em a l e w r i t -   Showalter's models, the cultural L o d i T ^ ^ structure- The l a s t o f   women's goals goals,, respons responses, es, and points points of view view ^ h0,V h0 ,V ‘ °C M y   shaPes   shaPes

Geographical Strains of Feminism During the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, no one critical theory of writing dominated emirust criticism because feminist theory and criticism highlighted the per sonal, allowing for diverse theories and approaches to textual analysis, isto istori rica call lly y, geography geogr aphy played play ed a signific sig nificant ant role in determining the major in^ t s of the the various various voices of feminist criticism, with three somewhat somewhat distinct, distinct, ^graphical strains of feminism having emerged: American, British, and rench. These geographical divisions no longer serve as distinct theoretical

154

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or pract practica icall boundar boundaries ies but but do remain remain im portant as historical m arke ar ke r • inism's inism's developme development. nt. According to to Showa lter, Am erican fem inis ‘n W time was essentially textual, textual, stressing repression o f texts authored by f *1 K  British feminism was essentially Marxist, stressing oppression; and feminism feminism was essentially psych oanaly tic, stressing stress ing repre r epression ssion.. The ain ain/ /^1^ groups groups was simi similar lar:: to rescue women from bein g consid c onsid ered "the Other Other American For American feminism, Kolodny announced feminism's i: the restoration restoration and inclusion o f the writin wri tings gs o f female fem ale writer ma,0r ,0r concern: ’ a *0 the

literary canon. Believing that literary history is itself a fiction, Kolodny rer e a l i s t i c history of women so so th that th they the themse mselve lves can tell s ! ° r » in order order to tell and and write write herstory, female writ wr iter erss must find a mean* to gain their voice in the midst of the dominating male voices seeking society's attention. hr The Lay o flhe fl he Und: Un d: Metaphor as Expertence and and Hist Histor oryy;*  Americ  American an Life Life and Utters   (1975) and The Und before Her: Fantasy ani American n Frontiers, 1630-1860  (1984), Kolodny uses feministExperi ence o f the America psychoanalytic theories and methodologies to assert that the American col onists attributed to the land feminine characteristics to soften and allay their fears concerning the land’s unknown but potential terrors. Whereas some males viewed the American frontier as a new Eden, female colonists often saw it as a hom homee and and a "familial "familial human community. In a later work, work, Failing the Future: A Dean Looks at Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century (1998), Kolodny provides provides evidence that women are still sti ll ou tsid si d ers' er s' at Americ rican universities and on college campuses. She also documents the rising an tifeminist and anti-intellectual harassment occurring against women in higher education. Similar to Kolodny, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, authors of The  Mad  Madw woman oman in the the Atti Attic: c: Th Thee Woman oman Writer riter and the Nineteenth-cen Nineteenth-century tury Li Literary Imagination (1979), declare that the male voice has, for too long, been domi nant. Because males have had the power of the pen and the press, they have been allowed not only to define but also to create images of women as they so chose in their texts. Gilbert and Gubar maintain that this male power has caused what they call "anxiety of authorship" in women, causing them to fear both the act of literary creation itself and writing. Some female writers believe that literary creation will isolate them from society, perhaps destroy ing therm Gilbert and Gubar's solution is that women develop a "woman's sentence" that can encourage literary autonomy. By inventing such a con struction, a woman can sentence male authors to isolation, to fear, and to s e n te n c in g n ° T the the canon' canon' Just as for centuries centu ries males males have been Guba Gubarr fe m a lp ^ T ^ cumulating cumulating a w om oman an's 's senten sen tence, ce, say Gilb Gilber ertt an A w Z r r W,n free ,hems hemsel elve vess from being being defi define ned d by men. being reduced I T T ' argUe GUbert ert an and d Gubar Gubar,, wil willl also also fre freee women tify tify two two suc such h pu p u n cim ci m l'™ 1* ^ ' 0"1' 1' ima8es 'bat 'b at appear app ear in literature. Th They i e  principal .mage* "the angel in the house" and the "madwom^

t h e an attic." When depicted as ange gell in ,u th? that her physical a n d m a t er er i a l C n n J b e   litres  h°  h° Use> se>a Wom. l r goals in life are to please her he r hush;, 7 ^ ° rts aa- g,f(s f " suPP suPP<*ed|y

& W Through these s u p p o r t , * v e n t  by servi serving ng both both him and her c h ild il d !

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Whereas American feminism emphasized repression, British femi nismstressed oppression. Leaning toward Marxist theory, British feminism sawart, literature, and life as inseparable. Some British feminists, although not all, viewed reading, writing, and publishing as facets of material reality. Being part of this material reality, literature, like one's job and one's social ac tivities, is part of a great whole, with each part affecting the others. How a fe male is depicted depicted in literatu literature re direct directly ly affects affects how women will be treated in real life. Particularly in the West, patriarchal society exploits women not only through literature but also economically and socially. The traditional Wester tern fam family ily structure, structure, assert assert these these femin feminist ist critics, critics, subordinates women, causing them to be economically dependent. The West's literature reflects such dependency. British feminism of this era challenges the economic and social status of women, both in society and as depicted in the arts, especially in texts. For these critics, the goal of feminist criticism is to change society, not simply critique it.

British

French French feminism, the third geographical division of feminism, stressed female oppression both in life and art, highlighting the repression of w°men. French French feminism feminism is is clos closely ely associ associated ated with the theoretical theoreti cal and prac tical applications of psychoanalysis and the theories of Sigmund Freud and deques Lacan. At first, the association with psychoanalysis may be a bit Puzzling because Freud and his patriarchal theories seemingly dominate Psychoanalysis. Believing that the phallus is power, Freud viewed women ar>d'n^m^ ete ma^es who posse possess ss penis penis envy, desi desiri ring ng to gain gain the mal malee phall phallus us Laca°btain P°wer. In several ways, the French psychoanalytic critic Jacques 3n rescues psychoanalysis from Freud's misogynistic theories. Lacan

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Chapter Cha pter 7 • Feminism

argues that language ultimately shapes and structures our conscious and conscious minds, minds, thereby shaping our self-i se lf-identi dentity, ty, not the pha phal, l,£ Language as it is structured structured and understoo unders tood, d, Lacan Lacan maintain maintains, s, ultima ultimat • y denies women the power of literature and writing. Lacan Lacan posits that the human psyche consi consists sts of three parte, or wh what ^ calls orders: the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real. Each of these or(jer interacts interacts with the others. From birth birth to six mon month thss or or so, we primarily fUnc tion in the imaginary order, a preverbal state that contains our wishes, 0Ur fantasies, and our physical images. In this state we are basically genderless because we are not yet capable of differentiating ourselves from our mothers. As soon as we have successfully navigated the Oedipal crisis, we pass from using a biological language to a socialized language and into the sec ond of the Lacanian orders: the symbolic order. In this Lacanian phase, the male becomes dominant, particularly in the discourse of language. The fe male, on the other hand, is socialized into using a subordinated language. In this order, the father is the dominant image (the Law), with both the male and the female fearing castration by the father. For the boy, this fear of cas tration means obeying and becoming like the father, while simultaneously repressing the imaginary order that is most closely associated with the fe male body. The imaginary order, with its pre-Oedipal boy desires, becomes a direct threat to the male in the third Lacanian order, the real order, or the ac tual world as perceived by the individual. For the girl, entrance into the sym bolic order means submission to law of the father. Such submission brings subservience to males. Being socialized through the discourse of language, the girl becomes a second-class citizen. Because language, for Lacan, is a psy chological, not a biological, construct, he believes that women can learn the dominant discourse of both the symbolic and the real orders and become tools of social, political, and personal change. French feminists such as Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous borrow and amend elements of Freud's and Lacan's theories to develop their own forms of feminist criticism. In works such as Revolution in Poetic Language (1974), Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art  (1980), and Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (European Perspectives) (1982), Kristeva posits that the imaginary order is characterized by a continuous flow of fluidity or r ythm, which which she calls chora. On enterin enter ing g the Lac L acan ania ian n symbolic symboli c or order, both males and females are separated from chora and repress the feelings of . , U1 S*m*lar to a Freudian slip in which an unconscious \ th: th: : i h‘ b; , et thr™ thr™gh gh the the cons conscio cious us mind mind,, the chora, chora, at tim times, breaks in T a m !1 * "k ^  3nd dis,Urbs the male-dominant discount And '>o f Lov L ovee  )  ,(  897  1Kristeva's 7 risteva's concept of "motherT s inf > 2 , as K to be the central thn writin8 because she asks what she beiieveS enquiry into the C” mplex question questi on o f fem fem inist inist theory: theory : "How can can an the part played in lovebv j™ therh therhood ood lcad to a better understanding n P yed in love by the wo woma man? n?"" Krist Kristeva eva argu ar gues es that that wom women en mns< ° 

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P RE R E SE S E N TT - D A Y F E M I N I S T C R I T I C IS IS M S

Because contemporary feminist criticism is not composed of a single ideol ogy, many subcategories or approaches have developed, each creating its own sphere of conc c oncern ern while whi le often intersecting not only with with othe otherr forms of feminist criticism but also with other schools of literary criticism, such as psychoanalysis, Marxism, and deconstruction. Some scholars categorize feminist criticism into four groups: Anglo-American feminisms (e.g., Virginia Woolf, Judith Fetterley, Annette Kolodny, Nina Baym, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert, and Susan Gubar); poststructuralist feminisms (e.g., Luce Irigaray, Catherine Clement, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Monique Wittig, Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and Joan Scott); materialist feminisms (e.g., Juliet Mitchell, Michele Barrett, Jacqueline Rose, Rosalind Coward, Toril Moi, Catherine Belsey, Katie King, and Donna Haraway); and postmodern feminisms, usually dating from 1990 to the present (e.g., Jane Gallop, Judith Butler, Diana Fuss, Chandra Mohanty, Uma Narayan, Mary  f   cllural.(nTor;es Daly, and Gloria Anzaldua). Other Other critics divide feminist E lu d in g Amaz azon on fem femirangin ranging g in numb nu mber er from fro m nine ni ne to more feminism, separatism, an and d nism nism, cultur cul tural al fem fe m inis in ism, m, ecofem eco femim imsm sm,, Cfpminism fpmini sm is dedicated to fefepostcolonial fem inism , to c ite a few A m a z e , a h , emphaSize male ale images—eith images—e ither er fiction fict ional al or real both males an and d fefethe the physiques of fema fe male le athlet ath letes es and physica eq women wom en based on males ales Opposed to gender gende r roles and discrimm discrimmatum atum against against ^ Amaz Amazon on the the false assum as sumpti ption onss that females fem ales are p ysica y for example, example, wh when en feminism argues that no mention of gender need arise,

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discussing such topics as occupations. Whereas some people are not p W caHy capable of being a firefighter, others are likewise not capable of a snowplow. Gender is not an issue because there are no characteristics,^ assert, that are peculiarly masculine or feminine. y Sometimes referred to as radical feminism cultural feminism assert* that personality and biological differences exist between men and w0men According to cultural feminists such as Elizabeth Gould Davis (The First Ser  1971), the main tenet of cultural feminism states that women are inherent^ and biologically "kinder and gentler" than men. Such women's ways should be celebrated because in the eyes of many cultural feminists, women's Ways are better than men's. Ecofeminism (sometimes spelled eco-feminism) assumes that patriar chal societies are relatively new and that society s original condition (dubbed the feminist Eden) was matriarchal. Patriarchal societies, say ecofeminists, are detrimental to women, children, and nature. Whereas a pa triarchal society dominates both women and nature, plundering and de stroying our planet, a matriarchal society protects the environment, natural resources, and animal life and especially cares for women and children. Authored by Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of  Feminist Designs for American Homes (1981) highlights the concerns of material feminism. Developing in the latter part of the nineteenth century, ---- •* feminism aims to improve the material condition of women by unburdening them of "traditional" female tasks such as housework, cooking, ironing clothes, and other domestic responsibilities. Separatist feminism, however, advocates separation from men, either total or partial. Although some sepa ratists may be lesbians, it is inaccurate to assume that all separatists are les bians. Separatists assume that women must first see themselves in a different context—separating themselves from men, at least for a while—before they can discover who they are as individuals. Such a separation, they maintain, is the necessary first step to achieving personal growth and individuality. Sometimes known as third-world feminism, postcolonial feminism shares many of its basic principles with postcolonialism (see Chapter 10). Like postcolonialism, postcolonial feminism rejects the phallocentric, patri archal system established by white males and recognizes that it is engaged in a political and social struggle against male dominance. These theorists and critics liken women to colonized subjects who are defined by the "male gaze" and are thus reduced to stereotypes and subjected to the long-lasting social and economic effects of colonialism. In particular, postcolonial femi nists object to using the term woman,  believing that such usage defines fe males by only their sex. and theory feminist critics may espoi  3 * ey are on a journey of self-discovery that will lead then Seeking to^inH^1) themselves' their society, and the world at la] Seeking to understand themselves first as individuals, they believe that t 3 t su b c a t e g ° r y

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To onlookers, feminist theory and practice aone^r u connected body of criticism that is more dividldthan internal disagreements than to unity among its adherents. FemmlTcntSm cannot claim nor indeed wants to claim anv ultim o remin,st cr,t,asm feminists believe in the personal and advoLe for many’d d S l ^ t o be heard and respected Not to be understood as homogeneous, feminTsUrih icism should, in actuality, be dubbed feminist criticisms. Behind all these voices, theories, and practices, however, rests an essential set of principles The core belief of feminist theory and criticism asserts that all peoplewomen and men are politically, socially, and economically equal. Although diverse in its social theories, values, and politics, feminist criticism chiefly advocates for the rights of women. Its adherents are women (and some men) who are involved in a journey of self-discovery, asking themselves such questions as who they are, how they arrived at their present situation, and where they are going. In their search, they value the person, validating and giving significance to the individual as opposed to the group. Their search at times is political because their aim is to discover and change both themselves and the world in which they live, a world that must learn to validate all in dividuals, all cultures, and all subcultures as creative, aesthetic, and rational people who can contribute to their societies and their world. Such a revision ist stance seeks to understand the place of women in society and to analyze every aspect that affects women as citizens and as writers in a male-dominated world. In this patriarchal world, man more frequently than not defines what it means to be human. Woman has become the Other, the not-male. Man is the subject, the one who defines meaning. Woman is the object, having her existence defined and determined by the male. The man is the significant (or privileged, using Derrida's term) binary in the male/female relationship whereas the woman is the subordinate (or unprivileged). By defining the female in relation to the male and claiming; s,mu taneously the superiority of the male, Western society and many other cultures are, for the most part, patriarchal, decreeing that the ema e, y na inferior. As soon as Western culture both conscious y at j| 1  similated this belief into its social structures and alowed . . o  permeate all levels of society, females became an oppressed people, infen suppressed lest humankind fail to reach its maximum P° ^ Df . Feminist theorists and critics want to correct »“ch ^ o u j w a j . -o thinking. Women, they declare, are individuals, peop

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METHODOLOGY Because feminist theory and criticisms are polyphonic, a variety of feminist approaches to textual analysis exists. Some feminist critics debunk male su periority by exposing stereotypes of women in all literary periods. Women, they assert, cannot be simply depicted and classified as either angels or demons, saints or whores, or brainless housewives or eccentric spinsters. Such bipolar characterizations must be continually identified and challenged. Other feminist critics continue to scrutinize the American, the English, or the non-Westem literary canon, rediscovering works written by women. Still other feminist critics reread the canonical works of male authors from a fe male point of view. Such an analysis develops a uniquely female conscious ness based on female experience rather than relying on the traditional male theories of reading, writing, and critiquing. Elaine Showalter's gynocriticism with its multifaceted approach helps feminist critics in such an analysis. Some feminist critics such as Luce Irigaray use the methodologies of phi losophy and psychoanalysis to overturn patriarchy with its accompanying phallocentrism. These critics' aim is to expose the multiple ways that patri archal discourses empower males while disenfranchising women. And crit ics such as Julia Kristeva and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak employ the methodologies of linguistics, Marxism, deconstruction, and subaltern stud ies to overturn and to provide an alternative for patriarchal discourse. In similar fashion, critics such as Monique Wittig and Helene Cixous propose a completely new, nonphallocentric discourse. Wittig challenges not only patriarchal assumptions in culture but also the very structure of language  Jt^df experimenting and hoping to eliminate pronouns and nouns, for exam ple, that reflect gender, a process she calls the lesbianization of languageCixous feminist methodology embraces the creation of a female language

Chapter 7 • Feminism

161

 , n ittitte, to open phallocentric discourse to both sexes. Providing  *  y.allenge the dominant discourse is also a chief concern for both  jpodefcto C1 feminists and wom en of color feminists. .tcoloma varjous appro aches to feminist criticisms, an in-depth under* To ^ ^ variou s theoretical positions and methodologies is esstandif>? ° ^ fo rtu n ate ly su ch a stud y is beyond the scope of this text.

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QUESTIONS f o r a n a l y s i s  Whatever method of feminist criticisms we choose to apply to a text we can

begin such textual analysis by asking the following questions as ttey relate to Nathaniel Hawthorne s short story "Young Goodman Brown " Be oreF pared to discuss your answers in class. • Is the author male or female? • Is the text narrated by a male or female? • What types of roles do women have in the text? . . . . . . .

Are the female characters the protagonists or secondary and mmor characters? Do any stereotypical characterizations of women appear? What are the attitudes toward women held by the male characters? What is the autho r's attitude toward women in society? How does the author's cultu re influence her or his attitude? Is feminine imagery used? If so, what is the significance of such imagery? Do the female ch ara cte rs speak diff eren tly than do the male characters? Compare the frequency of speech for the male characters to that of the female characters. c

By applying any or all of these questions to a text, we can begin our journey in feminist criticism and simultaneously help ourselves to better understand ourselves as individuals and the world in which we live.

CRITIQUES AND RE SP O N SE S At the beginning of this chapter are a variety of quotations pronounced by wales concerning females; now let us listen to the voices of females: you have to make more noi se than anybody else, you have to make yourself more  ° trusive than anybody else, you have tofill all thepapers more than anybody else, mfact you have to be there ail the timeand see that they do not snow you under, i f  you are really goi ng to get your reform realized. Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragist (1858-1928)

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like Boston, is a state of mind. It is the state of mind of women who alre that their whole position in the social order is antiquahd, as a woman COok^' t Z an (fenfire with heavy iron pots would know that her entire houseke uus out of date. ° anybodyunlessit was some feminists. The danger i the studyand c o n t e m p l a t i o n of -ourselves may become so absorbing that * by slow degrees a high m il that shuts out the great world of thought. Feminism nave

harmed

Rheta Childe Dorr, journalist (1866- 194^

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people. Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me  from a doormat. Reb ecca West

(1913)

Feminism is an entire world viewor gestalt, not just a laundry list of women’s issues. Charlotte Bunch, editor, author (1944-)

It is important to remember thatfeminism is no longer a group of organizations or  leaders. It is the expectations that parents have for their daughters, and their sons too. It is the way we talk about and treat one another. It is who makes the money and who makes the compromises and who makes the dinner. It is a state of mind. It is the way of life we live now.

Anna Quindlen, journalist, novelist (1945— ) Feminism is a political term and it must be recognized as such: it is political in women's terms. What are these terms? Essentially it means making connections: between personal power and economic power, between domestic oppression and labor exploitation, between plants and chemicals, feelings and theories; it means making connections between our inside worlds and the outside world.

Anica Vesel Mander (1945-) and Anne K. Rush (1945-) Femi™m is a commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that perme ates Western culture on various levels-sex, race, and class, to name af ew - ^ n d a commitment to reorganizing US society, so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires.

bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman (1983)

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163

F er m m s m a sk s t h e w o r l d t o r ec o g n i z e a t l o n g l a st t h a t w o m en a r e n ' t d ec or a t i v e o r    n a m en t s , w o r t h y v e ssel s o f a s peci a ;i n t e r e s t g r o u p . T h ey a r e h a l f (i n f a ct , n o w   m o r e t h a n h a l f ) o f t h e n a t i o n a l p o p u l a t i o n , a n d j u s t a s d es er v i n g o f r i g h t s a n d o p -   p o r t u n i t i es , j u s t a s ca p a b l e o f p a r t i c i p a t i n g i n t h e w o r l d ' s ev en t s , a s t h e o t h er h al f . F em i n i s m s a g e n d a i s b a s i c : I t a sk s t h a t w o m en n o t b e f o r c e d t o c h o o se b et w een   p u b l i c j u s t i c e a n d p r i v a t e h a p p i n es s. I t a sk s t h at w o m en b e f r e e t o d ef i n e t h em -   sel v es i n s t ea d o f h a v i n g t h e i r i d en t i t y d e f i n e d f o r t h em , t i m e a n d a g a i n , b y t h ei r   c u l t u r e a n d t h ei r m en  .

Susan Faludi,

  (1991) Backlash 

F em i n i s m i s a n o n g o i n g p r o j e ct , a p r o c es s, u n d er t a k en o n a d a i l y b a si s b y m i l -   l i o n s o f w o m en o f a l l a g es , cl a s ses , et h n i c a n d r a ci a l b a c k g r o u n d s , a n d s ex u a l   p r e f e r e n c e s  . F em i n i s m i s c o n st a n t l y b ei n g r ei n v e n t e d , a n d r e i n v en t ed t h r o u g h   d et e r m i n a t i o n a n d c o m p r o m i s e, so t h a t w o m en t r y , a s b est t h e y ca n , t o h a v e l o v e   a n d su p p o r t a s w el l a s p o w er a n d a u t o n o m y .

Susan Douglas,

  (1994) W h er e t h e G i r l s A r e  

T h e c o n n ec t i o n s b e t w een a n d a m o n g w o m en a r e t h e m o st f e a r e d , t h e m o s t p r o b -   l em a t i c , a n d t h e m o st p o t en t i a l l y t r a n s f o r m i n g f o r c e o n t h e p l a n et .

Adrienne Rich, poet (1929-)

Disturbingly, for many people, Adrienne Rich's words encapsulate the essence of feminist criticism: it is feared, it is problematic, and it has the abil ity and the transformative power to reshape our world. A branch of feminist studies grounded in feminist theory and scholarship, feminist criticism is a heterogeneous grouping of scholars, writers, linguists, philosophers, scien tists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, educators, and peoples from all professions and walks of life who believe that both women and men are equal. As a social movement, feminist criticism highlights the various ways women, in particular, have been oppressed, suppressed, and repressed. It asks new questions of old texts. It develops and uncovers a female tradi tion in writing. It analyzes women writers and their works from female perspectives. It attempts to redefine literary concepts and the dominant discourse—language itself—in terms of gender. It disavows the privileged position of males in a predominantly patriarchal society. It questions basic assumptions about gender, gender difference, and sexuality. And it demands that we become resisting readers to the established male hierarchies upon which our culture and our literature have been shaped. Critics of feminist criticism often view it as a collection of theorists and critics who cannot decide what they really believe. Its critics assert that one group of feminist criticism defines "female" and 'male one way, while an other develops conflicting and sometimes contradictory definitions. Even

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Chapter 7 • Feminism

within feminist criticism itself, the various subentogories criticize each Postcolonist feminists, ft>r example, harshly critique Western f„rms olh«. cism. Psychoanalytic feminist critics often view their cultures and So! nti' differently from materialistic or Marxist critics. Because of such difft.re critics avow that the multiple voices of feminist criticism(s) cannot susta ^ 7 unified ideology. *n a Feminist criticism's conservative critics advocate that the goal of f , nist criticism is to destroy traditional values and gender roles. Males and^'* males, argue these critics, are naturally and biologically different. From th e' critics' point of view, feminist criticism is rooted in error and has become 7 * them, the enemy. Some even blame their own lack of success in business °f any other area in the public arena on the rise of feminism and maintain fh* the chief aim of feminists is "to look for stuff to get mad about." And m ^ of these critics argue that it is now males who are the oppressed. Whether such criticism is real or imagined, present-day feminist c V believe that discrimination against women still exists not only in America worldwide—discrimination in the workplace, in the home, in the church ' government, and in society as a whole. Issues such as the glass ceil''m human trafficking, slavery, and prostitution continue to plague society1? such injustices, feminist critics will continue to add their voices of protest °

8 Ma r x i s m

 Art is always and everywhere the secret confession as well as the undying monuments [sic] of its time.

Adolph Bernhard Marx, The Music of the Nineteenth Century, 1855

INTRODUCTION ith the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, many heard the death knell pronouncing loudly the demise of Marxism and its accompanying political and ideological structures. Down came the Berlin Wall, down came the Iron Curtain, and supposedly down came Marxism as an alternative form of government to capitalism and as an acceptable worldview. Many capitalists rejoiced because Marxism had apparently fallen. Seemingly, Marxists had only the glorious memories of the earlier decades of the twentieth century in which to rejoice—a time when Stalin ruled Russia, when Marxist theory dominated both English and American writings, and when college campuses in both the East and the West were led and taught by intellectuals who committed themselves to Marxist ideology. Many now believed that such ideology was finally dead! Performing only a limited Internet search under the keyword "Marxism" results in a listing of more than 7 million sites with titles such as "Learning What Marxism Is About," "In Defence of Marxism," "Marxist Media Theory," "Women and Marxism," "Marxism, Philosophy, and Economics," "Living Marxism," and "What Is Living and What Is Dead in Marx's Philosophy," proving that Marxist theories and criticism are not only alive but also may even be prospering. Announcements for newly published texts advocating sympathy for and support of Marxist ideology in all academic disciplines appear regularly. College courses in Marxist political theory, sociology, literature, and literary theory abound. Perhaps the death knell for Marxism was struck prematurely.

W

165

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Chapter 8 • Marxism

Wha, is i. .ha, fascinates oT co™ ^ Marxism? Why did disapp rincipies of Marxist thoughtugm. * * East? The answer liesitinnot som e of the core pm Y   • • . •

Reality itself can be defined and understood. Society shapes our consciousness. , Social and economic conditions directly influence how and wha, we believe and value. ,, . The world as we know it can be changed from a place of bigotry hatred, and conflict due to class struggle into a classless society in w wealth, opportu. nity, and education are accessible for everyone. ic

By articulating a coherent, clear, and comprehensive worldview and a plan of action for implementation of its ideas, Marxism asserts that it provides an swers to many of the complex questions about how life is and ought to be ex perienced while simultaneously challenging other ideologies to provide their pragmatic answers for these same concerns. The selfsame problems that gave rise to Marxism exist today. Despite its glory decades of the early 1900s and its present-day seemingly embattled position, Marxism declares that it offers a comprehensive, positive view of human life and history that demonstrates how humanity can save itself from a meaningless life of alienation and despair. A worldview that affords a bright promise for the future and a transformation of society will not vanish with the knocking down of a wall or the collapse of the former USSR. Borrowing Mark Twain's phraseology, "Announcements of Marxism's death have been greatly exaggerated."

H I S T O R IC A L D E V E L O P M E N T Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Unlike many schools of literary criticism, Marxism did not begin as an alter native, theoretical approach to literary analysis. Before many twentieth century writers and critics embraced the principles of Marxism and use. nineteednthSrln T ™  the°neS ^ criticisms' Marxism had flourished in th classes an o o n lT afPra§matic view °f history that offered the workin * *  W° rld a" d providingbodrar>hd^ -dividual lives. B in society Marxism rU °P system and a plan of action to initiate chang demanding of the naLrTofreah^131,13011^ 31, economic' and cultural UJ theory. These and nth^ i ^ S0ciety and the individual, not a literar b—

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Vter a tv theory has its roots in the nineteenth-century writings of NurX'St UKial critic and philosopher Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1885). lV r^n. iieve that Marx himself said little about the relationship of his *Tv;tcht'cS theory. Surprisingly, however, in the standard German ediVjastohtcra ' . wor^s 0{ Friedrich Engels 0--~ (1820-1895), VXV-W-JU7 J), Marx's iviarx s friend, trier ^ „ of tntr »he 00^and . oftentimes  J ' 'Marx, these critic-philosophe  __ - —coauthor,   ------and nipau.--, isw»^Hire and art fill aimncfr — 1 ------ " ^m iinPatri° nlents on literature and art fill a|m t v /i  _  pa rticulates a literary theory or methodology of criticism, Marxist ^eclearly articulates theorvotVVOVo,umes literary ^clearly critica sm does not.  jdevelop until^ - ' " methodology • - - o f c "Se neith™ vol _ __________  „ .- i  ____ 

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philosophical assumpH„ns, variety of Marxist approaches to textual analysis that focus on the study of the relaLship between a text and the society that reads it. At the core of all these Averse approaches are Marx and his philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality itself. Marx and Engels articulate their views on the nature of reality in two w0rks: The German Ideology  (1845) and The Communist Manifesto (1848). In The German Ideology, they develop what has become known as dialectical materialism, a core belief of Marxism. Originally the word dialectic was used by the Greek philosophers Plato and Socrates to describe a form of logical argumentation involving conflicting ideas, propositions, or both. In the nine teenth century, the German philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) rede fines the term as a process whereby a thesis is presented, followed by a counterstatement, the antithesis. What develops from the ensuing debate is anewidea called the synthesis. Engels and Marx adapt Hegel's concept of synthesis in formulating dialectical materialism—that is, their understand ing of how workers can lead a class war and establish a new social order. Both Engels and Marx assert that "consciousness does not determine life: life determines consciousness." A person's consciousness is not shaped by any spiritual entity; through daily living and interacting with others, humans de fine themselves. To Engels and Marx, our ideas and concepts about who we are and who we are becoming are fashioned in everyday interactions and in the language of real life. Such concepts are not derived from some Platonic essence or any other spiritual reality. In asserting their materialistic view of humanity, Engels and Marx argue that the economic means of production within a society—what they call the base —both engenders and controls all human institutions and ideologies—the superstructure—including all social andlegal institutions, all political and educational systems, all religions, and aHart. These ideologies and institutions develop as a direct result of the economic means of production, not the other way around. Accordingly, all societies are progressing toward communism. Believing Progress is reactionary or revolutionary, Marx and Engels assert that as a sodety progresses in its economic mode of production from a feudal system to amore market-based economy, the actual process for producing, distributand consuming goods becomes more complex. Thus, each individual s

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*» expccMlio'’ 8 "'.* ®c h a n g e in the economic base tains Marx, tl conflicts, lead to a ‘ . on inherited wealth and staSuch clashes, t r ‘ stem of power be private property. This of society ^ * ‘^ X e d on the customs, and r e i f g ^ ^flentaUshmunterablechanges/al periods developed as a result According to Marx and Engels ialism, and communism Marx and of these forces: feudalism, historical penod but a transthonal Engels believe that soaal.sm .sncd a goal, communism. When sostage between capital sm and Enge,s call the worker s para dtseciety reaches this goal-what Ma be established. then and only then wiUbenevolent  Manifesto,  Marx and Engels In their coauthored text Tl _ eoisie, have successfully enslaved maintain that the capitalists, or fViroueh economic policies and prothe working class, or strip the bourgeoisie of its duction ofand goods. The pro e anand pla e me ownership property* in the economic poliltcalpoyr ow F of all V ^ hands of the government, who will tnen mu

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In a later work, Das Kapital  (1867), authored by Marx himself, Marx enunciates the view of history that has become the basis for twentieth- and twenty-first-century Marxism, socialism, and communism: History and a corresponding understanding of people and their actions and beliefs are de termined by economic conditions. Marx maintains that an intricate web of social relationships emerges when any group of people engage in the pro duction of goods. A few, for example, will be the employers, but many more will be the employees. The employers (the bourgeoisie) have the economic power and thereby gain social and political control of their society. Eventually, this upper class will control the dominant discourse and formal ize and articulate their beliefs, their values, and their arts to develop their ideology. Coined by the French rationalist philosopher Destutt de Tracy in the late eighteenth century, the word ideology  referred to the "science of ideas as opposed to metaphysics. Marx borrows this term and uses it pejoCnnlr ^ °i ^ ^ * 0 * 6   k°urge°isie s ruling ideas, customs, and practices. , T h the DroMlria yaUo m°U S'y' ^slaves rU'ingIn dass  w i l 1 fU  force the proletariat, also called wage u its ideology • • on *n Ao velop and control the superstructurP i ^ bou r§eoisie WlU de' u T m i richer, while the poor become pome r * ' he surprisingly, the boureeoisip'* n i d m° re and more oppressed. Not system upon which i f was founded” ^ffectively worlUe ^ ldeology. The average worker, however, Marx calls this n e g a ^ of the ruling U «-; b sense of ideology faise conscioUsness, which

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describes the ways in which the dominant social class shapes and controls each person s self-definition and class consciousness. From Marx', point of view, the working classes fail to see who they really are in such a society: an exploited, oppressed class of people. In a capitalist society, Marx believes that such an ideology leads to frag mentation and alienation of individuals, particularly those of the proletariat. As a direct result of division of labor within the capitalist society, workers no longer have contact with the entire process of producing, distributing, and consuming material goods. Instead, individuals are cut off from the full value of their work as well as from each other, each performing discrete functional roles assigned to them by the bourgeoisie. To rid society of this situation, Marx believes that the government must own all industries and control the economic production of a country to protect the people from the oppression of the bourgeoisie. Taken together, The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital develop a the ory of history, economics, politics, sociology, and metaphysics. In these writ ings, little is mentioned of literature, literary theory, or practical analysis of how to arrive at an interpretation of a text. The link between the Marxism of its founders and literary theory resides in Marx's concept of history and the sociological leanings of Marxism itself. Marx believed that the history of a people is directly based on the production of goods and the social relation ships that develop from this situation. He also assumed that the totality of a people's experience—social interactions, employment, and other day-to-day activities—is directly responsible for the shaping and the development of an individual's personal consciousness. Marx, thus, highlights his belief that our place in society and our social interaction determine our consciousness or who we really are. During Marx's lifetime, the acceptable literary approach to textual analysis was grounded in sociological assumptions similar to those held by Marx. Marx, then, had no difficulty accepting his literary peers' methodol ogy (hermeneutics) for interpreting a text. Known today as the traditional historical approach, this methodology declares that critics should place a work in its historical setting, paying attention to the author's life, the time period in which the work was written, and the cultural milieu of both the text and the author—all of these concerns being related to sociological issues. To these criteria, Marx adds another: the economic means of produc tion. This fourth factor addresses, for example, who decides what texts should be published, when a text should be published, or how a text is to be distributed. Such concerns require an understanding of the social forces at work at the time a text is written or is being interpreted. In addition, they force the critic to investigate the intricate web of social relationships not only within the text itself but also outside the text and within the world of the au thor. In adding this sociological dimension, Marxism expands the tradi tional, historical approach to literary analysis by dealing with sociological

170

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characters in a w ork o f fiction as well This added dimension, Marx believed, links •• ..... ,s».,r:1h iri» refle cts so ciety and how In,

Russia and Marxism

Thanks to Georgy V. Plekhanov's Russian translation of The CommUtlj  Manifesto, Marx?s theories soon gained wide exposure and Plekhanov (1857-1918), author of such works as Fundamental Pmblemsof   Marxism (1908) and  Art and Social Life (1912), is the founder of the Russia’ Social Democratic Party and is considered by some scholars to be the founder of Russian Marxism. In his writings, Plekhanov argues that gre3| historical figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte appear in history only when an intricate web of social conditions coalesce, directly facilitating their devel opment. Every gifted person who affects society is a product of such social relations. Artists, asserts Plekhanov, best serve society and promote social betterment when their art and societal concerns intersect. For Plekhanov, the then-prospering "art for art's sake" movement signaled a disturbing rift be tween artists and their social environment. Emphasizing an artist's impor tant role in society, Russian Marxism and the Russian leadership at the beginning of the twentieth century insisted that writers should also play a political role. Embracing Marx's theories, Russia became the first country to promote Marxist principles as both aesthetic and literary guidelines. Even before the Russian Revolution of 1917, Communist Party leaders insisted that literature promote the standards set forth by the party. For ex ample, in 1905, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) wrote Parti/ Organization and Party Literature, a work in which he directly links good literature with the working-class movement. In this work, Lenin claims that literature "must become part of the common cause of the proletariat, a 'cog and screw' of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism." Lenin's work defends all kinds of literature, holding to the supposition that something can be gleaned from any kind of writing. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Lenin amends his literary theory and criticism, arguing that the party could not accept or support literary works that blatantly defied established party policies. ! ussian Revo|ution, the revolutionary Leon Trotsky u iw ll tev, a",h»red^erature and Revolution (1924), the first of his nu"y AdvXa ine a n I y ‘S “ >nsidered the fe n d e r of Marxist literary criticis®; fom Xt o f ! I . “ f° r °Pen' critica' dialogue, Trotsky contends that the be evolutionary. To' force all p a * * was absurd. The partv^D jmneys ° f revolts against capitalism, he belieV J areas, but not all The o a r T ^rotsky' can offer direct leadership in m t Helping to * art' he claimed, must be in ^ not dominating it. Furthermore, the party mustg*

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what Trotsky called "its confidence" to those nonparty writers-whom he called "literary fellow-travelers '- w h o are sympathetic to the revolution. The Soviet Union s next political leader, Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), was not as liberal as Lenin or Trotsky in his aesthetic judgments. In 1927, Stalin es tablished the RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) to guard against liberal cultural tendencies. This group, however, proved to be too tol erant for Stalin. Only six years later, in 1932, Stalin abolished all artists' unions and associations, and established the Soviet Writers' Union, a group that he himself headed. The union decreed that all literature must glorify party actions and decisions. In addition, literature must exhibit revolutionary progress and teach the spirit of socialism that revolves around Soviet heroes. Such aesthetic commandments quickly stifled many Russian writers because the union allowed only politically correct" works to be published. Not sur prisingly, Stalin soon banished Trotsky, with the result that increasingly most Russian critics and writers succumbed to Stalin's guidelines rather than fol low Trotsky s public (and dangerous) example. It was left to critics outside Russia to explore and develop other Marxist approaches to literary criticism. Georg Lu kacs

The first major branch of Marxist theory to appear outside Russia was devel oped by the Hungarian Georg Lukacs (1885-1971). Lukacs and his followers borrowed and amended the techniques of Russian Formalism, believing that a detailed analysis of symbols, images, and other literary devices within a text would reveal class conflict and expose the direct relationship between the economic base and the superstructure. Known as reflection theory, this approach to literary analysis declares that a text directly reflects a society's consciousness. Reflection theorists such as Lukacs are necessarily didactic, emphasizing the negative effects of capitalism such as alienation. Known today as vulgar Marxism, reflectionists support a form of Marxism in which a one-way relationship exists between the base and the superstructure. For these theorists, literature is part of the superstructure and directly reflects the economic base. By giving a text a close reading, these critics believe they can reveal the reality of the text and the author's Weltanschauung, or world view. It is the critic's task to show how the characters within the text are typ ical of their historical, socioeconomic setting and the author's worldview.

The Frankfurt School Closely allied to Lukacs and reflection theory, another group of theorists emerged in Germany, the Frankfurt school, a neo-Marxist group devoted to developing Western Marxist principles. Included in this group are Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), Walter Benjamin

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Instead ol blindly accepting bourg5 ^ revolt and seize the motfc, «h ough dramatic conven tons-dre w what became known as the epic production. Apply®* * « ^ V o n m e n t of the Anstotehan prem.se of 1  P far Brecht advocates an aoa assumption that the audience P P time!place, and « * »   are $J ng „ real. During the ^  audience s normal expect* Should be made to behave that a,ie„ ation effect. For instance,mhis drama sperformance, t o * £ Hons, hoping to create what hec jth a direct appeal t 0  ,he audlence dramas he frequenrty mtermpts t h e ^ >w m rf the moral and via a song or speech to keep • exposed in the drama. Disavowing social issues to which they a that the audience must be  j> rs V te C d V o i B P , , the epic theater becomes a too! for exposing die bourgeois ideology that had permeated the arts.

 Antonio Gramsci fleets the economic S s ^ lt lta liln T m ^ b r 3586^ ^ ^   suPerstructure re‘ a complex relationship exists between th Grams^ (1891-1937) declares that Gramsci asks, is the bourgeoisie able to GbafSe,and the superstructure. How, over the proletariat? His answ •n u ° C° n r° an^ mamtain its dominance he calls hegemony—that is th^ & our8eo*sie establish and maintain what meaning and define realitv aSl?UrnPdonf' values and meanings that shape Because the bourgeoisie actnaiT &   maj()r^y °f people in a given culture, the elements that comprise thP 7 the economic base and establish all orth they gain the spontanpn SUF>er^tlructure—music, literature, art, and so pontaneous accolades of the working class. T h e working

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‘ If literature, however, is on ly a part of th the,r ovvnerature actually c once rn s itself w ith the boure„U^ rS,rUC,ure' 'ben all |it. becomes a tool of the privileged class, p re v e n tin g T *' ,n effect- literature Evolutions. Why write and study literature i f * , ' T in fur,her Marxist y  3 reflec,i<>n of the 5 Upeistructure, which is, in itself, the reflection of h 01  the economic base? Although Gramsci ponders s ? 6 0 ' 8  iduas Published his followers who provides the answer. n ^Uestl°ns, it is one of

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Althusser

In seeking an an sw er to the q uestion o f w hy anvone literatu re, L o u i s A l t h u s s e r ( 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 9 0 ) r ej ec ts a b as ic a s s u m p f l o W ^ f l e c  tion theory: nam ely, th at th e su p erstru ctu re directly reflects the hase W s answer, kn ow n to d ay as produ ction theory, asserts that literature should not be strictly relega ted to the su p erstru ctu re. In his works, especially For Marx (1965) and R e a d i n g ‘ C ap i t a l "   (197 0), A lthu sser argues that the superstructure can and d oes in fluen ce the b ase. A rt, then, can and does inspire revolution Althusser believes that the dominant hegemony, or prevailing ideology, f o r m s t h e a t t i t u d e s o f p e o p l e t h r o u g h a p r o c e s s h e c a l l s interpellation o r hailing the subject, w hich is ideo logy 's pow er to give individuals identity by the structures and prevailing forces of society. A society's worldview is craftily shaped by a c o m p l e x network of messages sent to each individual through the elem en ts c on tain ed in the sup erstructu re, including the arts. Although the d om in an t class can us e m ilitary and police force to repress the working class to m ain tain its do m inan ce and achieve interpellation, it more frequently than no t c h o o s e s t o u s e t he ideological state apparatus, or the hegemony. In e f f e c t , it is th e d o m in a n t cla ss's h eg em o n y th at p reven ts the insurrection o f the w ork in g class.

The dominant cla ss's hegem ony is never complete. Such incompleteness Su8 8 esh>that altern ative h egemon ies exist and are competing with the dom inant hegemony for supremacy. If the domin ant class s interpellation or haillng the subject fails, then an other hegem on y can triumph and revolution can occur. Such a revolution can begin if working-class people write t eir own bterature—dra ma s, po em s, a nd no ve ls— comp ose their own mu^ c, and Paint their own paintings. If they do so, the working class can establish an ernate hegemony to challenge the bourgeoisie s hegemony.

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M A R X I ST T H E O R I S T S T O D A Y

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ideology when analyzing a text, possessing wh*t Ko n , . In a later work, The Political Unconscious [flQgn T d‘aleCtlCal psychoanalytic and Marxist theories. Borrowing Freud's HJamf S° n merge! ^ reDressed unconscious, unrrf - * the °f  3  rePressed oncu , , .,Jameson .. ,discovers. aFpolitical llI,cai unconscious, rondis„„s of expto.tat.on and oppress,on. Tire function of Iitemiy a S ™ J believes, is to uncover the political unconscious present in a text In 1991 Jameson continues Marxist theorv and ■ . , ■ •. the publication of Postmodernism or the Cu|,„ra( ^ ic of Ule c ,allsm In this work, Jameson argues that cultural logic itself encodes in every object in society the classical Marxist dialectic of base and superstructure. To read and understand Jameson s text is no easy task because his complex and some times abstruse sentence structure embodies his postmodern, critical method ology, one that attempts through a Marxist lens to reconfigure present-day political and world systems. Perhaps the most influential contemporary Marxist critic is the British scholar Terry Eagleton (1943—), author of numerous works, including  Marxism and Literary Criticism  (1976), Literary Theory: An Introduction (2008), and On Evil  (2010). Believing that literature is neither a product of pure inspiration nor the product of the author's feelings, Eagleton holds that liter ature is a product of an ideology, which is itself a product of history. This ideology is a result of the actual social interactions that occur between people in definite times and locations. One of the critic's tasks is to reconstruct an author's ideology and his or her ideological milieu. Throughout his long and prestigious career, Eagleton, like most critics, develops, changes, and redirects his own literary theory. At times he employs a variety of critical approaches to texts, including the scientific approach of Louis Althusser, the psychoanalytic ideas of Lacan, and the poststructuralism ofJacques Derrida. All his diverse approaches to textual analyses attack bour geois hegemony and advocate revolution against its values. From the mid-1970s to the present, Marxism continues to challenge what it deems the bourgeois concerns of its literary counterparts through the voices of a variety of Marxist critics, including Renee Balibar, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Toril Moi, and Donna Landry. Critical movements and theories such as structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, New Histone,sm, cultural materialism, and postcolonialism have all examined Marxism s basic tenets and share some of its social, political, and revo utionary nature. Like Marxism, these contemporary schools of criticism want to change the way we think about literature and life. Present-day Marxism borrows from these contemporary schools of criticism and has now evolved into an array of differing theories, so much so that there no longer exists a single schoo o Marxist thought. Common to all these Mancist positions ^wover, ‘ S the sumption that Marx, no matter how he is interpreted IbehevK^at change for the good in society is possible if we will but stop and examme our culture through the eyes of its methods of economic pro uction. r a r e n e s s .

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is not easily defined. S o m P \ Ween e base and the superstructure, h o w e v e arxists believe that the base directly affects th 1

money they will earn, when they will take 7* “ >uui their leisure time, what entertainment they will they WiU Spend 1!—~ nofii«.A u, lr ni°y/ ar^d even what they believe concerning the nature of humanity itself. Marxism addresses its rallying cry to the working classes. All working peoples can free themselves from the chains of social, economic, and political oppression if they will recognize that they are presently not free agents, but in dividuals controlled by an intricate social web dominated by a self-declared, self-empowered, and self-perpetuating social elite. Because this social elite shapes a society's superstructure and its ideol ogy, the bourgeoisie control its literature because literature is one of the many elements contained within the superstructure. From this perspective, literature, like any other element of the superstructure, becomes involved in a social process whereby the bourgeoisie indoctrinate the working classes with their self-proclaimed, acceptable ideology as reflected in bourgeois lit erature. What becomes natural and acceptable behavior in society is now pictured in its literature and, in essence, controlled by the bourgeoisie, who also control the economic means of production. Because literature is part of a society's superstructure, its relationship to the other elements of the superstructure and the base becomes the central ocus in varying Marxist literary theories. If, for example, a Marxist holds to e reflection theory, then such a theorist posits that the economic base directly etermines the literature. For this critic, literature will mirror the economic ase- On the other hand, if a Marxist theorist believes that elements of the su perstructure have realities of their own and affect each other and also affect the ase' a text may be responsible for altering not only other elements within the SUPerstructure but also the base. Even the critics who give allegiance to this 1

«

 J

J r

— ' ' -

* » » *t M V1 1 iv jr

™

'•’t'**1 H 1 •

.mini! the definition of a text anH

witi011 houi .tit....... ..T f e l g t t * " and,<; the baseits * u . tlmdiip tn H",1 'tliat a text must be mterpreted u, u .

lumelt M.u'x'sts «>* rt " . , |8 weblike social relationshipsT' 0( it, I. how they define « tex “ ' , il>s and differing methods o f ^ a wUh an array of m U ,  theory of literature, but many exists,.h - ^ i ‘; At

m-----

1

..xrttH Y

METHODOLOGY

ism.s methodology is a dynamic

rh to literary analysis, (proper   defined as that which AS s^hat maintains that a pr°Per \ f   a text cannot exist in isolation process tha or Marxist b e * 1 ^ e v o lv e d Necessarily, Marxists

f ^ t h e cultural situation m wbl* 8tudy of society are intricately bound '" the study of literature Marxist approach to texts must deal Such a relationship dem ands* themes, matters of style, plot, ot with more than the c ^ " ' ^ hasL on figures of speech and other 11,. characterization, and thei usua r ,  uterary analysis. M a r x i s m claims erary devices used by other app elements and u n co v er s the author's t0

that it moves beyond tnes

,a dn g the tex t in its h ist or ic al context

world and his or h er wor view 0 f life, M arx ist cr itic s arr iv e at one of and by analyzing the a“ Th ideology ex p re ss ed b y th e au th or , as evitheir chief concerns: ° ‘ ° f c “ or, f an d h ow t his i d eo lo g y interacts tX th e reader's personal ideology are w hat interests these critics. Studying the li te ra l or aesthetic qualities of a tex t m u st in clu d e the dy namic relationship of that text to history and the e c o n o m ic m e an s of pro duction and consumption that helped create the text and the ideologies of the author and the readers. This kind of an ideological and political investigation exposes class con flict, revealing the dominant class and its ac co m p an y in g id eo lo g y being  imposed either consciously or unconsciously upon the proletariat. It also reveals the workers' detachment not only from tha t w h ic h th ey pr od uc e but also from society and from each other, a process called alienation, revealing  what Marxists dub fragmentation, a fractured an d fr ag m en te d society. The task of the critic is to uncover and denounce th is a n tip ro le ta ri at id eo lo gy and show how such an ideology entraps the w orki ng cla sse s an d op p re ss es them in every area of their lives. Most important, through such an analysis arxist critics wish to reveal to the working clas ses h o w th ey m a y e nd theii

^^Marxist r

y

° Ur^e?isie throuSh a commitment to socialism.

thor's text refleru SUC^ an anat ys is by el u ci d at in g ho w an au text reflects the writer's ideology th rou gh an ex am in at io n of ti*

Chapter 8 • Marxism

179

fictional world s characters, settings, society, or any other aspect of the text, prom this farting point the critic may launch an investigation into that parficular author s social class and its effects on the author's society. Or the critic may choose to begin by examining the history and the culture of the times reflected in the text and how the author either correctly or incorrectly pictures this historical period. Whatever method the critic chooses, a Marxist approach exposes the dominant class, demonstrates how the bourgeoisie's ideology controls and oppresses the working class, and highlights those elements of society most affected by such oppression. Such an analysis, hopes the Marxist critic, will lead to action, social change, revolution, and the eventual rise of socialism.

q u e s t io n s f o r a n a l y s is

To gain a working understanding of a Marxist approach to literary analysis, read carefully Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown" and ask the following questions concerning this text. In so doing, you will see the Marxist concerns that are evidenced or simply ignored in the text by its author. In addition, the following questions will provide you with a working framework for a close analysis of any text through the lens of Marxism and for demonstrating Marxism's concern for the interactive rela tionship between literature and society.  What class st ru ct ure s ar e establishe d in the text?  Wh at ch ar ac te rs or gro u p s co nt ro l the ec on om ic m eans of pro du ctio n?  What class co nf lic ts are ex hi bited ?  What c har ac te rs ar e oppre ss ed , an d to what socia l classes do they be long ?  What c har ac te rs ar e the oppre ss ors ?  What is the heg em ony established in the text?  What social co nf lic ts ar e ig nore d? Hig hl ig ht ed ?  Who repr esen ts th e st at u s quo? Does the work suggest a solution to society's class conflicts?  What is the dom in an t id eo lo gy re vea led in the text ? Did the main ch aracter sup port or defy the dominant ideology? Is the narrator a member of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat?  Whose s to ry ge ts told in th e te xt ? W hose sto ry does no t get told?

When and where was the text published? Is the author's stated intention for writing the work known or public?

What were the economic issues surrounding the publication of the text? Who is the audience?  Who is th e ideal rea d er ? Virtu al re ad er? Real re ad er ?

180

Chapter 8 -Marxism

ITI* a n d r e s p o n s e s criticism, M arxist criticism c

c r it iq u e s

.

mlvtical and R‘m,nis Like psyc ()a what a tex t say *«

Telly Eagle.on,

^ c r i t i c s , the task of ^

S o n

.

t ais0 w ith w h at it does n ^ ^ . m 0 st p ro m ine nt co n ^ S*y< to s ho w the tex t as h 'Ca>

‘6<

ions o f its m ak in g ab ou t w hich i, ^

because they e x is ts P * ^ mus, fce understood as part of the

structures, not f ,at; ^

al p ro ce ss es o f s o ci al r e la h o n s In clu de d w i , ^

namic,ever-evolvtnghiston F ever-p resen t societal conflicts these social relations are t h“ve. nots and the haves. Maintain^ clashes, the controlling a society's hegemony and, thereby their positions of power y ^ suppress ,he working classes, coerc creating false conscm feP, visjon of reality. Literary criticism's objecing them to accept t P evidenced in texts either through whit a

'text «ys orby its silence, the silence of oppression. F r o m a Marxist perspec Hve all texts are ideological, and the ideologies contained within them must be exposed to challenge the prevailing social order Although Marxism's internal consistency and the sheer breadth of its critique are impressive, critics of Marxist theories abound. Whereas Marx and his adherents call their beliefs a theory and a form of criticism, others dub it a philosophy of life that codifies a world view that is quasi-religious. Such a worldview, say some critics, demands a total commitment and devo tion as does any religion. But this religion, they assert, is devoid of God, for it is thoroughly atheistic. The god of this religion is found in the mirror and in humankind's imagination. Rejecting spiritual values, the concept of the soul, immortality, and a belief in God, this religion, which goes under the name of theory and criticism, is materialistic. Ultimately, say these critics, an accep tance of Marxist principles denies human worth. Such an all-encompassing worldview, they argue, will lead to a form of totalitarianism that rests on a subjective understanding of reality, not objective, absolute truths. .! er critics assert that Marxist economic theory is simplistic and cannot eties'1 prnnr.er * ^ ° r.the correct solution for contemporary socithe multifacet”d S" to its ^asic tenets, orthodox Marxism ignores g l p s each Ure ° ' SOCie,ieS that con tai" a multiplicity of social institutions. And aboveaU “ndors' anding of human nature and social sonal freedom, emphasizing in i t f ^ dlsm isses o r sim P 'y iSnores ^  However an indiviH. ? • tS P ace econom ic concerns, continue to develoD and t  CntlC VieWS M ar xis™/ its t he or ies and criticisms P and shaPe our » c ia l an d cu ltura l institutions.

9 C U L T U R A L

P oet ics or  new

H ist or icism Nw Historicism is not a repeatable methodology or a Merer,, ogwhat y or ai tliterary so Wf sincerely hope you w il l not be able w tomsay ah a l critical program . . to say what ,tall a d d s u p  to; we would have failed. Stephen Gteenblatt and Catherine Gallagher, Practicing

you coulc 

New Historicism

in t r o d u c t io n

uring the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, New Criticism was the dominant approach to literary analysis. At this time, Rene Wellek and Austin  Warren's text Theory o f Literature  (1942) became the bible of hermeneutics, focusing the interpretive process on the text itself rather than on historical, authorial, or reader concerns.

D

A NEW-CRITICAL LEC TU RE During this high tide of New Criticism, it would have been common to hear a college lecture like the following in a literature classroom:

Today, class, we will review what we have learned about Elizabethan beliefs from our last lecture so we can apply this knowledge to our understanding of Act I of Shakespeare's King Lear. As you remember, the Elizabethans believed in the interconnectedness of all life. Having created everything, God imposed on creation a cosmic order. At all costs, this cosmic order was not to be upset. Any element of the created universe that portended change, such as a violent storm, eclipses of the sun or moon, or even disobedient children within the family structure, suggested chaos that could lead to anarchy and the destruc tion of the earth itself. Nothing must break any link in this Great Chain of Bring, the name given to this created cosmic order. With God and the angels in

18 1

182

an'mais being te as ordained by Elizabetha n world view, leps ^ U ar, Y ou w iU ^ ta H aving gained l  u n d e r s . a n d j ^ ^ m ^

in

Act I, Scene ii, line* ° , fm a,e £ n of the Duke of Ctoucester, has « 2 £ 'cene Edmund, the illegihm ^ legitimate son and he,r to the d J Z tH HpH the Duke that Edgar, the inher it the Duk e's title, lands aJ\ dom, wants his father haS betra yed bot h Ed m un d (E dg ar's half wealth. Believing his n "These late eclip ses in the sun and moo brother) and himself, the Duke £ of nature can reaso n it thus and portend no good to us 1 W , by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendthus, yet nature finds itsetf ^ ship falls off, brothers divide. •• EUzabethan worldvie w in operation. The  What we see in these lines' q[  the created cosmic order and the conDuke believes in the m te r^ at nificance of the eclip ses of the sun and cept of the Great Chain of Be g°  and chaos. Because the Duke believes moon rests in their mprese" J L directly affects the microco sm (the world of that the macrocosm (the (hese natUral oc cu rre n ces (th e eclipses) f0r humanity on earth), h« ° sW and destroyin g love betw een brothers, interfering in familiall (K£ g U a r having alre ady ban ished his most between father an g ^ between king and serva nt (Kent, King Lear's

S c o u r t o a t o having being expelled from the kingdom). The Duke views iTworid through .he lens of a cohemn, Rena.ssance worldvtew.

OLD HISTORICISM

In such a Formalist lecture, the professor's method of literary analysis repre sents an example of both New Criticism and what is known today as the "old historicism." In this methodology, history serves as a background to lit erature. Of primary importance is the text, the art object itself. The historical background of the text is only secondarily important because it is the aes thetic object, the text, that mirrors the history of its times. The historical con text serves only to shed light on the object of primary concern, the text. Underlying this methodology is a view of history that declares that his tory, as written, is an accurate view of what really occurred. This view assumes that historians can write objectively about any given historical time period, person, event, or text and are able to definitively state the objective truth about that person, era, occurrence, or text. Through various means of historical analyses, historians discover the mindset, the worldview, or the noth c° 8rouP of people. For example, when the professor in our hy£ W h

“ 1 *

tKf beHefS ° f ,he E l m a n s at the beginning of the

of pretunnos.W CU'atmg the Elizabethan worldview-the unified set ons or assumptions that all Elizabethans supposedly held P PP

Chapter 9 . Cul|

 ,l(H?tlpSorN, •

concerning the makeup of their world n Elizabethan text K i n g L ea r, the professorZ.,“Ppl>'in8 th«e assertion more accurate mterpretation of the dramaf e 1* or can

the play s historical context.

........

.

* ma ,ha" '( the teacher did not know

THE n e w h i s t o r i c i s m That historians can articulate a unified and ,, of any given people, country, or era and can X CJ° nsistent worldview  jective pic tu re of any historical event are kev StmCt 30 accurate and ob‘ Poetics or New Historicism challenges AD£jrinST " Pt,
H I S T O R IC A L D E V E L O P M E N T New Historicism finds its v o i c e ship. Such scholarship is especially fe epis,emological assumptions, the Ren aissance saw various shifts historical era offered New Marked by historical se lf-c o n sc io u sn es ^ ^ relationship between Historicism a repository of cultura & / ieadinK literary spokesperhistory and literature. The English Renaiss ^ tjie disciplines of history, son, Shakespeare, blazed an innovative ral. .. cti()ns among them. Perhaps literature, and po litics, often blurring e literature are not so distinct the clearly delinea ted lines betw een is ory

Chapter 9

• Cultural Poetics or N ew Historicism

1H4 after oil. choree the m history, much ^

^

« < * " * * COntributin8   t o a „ d

W

other discoursesAlthoug

Lstoricists. In literature can be foUnd '■* hist0] f‘ Shakespeare, the emerging New i"°lUrV not be .hut different

^

comprehensive, uncontestable his

give a o - r -

development, j 9

,

, American

§ thc

of

especially with the public^"8 10

Cpivuta' works of^ ' ^ M o r e to Shakespear e   and Louis Montro^ QAf -Fashiot ung  tw0 • . trom  tbe Pastoral of Power." t k S Rfnuissat )turai Poetics that would deveuT Queene of Shep ear works begin to clarify the yelrs Dter, in 1982, C u lt u re IP oeti c^ , through the 1980s » J » f J  heory t with the publ, lesced into a critical s‘, e ” |att, ln the journal s introduction to a collec  journal, Genre, edited by Gre b)att announced that a new historicism~ tion of Renaissance essays, ^ New Historicism had become a W  had emerged, thereby pro ^ ^ ongoing dialogue of literary theory. ]at( and Svetlana Aplers, along with an imate and respectable vo The following year, ' . ity 0f California at Berkeley, launched v ^ f e sm M i o n s ,which   editorial board soon became the chief publi another ,oumal, Repra enta m  , a[ issue> D A Miller, a leading New S o S , published his essay "Discipline in Different Voices-. Bureaucracy, Police Family and Bleak House." In this essay, he articulates two of New Historicity's major tenets: (1) Literary texts are embedded ,n social and po litical discourses, and (2) all literary texts are vehicles of power In the next issue of Representations, another leading New Histoncist, Louis A. Montrose, published his essay "Shaping Fantasies," reiterating and expanding on Miller's declaration that literary texts are seats of power. The same year Representations was issued, another major New Historical text,  James I and the Politics of Literature: Jonson, Shakespeare, Donne, and Their Contemporaries, au thored by Jonathan Goldberg, declared that different historical eras develop different "modes of power," with each epoch viewing reality differently, including conflicting concepts of truth.  Wishing to remain open to differing politics, theories, and ideologies, New Historicists share a similar set of concerns rather than a codified theory or school of criticism. Of key interest is their shared view that from the mid1800s to the middle of the twentieth century, historical methods of literary analysis were erroneous. During this time, many scholars believed that history served as background information for textual analysis and that historians were obiectivplv J  really

w l hfartT- T * ys“ anu u,m

............

and formula^ •, 0ncism refutes 2 . * * * period and state "how it Literature, it decre S ° Wn readings of hr  assumphons of "old historicism" decrees, should be read in and interpretive analysisa 1Qn to culture, history, society, and

Chapter 9 . Cu]tu

,

" PwtlM or N

f a c t o r s  t h a t h e l p d e t e r m i n e a t a r t ' s m -

.

a Pivo,al eSSa>: m ,he onS°*ng d e v eW

l ^ a r d a P o e tic s o f C u l tu r e " T h is e s s a y &

" ,rici*m

ln 1987 r

* N ew f

c

185

b,a" Pub-

“'led ‘d and view literatu re in relation to culte m '8hts how ^ s tr u c t u r a l i s t c r i K c s - J e a n - F r a n « ! s7 an d ^ t y ! U s i * « W o * t e . .^ n b la tt asserts that a rt and society are in(Ly° tard and Frederi t * ,deas of 6^ d only one theoretical stance (or S ^ ' e d . but mplex web of interrelationship s New M ° f cri«cism) t o d i J ^ i   Can use S t f * as a reading practice, s a y s ' c ^ ' t ? texts and their relationship to society a re in v e iu lL j ^ ’! of criticism. When array of often tim es con flic tm g soc ial an d literary pa n ' 6Clares G"* n b lalt an  strata h ow a r t a ff e ct s s o c i e t y a n d h o w s oc ie ty T C T " ? ? V olve *hat dem on expands these id eas in his te xt S h a k es p ea r e  W J ' l 988' G " * " b la tt his reading pra ctice as C ultu ral Po etics" rather rhl x ,m whkh he taunt to forall practical p u rp o se s re n am es this site of literarv t h   NeW Historicism, and states, is a term that coalesces the concerns of thisdwT?**- C u l t u r a l P o e t i c s ,h   e better than do es th e te rm N ew H i sto ri cism . do pi ng theoretical site According to G reen blatt an d like-minded scholars r n  , shaped b y th e i n s ti tu t io n a l c h a r a c t e r o f A m e ri ca n l i t e r ' a n / r H i ? ^ * ? Was and politics of the 1 96 0s , '7 0s , an d '80s. In the 1960s t Z T  ° Sm' cu]ture' in literary criticism w as N ew C riticism , w ith its accompTnyrng  assum ptions a n d p r a c . ca l m e th o d o l o gy . F o r e xa m p le , d urin g G r e e n e s graduate stud ies a t Y ale— a pla ce he h as since called the cathedral of Hieh Church N ew C riticism — G reen blatt m astered N ew Critical principles At Yale, New Critical scholars, writers, and critics such as T. S. Eliot, Allen Tate,  John Cr ow e R a n so m , C le an th B rook s, and Robert Pen n Warren were revered and their m eth od olo gy w as w idely practiced. Aided early in its d ev elo p m en t by the publication and wide use of Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren's textbook U nderstan di ng Poet ry  (1938), N ew C riticism p rese nte d sch olars and teachers with a workable and teachable m et h od ol og y fo r in terp reti ng texts. From a theoretical perspective, New Criticism re g ard s a lite rar y tex t as an artifact with an existence of its own, inde pend ent o f an d n ot ne ces sar ily related to its author, its readers, the historical time it d ep ict s, o r the his torica l pe riod in w hich it was written. A text's meaning em erg es w h en read ers scrutinize the text alone. According to the New Critics, such a close scrutiny results in perceiving a text as an or ganic whole, w h erei n all o f its p ar ts fit togeth er and sup port one overarching  theme. For the N ew C ritics, a lite rary text is h i g h l y    structured and contains its meaning w ithin itself. To a c ritic -rea de r w ho examines the text on its own terms b y a p p l y i n g a r i g o r o u s a n d s y s t e m a t i c m et h o d o l o g y ,   the text will

its meaning. Such an analysis, say the New Critics,  Js P a r ^ 1^ ow tha^cience is rewarding because literature offers us a unique kind o us With the deepest truths related to humanity, truths that science

reveal

^ b le to disclose.

186

Chapter Y •Cultural Poetics or New Historicism

provide for and other r •  What New Criticism did not proviuc»w. Greenblatt — „,lu . > • . — m a historical nprcnQ^i:. Crih( v attempt to understand literature from a historical perspectiy* Critic$ an v.iitical analysis, the text was what mattere d, not its histori^ ^ a N evv Critic ext Considerations that any given text may be the result of h is to ric a l^ C° ntev were devalued or silenced. In addition, Greenblatt believed th r concerning concern ing the nature natu re and ana definition u a m IIU/l I of \/» literature . . . ---------- were not enc ^Uest*0n  J other - a- - critics wanted to is fQr nied/ Ufa§ed. pj and to discuss discu ss how ho w literature litera tur e was and ____   

...... .... ..

interest it serves, and what the term l i t er a t u r e  really m eans. D o co timeess op era te tog eth er to c r emP°rarv issues'and"the" crultural ul tu ra 1 milieu of the tim together e a t e ^y ■- operate — , createlif^ um hey wondered, or is literature an art form that w ,11 alw ays be vvi,h^ Cultural Poetics develops as a result of New C rrhc.sm s d o m in a n t, literary criticism and its response, or lack thereof, to questions concernin' the nature, the definition, and the fun ct.on o f l.ter atu re W h,le Greenbuf. was asking a different set of literary q uestions, a v ariety of New C ri tiJ theories and theorists appeared on the literary scene. Deconstruction Marxism, feminism, and L acanian psy ch oan aly sis b eg an to challenge the assumptions of New C riticism. R ejecting N ew C riticis m s claim that the meaning of a text can be found mainly in the text, poststructural theorists developed a variety of theoretical pos itions ab ou t th e na tur e of the reading process, the part the reader plays in that process, and the definition of a text or the actual work of art. Among these literary voices arose Cultural Poetics. After readfing sociological and cultural studies authored by Michel Foucault and other poststructuralists, G ree nb latt an d asso ciates both ad mired and emulated Foucault's tireless questioning of the nature of litera ture, history, culture, and society. Like Foucault, they refused to accept the traditional, well-worn answers. From the Marxist scholars—Georg Lukacs Walter Benjamin, Raymond W illiams, an d oth ers— the y also learned that his tory is shaped by the people wh o live it, and the y ac ce pt ed the Marxist idea of the interconnectedness of all life. L ike M arx h im se lf, Gr een blatt and his like-minded peers believed that what we do with our hands and how we make our money do affect how and w ha t we think . In ad ditio n, they devised a new definition of cu l t u r e,  em brac ing W illiam s's b e lie f tha t culture is the com me orms of hum an ex per ienc e ex pr es se d in ar t, po litics, literature, n a os o ot er e em ents, eac h in vo lv ed in a co m p le x , interrelational strugg le for power. r structimv— u tyie p os tstru ctu ra list th eo rie s— especially deconaporia ab on tV !^ 3 i ° eticf stm ggles to find a wa y ou t of undecidability, or not denv ine tha^*19 ^ ? rea^ity anc*t h e in terp retation of a text. Although p u b h ea rn ^ r^ w

H °? ^

*he F a c t i o n , and.he

rathe r than sim ply assert th at a t”" ( ‘t f ^ * ° m ° Ve b ey 0 n d they challenee th i a ? a text ha s m an y po ssib le me anings. In so doing. h i s L i a n s "f u l^ c tu a lT v P t,0nS ° ' ^ °>d hi^ ° - i s m , w hich p m s u p p ^ m actua"y wr>te an objective history of any situation. I"

C1“ P > er 9 .Cu„

ncsor/Vevv I,.

E d i t i o n , t h ey r e d e f i n e t h e m ea n i n g o f a t   

openly d e cl a r e t h e i r  o J ^ k n o w l ed ge and  

1«7

fcism °rld“"'

u-3nd a ss^ t t hat b ,a se s-

must

c m , « *»usi Throughout t h e 1 9 8 0 s a n d 1 99 os ^ SUch as Cath* ■ Nathan D ollimore, Jero m e M cG ann their concerns that the st ud y o f literatu Greenb,att, to n a m ^ Z 3113^ ' ' has te en to o n arro w . V i e w i n g teT a s

distinction b et w een

a n  artistic p r o d u c t i o n a 

u  “ * * ? ' 3ction' these cr ^ °th er  k ^ d Gf W I " ^ 

dudion or event. T he y w ant us to see that th ^ M o d est   Prop osal" is a p o l i t i c a l a r t surrounding

u 

P ubl « a t i on o f T n n Z

t h e inauguration o f a U S  pw

* 1 pr<>  

notin8 t h at t h e  cerem^ * * 

all the trappings o f sy m b o l i sm a n d s t r Z T ^ ? 3 K a n a est h et i c ev en T ™ ! ?   sunilar examples that h i g h l i g h t t h ei r cr i t i c a l *   nd in 3 P ° « n . These and chief pu bl i c v oi ce, t h e   jo u rn a l R e p r e s e n t a t i o n ] * * * * *  Can be fo^ d in their

It would be invalid to assume that co espouse the concerns o f  Cultural Poetics U

k

e Z

^

those who

textual analysis Cu ltura l Po etics is best understood"7 ^ a p P ™ ‘ h es o f   interpretation that is s t i l l i n  p r oc es s, o ne t h a t k " ^ 3 pr3Ctice < « e r a r y fine-tuning its purpo ses, its p h i l o s o p h y   and ,J COnt,nuaJJy ^d efinin g and

followers. Some of these adherents express c o n f i T ^ ^

 « aining new

a l r ea dy b e i n g a n   or ga niz ed criti cal scho ol while

m UJtUraJ Poetics as abstract method of interpretation. For t h e 'sake i f ^ 866 * as an eW e , arbitrarily divide Cultural P o et i cs i n t o t w o m a t L ^ Z   W
• call for a reawakening of our historical consciousness. • declare that history and literature must be seen as disciplines to be analyzed together. • place all texts in their appropriate contexts. • believe that while we are researching and learning about different societies that provide the historical context for various texts, we are simultaneously learning about ourselves, our own habits, and our own beliefs.

CULTURAL MATERIALISM

. nf  rultural is Marxist in m Cultural materialism, the British branchofC ^ ^ Poetics, ^  ideological roots theories and political and cultura 1 Louis Althusser an aY , the writings of M arxist cr itics ™n an agent of change,  Williams. Believing that literature can se unstable. For hterfu re materialists declare that a culture s h e g e m ^ ^   (he establ.shed canon produce change, a critic mu st rea .Hers." By so doing,cn ,c F against the grain," becoming "resisting readers.^ ^  politica|myths political unconscious of texts an Seated by the bourgeoisie.

4. u nr Nt.w Historicism « .

C M -—

'

NEW HISTORICI •

^

is the n am e g iv en

M i « . ' o ^ " o f its «riginat»'g — 'other scholars, believes th<

the American branch of c un G re en b la tt, a lo n e w ith ^ral 1 "*

^ , ture pe rm e ate s b o th te xts an d c r i ^ intcrw ove n, so are cri tics an d texts, W 

Because all of society 18 cultum in wh ich the y live an d m which th, ,0  each other and in and to the c ^ innuenced by them culture, <

texts am produced. Historicists believe hat none

us can escap e pub lic an d priv ate cul,Ura, g g uniq ue inter p re ta t.o n for an y giv

influences. Each critic will for text. Like its British counterpa ,

Historicism continues to be redefined oftentimes pro vid ing conflictin2

and fine-tuned hy — ^ f . 0 foxhial analysis. and contradictory approacnes w

8

a s s u m p t io n s Like other poststructuralist practices, Cultural Poetics begins by challenging  the long-heldbelief that a text is an autonomous work of art that coma,ns all elements necessary to arrive a, a supposedly correct interpretation. Disavowing the "old historical" assumption that a text simply reflects its historical context—the mimetic view of art and history and that such historical information provides an interesting and sometimes useful backdrop for liter ary analysis, Cultural Poetics redirects our attention to a series of philosophi cal and practical concerns that highlight the co mplex interconnectedness of all human activities. It redefines both a text and history while simultaneously re defining the relationship between a text and history. Unlike the old histori cism, New Historicism, or Cultural Poetics, asserts that an intricate connection exists between an aesthetic object—a text or any work of art— an d society and that all texts must be analyzed in their cultural context, not in isolation. We must know, it declares, the societal concerns of the author, of the historical times evidenced in the work, and of other cultural elements exhibited in the text before we can devise a valid interpretation. Such an approach to textual ana ysis questions the very act of how we can arrive at meaning for any politicafact^1^ ™ ^ ^ ^ ^ &

a s oc ^ e v en b a l on g -h e ld tra ditio n, or a

M i ch e l F o u c a u l t

Cultural Poetics critics find the basis for *u • assumptions in the writinoc c *.u ° r their concems as well as some ol 88 of the ‘wentieth-cemury French archaeol

Chapter 9 . Cu|,

ural I'oeti

historian, and philosop her Michel p

rs" r New m „(1[jasm

? l f“ " L ‘l ee"0" C X tT h T jto r v bl'Kins hi, declares that history is not Y' Unlihe m„nv ' " e" r“!ical structure bv a middle, and an end) n ‘ " T (i e ' “ T C "* going forward toward some explain ed as a series of novvn end). in g j i.f. Purposefully destiny or an a l l -p o w e r f u M ^ P ^ eff« ^ con rolled h' ca""<>* * tio nship of a v a rie ty 'o f ^ °r Poucault, history'!, the co™6! mY9*L,rh,U8  , e v ° t disco urses or ♦»,„ , y the c°mplex interrelapohtical, and so o n -t h a t people think a L T r i WayS~ 'artistic' soci^ these d is co u rs es in ter act in any ejven h . k about ,heir «orld . How Rather, their interaction is d e p e L e n t on l ^ 8' period is not random. Fo uca ult ca lls th e e pis tem e— that is fh, “ T '! fyin8 Principle (or pattern) period in history develo ps its own oereenHo lan8ua8e and thought, each ity (or what it defines as truth)- sets tin L concernlng ‘he nature of realstan dards of beha vior- establishes ifc ^ ° Wn accePtable and unacceptable good or bad; and certifies what ^ m u p T n ^ e V ” i ^ 81" 8 W,ha‘ “ de™

a."n c ! f: n d ‘h! yardS!iC,k, Whereby aU established will be deemed acceptable.

actions

To unearth the episteme of any given historical period, Foucault bor row s tec hn iq ue s and term ino logy from archaeology. Just as an archaeologist must slowly and meticulously dig through various layers of earth to un cover the symbolic treasures of the past, historians must expose each layer of discourse that comes together to shape a people's episteme. And just as an a rc h ae o lo gi st m us t da te e ach finding and piece together the artifacts that define and help explain that culture, so must the historian piece together the various discourses and their interconnections among themselves and with nondiscursive practices—any cultural institution such as a form of go ve rn m en t, fo r e xa m ple — that will assist in articulating the episteme under inve stigation. , , From this point of view, history is a form of power. Because each era o peop le de v elo p s its ow n epis tem e, the episteme actually controls how ha. * * j i*f . T-TiQfnrv then becomes the study and unera or gro up o f pe op le view that ultimately de earthing of a vast, complex web of interconnectingio term ines w ha t tak es pl ac e in each cu ture * yri , iod ,0 another is W h y o r h o w e p is te m e s c ha ng e Ifrom one h , ' ^ / w a r n i n g is certain, ba sic ally un cle ar. T h at th ey cha g nineteenth century—the shift Such a ch an ge oc cu rre d at the beg innin g example— and initiated a new from the A ge o f R ea so n to rom anticis m , rejatjonships developed among e pis tem e. In t hi s n e w h is to ric a l e ra , d iffe » ^ ^ were deemed discourses that had no t prev iou s y evo Foucault asserts t at e un acce ptab le in the pre vio us h is t o r ic a P breaks from one episteme to anabrupt and ofte n rad ical cha ng es th a . cau b u k e the discourses th other are neither good nor bad, valid nor

New HistoriC'Sm isti0  their ow n rig ht; they are nei , r , . c u m , » > ^ 9 ° ' Chapter 9 . teine 9 e* lS

1* )

 , different cp»*» help pnxh 'ce rt '^ n; oral, but *" < ’ tlu-r moral nor i hist A a ° " « d b y the and pw)u5 jvJ ? and other at " r ^

^

* S

th at th e y are influenced n9  mu s t « a* ,'ve Be cause their thoughts, hich they ‘ e p is te m es , historians are c o l o ^ * their 0 w n

t f S

* J 

o th e r h is to ric al period,   confront and articulate

^ " I h T v e n o ts d isco u rse s o r the mate-

r"al evidence of past e j ^ d n a t i o n of ‘ h * ^ f a n e p i s t em e ( i. e. , o n e t ha t preSuch an archaeology  ,ogica l view , desig n). In ste ad , this kind lieves, Will not unearth ^ political ^ i rr eg u la r, a n d o fte n contra-

c h a n g e d / ^ ” re je c te d t o fo m T h e

z tt& s & Z b -truth" as Perceivl ^ ' a.s acceptable standards. n„slv establishing that era s v 

-

,h “ H

Clifford Geertz In addition to borrowing many ideas from Foucault, Cultural Poetics also uses theories and methodologies from the writings of the cultural anthropol ogist Clifford Geertz (1926-2006), Geertz believes that there exists "no human nature independent of culture," culture  being defin ed b y Geertz as "a set of control mechanisms—plans, recipes, rules, instructions," that govern behavior. Each person must be viewed as a cultural artifact. In addition, how each person views society is unique because there exists w hat G eertz calls an information gap" between what our body tells us and what we have to rannntv unction in society. This gap also exists in soc iety b eca use society r r ^ r in8 T   happens amon§ all its people. Like individuAnd it is this informal m 6 ^ap s'vitl1 w^a t ^ assu m es to h av e taken place, the subjectivity of history 8aP# ^

m b° th peoPle an d society, that results in

for describing culture, thick description * anth'° P oloSical methodology tion d esc rib es the se em i ne lv • • •! ° n ’ ^ o i n e d b y G e e r t z , t h ic k desenppractice. By focusing on detads present in any cultural contradictory forces at work 6 fu.ailS/ ° Re Can th en re v ea l the inherent Geertz, Cultural Poetics thenrict ^  f Cldture- B o rro w in g this idea fr°m culture must be uncovered nnH d? C,are th at ea ch se p a ra te discourse of a courses interact with each othpr3 03 ^ 6^ 'n ^ °P es o f sh ow ing how all d>s elements of culture. The intSra, t d W ith ‘^ ti tu ti o n s , pe op les, and othe

a c t io n among the many Afferent discourse*

'• **■ £■ **6.u i' 9

. Culllmil

i'm |91 shaf,eS a cu ltur e and interconnects ,, "W  writing, read ing, and interpret ,u h,""« n actiein critic em phas izes . 1 ' " <>f a test that it, nclu
Texts, History, and Interpretation Because *texts  [ »yt u t one qof --- - are osimply Cultural Poetics critics believe that a Z e s Z T hdP ^  a culture, redect but also , and more important resonnH Y [Y SOCial docum™>» that Since an y histo ric al situ atio n is an int heir historical situation, discourses, Cultural Poetics scholars center  ° f ° ften comPetin8 interpretation of a text would be incomolPiP if  ? ! ° ry' declarin8 tha* any relationship to th thee d d isc is co we do do not not consider consider the the text's text's re la tio ns h ip to ouursrse es tha t heln^H, c . . We response. From this point of v^ew a ^ e c o T ing ideas am on g the author, society, customs,

*

! °^  

the teXt is 3

tices that are all eventually negotiated by the author and the teader and mfluenced by each contributor's episteme. By allowing history a prominent place in the interpretive process and by examining the various convoluted we bs t ha t in te rc o n n ec t th e d iscou rses found w ithin a text and in its historical setting, w e c an suc cess fully n egotiate a text's meaning. C ultu ra l P oe tics ho lds to the prem ise of the interconnectedness of all our actions. For a Cultural Poetics critic, everything we do is interrelated to and within a n etw o rk o f p rac tices em bedd ed in our culture. No act is insignifi cant; ev ery th ing is im po rtan t. In our search to attach meaning to our actions, Cultural Poetics critics believe that we can never be fully objective because we are all biased by cultural forces. Only by examining the complex latticework of these interlocking forces or discourses that empower and shape culture, and by realizing that no single discourse reveals the pathway to objective truth ab o u t o ur selv es or ou r world, can we begin to interpret either

our wo rld or a tex t. The eoal of a Cultural Poetics interpretive , ^ " onPHrs of cu ltu re," r  an und erstanding of a p o e ti c s o tc , sundry activ ities as ae sth etic end ea m etap horica l in ter pr eta tio n o f rea y and p r a c ti ci n g t h eir fo r m o f {i te rW tain that w e w ill d isco ve r no t on ly present-day social forces working

" ^ o 

. . . ., .- j analysis is the formation and a process that sees life and its P^ allowing for a more ^ anaIytfo one. By embracing rultu ral Poetics critics main-

al, w o rld o f the text but also the we negotiate meaning with ti()n with a text is a dyn am ic,

printed m aterial. Lik e history itself, ou

ongoing process that will always be some Because Cultural Poetics' history
incomplete.

^ 

dynamic and sometimes norms and concepts while theoretical assumptions

192

Chapter 9 • Cultural P o et i c  or New Historicism

this site of literary theory a-jects and accepts will help us in u„d ing its multiple methodologies.

WHAT CULTURAL POETICS RE JECTS •

Monological interpretations of a given culture, people, or historical era can rately demonstrate that culture's beliefs and values. ^ aCcu. A historian can establish the "norms' and the truth of any social order A writer or a historian can be totally objective. Autonomous artifacts, including literary texts, can or do exist. Literature is shaped by only historic moments. History serves as a backgr

for literary study. Only one correct interpretation of a text exists.

WHAT

CULTURAL POETICS DOES AND ACCEPTS

. .. ,inp between history and literature, believing that L « 7 ~ ) T n d context (history) are the same and that literature has no history of its own but is ensconced in cultural history. . . . . I, admits that definitive interpretations of a text are unattainable because retevant material concerning a given text or action is too diffused to be exhaustively gathered We can thus never recover the original meaning of any event or text because we cannot hear all the voices that contributed to that event or collect and experience all the data surrounding that event's or text's creation. It recognizes that power affects literature as deeply as it does history; some nar ratives are unjustly stifled, being intentionally repressed, subordinated, and forgotten. When uncovered, these seemingly trivial stones or mini narratives have a surprisingly significant impact, impeding the creation of an overarching historical narrative. It believes that texts, like all forms of discourse, help shape and are shaped by so cial forces. It looks to single moments in history that may have influenced or been influ enced by a literary text produced at the time, relying heavily on historical docu ments to discover these significant moments. History can no longer be consid ered simply "background" information for textual analysis but an essential element in the interpretive process. indi!l!hlSlthatH iterf iS Shaped by historical individual reader of U orTlistener to these texts. moments while also shaping the eringhow a^ext wasV^ It belipvp*; ibat

...

P

lmportant elements in textual analysis is discov- - “sating the historical /„d social monchon, not its supposed interpretation.

and political agmd^No writCT iTcritbieCled ‘° b‘aSeS' CU!tUral r cnhc can ever be entirely objective.

Chapter 9 •

METHODOLOGY

Cultural

P<*KCS or New Historic!ism

193

Like other app roaches to literary analuc- ^ of techniques and strategies in its i n t e m l f “ltUral P° * * « includes an array being dubbed the correct form of in v Z lf ^ f ln
New His«»'icism

Chapter

|| It’" ' ,ics uU.m.1

\ iro essential elements of the text v

ami those of the author s s0C^ !^|an v jor, as reflected in a so ciety's in addition, the standards of b ‘ e these behavioral codes sim 8, of t o n « , must also be i n v j s b ^ b ^ ^ ^ Thc tex( •wously helped shape am flP ,w these be hav ioral socia l codes° ^ viewed as an artistic wor nce and to realize the complex T° begin to understand a text s’ s>»8 aJ poetics critics de clare that all th^1 structure of which it is a pa , js ignored, the risk amas of concern must be mv eshg *.ed understanding abou t * £ * > fuming to the old histoncism »h t ^ of texlua, analysi c ‘ xt as asocial production, is great.D ur g P tions and methods as We T Poetics critics also question their own assuu p . well, f0r they believe that they, too, are products of and act as s ping influences 0n To avoid the old historicism's error of thinking that each historical pe_  riod evidences a single, political worldview, Cultural Poetics avoids sweep. ing generalizations and seeks out the seemingly insignificant details and manifestations of culture frequently ignored by most historians or literary critics. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz describes these seemingly in. significant details as anecdotes that are "quoted raw, a note in a bottle " Anecdotes are well-preserved messages that most often come to us in their original state, unaltered by the ideologies of publishers or other institutions of preservation. As soon as they are gathered together, a collection of ane dotes will reveal "counterhistories" or alternative perspectiv es of an incide t or era presented by voices that usually go unheard in a monolithic intemretation of history. Sometimes these stories present a blatantly rebellious aHih,ri' toward the powerful history-makers, recasting events from the l u S net spechve of marginalization. At other times, the stories uncovered arp «• P , interested voices recording events that they see A necdotes su th as P'» y ^ diaries, for example can and nfw a  * ec
y Nathaniel Hawthorne, these critir« vT ^   P rase etcbed on a window pane social codes and forces that mold a o’ ° PG t 0 t o bght those competing  moment or incident rather than an ^ 1Ven s° ciety. E m ph as izi ng a particular Poetics critic will often point out unp

" ^ ^ 8  Visi™

of socie ty, a Cultural

b a n ^ ^ c ^ °E ^ia Haw tho rne's havin°nVGu dorud con nec tion s, for example, d s first romance, T h e Sca r l et L e t t ? *   headache after reading her husu se o f t h e Sev en r ' n   ro n /,0 fmtanCe' T h e H ° the endin8  of Hawthorne's secM ark T mir'a' N° W Ywrk' and somo l * CS' ° r bet w ee n the cl im ate and enviwain s A d v e n t u r e s o f H u c l c l   , 0 catl°ns , d escriptions, and actions in / Huckleberry Finn. C u l t u r a l Poetics scholars

Chapter 9 • Cultural PfWdl 1 oetics or New W;.* •

. . 1NewHistoricism 195 believe that an investigation into these and • i the com ple x relationship that exists ? l“ PPeni"l!» will demonshow how narrative discourses such as histn^ e8 1dis“ orses and will productions intera ct with, define, and are in ? Urature' and other social  What we learn by applyin g these p rin c ip le s ,'? "1' T aPed by ‘heir culture, is not one voice, but many voices to be hearH . methodol()8*es is that there tun?: our ow n, the voices of others, the vo ice d f ’E " * " 8 teXts and our cul' present, and the voices that will be in the futur P3St/th
q u e s t io n s f o r a n a l y s is

 When analy zin g any te xt from a Cultural Poetics point of view, Stephen Greenblatt and other critics suggest we ask and investigate the following  questions. As you read these questions, be prepared to provide answers based on your reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young  Goodman B row n. By so doing, you will be actively engaged in using  Cultural Poetics as an interpretive tool.

• • •

What kinds of behavior or models of practice does this work reinforce? Why might readers at a particular time and place find this work compelling? Are there differences between your values and the values implicit in the work you are reading? • On what social understanding does the work depend? • Whose freedom of thought or movement might be constrained implicitly or ex plicitly by this work? • What are the larger social structures with which these particular acts of praise or blame might be connected? • What authorial biographical facts are relevant to the text? • What other cultural events occurred surrounding the original production of the text? How may these events be relevant to the text under investigation.

C R IT IQ U E S A N D R E S P O N S E S In the preface to his 1989 text was one of the first scholars to delineate th

•

The N ew 

Every expressive act (including literature) is embedded in a network of material . practices. .. Every act of unmasking, critique, and opposition use risks falling prey to the practice it exposes. Literary and nonliterary texts circulate inseparably

fools it condemns and

beltfs

,*

.. ................................I Poetics or New Historicism

.

No discourse, tmaginaH-

g«v» access ,o uncha„ging ^

^^

.

presses inalterable human n , te (0 describe culture under r A critical method and language adequate nder capiul participate in the economy they describe.

an l'am sh are d'b y’ the text. Believing that art (includin g literature) and s ^ ! enfanTinterrelated, Cultural Poetics critics embrace the prtncples of diffe ent schools of criticism to unlock a text's power and tnfluence, including the close reading" principles of New C ri tic sm and a v ari ety of poststructural! ist approaches, such as feminism an d M arx ism . D en yin g a monolithic or monological interpretation of any event, person, or historical era, Cultural Poetics seeks to discover the persona l vig ne ttes o r an ec d ote s" that a,e ignored, repressed, or suppressed by many critics. Such mini moments in history, they believe, will reveal the multiple counterhistories that have been marginalized by previous scholars and w riters . T he se co ns tru cte d narratives reveal the power structures in both the text and the cultures that produced them, unleashing the silenced voices that can help us reshape our concepts and interpretations of not only texts but also history, society, and ourselves.

Like other evolving, critical methodologies, Cultural Poetics has faced and continues to face some objections. First, because Cultural Poetics uses historical methods and artifacts of history, it is necessarily working from "inside" the system it is critiquing. Such subjectivity opens this interpretive method to accusations of undermining its own arguments. Second, by plac ing emphasis on anecdotal evidence, it has been accused of bad historiogra phy. From one single thread of culture—one anecdote—Cultural Poetics critics often create rather significant philosophical, historical or political theories. Third, while valuing anecdotal evidence or artifacts and other forms of "local knowledge," Cultural Poetics then broadens such knowledge, making claims that reach far into a given culture. Fourth, Cultural ^°eI ' T ‘ “ * ;" determin« y reigns in both literature and history, but o M h it d k c ly dS,.a S,r° ngly dete™ m istic attitude toward the effects culture And fiftfTs Pronouncem ents co ncern ing power in a given

"“

^r:ndr^h-h a \C u ltu r a ip o e “

a u ^

documents and any other cultural f ^ tex ts and e d u c e s historical As Cultural P o W d l v e Z ' ^ Hterary term s‘ and the various kinds of r v the. tw entY'first century, the frequency question, Cultural Poetics ha* 10Sms wid undoubtedly continue. Without Anglo-Saxon ? * * * *    GVery area of Hterary studieS' K  American and British Romantic’ UryJ iterature/esp ec ially influencing ho analysis, Cultural Poetics allow8™ ^ rou8 ^ its m u l t i p l e approaches totexta past, speaking once again loud S

many ° f the silenced voiceS ° ^

P O S T C O L ° n .a u sm

The fin a l hou r o f colonialism  Asia, and La tin Am erica rise right to self-determination.

Guevara, speech to the United Nations, December 11,1964

T a ^ N e w S P S S ' S * * ^ ^ Unti‘ ^ d~ m sisten ce th at " th e " o ne correct interpretation o f a t e T c o S d t e l e " if critical readers follow the prescribed methodology asserted by the New Critics. Positing an autonomous text, New Critics paid little attention to a text's historical context or to the feelings, beliefs, and ideas of a text's readcrs. For Now Critics, a text s meaning is inextricably bound to ambiguity, irony, an d p ar ad o x fou nd w ithin the structure of the text itself. By analyzing the text alo n e, N ew C ritic s b eliev e tha t an astute critic can identify a text's central paradox and explain how the text ultimately resolves that paradox while also su p po rting the tex t's overarching theme.

Into this se em in gly self-assu red system of hermeneutics marches philos opher and literary critic Jacques Derrida along with similar-thinking scholarcritics in the late 1960s. Unlike the New Critics, Derrida, the chief spokesperson for deconstruction, disputes a text's objective existence. Denying that a text is an autofelic artifact, he challenges the accepted definitions and assump tions of both the reading and the writing processes. In addition, he insists on questioning what parts not only the text but also the reader and the author \. nprrida and other like-minded cnt _______  Doeaiica ° . Because Derrida play in the in ter p re tiv e pr oce ss, of structuralism in ics chronologically ■cs chr on olog ically ccome om e afte r ^ ode r" ' ‘yostm oderns or poststructuralists. literary theory, they are used to denote these postmodern

Recently the term postist critics is being

thinkers.

Culler,  J. Hillis Miller, Barbara r T h e se p h i lo s o p h e r c r i ti c s — —1 ^Joo n n aa tm a ", ^ _ ^ s 0 ^.pcfion q uestio n the language of  Jo hnso n, and M ich e l F o u ca u lt, to n am e a fe w a . q 197

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f ^ nnot se p a 'fce itics, tons’18* *

used to « » ^ “e created by lan gu ag e, many pos(. 5 3 we call • « * £ * tive reaUty can b From this point of view. Believing that « ^ 1S a see1* inste ad , many realities exist. In modernists assert ob- ctive reality e ^ critics b e lie v e that reality is no single or P " objective his or her subjective understanddisavowing a individual ere g co m e to ag re e up on b ? erSP(eihe nature of reality itself th e co m m o n good , if reality is “ Asocial concerns, “ ^ " a n s w e r for th ese po stm o d ern thinkers is different for each individual? T h e a ^ a d o m i n a n t cultural that each society or c u lt u r e .deo)ogy or, u sin g the M arx ist term, its group who determines that c ^ o f rig h t an d w rong , and its hegemony-that is, its do ^ a ive n cu ltu re are consc iously and sense of P ^ n a l " r t h AU P^ P g prescribed heg em o ny . UnC° l ^ t happens, however, when on e's id eas, o n e 's th in k in g , or on e's personal background does not conform? Wh at ha p p en s fo r ex am p le , when the dominant culture consists of white, A ng lo-Sa xo n m al es an d on e is a black female? Or how does one respond to a cultu re d o m in at ed b y w hit e males if one is a Native American? For people of color living in Africa or in the Americas, for Native Americans, for females, and for gays and lesbians, and a host of others, the traditional answer already has been articulated by the dominant class and its accompanying hegemony: silence. Live quietly, work quietly, think quietly. The message se nt to the se "O th e rs " b y the dominant culture has been clear and consistent—conform and be quiet; deny yourself, and all will be well. But many have not been quiet. Writers and thinkers, such as Toni Morrison Alice Walker, Gabriel Garcia M ar qu ez , C a rlo s Fu en tes, Gayatri Edwar,d Said' F jantz Fanon, and Ju d ith B u tle r, to na m e a few, have fhese cultmes d p ?1 and challen§ e the d om in an t cu ltu re s an d the dictates necessary. Thev B pV Th
W

Chaptj.r

10

, ,,

19 9 among others—*re making themselves \ ° insistent, dominant, and generally . ... fU‘0rd amunif can affect cultural change, these w . t,rP«vvoring culhlrv ,.t'’<°l,hony of the hegemony. In their strug gle for ,r's rL‘^Us<-’ to conf * ‘ vinKthat they I Uh-S their beliefs I Z Z ' ' ! * * ' «* »* •   " ’t*;r.>ry literary tabte d " L  (heir umlerehmdmi; of ^ t nk'  

' \ h i s d iv e ^ em S ™ P b r e " a o f c u l h i ra l s tu d io s a n d in clud ed a n a

^

nd, c r i,i t* h und<* the um -

Amencan s.u d.os pos.colon ial studies, and K i" ? dor 8,udi«-African ideas and assu mp tions in the midst of a T thers' AU are presenting their trolled by the dom inant few. In Great B r i t a l n T f " ,ha' h a s'<>"« b« n concultural studies are often used interchange u f ms Cu,tural "iticism and criticism primarily focuses on textual a - N° rth America cultural whereas cultural studies refers to a much , ys is .or other artistic forms, literary and artistic forms analyzed in their I °aCT ' lnterdisciplinary study of texts. In this chap ter, we will consider one nf^,la. ' ecolnomic' or political conries: postcolonialism. In Chapters 11 12 and n ^ Varying the°other theoretical stanc es: African-American r v™ 6 W* then present three 1

r «-

f e ’saxtssMS

rear  Each of these theories possesses unique concerns. EcocriHcism, for examp^

highhghts the relationship between literature and the environment, while Africa n-American criticism and gender studies emphasize that their individual and public histories do matter. They believe that their past and their present are intricately interwoven, and they declare that by denying and supp ressing the ir pa st, the y w ill be den ying who they are. They desire to ar ticulate the ir fee lings , the ir concerns, and their assumptions about the nature of reality in their particular cultures without being treated as marginal, minor, or insignificant participants. Often referred to as subaltern writers— a term used by the Marxist critic Antonio Gramsci to refer to those classes who are not in control of a culture's ideology (hegemony)—these theoristsauthors-critics provide new ways to see and understand the cultural forces at w ork in s ocie ty, in literatu re, and in ourselves. Although the liter ary theory and accompanying criticism of each cultural studies approach is ongoing, an overview of the central tenets of the first of this group po stcolonialism — w ill en ab le us to understand its distinctive visions of literature's pu rpo ses in to da y's ever-changing world.

’O S T C O L O N I A L I S M : "T H E E M P IR E W R IT E S B

’ostcolonialism (or post-colonial ism

e ach represents slightly different theoretics heories in philosophy and vario us app oncemed with literature written in Eng is 1

spelling is acceptable, but urnpfjons) consists of a set of ^ jjterary analysis that are coUntries that were or s 1

H I ST O R IC A L D E V E L O P M E N T

Rooted in colonial power and prejudice pos tco lo nialis m dev elops from . fnm-rtunisand-vear history of strained cultural relations between colonies in Africa and Asia and the Western world. Throughout this long history, the  West became the colonizers, and man y African and A sia n countries and their peoples became the colonized. During the nineteenth century, Great Britain emerged as the largest colonizer and imperial p ow er, quickly gaining control of almost one quarter of the earth s landmass. By the middle of the nine teenth century, terms such as colonial interests   and the British Empire  were widely used both in the media and in government policies and international politics. Many British people believed that Grea t B ritain w as destined to rule the world. Likewise, the assumption that Western Europeans and, in partic ular, the British people were biologically superior to any other race—a term for a class of people based on p hy sica l a n d /o r cu ltu ra l distinctions— remained relatively unquestioned. Such beliefs directly affected the w ay s in w hich the colonizers treated the colonized. Using its political and economic strength, Great Britain, the chief imperialist power of the nineteenth century, dom in ated her colonies, making  them produce and then give up their cou ntries' ra w materials in exchange for what material goods the colonized desired or were made to believe they desired by the colonizers. Forced labor of the colonized b ecam e the rule of the day, and thus the institution of slavery w as com mercialized. Often the colot*'  justified their cruel treatm ent of the colonized by invoking Europe ^ gious beliefs. From the perspective of many white Westerners, the pe Lthat Africa, the Americas, and Asia were "hea th en s," possessing PaSan dQeSno1 mu st be Christianized. How one tre ats p eop les w ho are so defin6^ ^ t0 the really matter, they maintained, because many Westerners subscri colonialist ideology that all races other than white were inferior or „eVil These subhumans or "sav ages" quickly bec am e the inferior an“ S erS" are e*‘ Others , a philosophical concep t called alterity where by "ttie , ^feri^ eluded from positions of power and vie wed as bo th different an

Chapter

1 0

• Postcolonialism

2 0 1

By the early twentieth century Eneh.n v ideological dom ina tion of its colon ies b e ^ l ^ PO,^itia ,,' economic, and as dec oloniza tio n. By mid cen tur y for exV i d,8"P Pe a*Va process known

pendence from British colonial rule M am/1 , ia had 8«*ned ht’r ind^ marks the be ginning of postcolonHIiu™ . ,lars b
coined by the French dem ogra ph er Alfred

independence, the form er British rolnnv

th ,rd "wor,d studies, a term

aU,Vy'. When India received her

India Unio n an d Pak istan. This D ar tiH n n ^ 8 d ‘V,dcd into two nations, the Div ide/' led to ethnic conflict of e n o rm o ..^ 8 ' What scho,ars dub the "Great m e m b e r o f th e British C o m m o n w e a l t h in C bt'tween Incli‘'<« new ^ T of Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of I T ' j j !!’ OStly Mus,im 8,a ,e th e o u t r a g e o f a v a s t a r r a y o f s c h o la r s  J r i £ P * d ‘/ .the stru 8gle' igniting  . » m rtral r>r»lif,Vd

a 

turs, w riters, and critics conc erning the so*

'•^w h at w e ' d ,?Cj n° miC co nd it‘ons of the aftereffects of colonial ism in w ha t w ere on ce called third-world countries. The beginnings of postcolonialism's theoretical and social concerns can be traced to the 1950s. Along with India's independence, this decade witnessed the ending of France s long involvement in Indochina; the parting of the ways between the two leading figures in existential theory, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, over their differing views about Algeria; Fidel Castro's now-famous "History Shall Absolve Me" speech; and the publica tion of Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, W hite Masks  (1952) and Chinua Achebe's novel T h in g s F a l l A p a r t  (1958). The following decades witnessed the publication of additional key texts that artic ula ted the s ocial, political, and econom ic conditions of various sub altern groups. In 1960, the Caribbean writer George Lamming published The Pleasures o f E xile,   a text in which Lamming critiques William Shakespeare's play The Tempest  from a postcolonial perspective. The next year Fanon pub lished The W retched o f the Ea rth  (1961), a work that highlights the tensions or binary oppositions of white versus black, good versus evil, and rich versus poor, to cite a few. Other writers, philosophers, and critics such as Albert Memmi continued publishing texts such as The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965, English version) that would soon become the cornerstone of postcolo nial theory and writings. In particular, postcolonialism gained the/a«ention of the West with the publication of Edward Said s Onenffl/ism (1978) and BiU Ashcroft. Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin's / b | publication of these two texts, the voices and the c a n c a n .^ many subaltern Writes Back: Th eory a nd P ractice in Post-Colonial Litera

(

cultures w ou ld soo n be hea rd in both aca eml£ aia :n scholarly jourThe terms postcolonial and ^ A sh cr of t, Griffiths, and nals in the mid-1980s and as subtitles 1 -n 1990 in Ian Adam and Tiffin's previously men tioned P ow er^ /z . Post.Colonialism and   PostHelen Tiffin's Past the Last Post. Th ^ uacj become firmly estabModernism. By the early and m id-1990s, bo lished in academ ic and po pu lar discourse.

t a 

C M '»'

p o s tm o d e r n a p p r o a c h e s t o ,

>lruction nnd <>th
analysis, p o st^ m '^' several #» ,r h phen (post-colonialism), ihe even its ^ t n spelled ^ ^ fro ism. or ,wtM -"a • , orcier-that a . h hcn (poslcolomalism), the t ^ implies a Pno m ' S colonial state.  W he n

„ ej without t ' P one w a y «

refers'ho w nm jgd m t^ and after the pe^1^

)ther to resist colonialist i? a tio n A «*»•

c o v e r s a w id e r c r i t i c a l ^

spectives, nonbyphenated p J than does the hyphenated SrW  mduding literature of former Bnhsh J ^ term (posi/colomai), argue ^ ing. The third orth<.graph.c v^ ious two f e llin g s because it stress** critics, is more relevant an indeterminate number of hteratures-t* the interrelatedness be ween ^ simitar situation: the entangled conthey Anglophone or not .&l and po st/c o lo n ia l discourse and bet^ n —

rny'lnd rost/coloniahty. Today the most common speiiing 

t h e ™  a,re. tw o branct*s ,he The^irst^views postcolonialism as a set o f di v er se m et h o d o lo g ie s that p<^

sess no unitary quality, as argu ed b y H o m i K . B h ab h a an d Arun P. Murkheriee. The second branch includes th ose cri tic s su ch as E d w ard Said, Barbara Harlow, and Gayatri Ch akra vorty S p iva k w h o v ie w postcolonialism as a set of cultural strategies “centered in his tor y.” T h is la tte r gro up can also be subdivided into those who believe p os tco lo n ial ism ref ers to that period after the colonized countries hav e g ain ed th eir i n d ep en d en ce as opposed to those who regard postcolonialism as referring to all the characteristics of a society or culture from the time of colon izatio n to th e p re se n t m om ent. Postcolonialism's concerns becom e evid ent w h en w e ex am in e the various topics discussed in one of its most prominent texts, T h e P o s t - C o l o n i a l St u di es   Reader (1995), edited by A shcroft, Griffiths, a n d T iffin. It s su bj ect s include uni versality, difference, nationalism, p os tm od ern ism , rep res en tat io n and resistance, ethnicity, feminism, lang uag e, ed uc ati on , h ist or y, p la ce , an d production. s iverse as these topics are, they d raw att en tio n to po stcolo nia lism 's major concern: the struggle that occurs w he n o ne cu ltu re is d om in ate d by another. tore'M n U* ire T

T

'  ‘° be co loniz ed is " to b e rem oved from his-

b o m ou t “ r n i z e d n T ! T ? P * 0   e x i s ‘e " « - P - t c o l o n i a l *eo ry i* cultural clashes with the r c  ° P ' 'S ‘ r u s t r a h o n s , t h e i r d i re c t a n d persona d r ea m s a bo ut t he 7u m r e a nd , h T r m 8 C u U u r e ' ™ d ‘ h e i r f ea rs , hopes, and t o c h a n ge s in t a n e m e e r  ,eir ow n identities. H o w the colonized respo 8 •fie. curricular m atters in ed uca tion , race d iffer en t

• •

^hapter

_ ..

economic issu es, morals, elhicn „ 10 * Pt*tcol
v,n8 theories and a s s u m p t io n s

Because different cultures t h a t h a v e h

Theory,

andthe W

o

r

able ty p e o f th eo ry in the sa m e sense as d °

k

S

k

’ theory is not an identifi

an aly sis o r fe m in i sm ," L ik e m a n y critical t h e ^ s ^ T ' Ma™ sm' psycho in talking as if co n se n su s ab ou t w hat nn ^m i , ' Harnson sees no poin a lly e m e r g e . " W e c a n , h o w e v e r , h ig h lig h t n o Z I Sh^ ie s; is 'm i g h t evcntu. All p os tco lo n ialis t cri tics be lieve the followine- ° nia lsm s ma)or concerns

4o*

•

European colonialism did occur.

• .

The British E mpire w as at the center of this colonialism. The conquerors dominated not only the physical land but also the hegemony or ideology of the colonized peoples.

•

The so cial, po litical, and economic effects of such colonization are still being felt today.

At the center of postcolonial theory exists an inherent tension among three categories of postcolonialists: (1) those who have been academically trained and are living in the West, (2) those who were raised in non-Westem cultures but now reside in the West, and (3) those subaltern writers living and writing in non-Western cultures. For example, on the one hand, critics such as Fredric Jameson and Georg M. Gugelberger come from a European and American cultural, literary, and scholarly ba^kF ° Und^ n. ° ^ £ ^ that includes Sp ivak, Said, and Bhabha wer^ ra^e n°n another eroup but have or no w reside, study, and write in the es . n   s5 ^ cultures, includes writers such as Aijaz Ahmad who live an wor h three Differing theoretical and practical criticism « groups. O u t of this u n d er ly in g tension am o g g problematic topics for r i s t s a n d c r i t i c s h a v e a n d w i l l c o n t i n u e t o d i s c o v e r p  , exploration a n d d e b a t e . H i s to r i ca l ly o n e o f t h e e a r l ie s t p o s co (1925-1961). B o m in t h e F r e n c h c o l o n y o f M French in W orld W ar II, rem ainin g in France and p s y c h i a t r y . T h r o u g h o u t h i s r a t h e r s o r Postcolonialism w ith tw o influential texts.

• j  theorists

is Frantz Fanon Fanon fought with the qthe' war to study medicine Fanon provides and ^ , sk in, White Masks (19 an

>nial‘srn C M * * 10 ' r ° ,,a,U ’' ...... " , t hc se a n d o t h e r w o r k s F a n o n u se s ps , r , r , h    (1461). In (hL"ftkm of blacks under French color/-, W r v l c lu-dof ine the co "d that b o th the colonized (e.g' t h eE   ; to exam T h e v w “ asser „ "d ifferen t fro m ) an d the coloni-* '

10 * 

rule. AS a

person d c m » - 3

 ,lu. Other— that >9' ‘ X * ’ « oftentimes c u

suffer " P 7 ^ ‘CeI ‘ "PFanon be liev e th»

collapse of the b

S

a s , h e co lonized (the black

. ,he lang ua ge of the colonize,

were forced to P

sin and W h iSt e n ^ wdh pur

ing wh at Fano n describes a s»

-

re COerce d into accepting tb

that an entirely new World ! 7 -

m The Wretched of t he Earth, r binary system in which black is evil must come into being to overcom *hM ist_jnfluenced postcolonial theory and white is good. Fanon develops a M # ^ rf revolu,ion in which in which he calls for violent r a participant an d a spokesperson for himself was involved when n Fra nce. H e also develops in T the Algerian revolutions 8 concem s: the problem of the "native Wret ched i ' ^ t o r t h ™   wer after the colonial po wers ha ve either peacebourgeoisie who P ^ when such a situ ation occurs, the native prolemriat/'the wretched of the earth," are left on their own, often in a worse situation than before the conquerors arrived. Throughout h,s writings, Fanon articulates key postco lonial co nc erns su ch as Otherne ss, sub  ject formation, and an em pha sis on lin gu isti c and p sy ch o an aly tic frame works on which postcolonialism will dev elop in the d ec ad es to follow. Another key text in the establishment of po stc olonial the ory is Orientalism (1978), authored by Edward Wadie Said (1935—20 03 ). A Palestinian-American theorist and critic, Said was bom in Jeru salem , w he re he liv ed w ith his family until the 1948 Arab-lsraeli War, at wh ich tim e h is fa m ily bec am e refugees in Egypt and then Lebanon. Educated at Princeton and Harvard Universities, Said taught at Johns Hopkins University, where, as a professor, he authored a variety of texts, including Orientalism, his most influential. In this work Said chastises the literary world for not investigating an d takin g seriously the study o co omzation or imperialism. He then develo ps se ve ra l co ncep ts that are cen tred ^b^- ! eorY- ^ ccording to Sa id, nine tee nth- ce ntury Europeans called Oriental* ^ ^ ritoria concluests by p ro pa ga ting a manufactured belief si7a1led O n 7 , I : ‘ ' 7 ? ° f " " " ‘ E uro pean ste re oty pe s that suggested and demented The m ° ttlouS^ tles s/se xu ally im mora l, unreliable,

Said notes' beiieved

* * 

r r

^heir  new ly acquired lands in 1 e East." What they failed to r   ltants be viewed only through nn ar^Ues ^ai d ,is tha t all hu m an knowledge can No theory, either political o rl it P ° ltlCal' Cultural' an d ideolog ical framewor colonizers were revealing w Can be tota llY ob jective. In effect, wha domination, not the nature of Fb ^ Unconsci° us desires for power, wealth,

mature of the colon ized sub jects.

Chapter lo *

In C u l t u r e a n d I m p er i a l i s m  ( 1 9 9 3 ^ Said u n i o n i z a t i o n  a n d

i m p e r i al is m : " T h e v ' J

ostcol onialis

ca ptu res the ba*\ n 

205

serve to be ru le d ." Th e colo niz ed . Said maiht US/ and t h a l ? 'behind me H en ce , the es tab lish ed bin ary o DDn„ ,tains' bec»mes th eO n /34. ” dt' m u st b e a b o l i s h e d a l o n g w i th i ts i ntr ic at e w e b o ^ M West" / " th e O .'her' dices. W ha t m us t be rejected. Said declares, is the a" d " % < » » pre f ers w h o w an t to d es cri b e the O rient from a panoram' mentality of writview o f hu m an ity c rea tes a simplistic interpretaH™ (  k  ' ™ '  This err™vous must be re place d b y one based on "narrative," a t o Z Z S T . exPCTte" “ - » sizes th e v a ri e ty o f h u m an exp erien ces in all cultnr..c TK hat emPhadoes n o t d en y diffe ren ces , bu t presents the!n in VieW  S ch o la rs h ip , a s s e r t s S a id , m u s t b e de riv ed from firsthand e x ^ c e ^ a pa rticu lar re gi on , g .v m g vo ice and presence to the critics who live and write in these re gi on s, n o t sch ola rsh ip from "afa r" or secondhand representation A lth ou gh s u ch id ea s h el pe d sh ap e the central issues of postcolonial theory, it was Said's use of French "high theory" along with Marxist ideology as a m et h o d o lo g y to d ec o n str u ct a nd historically examine the roots of Orientalism that attracted the attention of the academic world and helped inspire a new direction in postcolonial thought. H o m i K . B h ab h a (1 9 4 9 —), on e o f the leading postcolonial theorists and rritics b u ild s o n S ai d 's c on ce p t of the Other and Orientalism. Bom into a Pars! fam ily received his undergraduate ' in M u m ba i, India,' Bhabha -------—* uuuci^iauucue deg  uegree in -----------h i . -----“ dt. and master', and dm-rnml dIndia an d his m a ste r's and doctoral degrees from Oxford University. Having

-

taught at several prestigious universities, including Princeton, Dartmouth, and the University of Chicago, Bhabha is currently a professor at Harvard University. In works such as The Location of Culture   (1994), Bhabha empha sizes the concerns of the colonized. What of the individual who has been col onized? On the one hand, the colonized observes two somewhat distinct views of the world: that of the colonizer (the conqueror) and that of himself or herse lf, the co lo niz ed (th e on e who has been conquered) To what culture does th is p er so n b el o n g ? Seem ingly, neither culture feels like !h ome TTus fee.ing of h om eless ne ss, of being Bhabha calls unhomeliness, ai concep f ^ p(ion of abandonment by som e p ost co lo m al th eo rists. Th , ‘ g(theP0i0nized) to become a psyby both cu ltu re s ca u se s the colon ia ) refugee uniquely blends his chological refugee . Because each psyc o & Been colonial subjects will or her two cu ltu re s, no tw o w rite rs w Bhabha argues against the interpret the ir cu ltu re (s) exa ctly a 1 e' . ^ t0 a homogenous tendency to es se ntia liz e third-w or co postcolonial studies is is eie One of B ha bh a's m ajor c on tn ^ ‘‘ " te ofPcolonial dominance, When W that there is alw ay s am biv ale nc e a cbaracteristics of the na” 7 (ension. cultures commingle, the nature and ^ ^ a m i c , interactive, and tensionculture ch an ge s ea ch o f the cultu res. Th ^ Bhabha himse Y  Packed process Bhabha names y

10*

Clu i'K't 10 • l,‘» tcHU" ’i“liSm

,

..

t.

 ,:.lt„rv cultural, subjective process having  "hybridization is a discursive, auth(,R atio n deauthoriZatio *  to do With the struggle armii a S()cial process. It s not about persons 0f and the revision of nuthon 5 ^ . ^ * As a result, says Bhabha, a feeling o{ un iv^e liSlvelop s in ^ J ^ '^ m m i n g l c d culture, Bhabha's answer For the colonized writer in sue colonized writer must create a new to this sense of unhome m e s s ' d transcendental signifieds created by discourse by rejecting all the es * *  embrace pluralism, believing that no the colonizers. Such a writer m exist. To accomplish such goals single truth and no meta, !ep ° ^ /s ^ d^onstruction theory to expos! cut Bhabha consistently uses the tools tural metaphors and discourse^ much of the theoretical frameAlthough Fanom Said and Bhab ha^y them jn continu ^ work of

postcoloniahsm, m any *

„ th e ’o c c i d e n t " a n d " t h e O r i e n t”

dialogue between what bnaDna cans ^ Concentrating on what some critics call the "flows of culture, postcolonialism divides into smaller theoretical schools identified by their choice of theo retical background and methodology. Marxism, poststructuralism, feminism, African-American, and psychoanalytic criticism (usually of the Lacanian va riety) all influence postcolonial theory. For example, Gayatri Spivak, the pub lisher of the English translation of Jacques Derrida's O f G r a m m at o l o gy   (1976), is a feminist, postcolonial critic who applies deconstructive interpretations of imperialism while simultaneously questioning the premises of the Marxism, feminism, and Derridean deconstruction that she espouses. Postcolonialism is a varied approach to textual analysis that assumes that literature, culture, and history all affect each other in significant ways. Postcolonial critics also believe in the unavoidability of subjective and polit ical interpretations in literary studies, arguing that criticism and theory must be relevant to society as it really is. As such, these critics maintain that colo nialism was and is a cause of suffering and oppression, a cause that is inher ently unjust Furthermore, colonialism is not a thing of the past, but contin ues to ay owbeit in subtler and less open ways— as a form of oppression writpn an aPPeal to an ethical universal entailing  Suffering and enslavement's^ ®nda fundamental revolt a8a i n st ' ?   and are "simply wrong." ' Y P stcoloniallsts^are elements of oppression

METHODOLOGY Like many schools of critir

'° ,eX,Ui" ana)y«B. Deconstruction°r°n'a^.Srn a va™ 'y °< '  Lm‘nism,USeS M arxism, reader-orie

Chapter 1(1. Pmteoloniali.m

207

criticism, African-American criticism, and cultunl «... r colonial theories in their critical methodologies r ' i(| d,‘CS emP1»y postS Z a c h e s or "strains" of pos.col.mial c r i t i c i s m ? 1,d‘7’*«y *wo major  jJftco loni.il theory. Those who engage in postcolnnf 1“ ’ ?.?'? crillcism a"d £ £ in which texts bear the traces of such texts as challenging or promoting the colonizer'.1" ° 8y and lntt'rprel mony More frequently than no,. analyze canonical texts from colonizing countries. Postcolo^al h eo ^ 'o n the other hand, moves beyond the bounds of traditional literary ■ ' investigates social, political, and economic concerns of the col (he colonizer. No matter which methodology a postcolonial choose, it matters greatly whether or not the theorist/critic has been a colc^ nial subject. Those who have been the subjects of colonization ask them selves a somewhat different set of questions than those postcolonialists who have not. The person living and writing in a colonized culture poses three signifi cant questions: 1. Who am I? 2. How did I develop into the person I am? 3. To what country or countries or to what cultures am I forever linked? In asking and answering the first question, the colonized author is connect ing himself or herself to historical roots. By asking and answering the second question, the writer is admitting a tension between these historical roots and the new culture or hegemony imposed on the writer by the conquerors. By asking and answering the third question, the writer confronts the fact that he or she is both an individual and a social construct created and shaped pri marily by the dominant culture. The written works penned by these authors will necessarily be personal and always political and ideological. Furthermore, both the creation of a text and its reading may be painful and disturbing but also enlightening. Whatever the result, the text will certainly be a message sent back to the empire, telling the imperialists the effects of their coloniza tion and how their Western hegemony has damaged and suppressed the ide ologies of those who were conquered. Postcolonialists are quick to point out that they do indeed make value  judgments about cultures, people, and texts. In turn, they as us, t eir rea ers and critics, to examine carefully the standards against w ic we are ma ing our value judgments. Said cautions us that "it is not necessary to regar every reading or interpretation of a text as the moral equiva en o war, u^ whatever else they are, works of literature are not mere y  _tex s postcolonialists such as Said attempt to read a text in its fullest context being Careful not to frame their analyses solely in academic iscourse. . and oftentimes psychologically laden and complex theory highlights

# postcolon postcolonirtli&rn irtli&rn 208

Chi'P^’r 1

. *

. , experienced experienc ed colonial colo nial oppres opp ression sion to the the , ,h0^ j c o l o n i a l critics give suc such h te t e x t s a c lo s e « £ * < "writing b * * ’ «><,h0 oniwr* and to the the world orld ' * Such analysi ana lysiss questions que stions the the taW & noti noting ng particu particular larly ly the the tix h " W este es tern rn m ind in d set. se t. F or exam n' ^ g ra n te d positions °m in ed rather than exposing exposing ^ how tru truth is const constru ructe cted d nmrt be e and attitu att itude dess can ca n £ K   of

S S S a S 3 f l t a E 5S S B & to understand completely a subaltern group is impossible and can lead £ another form of repression. How postcolonial criticism is actually put j practice thus depends strongly on the critic s individual theoretical comm , ments. But all postcolonial criticism is united in its opposition to colonial and neo-colonial hegemonies and its concern with the best way(s) to create  just  just and and tru true e deco decolo loni nize zed d culture culture and literature litera ture.. a QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS  When applying applying postcolonialist postcolonialis t theo th eory ry to a te x t, c o n s i d e r th e follo fol lowi wing  ng  hons. ons. Afte Afterr exa exami mini ning ng each each question, question, ask y ou rse lf w h at qu estio n* prop propri riat atel ely y appl applie ied d to Nathani Nathaniel el H aw tho rne 's sh or t st o ry “Y o u ™ 5 ap Brown rown so you you can can view view this this tale from a po stcolo stc olo nia list persp pe rspeT eT tfve ' ’

“

S

' 16 leXt Wh6n ‘ he lW° “ “ “ »

'>ash, when one sees itself as „

Wha hatt d ^ hea^° ea ^°rr ° e c T re CU,tU ,tUreS exhibited exhibite d in the text. te xt. W ha hatt does each valu valuee Who in the text is "the Other"? ;

•

Wha*

the

CUltUr CUltUres? es?

culture? 68  tH tHe SUperi° r or P h v ile g er cu h u re 's 1

How dn tK

i

.

8 mo mony ny affect affe ct the colon lonize ized

By the the end end of of thTtexP P t° PlC View iew them selv es’ Is the

*

Wha, , he Z What Wh at are the ch, ch', T ' . . -like’ -lik e’ Differ ifferee„cp racleris,ics racleris,ics

“* * ' the language langua ge of ,h

Is the lane . n ue tanguage of the d Supp Suppre ress ssio ion? n? d°nu na nt cultu re In what ways is the r i

h a n 8e *  ■» *« • * « 7 cChan8e

h .

he *WO cultures? How are t a

ed as a form fo rm of oppre oppress ss

fenced? f? * b -a;:;h e :;t"rd C U , t U r e

colonizers? How do gender

8 nt f()r f()rrns rns of postc po stcolo olo • , . . 013 ld en d ty afte af terr the departure departure ol

- - t s of the t e ; ; r ' ° rSOCial ^ass function in th colonial , n the and postcolorua

Cha pter 10 . Postcoloni Postcolonialism alism

CRITIQUES

209

a n d r e spo n se

l i k e  other

approaches to textual analysis, postmlnni r nous nous school school of literary theory and cr itid sm bu f a 1  ,1  ,1Sr? 1S not a homoSe* homoSe*   ries and methodologies that seeks to uncover anH r T * * Y  deflned set of theo' the colonized coloni zed o n c e  they the y have ha ve been conquered conquere d bv th* 1fCover what haPPens to chie chiefl fly y deals deals with literature that ha sl e e n written wr itten 'f’° ^ re-Post Postc“l c“lo oniali®m nized countr cou ntries ies.. Its aim is to exami exa mine ne what hac u y he co,onized ,n co,°* an a ,y s e s by h i g h l i g h t i n g t h e i n t e r e s t

force forcess of the colon co lon,zer ,zer s hegem ony as force forced d on the colon colonize ized. d. As such p l t colomahsm colomahsm becom es hke deconstruction, deconstruction, more more of a reading strategy foan a cod,fled cod,fled school sc hool o f hterary hter ary c m ,a sm . In its its meth methodo odolog logy, y, it it gives gives authorit authority y and an d presen pre sence ce to the Other, Other , the people peo ple who have become the separate separate ones ones and who stand apart from the dominant, colonizing culture. And its goal is to win back a place in history for the colonized, enabling all readers to value the many different kinds of cultures and peoples who inhabit the earth. Whether the postcolonial critic embraces the tenets of feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, or any other theoretical framework, such a critic empha sizes each person's humanity and right to personal freedom. Some critics of postcolonialism point out that many of its most influential spokespersons have been and continue to be educated in the West and are, therefore, products of the Western mindset, not subaltern cultures. How can such "Westem"-minded individuals speak for subaltern cultures? Other critics observe that postcolonial studies remains situated in academia, in the "upper classes" o f society, havi h aving ng little or no n o effect on real people in real real places. places. Can ac ademic discussions, assert these critics, bring any change to subaltern cultures and their peoples? If postcolonialism seeks to help and to change the lives of colonized peoples, some of its critics argue that its reading strategies and methodologies must be performed by those who have been colonized, not by academics academics living in the West. Postcolonial Po stcolonialism ism must, therefore, therefore, seek seek to empower thos thosee who have ha ve been bee n stripped stripp ed of power, dignity, dignity, and self-worth, self-worth, maintain maintain some some criti critics cs,, rather rathe r than continu con tinually ally marginalizing marginaliz ing the the colonized colonized throug through h iscourse that can be understood by only the culturally elite. Perhaps, say these critics, postcolonialism postcolonialism is radical ra dical in only on ly its words, words , not in life-changing life-changing power power.. Like mo most st theori the ories es and methodolo metho dologies gies grouped un er t e ea mg o cultur cultural al stud ies, postc olo olonia nia lism is becoming becom ing more an ™ore: '  , including Caribbean, Latin American, and Pacific geograp ica r  g althou although gh some tradition trad itional al postcolon postc olonial ial sites such as n 1a remain rema in i P By embracing a variety of theories and approaches to textual analj^s,^postcolonialism has ensured its place in literary theory and prac 1 Y  docades to r o m p * * See See Readings on L i t e r a l Criticism C riticism at the the back of the the tex textt for a ke= ke= ' rson °n the overall purpose of a postcolonial rea m g o  Ethnocentrism: The Idea of Universality in Literature, y

.ftM E m C A NC B .T .C .S H A F R I C A N

• It is . peculiar peculiar sensation, sensation, t h i s d^ l e^ Z m ■s self through t he  eyes  eyes 0/ others- 0/ m rta, rta, S o n ," a m u s e d contempt and pt ptty.

$ n es es s t h i s s en en s e o f a l w a y s l o o k i n g a t   g   one's

w. E. B. DuBois,

soul

by the tape of a w orld 

 Soul   Soul o f D o u b l e C o n s c i o u s n es T h e  es s  

he mowing interest in postcolonialism in American literary theory during the late 1970s to the present helped propel a renewed interest in the works of African-American writers and African-American literary theory and criticism. To say that postcolonialism or other postmodern theori theories es initi initiate ated d AfricanAfrican-Ameri American can theory theory and crit icis m w ou ld b e inaccu inaccu rate. Like all schools of criticism, this body of theory and criticism has been evolving over time since the publication of the earliest African-American literature, poems written by the African-American authors Jupiter Hammon (1711-1806) and Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784). Prom the publica tion of these poets' works to the writings of contemporary AfricanAmericans, African-American criticism challenges established ideologies, racial boundaries, and racial prejudice. It also acknowledges and incorpo rates the writings of past and often suppressed and forgotten AfricanAmerican literature, the major historical movements that have influenced African-American writings, and both historical and current attitudes toward African-Americans themselves. Since the emergence of Derrideai deconstruction and other poststructuralist the ories , African -Am erican cr crit icism requently requently employs binary oppositions , view ing the w hite Am Americ ericaa as the oppressor of black art and black people. Its strong historical sen* ,ts understanding of rac.al issues, and its concept of what being Blue means combine to create a school of criticism that is unique, multifacete and ever growing. n

T

21 0

Chapter 11 • A

f .

fncan-American Criticism

211

H I ST S T O R I C A L D E V E L O P M E N T , A S S U M P T IO IO m c 1 T I° I° N S , a n d METHODOLOGY

 With  Withou outt question, the twentieth century gave _• African-American liter li teratu ature re and literary litera ry criticism criticism Th ®dram ® dramatic atic '^crea '^crease se in in African Afr ican-Ame -Americ rican an work wo rkss dire di rect ctly ly influences Am", Am", 6 lncreas lncreased ed Presence Presence of same same time the th e cult cu ltur ure e is influ in fluenci encing ng the literal,,™,C literal,,™,C^ CU,tU ,tUre wbile bile at the the o f the earliest African African A m / : Th Th
America. America.

P

pa st three centuries in

Since Since its its beg innin gs, A frican-A frican-A m erican lite literat rature ure

,

b y   th enslavement of the blacks in colonial America by white Wesi  the 3 % £ Z   and the suppression of the black race Phillis Wheatley, one of the first prominent African-American poets in early Amenca, embodies the effects of slavery in American literature; in American culture, and in the personal life of one of America's earliest poets

On August 3, 1761, the following advertisement appeared in the Boston Evening Po st : 

To Be Sold A parcel of likely Negroes, imported from Africa, cheap for cash, or short credit. Enquire near the South Market; Also, if any Persons have any Negro Men, they may have an exchange for small Negroes.

Among this group of small Negroes stood a frail, seven-year-old child who would soon be given the name Phillis Wheatley by her new owners, the Wheatleys. Recognizing Phillis's innate intelligence, Susannah Wheatley, the wife of a prosperous Boston tailor and Phillis's "owner," encouraged Phillis's intellectual endeavors, and in a little more than sixteen months after her "adoption" by the Wheatleys, Phillis had mastered English, memorized many ma ny passage pas sage s from the Bible, Bible , and an d was well w ell on her way to fluency in several several classical languages. Because she was a brilliant conversationalist, Phillis fre quently accompanied her owners on the circuit of Boston social events. By her own choice, she never sat at the same dining tables as her owners an their peers but requested a side table where she would eat alone. She wou d simi simila larl rly y spend the m os t sig ni fica nt part of her life in iso ation rom o whites and blacks, her most frequent company being the works of the eighteenth-century British writers. By thirtee thirteen, n, Phi llis pu blish ed he r first poem with many mo ' " 1770, the publication of her poem written in .memory of ^everend, and Pio us G eo rg e W hitef hi tef ield iel d " propel prop el e er o * Loncjon Loncj on an and d ^ o n and the the coloni colonies. es. A t age twenty-three, she traveled to Lond London on a ^ £ q (  I'as greet greeted ed as the "S ab le M u se ," find ing h ers elf in th en)amm Franklin, counts and countesses, and even

212 21 2

Chapter Cha pter 11 • African-American C n t i c *

„ ,„ pd edition of he r po em s, Poe Poems on While in Lon don, the co ^ ^ a s pu blish ed, the firs firstt pub, pub, a n d M()r London. While >n M()ra, a, ( i f f « both her Brit Britis ish h and and A n n 

t

5^ S I u l e o f p o e is « * ^ £ Am erican audience would fin d it sta 8

u n b e l i e v a b l e t h a t a h la la c t (ace to he r collec collected ted poem oems

w om o m an a n c o ul ul d w ri ri te ^ e l g ^ d ist^.n gu .shed fBoston,ans. contained the testimony testimony of no le auth enticity of he r w ork including including lohn Hancock, attesting con tinu ed to publish her poem poems, s, Upon her return to Amenca  W h ea V inent Am ericans erica ns as George with her work being being praised praised by s“ c" j lione ioned d how how a black black woman could  Was  W ashi hing ngto ton. n. M an y peop pe ople le,, h o w e v e r ^ le a d in g t o h e r bei b eing ng taken to be so intel ntellligen igentt as to w ntesuch j; P ^ hef ow nership of her poem poemss, court so that that she would be fo rc e d ' poc m s in such pres preshg hg..ous ous  Whe  W heat atle ley y w on h e r cas c as e an d cont co ntin inue ues, s, r publications as the P e m s y l v a m a P U po po n th e d ea ea t h o f h er e r o wn w n er ers F h d l t s w ^ married married a free free black, black, John Pe W «- >8" faced faced numerous struggles struggles in th e n "> of their children in chi dh oo a. in poems, Phillis took employment employmen t as I

house." In 1774, soon after the drain or

g  K  a  M  ■

rd cd h er f ph hm m is i s a n d , oh o hn

d e lu d in g the deaths of all three a n d u n a b l e to t o p u b l i s h any 8^ fof, fof, „a co m m on ne gro boarding boarding--

husbandi husb andi Phillis Phill is Wheatle Whe atley y died died

inPr reLm eL m fn0 fn 0ahonUo!w o! w h ea.le ea .leyy-ss lif life e highlights highlights the multiple concerns concerns of contemporary African-American criticism.

. • . .

Socia Social!^ l!^po politic litical, al, econom economic, ic, ideological, ideological, and l i ^ a r y t0 The historical historical an and d cultural cultural significance significance of the black experience African language and culture Celeb elebra ratin tinee that that whi which ch is black black in in black black art art The significan significance ce of slavery slavery as a historical event and its present- ay ra Reading'race into all American American literature because becau se whitenes whit enesss is “the Other' Other' of blackness.

Like Wheatley and the many other black Americans who would pen word t s s s s i' s r * * *  

 Jupiter  Jupite r Hammon^ Hammon^ aidho^o^th aidho ^o^the" e" r i r s t ° r3Fh i Wer e indeed ind eed feW feW“ "An Evenine Thoutrhf- c 1 , poem publish pu blished ed by a black blac k Americ erican an and Ignatius Ignatius Sancho (1729^780 (1729 ^7801^ 1^ th Penitential Pen itential Cries" Crie s" <17 176i 6i;; praised Wheatlev's Whe atlev's nnetrv nnetrv u ‘he f,rst f,rs t A frica n-A m eric an critic wh, Mure d e v e l o p t h T . ^ ^ c e d Am 1 8 ° °S °S f° ™ WaCk  Writ  Writte ten n by for form mer slaves th» th» » . America Ame rican n cultur cul ture: e: slave narra narrativ tives es y mer slaves, slaves, the autob.ograph autob. ographical ical slave narrativ narr ative e recou recounts nts a.

C ha l>, l>,‘* li . Afrl 21.1 a s a  slav e m nl »i

•ividua •ividua l's p e rso n a l life life % * * > *v e   n

n m ,, , , i v c w o » ; ,s<-d b y « * « , « S , ' r v W » " ' * « * • « ! * t o „

,

l * ‘"r" "r" •S'/," ' ■ G ,r/ < ,8(>l 8(>l)) and F iw d ^ *k" *k" ^ lu<,
' 

m “ /S ^ member of the N A A C P   Advance Advancem m ent o f C o lore d People. A ssociation fo ^ gays CH'B o is , is  the prob lem o f the the c o lo r-lin e ^ c S il^ il^ K tWen tWentieth eth cent centur ury/' y/' f o u n d i n g   

argues DuBois, can can Afri Africa cann-Ame Ameri rica cans ns figh fightt X >l y

Another prom inent A frican-Am frican-A m erican w riter riter fnH ^ e(*U e(*Uaahty and justice Book Booker er T. W ash ington , fou n d e r o f the the T u s k J Z eTd u c a t o r   this th is era is aut author hor of l/p l/p/mm /mm SLm ery (1901) (1901) an d M y Lamer J in A l a b a m a a n d   L ? U nlike

D

u

B

o

i

s

,W a s h i n g t o n

within the s o c i a l , p o l i t i c a l , a n d e d u c a t i o n a l   an’A an’A ”lencans ”lencans m ust ust w ork the dom inan t w hite culture. culture. B o rro w ing the w a*r a*ready eady e s t a b l i s h e d b y  

 Wa  Washington main aintain ains that African ican--America rican ns sh shonlH ' b y t h ei r    own  o wn

bo otstraps" otstraps" b e f o r e  thev ask for c ^ - . ld pick the hemsel mselves ves up A f ri ric a n -A - A m e ri r ic a n lit e ra r a tu t u re r e L d „ , ff ° r p ° li li, ic a lj lj u sti“ throughout throughout the the 192 0s a n d '3 '3 0 s in large Dart h*JL h*JL1 1Sm (\on tinue d to de ve lop

era ture a nd n d a rt. w h a , be b e c a m e k n o X s th e and m u si sic ia ia ns n s ga g a th th er e r e d t og o g et e t h er er i n t e r n ' ^ d X Ameri American can cultur culture, e, g iv in g to A fri frica n-A m nrm ,„n

t ^ T r ic a X /

ea A frjca frjcann-

being black. For a short short time Harlem Harlem b ecame th the id e a h X X n fe r of h o p j X ey , l i k e t h e i r w h i t e   frican can A m eric an s a h o p e t h a t e n v i s i o n e d t h a t o n e d a y t h ey counte^art counte^arts, s, w o u ld receive e q u a l r i g h t s u n d e r t h e l a w . U n d e r t h e e ^ t o r -     ,hip hip of D u B o is, the C r i s i s , t h e j o u r n a l o f t h e N A A C P , e c h o e s t h i s cry for r %

y-s

, “ i

s

beCOme a t00] 111 the s t r u S 8 l e { o r  so Ciafjus8 t h a t a r t f ° U l d i  beCOme P r o P a 8 ™ d a a n d  ever   m ust be " a r g u e d t h e w r i t e r s o f t h e  

  odern " r ] :  d *he 8 re reat at m issi°n o f the N e g r o t o A m e r i c a a n d t o t h e  m odern ea u t y . " T h i s d e v e l -   >nm f t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f A r t a n d t h e a p p r e c i a t i o n o f B ea - L l f n d Africar|Africar|-A A m e rican art an d culture w as bes bestt arti articulated culated in th the er , p h i l o s o p h e r , a n d e d u c a t o r A l a i n L e R o y L o c k e   n hie™ hie ™ n fn,a,SSance a,SSance b y w r i t er ne ” t h 0J °8 y o f A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n w r i t e r s , N e w N e g r o ( 1 9 2 5 ) . I n t h e   T b e

ack

N e w N eg r o ," L o c k e p r es en t s h i s u n d er s t a n d i n g   c u l t u r e a n d a r g u e s t h a t t h e u n i t ed A f r i c a n - A m er i ca n s o f t h e  

214

Ch4,.l.r 11 • African-American Criticism

. „ ., irl(im are becoming a "progressive force" in _ . North, aiul especially with whites. Locke argues that the^T^' leading toward blac 1 Y h )|()„y" and a "new spirit " ^evv Negro" as w J S l * s« ie ty Throughout the Harlem Renaissance, Locke s use of the ,erm * * ^ b e c a m e synonymous with those who refused to submtt to the Crow laws, both state and local laws enacted m the Un.ted States betw^j 1876 and 1965. These laws maintained racial segregation in all pubhc faciJ ties, including schools, transportation, restrooms restaurants, and even drinking fountains. The New Negro openly protested against such dehu. manizing legislation, advocating dignity for all African-Americans. The two leading literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance are Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Novelist, dramatist, short story writer translator, children's author, and poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) became famous with the publication of his poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers" in 1921. Unlike Alain Locke and other African-Americans arguing for social equality by embracing the qualities of what Hughes dubbed "whiteness " Hughes asserts that African-Americans should embrace their blackness and their cultural integrity, qualities Hughes sees in lower-class black life, not the middle or upper classes. By embracing their blackness, says Hughes African-Americans must recognize the importance of their music, especially  jazz. For Hughes, jazz "is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul—the tom-tom of re volt against weariness in a white world, the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile." The other leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), agrees with Hughes. Author of more than fourteen books, Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), a work dubbed an "African American feminist classic" and "one of the very greatest American novels in the twentieth century." Like Hughes, Hurston usually avoids fiction of protest, choosing to write literature that affirms the black consciousness. Because she did not author protest fiction and because of her gender, her works received little attention until the 1970s,  /\i.en 1 *7 ^ 1 l ,° ^ ° *ct‘on was rediscovered" by the American author/poet Alice Wa^er author of The Color Purple,   winner of the Pulitzer Prize for . * , ,/ n ‘ a er is a leading African-American feminist who intro“Creft he W° rd Womamst in hterary criticism, a term that highlights the per spectives and experiences of "women of color " 1930?anHW C
\

Chapter

11

• Afrit,

an-Ameri
2IS

         ^

 J *' ? ® ' ^ 1

Vvjf, captures in his prose what it is like to be black in an intensely per^ al way- Baldwin believed that America was in a process of being, not an ^ vej . at entity. In his vision or aesthetics, he addresses the problems of •*rrI social justice in American democracy while attempting to create a r^ ld that transcends such inequity. For Baldwin, like Wheatley and other " Tsts before him , aliena tion from both white and black society was the art" a time when being black and homosexual were suspect identities, o°i -iwin was both. Authoring more than eighteen works, Baldwin found no ftme in American society of the 1950s. ^ Unlike Baldwin, Richard Wright (190 8-19 60 ), another literary voice for .. ^.A me rican s, embraces Marxist principles and opts to change the soci^ which he lives. Author of Native Son  (1940), The Outsider   (1953), and e J hlte Man, Listen!  (1957), Wright was a novelist, essayist, and activist who Uf>l -ed that "Negro writers must accept the nationalist implications of their lives not in order to encourage them, but to change and transcend them." In his works, Wright asserts that the African-American writers should concen trate their talents on describing the material conditions of black, not white, life in American society. The ideology of the black working classes, not the white upper classes, must be embraced. What this means for the writer, says  Wright is an interaction with, not an isolation from, society. The act of writ ing is asocial act that should bring about change for the better in the lives of biks. For Wright, writing should highlight the oppression of blacks and at radical agent . „ , , , ___  must become liLU Jt l/ WV/Jitiv v ^ _  of social change. Arguably the greatest literary work of this time is Ralph Ellison's only novel, Invisible M an  (1953). In this work and in Ellison's collections of essays, Shadow and A ct  (1966) and Go ing to the Territory  (1986), Ellison (1914-19 94) as serts that in America race is the central and most profound issue. Unlike  Wright, Ellison argues that literature, esp ecially the novel, should be a place of experimentation and speculation, where various ideas could be examined and pondered. For Ellison, literature is not politics nor is it a bully pulpit to advocate social change. Texts must engage their culture but not be primarily agents of change. African-American art, Ellison declares, must be written fHd analyzed with the same literary and cultural sophistication as any other fond of art. ,n the ongoing development of African-American literature and c ' ^ dsm, the black arts movement provides a radical change in ire

. n Cr»^cism M

.. .

* 1"

, ifrican-American scho\ar-crttic ,

'50s. T' ' C,,he -shor

 , ,. „0st, »«■ move^11' L bUlck arts movement sp,n u » t.,, )r.,«#»» '"“,1 history-Tt^' d with the assassinationc Vlemy Loins^ ‘ ,ic»n cuj>u be(.l0nii'K<* ^   tbe philosophy oi thes Oftill" in V)b510 UulicaV b tU nHch power-that is, m ilitant ad  ,heaecailcfn''«;ruary ^ a tenewal and pride in

MalcolmX mf   nrovennn t w,c in»p> ,nlf beauty of all thingsblack. Civil Rights en . scM.de(ensc 0dness a wicb Village beat poet — rsstt»> ., . ,. .. ~ltw-Kna Cricket. n■novemem .. . .... s .“sThei’ ^ ss l iu3 l i S« e tion, and its literary goal was to descri e an in a racist white society from one based on shame Decause ui ^ « un Deing  proud of everything black, especially skin color Although the black arts movement produced a variety of literary works by writers such as Nikki Giovanni (Block Feeling, Black Folk,  1967) and Soma Sanchez (Homecoming, 1969), its existence was short lived. Its visionary gleam and its major strength were also its major weakness, alienating African-Americans from other seg ments of society by attempting to establish its own black nation and making  blacks a group of people seemingly standing apart from history.  What African-American literature and criticism needed was a theoretical framework on which to base its criticism. Throughout the first seven decades of the twentieth century, African-American writers wrote texts depicting  African-Americans interacting with their culture. These American subaltern writers concerned themselves mainly with issues of nationalism and the ex posure of the unjust treatment of African-Americans—a suppressed, re pressed, and colonized subculture—at the hands of their white conquerors Their writings highlight such themes as the African-American's search for personal identity; the bitterness of the struggle of black men and women in America to achieve political, economic, and social success; and both mild and militant pictures of racial protest and hatred. What these authors gave to America were personal portraits of what it meant to be a black writer strug gling with personal, cultural, and national identity.  While literature authored by black writers was gaining in popularity throughout the twentieth century, it was being interpreted through the lens of the dominant culture, a lens that was focused on one color—white, the dominant element in the binary opposition white/black, as Derrida would soon explain. A black aesthetics had not yet been established, and critics and theorists alike applied the principles of Western metaphysics and Western hermeneutics to this ever-evolving and steadily increasing body of literature. Although theoretieal and critical essays authored by DuBois, Hughes,  Wright, and Ellison announced to the literary world that black literature was a distinctive literary practice with its own aesthetics and should not be

C h i l P

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t i n ct i v e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f i m p o r t a n t g r o u p o f l i t e r a r y   c r h P ' ^ r ' c a n  T-I*

and H enry L ouis Gates, Jr. n,e f o u n d i n g jhe most influ e n tial p o stcn l

bl‘8an

A f r i  *b . ,a<* t h e n “n  t T ' “ no, „  

>,cs->*„ ' " « a (Ure ed itor C fo  u h  

L'1'*

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university o f C

* ° W . a l i f o J Z ^ '   «  scholarly a r t i c l e s   a n d t e x t s h i J r 7 ' h n ^ o h a t  Pr° ^ s 0r is one Gf ary c r i t i ci sm . R a i s ed i n K e n x , 8 7 8 b t i r > g t h e  , ed h^s auf. f £ngh sh af f  a n ' A f r i c a n - A m er i c a n  ) , ism a n d c o l o n i a l m e t h o d s t h a t a T * ^

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eliminate the vital elements uominafe, quell a ^ * the __  co'on1Zed culture2ea H »t' nd •« 0,hl™ hjs U h  ___ culture n e has . sesn„„,

eliminate   mv.  _ ___   ______  _  _  of t h e  ........ studying the e f f e c t s o f  colon ization '' u' u,"

dynamics of both the conqueror and tanceishis

text Manichean Aesthetics- Th. n 

mterbvined « baS Spent his  , i f e -

-------

? socia

in c Z n i u U f r 0*   ”•» 1 9 8 3 ), in,‘’l”Vh (-----whichhp hearffU a rg uM es«th at liter atur e authored by the colon, in Kenya and A frica n-A m eric an s in America, for example) is more tat m sh ^ for .ts noemahe v a lu e -th e complexities of the world it reve alslton^ or  jts noetic or su bje ctiv e qualities co nce rn in g wha t it perceives. JanMohamed delineates the antagonistic relationship that develops between hegemonic and nonhegemonic literature. In African-American literature, for example he notes that black writers such as Richard Wright and Frederick Douglass were shaped by their personal socioeconomic conditions. At some point in their development as writers and as persons who were on the archetypal  journey of se lf-realization, th es e write rs became "agents of resistance" and were no longe r w illing to "c on se n t" to the hegemonic culture. According to  JanMohamed, at som e point, su baltern writers will resist being shaped by their oppressors and become literary agents of change. It is this process of change from passive observers to resisters that forms the basis of  JanMohamed's aesth etics . Perhaps the most important and leading contemporary AfricanAmerican theorist is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Unlike many African-American writers and critics, Gates directs much of his attention to other AfricanAmerican critics , de cla rin g th at th ey and he "m us t redefine theory itself from within [their] own black cultures, refusing to grant the premise that theory is something that white people do. We are all heirs to a-itical theory, hut we Black critics are heir to the black vernacular as well." In his critica theory, Gates provides a theoretical framework for developing a pocu African-American literary canon. In this framework, he insists a , A fric an literature be view ed as a form of language, not a representation^ ooal practices or cultu re. F o r black lite rary criticism to eve Pf  ^ caIjg  t r a a i u u n  A

—   -------

"tS bnS‘ ^ deriVed fr° m *he b' aCk itraditi° m» « the f y i n g d inf fifSe er e n candi e w h?i c^h U m a kkes t h e  Black guage of blackn ess, the signi

 ,t U .A frl «n -A rm 'ric.m Cr ili ciS-n

218

Guptt

 , hig texts The S i g n i f y in g M o n k e y  (1988) and Fi o tradition ition our very own. U Sel f(\ 9S7), Gates de velop s thes« ? Ures  J J African-American li in lUack: Wools. S i g n s , m l the -

 

.......

S , as Hons,on Baher, Deborah M Hazel Carby, bell hooks, Gloria A. Hull, Tom Morrison, Claudia Tate, 3 Angelou, Rita Dove, Ntozake Shange, and a host of African-American nist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, and gay and lesbian critics, present African-American theorists and critics are developing a body of Cllu specific theory and criticism of African-American literature. Theirs th lieve, is a significant discourse that has, for too long, been neele f ^e' study of this body of literature, they insist, needs to be reformed Th u ning of this reformation, reclamation, and ongoing developme t &  °egirtliarly African-American literary theories and criticism ha s h ? Pecumarginalized groups  such as gays and l e s b i a n s to develop other their own critical theories and practical c r i t i c i s m

P

nd ar ticulaf«

QUESTIONS f o r a n a l y s i s

^ Uollowlng o t n fquestions: the lens of African-American h e o r y   and critin ca n tth *

Is race evident?

Are the marc-

,

th eSernony?

:

Are any character margina|jzed ^

" ’^ S e and cuttura, practices? ° ugh silence?

decent

*

E s

 ,Ve ln the S o u * fP,r,1S,n8 a h°u t 13.5 ' followed by the Northea

Chapter 11 * African-American Crliici»m aI1d the

too ther minorities, as aRm up A fric i”

^

219

 comP‘,ri*

M \ ln  

< o ^ " v' educf " n" " y- andf “<>cii,"y o f «ho m edia n in com e of European-Americans, African-A m e r i c a ! SS ^ r i m i n a m i n m h o u s in g e m p lo ym e n t, a nd accessib le health e r e statistics lend support to the central concerns of African-American lit^ r e : oppression sup pre ssion, and enslavement of blacks as depicted in « ? * lite ra tu re . And such are the major issues of African-American literary b !l r v and criticism : m arg inaliza tion of blacks; economic, social, political, literary op pr ess ion ; th e h istor ica l significance of slavery and its presentracial ram ificatio ns; an d the c elebr ation o f all things black in the arts.   According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the task of African-American the^  nd criticism is no t to cry sp ec ial"— that is, demanding a unique apot Y   a ^ unlike an y oth er p ast or contem porar y school of criticism. Instead, ProaC argUes tha t b la ck the or ists a nd critics m ust use the most sophisticated ^ ateS norary th eo ries a nd pr actic es to redefine the language of critical thecon e P aiiow bla ck lang ua ge to enter academic discourse and help disory a pjud ice an d eth n ic diffe ren ce s in literature. Toni Morrison, Farah close pr C lau dia Tate, and D ebor ah G. Chay use the theories and  Jasmine s ^ c u ltu ra i stu d ie s, fe m in is m , psy cho an alys is, an d ga y and » f ° ctudies not only to highlight the concerns of African-Americans in lesbum ture bu t aiso to de velo p new critical theories that will reveal the'as yet un spo ken an d silenced concern s of the past and the present in

bl" X o f A frican-A merican theory and criticism, both black and wW^ r ; e s « o n s f ha, — ^ ^ .^ ^ A ffor r ic African a n - A mAmer e r ic a n s : only Other minorities? Is criticism literature or y blacks? Whites? g f   American African-American literature an ■ 8 £ Af ican.American literature a unique unto itself? Is p m s ^ ' concern  for minorities that will evenreflection of Am erica s con te P ^ reshaping the fabric of American litertually wane, or is it an interest themselves depicting blacks ature? And are A frican -A m er ican w r multifaceted answers unduly negatively? Such com plex ques. n. American criticism for the next will continue to shape c on tem po rar y African Arne

several decades.

1 2

QUEER

t h e o r y: g a y a n d

  I_ESBIAn

C R I T I C I S M

I Ps exhi l arat i ng to be al m' .

of awakening consciousness; il can also be n , a me of a 

confusing, disorienting, and painful.

!  . ,,when We Dead Awaken:  Writing as Re-vision" CoUt% English,  October 1972

Adrienne Rich, Wn

rokeback Mountain,   the most discussed, controversial, and honored

 B

Hollywood film of 2005, is based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx. Proulx writes that one day she saw an old cowboy in a bar with a certain look in his eye, a look of dissatisfaction with his life, as he observed the younger cowboys. Deciding that the older cowboy was gay, Proulx began to write her short story, one that would simmer in her mind for a protracted time. Years after the story was published, Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana would write the screenplay for what would become Hollywood's love story for 2005. Brokeback Mountain   tells the story of two, nineteen-year-old, Wyoming  cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. In the summer of 1963, the cowboys are employed by a sheep farmer to guard his flock while the sheep graze on Brokeback Mountain. After a few days of work and drinking, one night without warning and seemingly any premeditation, the two cowboys have a sexual encounter. After the night's event, Ennis says to Jack, "You know I ain t queer, and Jack responds, "Me neither." Then Ennis remarks, "This is a one-shot thing we got going on here." But it wasn't. vvnen tne summer ends, hnms and Jack part ways, assuming they w work at the same job next summer. When Jack returns the following year ai applies for work, his boss tells him that he and his kind are not wanted the Years pass, during which time Ennis and Jack fall in love with two bea tiful women and marry. One day Jack surprises Ennis with a visit. Up1 meeting, both cowboys embrace and passionately kiss, shocking both ls   viewed through an upstairs window by Ennis s wi itm / a^ cene Alma. Periodically Ennis and Jack decide to go on "fishing" trip* a

220

Chapter 12 • Queer Theory: Cay and U ih,

Criticism

221

 , hack Mountain. As Alm a soon discovers nn n.-u ' no f,sh ar« ever caught on BroKebac _outings many these ii w -v Both men struggle with their fe..i{

taught him to ha te ho m ose xu als, tellj* f,,r each „ ,her P l i v e d  together a n d w h o w e r e both kt,, " nis ‘he story L®nnis's ‘“'he r had Ennis's dad amon g them. Ja c k , o n the mh b y ,he town! ° " 'd mt'" who ings by traveling to M ex ico to seek a m “l” hand. finds anP° '’plt“- prob ably

h i s w ife ^ P rostitu te. Toward m his fwl end of the is now living in a ru ndow n trailer and cn J ?Ck'8 ma™'ageTs ^ for Jack, saying, "W hy d on 'tyou let m ^ nues‘o stnfce „ •r.°uble' Ennis

m 0 v i e, E n n i s h a s  d iv o rc ed

like this-no thing and nobody - The ' * * * Its be«u se S h,“ feelin8s heed, and heartbroken En nis st ru T l * 6’8 e"d ing po°r you' ^ k , that I'm been murdered b y m en w ho desr,-88 !' " 8 'Vltb his passirm i '' V onely-c°nThe critical rev iew s o responses to the m ov ie:

f

Z

l

X

a as M o un t a i n   are as varied

heartbreaking movie.

T

k

M

personal

Le' ts an emotional,  Willie Waffle, Wafflemovies.com

m s ostensible gay Western is marked by a heightened degree of sensitivity and tact, as well as an outs tan din g performance."

Todd McCarthy, Variety.com "Some Am erican audiences may reject out o f hand a gay-themed tale set in the macho sa nc tity o f the West. But they'd be missing great performances."

 James Vemiere, Boston Herald "While the message at the core is th at love is love, the way the in itial sexual encounter  is shown w il l only reinforce the negative views that bigots have ofgay culture."

 John Venable, Supercala.com "And Lee (the director) conveys maddening delirium rendered in the way one man s eyesgaze at another's, and then look away, and the lookmg-away amounts tothemurder o f two souls as surely as i f they'd drawn guns and hit eac ot in ear .

Ken Tucker, New York Magazine

"A ny o f us can imagine a forbidde n passion flood tide, never allowing us to question it. Wh would carry a purse, a la ria t o r both is beside the poin .

tf Z T r affectbn

/ 

r cwrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer 

* * ’ " * ’  " 

b<>has

. ,-sbianCriUcism

Ibrory. Gay “,ul L n l 

Cl«t’"'r ,J *

.

. , i iht* attiiute"

'

-un A,f)h, in exv i y  ««V-

, u,.fulfi ll ed love. It' s on    absolute tri14

. Portland uT 'u. p n Tribune  Daw n Taylor,

. ^ ^ iv e rf^ c a n s id e r a tu m .a d e ^ "This story of su pped

P^ ° H t$' 

movi ng, indeed l acerat i ngp 

•

frank S wietek, O n e

G u y ' s O pi n i o n  

something that is much more p u re -a rough "Lee strips away all the pizzazz fo r  and tough emotional journey."

Mark Sells, Oregon Herald "Eloquently sums up and universalizes the hopelessness o f Jack and En nis' situa tion while showing the staggering cost of hypocrisy and deceit.

 James Sanford, Kalamazoo Gazette "It is up to date in its version offorbidden love because its conflict is based on one of the last socially-sanctioned forms of discrimination."

Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope

"One of the all-time greatest love stories, its potent poignancy comes from univer sally relatable ideas like nagging love, lost dreams, a half-lived life and comfort in knowing incomplete joy is better than none at all." Nick Rogers, State Journal-Register   (Springfield, Illinois)

"Michelle Williams nearly steals the film as Ennis's wife in a quiet, complex, heartbreaking performance."  Jon Popick, Planet Sickboy

"Explores repressed feelings, loneliness, suffering, and alienation as adroitly as any film in recent memory."  John A. Nesbit, Toxicuniverse.com

 Mountain' Hspunch^ thp^ ^ cowboy' movie. What gives 'Brokeback is told." n° tn^ended) straight way in which its romance "I   MP7Wu 

Eric Melin, Scenestealers.com 

 / never became emotionally involved in their story." Sean McBride, Sean the Movie Guy

a ^ T

12 . Q lw yCayaiuj.

‘ Change the namesand g m d m as„ ^ « n-laU- ,o i f l , „ y ,m v a ny so r,

’" Cr"'
2M

„U l u l l that

■grets.

Daniel M. Kitnmel, W orcester Telegram b Gazette r.

«it/s u n e q u i v o c a l l y that it's in every one's best interest fo r gay couples

Ken Fox, T V Guide’s Movie Guide “Foremost about a love that can never break out o f its societal prison."  Je ffre y C hen,

W i n d o w t o t h e M o v i es  

“ The hubb ub seems more p o lit ic a lly drive n in the wake o f the gay marriage debate  And an Oscar w in w ill be pa nde rin g to th at."

Kevin Carr,

7 M P i ct u r es  

"T he film 's edge is its same-sex controversy." Kevin A. Ransom,

M o v i ecr y p t .c o m  

 What these re vie w s of Brokeback Mountain  successfully capture is the central concerns and q ues tions of queer theoiy, one of the most recent schools of literary criticism to appear in academia. Influenced by deconstruction, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, and other postmodern theories, queer theory questions the very terms we use to describe ourselves such as heterosexual or homosexual. These terms, queer theorists argue, are socially constructed concepts that do not define who we really are. As demonstrated in the movie reviews, queer theory challenges the assumption that human nature is unchangeable and can be defined by a finite list of characteristics. In queer theory's ongoing development, it asks such questions as the following:  What is a man?  What is a woman?  What is g e n d e r ?    What does it mean to be a

h e t e r o s e x u a l ? Homosexual?  

Queer?  What does it mean to be masculine? F e m i n i n e ?    What does it mean to be human?  What is normal? A b n o r m a l ?    What is a " m a c h o "  man? ^h at is love? y^hat is forbidden" passion? F o r b i d d e n

b y w h om ?  

Gay? Lesbian? Bisexual?

224

 , , psbian Criticism Chapter 12 • Queer Theory C
•

What is "unfulfilled" love? What arc \ ^ ^ ^ caUed forbidden-love relationship?

• .

Why do hypocrisy and decent opera sanction the various kinds of W  what to society Who wnuuiorvvn«v ^ ,.. 7  uisexuaiuy • --------

Heterosexuality? Homosexua y •

.

How and why do some elements of soctetyt

•

a "societal prison" out of some

love relationships?  Wha t does it mean to be homopho ic.

These questions and theh multiple answere ory and its continuing developmen viewing our sexuality and our identities.

^ tradition a^ Wa

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND ASSUMPTIONS Throughout much of the twentieth century, the word queer   was a pejorative term used to describe homosexuals, particularly m ales. Usm g a Marxist tech nique called hailing the subject or interpellation, queer theorists embraced the word and turned it on its head, making it a respectable critical term in ac ademic studies. The term was first coined by the gender theorist Teresa de Lauretis in a special edition of the feminist journal differences  titled Queer  Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities,  published in 1991. Since its inception, queer theory endeavors to debunk the idea that a person's identity is stable or fixed at birth. Like all schools of criticism, queer theory borrows, adopts, and adapts concepts, terms, theories, and methodologies from previously devel oped critical schools and finds its multipronged, historical roots in feminism, deconstruction theory, gender studies, and gay and lesbian studies. Beginning with Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vin dica tion of the Rights of Woman (1792), feminist theory and criticism demands that women define for them selves what it means to be a woman. Fo llow ing W ollston ecraft Virginia  Woolf asserts in A Room 0 / One's Own  (1929) that women must reject the social construct of femaleness and establish and define their ow n identity. A decade later, Simone de Beauvoir declares in The Second Sex (1949) that women must reject that they are the Other, an object defined and interp reted by males. Two decades later, Kate Millett writes in Sexual Politics (1969) that a female is bom, hm but one .•

Created' ° r e S SGX' MiUet asserts' is biologically determined, gender is a social construct created by society. Many feminist critics 1

o

r 

r pe * rpetu 8 ^ ated bv •social * institu constructed and

B etu s e t n d o ^ , - mutable and attributiveT ° " «ender' should not and must ° ^ ocia* ic*ea s>feminists declare that gender u d not and must not shape the identity of what it means to be a woman-

Chapter 12 • Queer Theory- Gav y '   '-ay and Lesbi By a s s e r t i n g t h a t g e n d e r m u s t n o t s h theorists attac k the lon g-h eld classical h»

Crilicism a W(^ a n 's m ..

225

r i c h a ss er ts th a t th e tr u e e s se n c e o r i d e n f i r e S ca]l j d 0f finite and fixed p ro p er ties tha t are the f a" ‘"dividual ! all8m' means to be h u m an . E sse ntia lism declares fhSent,al components ^ mposed have an u nch an ge a b le h um a n n atu re a t n j ^ t0 be human m e a n U b eliev e t h at o u r s e x u a l i ty a n d o u r g ^ d e r  £ % £ ? * . * * «* features ou r true selves that give us ou r core sen, T 'ned by °ur esaenfiS tity, a nd o u r s e lf h o o d . N o t h i n g - n o t s o c i e t y e ? ° f,w h° " e are, our idem beliefs can ch an ge this un cha ng eab le core, our eSse„ ' ° r any sPiri,ual

Co nte m po rary fem inist critics reject essential an u n ch an ge ab le h u m a n e s se n ce an d a cce pt “ “ ' ' “’ '• s w m p l io n o f constructivism. These social constructivists reject c ! ™ as social unalterable human essence but assert that sender . " t‘ahs™ s belief in an term and concept. Words such as homosexual,  cons,lr" cted are likewise constru cted an d sha ped distinctions that are suMert,*™1/CT“ k change. All such terms are laden with deconstructed and eventually reconstructed. Unlike the essentialist who believes that knowledge is discovered, forgotten, and repressed and must then be rediscovered through history and experimentation, the social con structivist agrees with the poststructuralist assumptions of Jacques Derrida's d econ struc tion. For Derrida and many other postmodern critics, Western metaphysics assumes logocentrism, a belief in an ultimate reality or center of truth that serves as the basis for all thoughts and actions. Various centers of truth can exist: the self, a spiritual being, reason, and so forth. According to Derrida, logocentric thinking has its origin in Aristotle's principle of noncontradic tion: A thing cannot both have a property and not have a property. Hence,  Western meta physics has dev eloped an "eith er-or" mentality that leads to dualistic thinking and to the constant centering and decentering of absolute truth(s). Once a center is established, it can be quickly decentered. Su^ soning leads D errid a to c on clu de that Western metaphys.es « based on a system of bin ary op er ati on s or conce ptua l oppositions, goo ' esty/falsehood.^up/down, right/w ron g, Godyhum ani^and so forth^ In each of these binary ope ration s, one cone p ( unprivileged, privileged, and the second (the d e n o m in a to rs ^ ^ opposition relate Both the privileged and the unpn vilege p transcendental signified. What directly to a co nc ep t of tru th Derrida calls concept of truth. we privilege in bin ar y op po sitions thus suPp<^ jda that we think logocen* Social constru ctivist feminists agree wi , . but relative? If noab Wcally. What hap pen s, how ev er, if truth is not a >  ,g nQ transCendenta ^lute truth exists, truth is socially construe e • then seifhood is no Slgnified that gives mea ning to the concep 0 f  dve part our Um an ^so lute , not a quality th at is an "essential, objec

mid Lesbian Criticism ChrtpU'.t U -Q » « ,tThl'ory:C“y

( >SHont»a\ism is thus turned on nrgvu^ ot or predetermined, but is naUm. «*«««* MWrt"; S v , is not r * * *   L.xiHl8 that determines who or

22b

! a ns w er i» ■ ‘o ce sS o f c h a n g e . /\ny u m a r y o p p not objectiv e, and am co nsta ntly >n W e v  # social con struct that must untio n w e c re ate t o d efin e o u rs el ve s i s s t^ m a , e / f e m a l c , m a n / w o m a n , a nd dergo constant revision. In Pa r,'\ ' ' unstable co nc ep ts and are products of

masculine /feminine binaries "t P"-*

exists no stable co nce pt of the self or

culture and institutions of power. g an d u n stab le. Sim ilarly , concepts s elfh oo d b ec au se th es e te rm s a r e s ) u n s t a b l e . T h e s e c on c ep ts such as sexuality, m aleness, ^ f^ " % n m e d s - t h a , is , c o n ce p ts w h ^

meanings are

s h i f t i n l The meaning of these signifieds re-

Si^eThmughout^tV^pastU&everalCdecad es^ fem inist and g ender critics highlightthe unstable relationship expressed in the m a n /w o m a n , m ale/ fem ale, and masculine /feminine binary oppo sitions. B eca us e the se criti cs believe that no transcendental signified exists to stabilize language with its accom panying binary oppositions, the term gender  beco me s for th em a free-floating  signified that shifts on a daily basis. For exam ple, the m ale hea d of the home in 1960 in all probability did not wash dishes, make the bed, or clean the house. Nor did he pierce his ears or other bod y pa rts. On the other hand, today's male often performs household tasks and may wear an earring in one if not both ears. In the mid-1980s, another school of criticism borrows and develops the gender concerns of the feminists and gender critics: ga y an d les bia n studies.  Whereas feminist and gender critics debate and redefine the m an/w om an binary and emphasize gender differences, gay and lesbian studies target the heterosexual/homosexual binary, emphasizing se xual differences while also examining sexual differences applicable to the male and female, respectively. Gay and lesbian studies also analyze the social structures that have defined gays and lesbians as deviant or abnormal, questioning how such definitions developed throughout history, and why heterosexuality has been so posiively defined. Like feminist studies, gay and lesbian studies are also studies thro^ehnm th66 *° rf;discover those gay and lesb ian wr iters who from t h literary J t t V rcanonuS b also ,Ve ^Cen trom the but from Silenced' history masked' or erased not only opedYrom eav

' 1“

“ ' ' ' 8rOUP

°f lilerary theorists and critics devel-

4 r d d i^fey b a s^;v^ra nT rrr o r y -u n u k e g a y a n d ie s b ia n mizes the discussion of gender w h i l e m ^ ' ,Sender' queer theory mini-

versation concerning sexual different u t f 21" 8 and enlar8inS the .C° of homosexuality, queer stud ^ aband an]a.lesbian n aK stu aicess is is more inclusive thanonin8 gay and y  4

neory:Ga studies, an aly zin g, d isc u ss in g , an d dt-bat! Y ^ Usbian Crii C,l'W»m aueer— that is, od d, ab n o rm al , o r pec u |-hn8 s“xual t(m. ' Hvists, queer theorists declare t h n t   Like ,he fP 'cs 'hat am c

22?

«7

fixed: they are unstable. No set of p r Z    dl'n,ities and ‘" ‘st ""dal c„ t? d nature or o ur sexu ality . F ro m q ueer u X “ ? h» e* is* C d T ' " " ' * « di5CUSS w hat it m ean s to be ma le or fcm 2 u poi"< of v Jw j '" e humll, all differen ' ^ac e m 8 so ci a lly con stru cted o Cause °u r sexual* P^intlt*ss to co m pa rtm e ntaliz atio n o f a n y p erS on i nto a 1 ° “ ^ ,he° ty a l » ' £ * ? “ « " » * some shared lifes ty le or h ab it ve rsu s thns r S ig n e d ° hallcnS « the can be defined as a b n o rm al, lack ing , c o m * / ’0 do not- No idenhw based on including our se xuality, are s ha p ed an d dev il' ° f ‘" " “"'Plete. O u i Z  8.r°Up vidual actio ns p o w er stru ctu res w ithin s o c ie tPrndbyhS° Cial that are in c o n tin u o u s flu x. ^ and a host of complex forreL

7 

QUEER c

r it ic a l

t h e o r is t s

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950-2009) was one of queer theory's leading theonsts. Earning her undergraduate degree at Cornell Universiq, andtfph D from Yale University, Sedgwick taught at several prestigious liberal arts un dergraduate colleges, also serving as professor of English at Duke University and, until her death in 2009, at The City University of New York Graduate Center. Her groundbreaking texts include Between M en: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1985), Episte m olog y o f the Closet (1990), Tendencies (1993),  A D ia lo g u e o f Love (2000), and Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (2003). In Epistemology Sedgwick affirms the necessity of studying gay/lesbian and queer theories, asserting: An understanding of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture must.be, not merely inco m ple te, bu t damaged in its central substance to the degn* t a t it does not inco rp orate a critical analysis of modern homo xaa j Hon, especially from the relatively de-centered perspective of modem gay anti-homophobic theory.

f nnd* "People are different Sedgwick's w ork ing thesis is simple yet pro o ^ ^  but accepted.

from each other." These differences should no fn Tendencies she "a tt e m p ts to find new wa^

and other sexually dissident loves and i en * here the presence of different gender, di tions, will be taken as a given." For Sedgwi toward or about a person, hinges upon Per pe who use the word q u e e r   in the first per Another le ad in g q u ee r th eo ris t is Ju 1 ern'nism and the Subversion o f Identi y (

r .

lesbian/ gay,

compiex social ecology

ii

icjentities and identificawQrd^ whendjrece / ^ acts__that is, on y P about themselves are  >q ^  ^ Author °{f en  g n the « Jodies that Ma

and Lesbian Criticism

228

Chapter 12 •Queer Theory: Gay

m u m i re L i m i ts o f " Se x"  (1993), E x c i ta b le S p e e c h : A P o l it ic s o f t h e p Di:>97), G i v in g a n A c c ou n t o f O n e s e l f  (2005), and many others, Bpo (199 - .......literature and rhetoric at the------Un ^ V " off comparative % » lessor literature anu nu-iw. - iversit • ^y .n. ( r ^ Ty^ *s  o t^aCalifo^Pro. Berkeley. One of her most influential works, Gender Trouble, assert**1*0**1^ ^

ade a mistake when it declared that women were a sp ,S . ^ a t f e 7 • n.. „„ feminists, maintains B u tl; C,a^gr0,

- 6cnder, »* t»rson a1  , . nne does at a Particu*ar ^me,  Vwm p*-'rs(,n W PL th at iswha* °d identity, not a universal  ..... . andchants i  J {ormaUve gender an We do and arG/ con.......

to our supp°se0‘ — p"r  , cause, of our performances. For Butler, the perf orm ativ e ------

••I• is •_quee ll__^—.> 1/A»* titles I-* 

natu re of o u 7 i !w

v

- ^ ■ sC

^ ' skey Other queer theorists such as Jonathan Goldberg, Michael W  Sandy Stone, and Joseph Litvak use pos tist th eories to inv esti gat e s afner' verse topics as cross-dressing, bisexuality, public sex, gay marriat»e> j ^ —  j -- . e  a8“/ and t t   i*i._ _»i ____  i__ i_  _ c  ?«• _ media, to name a few. Unlike other schools of criticism, queer studies desire^ to be open ended, refusing at times to define itself by using any binary ^ positions. If such binaries were established, qu eer the orist s believ e a ” theory would become too exclusionary and hinder its development queer theorists, queer theory does not enable them to define their ident°r but is a critique of it. Accordingly, for queer theorists thei r the ory and critT '1^ are "always under construction" and alw ays perfo rm ativ e. QSm

 _ 

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS Read carefully Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goo Brown." Then ask yourself the following questions: How are the binaries male /female and mas culine/ fem inin e b ein g definec Who attributes masculine or feminine qual ities to wh om ? How is gender being ascribed? Arewhat the critical assumptions of essentialism or so cia l co nstr uctiv ism establ By character(s)? How are the characters' sexual identities shaped and formed? Is gender performative? What prejudices exist about any c haracte r's s uppo sed sexuality? What social forces or constructs determine sexual identity? What is queer about the text? Is any character in crisis concerning his or her sexual identity?

Chapter 12 . QUeer

Th

eory: Ga

CRITIQUES AND RESPONSE

yand Usbi

,an Crit ,c»sm

229

rnxeet   theory assume s that our person . .

stant flux. An antiessentialist theorv " lde"«ties ar Lential core to our humanness that H V ^  studies d 6 Unstab*e and in ^ p e o p le « « Afferent. We m ^ f ^ ' «». £ £ % but we ourselves m us t d eclare by our " ° W SOci« y to Sh?nJutl« maintain  W e ^ idcn'itie8; ruiued soc.etal bmary oppositions should determine our identities. We m l , 7 r ac«» »P an £ ° predct« identity, gender, and sexual differences W>,Cha" en8e the co n l8. preiudic« male is alw ay s in flux, alw ay s a p r o c e ^ ! “ means to be a L ,°f sexuaI becoming, qu eer theo rists challen ge the ° f beco™ing Seein n°ra fe_ 

Like other schools of criticism, queer theo h ^  S it is deviant or weird and should not be studied n ? * * 8- Some bebeve its content but som ew ha t fearful to read its theori i u * 8 are i8norant°f social co nstru ctiv ist pos ition and believe that a , y disagree with its not fluid or unstable. Still others decree that aue£r ft.0" S S6XUal identity is and unlike real life. An d ma ny claim .ha , g ay T n lL st ta7 smH°0 ““ theory (these tw o schoo ls of criticism are often viewed as one) e m p T ™ and lesbian politics, making them more important than they actually are while celebrating sexual desires. 3 Queer theorists themselves affirm that they do not know where their theories may take them, for as Butler notes, there are many queer theories, not just one. Q ueer th eory is, from her perspective, unlimited in its possibili ties because it refuses to define itself, seeing itself, like the concept of selfidentity, as always in flux. In refusing to define itself, queer theory, argue some critics, m ay be the ca use of its own eventual demise. Being future di rected and open ended, this critical stance is chiefly characterized by its tran sitory and transformational potential. Because it holds nonreferentiality as a core tenet, it may , say som e critic s, envision a future that is indee ummag  inable and m ay ha ve alre ady outlived its ' queer moment in ish»7On the othe r ha nd , som e critics, such as L y ^ e Huffer m her work Fo uca ul t : R et h i n k i n g t h e F o u n d a t i o n s o f Q u e e r J e° ^ J a U ,s

o f Sexual i t y ,

queer theory into the future. Revisiting Mich we are consistently Huffer views sexuality as a lived experience, one thoughtful research called on to rem em ber. Such inno vative , provo ca 1 , jo j|vecj future. may indeed prop el qu eer theo ry into a success t^e text for a poignant See R e a d i n g s o n Literary Criticism at t e queer  and c\ ueer t heory , ^say that helps clarify the meaning of the Queer Theory," by A nna m arie Jagose.

CRITICISM

we know that things that are divided are yet If we represent knowledge as a tree , the we divisions and ignore the connections is to connected. We know that to observe the destroy the tree.

 Wendell Berry

A

  clarion call to arms is being rung throughout college and university campuses across America and Europe. Its loud message is clear and pointed: Go green—otherwise known as the greening of campuses. A seedbed for relevant and current issues that affect all of us, colleges and uni versities are rising to the environmental task of making their campuses green. For example, the October 2006 meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education at Arizona State University introduced the Climate Commitment document. More than five hundred college and university presidents signed it, committing their insti tutions to achieve climate neutrality, to reduce greenhouse gases, to purchase or produce at least 15 percent of their institution's electricity consumption from renewable sources, and to reduce campus waste. Innovative but some times controversial campus projects stemming from such commitments include eliminating napkins at tables while providing napkin dispensers around the perimeters of dining halls (thus eliminating tons of paper waste), banning trays in dining halls (and saving tons of uneaten food formerly car ried on the spaces around plates, which were all placed on trays), and setting  time limits on showers in dorms. Other less controversial but highly inno vative greening initiatives continue to oc cu r on man y campuses. For instance, at Seattle University, former trash such as o W a ™ !* . hpads. water-

230

'M’N'r 1 3

 What a n a s tu d e n t n ' ^ 8' n,ui nm 3 environ men talists o f the 1960s a n d f ^ " " ....... ..

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 ,.fe 15 interconnected. H ow w e live, how and w£ . d“ lared decade* a * a, ^vvork, how we p la ^ a n d even how w e study a r e a n l ? '' h,‘>,v and where h id s Walt Disne y W orld in Orlan do, Florida r nterreIa*ed activities R e d n e ss wh en Spa ceship Earth ™ was bu ihaM h8P" ‘2ed h'h^terco” ' SrtTOT™- We are 3,1 tr avele rs on the same planet inhlh , piece of *•» E , sing the ea rth 's soil an d air, living, in essence in "® s,milar sPa« i , ^ nitV ^ esp ou sed b y the leadin g U tin American ra*her lar8a com^vironment, Walter Rojas Perez, Earth, our home garth," a place w he re no ne ar e conq uerors but all are crewmember * As fellow c re w m em b e rs , ea ch of us, say those who have signed the College C om m itm en t d ocu m en t, is responsible for our planet. As such it is up to us—both individually and collectively, they argu
 WHAT IS ECOCRITICISM? riticism is the latest enier^ ^ n t i r o n n w ^ Dating from the late 1980s, eco c as hum an beings ism and femishidies that dir ec tly re la te s w h o w ea d er-oriented * theoruts who sndU^ . Like other schools of c r i ti c i s m such i » r  nism, ecocriticism is an eclectic grou p

worId, a t t e s t i n g ^ ,he m„st

emphasize place, natu re, an d theJ r h/ u lw re) andJ ^ W * * * " / £ & nectedness be tw een h u m an s ( . . • m appears 1 „ rio tfd ty an<* *.n -ccinc, and best def initio n o f ec oc PyP Chery l dy 0f the jcism exam ’f ulmarks in L iterary Ecology  (1995)/ e “ mm: “Simply put, eco criticism «s j» f * aS fer n *** Mature and the phy sical e nviron m

232

Chapter 13 •E «

, nnscious perspective, and Marxist  , ... ,ure from a Ben^e production and economic class t0 language and ness of m,odeS ° J rth-centered approach to literary criticism brings an .,icism takes an ecocriticism has now become a its reading of text , to Clotfe y, canonical status datlnl studies." " f study ^ ' iterary " f d e S ' t b a t s he did no t coin the t e ^ legitimate fieW of s ^ acknowledge^ artic,e "Literature and

from 19 • J William H. Ruec the word first appeared Ecology: An Experiment in E“ c" ^ ilics challenge ‘he academic commm Glotfeby and other "nature writing." Such a challenge is not nity to re-examme what th y ^ Gf Thoreau or Emerson and passively simply a summons to rerea According to another leading ecocritic and enioyably contemplate nature. T)|1. Em)iromtiertfal Imagination: forma o f A m e r i c and author of the groundbrea Thoreau , Nature Writing, ana activism, declaring that ecocriticism Lawrence Buell, ecocriticism ca literature and the environment conis a "study of the relationship ^tw een pra xis ." ln other ducted in a spirit of co m jtm en tt ^ ^ participate in actually doing  seething about our environment, not simply contemplating change or inX e m e n t. Such a call to action, ecocritics maintain, must necessarily raise moral questions about how we interact with nature. Through examining  texts that highlight the natural environment, ecocritics entreat us to partici pate in practices that will change our environment and our material world, encouraging us to become guardians of our planet not only for ourselves but also for future generations.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPM ENT  When many people hear the word ecocriticism,  thoughts of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Wordsworth, and others who write about nature and who create pastoral scenes for their readers come to mind. Long before these writers, however, the Greeks and Ro mans along with many others authored texts that contained pastoral scen es tha t highlight setting and the natural world while generating literary responses to environmental con cerns, such as animal rights, pollution, and excessive waste. One can legiti mately argue, then, that “nature literature" is as old as Western literature itself. ., Qsjr  T T ™ ' e^v^ronmenta^sm and ecocriticism hav e historic roots in M W C ' f eminism its h is to ri ca lly b a se d first, second, and t d waves of criticism, ecocriticism can be divided into first- and secondwave environmental criticism. The first ecocritic to note such a distinction U Crisis a

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Ch; twentieth cen tu ry that reread and exam • * Ec<*riticism 233 teenth centu ry. S ec on d -w av e criticism ned "natUm current works such as Rachel Carso^ T , 'he othcr h 7 a "8" the ni „,ore directly on current environment f " " ' Sl ' r ‘ " r   ( S examin« " e' example, that to u ch ed off en viro nm en tal C° ncerns I i! Which debated tod ay, su ch a s poi so ns from ?„ Concen>s that * Son's * « t fa products that u ltim a te ly lead to d a n g e m ^ ' K supply- A rg u in g th a t su ch po .so n s are l emicals appea ' and °«ter Carson demonstrates that insecticides can T *   d anS «o us h a ' " ! ' food to death, ca using a h ost of diseases alrm ay ln a Person's hnT   fadiation, b‘? h ^ Dating from the mid-1980s tolhe S its ^

us ° n n in ete en th -c en tu ry literature dh,'i5 rS‘' Wave ^ecocriticisn, with grounds: Am erica n an d British. During the neri a f 6S ltself on ge og ra^h^ American Literature" (mid-nineteenfh clnt au,hore such Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), editor of T e ^ l American transcendentalists, The Dial; Ralph ™outhPie« for the Nature (1836), a landmark essay defining the nhiln Emerson' a«thor of American Romantic movement; and Henry David 7^°phlCal content of the author of what has Uo^nmc* become fhf> the nninfpQ<;pnfial quintessential nature writing text* (1854), set the s tand ard for na ture writing. These workHc Richard Kerridge notes that the e n v i r o n ™ - * ^ defend themselves 1

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d untamed nature tnau ----- w ecocritics do not abandon the interests of first-wave e second-wave ‘n difficult to declare a pa rticular eco critic to b e sololv y a° Cr*^‘ first. cism, it is often difficult wave or a second-wave critic. . ... ~ As one of the latest critical movements to join lib ra ry Clsm and prac. tice, ecocriticism and its emergence on the Jll" rQ aJ kSlU^ ^ f Rgef Can dated from the mid-1980s in America and the early 1990s in Great Britain. A pivotal year for ecocriticism is 1992, the year the Association of Literature and the ’ *1 :i " araHomir*  _ _   _  ’ Environment (ASLE) was tormea, aiwi'b y   . c , r c. — */ Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and E n v iro n m en t,  o r ISLE, first published in 1993. Since 1993, a variety of other worldwide organizations such as ASLE-UK (Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment), ASLE-Korea, vnssuuamm iui vuc — —■ ■.• H Qf Canada (ESA / F Q ACr or A P P PE) \ have r %r   ACE and the Environmental Studies ss advocating the concern s of ecocritibecome active literary / ^ ^ ^ ^ g c o c r i t i c s whose works have already been cism. Without question, the 1 g cintfeltv Haro ld From m , and Lawrence mentioned in this chapter ^ ^ ^ ^ Z n i e r e n c e s   on ecocriticism, Buell. Their work has s pea r ^  oncerns both within a nd outside the academy. bringing attention to ecocn (American Indian Literature, Environmental Other critics such as Joni Adamson {/xmericun muu* JusHce and Ecocriticism, 2001), John Elder (American Uature   Writers>mi two>voh umes, 1996), Scott Bryson (E copoetry: Critical Introduction, 2002)   i Glen A. Love (Practical Ecocriticism: Literature, Biology, the Environment, 2003 ) have also contributed significantly to ecocritical theory and practice. While American scholars presently dominate ecocritical practices, year by year ecocritical ap proaches to texts are gaining worldwide interest as evidenced in a variety of conferences and other scholarly activities occurring in Europ e and Asia. -r 

 

........

ASSUMPTIONS Unlike some other schools of literary criticism, ecocriticism does not have a unified set of assumptions to which most ecocritics ascribe. Being one of the rhalU>ncrCri ^ S
emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things, including nature and culture, must be incons tan t dtaiog'ue8 lh!"

hum anitie s and lhe scienc es should ant

that hum an cultu re is connect P,W tty, tt« microcosm , directly affec,s a n ? ,' 0 « * physical b el i ev es 

niacmcosm.

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235

debunks poststructuralism's assump,i„ , 8P^ cal standing of nature, the world, and hu m * ^ g u a , , . . ' th< construct. Umanity—is a 8 lncludirw „ assumes that nature, the world, and hum “ '“^ ta r a l/i^ J ^ nature lite ra lly e xis ts a nd ca mto t be c o n ^ ^ P 0 ^ o„,„, , 8 humanity's langu age, concepts, or beliefs'" ° r fl% desc riSP“ Status-' that is is ethically comm itted to the natural wo U  ^ * ncoded  by ta„ , rather than sim ply an object for be,ng vital, . analyzes texts tha t conc ern them selv es with d

Ussion-

8

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assum es tha t all texts ne ce ssarily deveTol thephysical environment leads to an eco critica l read ing of the text. 3 C° nC6pt of "place" or setting th is ecolog ically se ns itiv e in textual analysis. 8 encourages, endorses, and is active in political h  * and textual analysis; that is, ecocriticism e n c o u r a S ^ ^ ? * 311(1 ^ g h texts ports its causes. ges Political activism that supadvo cates a literal "s av in g " of planet Earth, not onlv for „

also for genera tions to co me.

y

present generations but

believes in being inclusive, not exclusive, in its theories and practices.

METHODOLOGY Unlike some oth er sc hoo ls of literary criticism, ecocriticism embraces plurality and is somewhat free of theoretical disputes and infighting. Because ecocriti cism welcomes multiple perspectives, there exists no single, dominant methodology by which ecocritics analyze texts. Marked by what J. Levin calls a "tremendously ambitious intellectual, ethical, political, and even (some times) spiritual agenda" in his October 1999 article in PMLA titled Form on Literatures of the Envir onm ent," ecocriticism approaches texts with an intense environmental conce pt of place and a profound interest and un e^ten ^ ° nature. It seeks to de m ons trate humanity s connecte ness oma ^ tQ some ecocritics dub the eco sp here— that is, humanity sf fle Like scientists, all the earth's living org an is ms and their Phys^ f or place), noting how ecocritics keenly observe a text's "environm den,0nstrate how place af& characters and place are intertwined and se affect the natural setting or fects and defines the c harac ters as do the charac e ^umanity must safePlace. Ecocritics also ho ld to the moral PCocentric value. And it is 8uard its plan et— a co n cep t th at they u a read and analyzetexts _  trough the lens of this ethical perspective terests, an ecocritic may Depending on one's particular PerS°!J? rent perspectives. For ex Pr°ach textual ana lysis by em pha sizin g 1

23t.

Chapter 13

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ave interest: the beauty of

i •.uiu.ht eeocriticism » ” one eeocritie may h»b h ^ pim.rson,Th c nature in the nature ature writi g W  mny acknowledge , M ^ through aS e v ^ ^ critic would then d e n u m ^ ^ ^

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or Wordsworth. Another ' liticaUy inscribed. This P . the ho w s and whvs the text. Still another

f ^ monstrating what ^

of protecting plaee or "urban natur*' those w orks of literature b peocritic may choose to tocus ^ se ri o u sn es s—-m o ^ aiure critic Cynthia Doitoring calls tox.c C° " S" indus ,rial ecosy stem s^ And ye, that highlight apocalyptic th ^ e s m P ^ ^ ecocompos.t.on, showmg in another ecocritic may choose h> e » k can develop ecosens.t.ve human me m oir w riting . In addition, the composition classroom how mdw relationships by and through 1°“ ™ ' ritic can also enco ura ge environ, the ecofriendly composition protesst bioRraph ies thro ug h the lens of mental "life writing," both examining , ud en ts th em se lves to write environmental concerns and encouraging  ecoaware autobiographies. ecocriticism 's ass um ption s and beSuch diverse  pra ctices have ena ag of study. One such area is liefs to crystallize into eyer-expan 1  g anaiyZes the interconn ection of ecofeminism (or ecological femims ), their lite ra ry methodology,  ,h e oppression of women and " “ “ ^ ^ ^ n sex.sm an d the domination ecofeminists demonstrate connections between ** eorie tv is linked of nature. The subjection and subordination of w o m e n in society ked, they believe, to the prescribed degradation of nature in a patriarchal society As men dominate women, they argue, men class,fy not only women but al races and natural objects. Such thinking is demonstrated through a senes of binaries or opposites to which many people subscribe, either consciously or subconsciously, including but not limited to man s dominating woman (man/women), white/black, and culture/nature. By examining such works of fiction as Ursula K. Le Guin's  Alw ays C om in g Hom e   (1985) and Joan Slonczewski's A Door into Ocean  (2000), ecofeminists underscore these con cerns, thereby bringing ecofeminist interests to the attention of their readers. Such readings of texts have embraced what some scholars call the environ mental justice movement. By consciously raising awareness of class, race, and gender through ecocritical readings of texts, ecocritics issue a "call to arms," actively highlighting their concerns while bringing to the foreground the many unjust scenarios of race, class, and gender as pictured not only in texts but in society as a whole.

QUESTION S FOR ANALYSIS By using the principles and practices of textual analysis espoused by ecocriti cism, ecocritics assert that readers will become involved in a re-evaluation of their own assumptions concerning nature, humanity, and the environment.

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Ecocriticism

t . ,r  _ _  _____  4c to pro tectin g an d reclaim238 Cbi' P L nCtive in reSar n«fitself to the "so what"  A.larinK ‘° bC P mt cco cr.u cism op® n cri tic s asU, " So w hat ? Byture M'd **hc e''V'r°"'ec o cri tic al essay,® ^ scho la rs, actually affect m s n* ,n After reading an readers, critics, iron m en t or its world? sig ni fic an t difference  What happens? Hon- can w n (reat8 lhe physic any change in how humanity rnaKe an?  _ ____ r psnnnco Does or can such “ ' ' ^ L ^ reading or a r ea d er-o rie nte d r esp on se to a than, let us say, a New Critic ? , p ositio ns an d an aly ses turn lit text? In other words, how can ecocr.tic.sm s po urn llt. erary analysis into political action in t e n? ^c riti cism h as litt le if » Critics of ecocriticism also point out that e co cr.t ic. sm h a s little if an y the ory of its own; it simply borrows a bit of theory from o ne sch oo l of thought and adds a second to its beliefs from another, while continuing to add thoughts and beliefs from rather diverse and so m etim es con trad ictor y philosophies and theories. One leading scholar-critic, Patrick D. Murphy, states this concern rather bluntly, noting that too m uc h of e co crit icis m 's the ory "remains theoretically unsophisticated." A nd too oft en , h e n ote s, "the re ory remains an anti-theoretical, naive, realist attitude expressed" in the writings ren ics. Stephanie Sarver, another critic-scholar, adds that ecocriti of the ecocritics cism is not a theory at all, but simply a focus on one topic, the environment 4-w ^ ocri r r iH is m 'ss phenomen h pn n m p . In addition critics of ecocriticism point ou t th at eo co ticrism nal growth in the 1990s and into the first decade of the twenty-first century has both positive and negative results. Initially, ecocriticism embraced drverse perspectives, theories, and practices to develop and articulate its chief concerns about the natural world. Interestingly, som e of t he ir initia l con cerns about awakening readers to environmental concerns have already been ac complished. What now is ecocriticism's prim ary task? Accompanying this attack on criticism are the w o rd s o f Le o M arx, American studies scholar at MIT and author of The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America   (1964), among other notable works. Marx writes, "Ecocentrists are the Puritans of today's environment movement, critical of anyone—whether an environmentalist or a de spoiler who assumes that the chief reason for pr ote cti ng th e environ me nt is its usefulness to human beings." Ecocriticism will continue to grow in popularity among literary scholars and in literary studies. And as this field of inquiry ex pan ds an d continues to challenge readers anthropocentric ideas, it is positio nin g itself to redirect its focus toward that of stewardship, encouraging its readers to become war dens of their one and only home: p lanet Ea rth See Readings on Literary Criticism at the ba ck of the tex t for an example of a carefully crafted and poignant ecocritical essay, " John Keats a nd Nature: An Ecocritical Inquiry, by Charles Ngiewih TE KE

Lit er

ar y s p *■ . — fe L -E C T l O N

Y ou n g G ood m an j r o w n n ^

b y N a t h a n i el H a w t h or ne   a. Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunspf but put his head back, after crossing the threshold toVxchf ° f Salem vi,la8e; with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was antlv n* partin8 kiss pretty head into the street, letting the wind « ^ b o '“ T cap, while she called to Goodm an Brown P ibbons of her

"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lins were close to h,s ear, prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep to your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year!" "My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise.  What, my sweet, pre tty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!" "Then God bless you!" said Faith with the pink ribbons, "and may you find all well, when you come back." "Am en!" cried Good man Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee." So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the comer by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons. "Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I, to leave he r on such an errand ! She talks of dreams, too. e ' she spoke, there was trouble in her face, as if a dream a warne ‘ work is to be done tonight. But no, no! 'twould kill her to flunk a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts

h iec* m making more haste on his present evil purpos ^ barely stood darkened by all the gloom iest trees of the Lhin d. to let the narrow path creep through, and closed mimed,ate y

239

240

• this peculiarity in such a solitude, ,h e innumerable trunks . . . . . , nd there is this F

Literary

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e ^

ung m an , w ith a tremor in

his ; r - £ • — of h is com pam on' 8 not wholly unexpected. forest and deepest in th at p art of it where It was now deep dusk in the > be discerned, the second travthese two were journeying. A s in the sam e ra nk of life as Goodm an eller was about fifty years ° ' PP ^ blance to him , th ough pe rhap s more Brown, and bearing a ha ve be en taken for father and in expression than features, btill tney migm on And yet, though the elder person was as.simply clad as the younger and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable a ir of one w h o knew the world, and would not have felt abashed at the governor s dinner-table, or in King William's court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought, that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assiste d b y the unce rtain light. “Come, Goodman Brown," cried his fellow-traveller, “this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary." "Friend," said the other, exchanging his slow p ace for a full sto p, "having  kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching the matter thou w o t'st o f." on, nevertheless! r e L n C a s ^ g ^ a n d T   " 1™ " 1 - 1 1 " 8 turn back We are but a little way in the forest y e , ™ ^

T ’f

walk. "My father neveTwem hUo^hf w o ^ " ' Unconsciously resuming his ther before him. We have been a r a ( ? d s on such a n errand, nor his fasince the days of the martyrs- anH ! v . „ , , n e s t men and good Christians, that ever took this path and kept— " ^ 1   ^

the firSt of the na m e of Brown

rupting his pause7 " W e l l ' s a i c ^ G ° b s er v e d t h e e ld e r p e r s o n , inter-

°o man Brown! I have been as well

Litei acquainted with y o u r f a m i l y a s  ev,.r a *rary Selectt r i f l e t o s a y . I h e l p e d  your grand f'th am»hg t h e r. 41 w o m a n s o   ^ ,he c> nt, Quaker smartly Puril“n»; and  b r o u g h t y o u r f a t h er  a pilch-pine k n , , ! ^ Slreet» o f s '?' Wht'n he i J o , " loan Indian village, in K i n g ® ? * ' ki"d led at l'm ' And « w a . n he and many a pleasant walk hav e w e h ' T  Thoy W e ^ ” * '" ht'"dh, |„ a,,,'!''11 rily alter midnight. , wou ld fain be £ " I f  it be as thou s aye st," replied G o o d ^ n ^ r 011' f°» their sak e" they never spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel not s ee i Z \ VS?*?®1thtthe sort would ha ve driv en them from New' E n e l™ ? “w * 6 east rumor of prayer and good work s to boot and abide no such wickedness^ Pe° P'e ° f "Wickedness or not, said the traveller with twisted h general acquaintance here in New England THp Hn * 7 ' 1 have a very have drunk the comm un ion w ine wifh me; ^ e se ecTmen o M ^ 3 ^ ruakeme their cha irm an; and a majority of the firm supporters of my mterest. The governor and I, too-But these are state secrets. " Can, ,bJ Su ef ° !"   Cried G" ^ ma,n Brown' w i, h   a Stare of amazement at his undisturb ed com panio n. Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the gov ernor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble, both Sabbath-day and lecture-day!" Thus far, the eld er traveller had listened with due gravity, but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy. "Ha! ha! h a!" sho uted he ag ain and again; then composing himself, "Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, d on't kill me with laughing!" "Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown, consider ably nettled, "the re is m y wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I'd rather break m y o w n !" "Nay, if that be the case," answered the other, "e'en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not, for twenty old women like the one hobbling  before us, that Faith should come to any harm." As he spoke, he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown reco gn ized a ve ry pious and exemplary dame, who a taught him his ca tech ism in you th , and was still his moral and spiritua a viser, j o in t ly w i t h t h e m i n i s t e r a n d D e a c o n Gookin. "A marvel, truly, that Goo dy Cloy se should be so far in t e wi ornos ' nightfall," said he. " But , with y our leave, friend, I shall take a cut th_ g  woods, until we hav e left this Ch ristian woman behtnd. emg g w you, she might ask w ho m I w as con sorting with, and whither g g"Be it so " said h is fellow -traveller. "Betake you to the woods, and let me

keeP the path."

*1

10. OOVS'lo ooo but took care to watch his com. , man tm™'*1 *»'ti|he h liogly "«• the y_ h v uloi'B u|0ng the rm n„,king m;lkinc the best of her her vway, witll A^mllWty y;'” ,,uy pauiou. who j s,u,y„..' 0o w l o l e , wing some indistinct' words-_  englh ol the » ' d‘" ' , „ wom.m, and . forth his staff and anc touched  ,U s,« v d o rso os ' w(.„ ,

-'ttnU * %

£ £ £ * *   went-

1

hetrae IhrP s ^

a prayer, doul »<_ wll„, seemed II t J hi " n t d ^ U " screamed f* « < * " •llrenC.W 'y C^ y H^ hisWri,hing

tail. * *

« +

cri cd tb c good d

fnm' Ah fmso«th,‘and is it old gossip, Goodman Brow^ -Yea truly is it, and in the vejT '"V h noW £ But, would your worship bethe grandfather of the silly fc » ° £ J ‘ , disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by lieveit?-my b r o o m s t i c k hath stra g y ^ (00 when , was a|, anointed that unhanged witch. Goo y ^ efoj, and wolf's-bane—" with the juice of smallage a 4 Qf a new -b orn b a b e /' said the "Mingled with fine wheat and tne ra

! 5

S^a*-Ah 'your worship knows the recipe," cried the old la dy cackling aloud. "So as^ was saving being all ready for the meeting, and no hors e to nde on, I ™ de up my mind to foot it; for they tell me them is a race young man to be taken into communion tonight. But now your good worsh.p will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling. "That can hardly be," answered her friend. "I will not spare yo u my arm, Goody Cloyse, but here is my staff, if you will. So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened. "That old woman taught me my catechism!" said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment. They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his compamon to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so dhor than ls^ r8uments seemed radler to spring up in the bosom of his au ditor, than to be suggested by himself. and b e g a n k T s tr in 'h ^ fW 3 branch maPle to serve for a walking-stick, evening dew Themnm WJ^S ^ llttle bouSbs/ wh ich were wet with wUherc-d and dried up as with a S ' ^ h l n e . ™

h6™ "16 Slra" gely

hollow of the road^G^Sman Brow°°d cm P‘1Ce' Until sud denly ,in a Sloom>’ and refused to go any farther. ° ^ himself dow n on the stump of a tree will I budge on this mmd is made UP- Not another step h errand. What if a wretched old wom an do choose to go

Literary Self cfi<>n

I thought she was going to heaven is that Hevilitwhen tothe d my dear Faith and go after her?" i "You 1vv» think __  ^tter . - of this by and hv »

243

any ft‘as<>nwhy * Said his ac„, • edly. " Si t he re an d re st you rs el f a vvhil in, there is m y sta ff to help you *> ;   and when y ^ " ! ? " ? ' c°mpos.  W.thout m or e w ord s, he threw his r l,ke as if he had vanisho^ v a n S !’'? ani,,n 'he manlp cu i aas^speedily r — ' out o f sight c I,t,a • 1u,e ^ „ r . -   1'--"

young man sat a few moments by the mad

]nto the deepen ^

and was

and thinking wtth ho w cle ar a conscience h ^ ' aPPIaudin„ h?^8 [J0m The morning walk, no r shrink from the eve ^ Sh° uld mee' t h e m ™ , 8reaHy what calm sleep w ould be his that verv ni [ 8 ° ° d old Deacon& 'n his so wickedly, but p ur ely and swe etly now f ? i Which was "> have b^ ns o" ^ pIeasant and p ra ise w or th y med itations, Go odm an^ ° ' Fai'h! AmidstK of horses along the roa d, and deemed it a d v i c e t ° Wn heard the tramp the verge of the forest, co nscious of the guilty ° C° nceal himself within thither, though now so happ ily turned from it thathad bought him On came the hoof-tramps and the voices of the h voices, con ve rsin g sob erly as they drew near Thp " • tW° grave old neared to pass along the road, within a few vards nf ik!  mingled s°unds applace; but owing doubtless to the depth Either the travellers nor their ste/ds went & . % % £ £ £ % £ brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they in tercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along  quietly, as the y w ere w ont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesi astical council. W hile yet w ithin hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. " O f th e  two,

reverend sir," said the voice like the deacon's, "I had rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night's meeting. They tell me that our com munity ar e to be h ere from Falmouth and beyon ' an °  J ^ ows Connecticut an d R ho de Isla nd , besides several o t e n ia _ P ^ ^  Who, after th eir fashio n, know alm ost as much devi _r y cammun|on „ Moreover, there is a goodly young wom an oId tones of the min"Mighty well, D ea co n Gookin . replied know, until i Kter. "Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, y get on the gro und."

talking so strangely in the

The hoofs clattered ag ain; and the voi ' church had ever been empty air, passed on th rough the forest, vv e/ fh n could these holy men gathered, or solitary Christian prayed. Whithe , th ^ Goodman Brown e journeying, so deep into the he athe n wi ^>rn s:nj< down on the groun caught hold of a tree for support, being ready

244

l

itot.uv Selection

. ... .1 i uu kness of his he art . H e look ed ur> fai.u and ovor-burthened with the hen y hea vcn ab ov e him. Yet there to the sky, doubting whether there really was a ncu mere was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in » • , r :rm . above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the ..............

......

'With Heaven iu’>” „ , devil!" cried Goodman Brown decp  _ _ _ _  .me h no wind was stirring, hurried  While he still gazed upward, intothough - cloud, no wind had lifted his hands to pray, a ^ The b)ue sky was still visible across tne zenim enu Tightening stars. The bli•  __  a m i s s the zenith and hid the brightening except directly overhead, where this black mass of — . . _  „ A > u Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came 6 u f^nrind tb af he swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as it T ’once the listener fancied that confused and doubtful sound of vol,ce ' _ le Qf his own, men and women, could distinguish the accents of town s P ^ ^ met at the communion table, both pious and ungodly, many of whom moment, so indistinct were and had seen others rioting at the ^vem. aUeht but the murmur of the the sounds, he doubted whether ^ had heard aug ^ sweU ^ old forest, whispering without a wmd. Th villaee but never until * ; ^  familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine at Salem vil “« now, from a cloud at night. There was one voice, of a young woman, uttenng  lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and en reating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.   ----

• * • V > I V

---------------

  j C A k V JL IV U U V V .» »

v*

»

_ t tffIIII ■ ji v >

r

“Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of ag on y an d desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, “F aith ! Faith! as if bewil dered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness. The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The yo un g m an seize d it, and be held a pink ribbon. “My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied m om ent. "Th ere is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given." And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that he seemed o fly along the forest path, rather th an to w alk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with - 7 a es m ortal m an to evil. T he w ho le forest w as peopled wdh fr^h tful sounds— the creaking of the trees, the how ling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature we re laug hing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors.

Mlvrury Svlrrtiion „ .i .»ha? h a!" n w ivd C kxKinum Hit.wn, vvlu-n n,  J * w h ic h w il l la u g h lo u d c stl flu n k fri ,

241

'•'"H'w.l at hi m . " U t

u?X

ih'h' ' t""",w : iza rd , co m e Ind ian |V w wllvv, h C ‘ * OHKlnuin B row n . V>u m ay as w ell (,.ar hi ' , ’™*

*'•■> y» ..r deviltry lmns. ll, „ „ d

t ru t h , a ll t h r o u g h t h e h a u n t e d t u rn s , t h e n , * , I'm

b“  n o , h i" *  ,n>*J brandishing h.s .staff with frenzied gestures n * T amon8 the black tl,| th a n t h e f ig u r e o f U s s l m a a B r o w n . O n h .

C itio n of horrid blasphemy, and now shoutinKform 8' T ? Vent to an j"* L echoes of the forest laughing like demons ar, ? ? Iau«hter as set  J own shape is less hideous than when he rages in th^h h'm' Thnd in hl> i  the demoniac on his course, until, quivedne am ° f man- 7111,8 S C f * before him, as when the felled trunks and h"8 * * * he a «* «

« re- and ,hrow up their lurid W a» a?aTnsr.h °f V * " " *

^ ur of midnight. H e pa us ed , in a lull of the tempest tha! h S h ^ at the Ird and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn 1 ^  h m ° n* distance with the weight of many voices. He knew the tun?; it w ^ a m ^ r one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away and was lengthened by a ch oru s not of hum an voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out; and his cry was lost to his own ear, by its unison with the cry of the desert. ' In the interv al of silence he sto le forw ard until the light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of fo liage that had o ver gro w n the su m m it of the rock, w as all on fire, blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig  and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, o ut of the da rk ne ss, pe opling the heart of the solitary woods at once. "A grave and dark-clad company!" quoth Goodman Brown. In truth, they were such. Among them, quivering to-and-fro between gloom and splendor, ap pea re d faces that wo uld be seen next day at the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked de voutly heavenw ard, and be nig nan tly o ve r the crow ded pews, from t e o les pulpits in the land. So m e affirm tha t the lady of the gove rnor was t u re' t  a there were high dam es well kn ow n to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great m ultitude, and ancient maidens, all o exce ^ ' .^e tair young girls, w ho tre mbled lest their mothe rs shou espy 10 i Goodman sudden gleams of light flashing ov er the obscure field b e t o l e d G « d » n B'own, or he rec og nized a s c o r e   of the church members of Salem for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Cookm had am

Literary Selection

consorting w».» , ;n esand n over to au »«=«» »»my viCe church, those chaste d‘ ^wretches R'vc to see that the good shrank

4 k £ “  " T o E u ^ 'X h c r a ^ Goodman Brown, and, as hope came mto "But, where is Faith? tno b . VtiQheart he trembled. slow and mournful strain, such as the Another verse of the hymn arose. ssed aU that our nature can con pious love,but joined w worfs wtuc Unfathomable to mere mortals is ceive of sin, and darkly ^ nte^ e^ aT su ng; and still the chorus of the desert the lore of fiends. Verse after verse ^  &mighty organ; and, with the final swelled between like thedeepe &SQUnd/ as if the roaring wind, the peal of that dreadful anthem nd every other voice of the unconrushing streams, the howling ' ording with the voice of guilty man verted wilderness were rnrng ^ blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, in homage to the prmce o • visages of horror on the smoke wreaths and obscurely discovered shapes ^ ™ mQment the fire on the rock shot

\

T T y T r T T PdTrm cd a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure With reverence be if spoken, Ihe figure bore no slight smuhtude, both in8 garb and manner, to some g r a v e divine of the New England churches "Bring forth the converts'." cried a voice, that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest. At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, look ing downward from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had re ceived the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire. "Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion of your race! Ye have found, thus young, your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind you!" They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiendworshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage.

ct 

i *! r

n, «•“ ^— “ 7 ™ « uesr' to an infant's f,,n " T graves 111 * e garBy the sympa thy of yo ur hum an hearts for
........ .. .

"Lo! there ye stan d, m y ch ild ren," said the figure in a ^ tone, almost sad, with its de spairing awfulness as if h deep and solemn could yet mourn fo r ou r mise rab le rac e. "DenenH- *S ° nCe angelic nafure hearts, ye had still h op ed tha t v irtu e w ere not al'l"8 VP° n one m o th er 's undeceived. Evil is the na tu re of mank ind Evil m .,sf Now are ye ^ W e l c o m e a g a in , m y c hild ren , ,o the co mm union of y o T ^ ” h aPP ‘~ "Welcome! repeated the fiend-worshipners in / ; and triumph. ' one c rY  despair And there they stood, the only pair as if c^o . ing on the verge of w icked ness in this da rk w orld A ba s^iT w Ts T naturally, in the rock. Did it co nta in wa ter, red dened bv the 7

P— « ■ Hqmd flam e? H i^ehTdfd^he shape o f ^ i l d ip his hand, and prep are to lay the m ark of bap tism upon their foreheads t h S theymight be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret  m d e e ? and thOUght' than they could HOW be ofThSr  77,eth “ sband cas t one loo k *1 his pa le w ife, and Faith a t him. W hat po!a

iT

h

alk eawhat T 6hh M W OA ! ke neXt Sh° W them to each other/ shuddering  likeat they disclosed and8,anCe what they saw! 8 WickedOnef"lth!

the h u sb a n d -

" L o o k   up

to Heaven, and resist the

f « a r S i r|lF^ hd° b1yed' hu kneW n 0t ' Hardly had he sPol:
248

Literary Selection

which died heavily away through the forest. H e .8t“? K* ? d' a8ain»t rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all ^ fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest ew. The next morning young Goodman Brown cam e slowly into the street ^ Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old r r w ter was taking a walk along the grave-yard to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. What God doth the wizard pray to?" quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechising a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the comer by the meeting house he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at the sight of him that she skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting? Be it so, if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for youne Goodman Brown. A stem, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not ° desperate, man did he become, from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm , he could not listen, because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence and with his hand on the ope n Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading est the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers Often, awaking sudden ly at m idn igh t, he shr an k from the bosom of Faith and at morning or eventide, w hen the fam ily k nelt down in prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long , and w as b or ne to his grave a hoary r ^ o d l v D^ce s by Fav!th'Hn aged Woman' and children and grandchildreZ  f S”e*8hbors not a few, th verse urion hk t T . ^ verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom.

p jrA D lN G SO NLIT E R A R YC R IT IC IS M

this selection of professional essays, you will f;nH u^ioed *cV lay the fou nd ation for th eir respective ^ h ^ ] C°™ erSt° ne es«ays ^ h eheipeu l p e d lay — their theoretical a s s u m p t i o n s  ,methodolr>„-J

----- -

“The F o r m a l i s t C r i t i c s / ' b y C l e a n t h    B r o o k ? * 8' 3n d m  s  c  t  i  r  ,C a  s s er t i n g t h a t l i t er *  p r o v i d e s " s o m e a r r ,  AfSt essay

f or N ew

with th e w o r k it s e l f ." T h e s e c o n d e s t j b' " c o n c e r t Discourse of the H u m an S c i e n c e s "b v / ' r f p oststru ctu ralism o r P o s t m o d e m i t ^ / ^ “ ? D errt* > . fc th e p i v o te l e ' h e definitive statements be cau se n o th in g * staW M serts we fanno,’ sy always contingent an d am b igu ou s. Th e thh d meaninS- declares DereH " fhe Idea o f U n i v e rs e ,i ty in U t e r a t u r e , "

reader to po stcolon ialism, d e c l a r i n g t h a t  " r L h i r e . . . i s t o s h o w   u s s o m e t h in g w e w e m h

7*™ * L ars° n , i n t r o d u c e ? ? '   p u r P o se ° f a n y p ie ce 0 f ^ 

hteratureis"a v o y a g e i n t o a p r ev i o u s l y   u n t f a v H “Q u eer T h e o r y " b y A n n a m a r i e word q ueer a n d q u eer t h eo r y , m a i n t a i n i n g   under construction." A n d t h e f i f t h   e ss a v Eco cn t i ca l I nqu i ry ," b y C h a r l e s N g i e w i h T E K F „

of" and ^  Ja g o s e,^

of the “ * * ” * ? *    an idenHty   a n d N a t u r e : A n  ^ 

d s m aa p^p lri e d t o a n i n et e en t h --  p i e o f t htext. e p r i n c i p l es a n d p r a c t i c es o f  e c o crih century ncism

Tabl e o f C o n t en t s   " Th e F o r m a l i s t C r i t i c s "

Cleanth Brooks

' St ru c tu re , S i g n , a n d P l a y i n t h e D i s c o u r s e o f th e H u m a n S c i e n c e s "  Jacq u es D er ri da  ; T h e Id ea o f U niversa lity in Literature' 'Heroic Enthocentrism Charles Larson

"Queer The ory "

Annam arie Jagose

"John Keats and N atu re, an Ec ocritica l Inqu iry

249

S tru

Charles Ngiewih T E K E

f° U rt h  

:*' *****  M E*'Vv.■*r*'t*i:*’ff~

2S0

Reading# ° n

Uu-rary Critidsm

"The

F o r m a U s tC n t i« by

ClcanthBrooks 

scribe to: T hat litera ry criticism is a Here are some

*  j its object.

[

p ro b le m o f u n i t y — the kind of 

* - s r

^ r t - o ' S o H l t ' i " ' S ' * 'V 'J'^ r t « n ; i^ ' ' ' re m ^ l'‘C,U^ ' b' ' ' K ' ' 0in'!' e* ' That the formal relations in a work of  ceed, those o f logic. That in a successful work, fo rm and co nte nt

,

That form is meaning. i ml and sym bolic. That ultimately me aptare not seizea up byy a b s t r a c t i o n , Tha t literature the generalisand the universal

rnntentcannot be sepa

but got g at at

through the concrete and the particular. That literature is not a surrogatefor  religion

..... , . , , That, as Allen Tate2 says, "sp ecie moral problems are the sub ject m atter o/l„-

erature, but that the purpose of literature

is not o po iti

...

.

.

That the principles of criticism define the area re leva nt to literary criticism; they do not constitute a method fo r ca rrying out the critic ism . Such statements as these would not, however, ev en tho ug h greatly elab orated, serve any useful purpose here. The interested reader already knows the general nature of the critical position adu m bra ted or, if h e d oe s not, he can find it set forth in writings of mine or of other critics of like sympathy. Moreover, a condensed restatement of the position here would probably beget as many misunderstandings as have past attempts to set it forth. It seems much more profitable to use the present occasion for dealing with some persistent misunderstandings and objections. In the first place, to make the poem or the novel the central concern of criticism has appeared to mean cutting it loose from its author and from his life as a man, with his own particular hop es, fear s, in tere sts , co nflicts, etc. A criticism so limited may seem bloodless and hollow. It will seem so to the typical professor of literature in the graduate school, where the study of lit erature is still primarily a study of the idea s an d pe rso na lity of the author as re.vea e in 1S ette rs' bis diaries, and the rec or d ed co n ve rsa tion s of his ne n s. wi certain y seem so to literary goss ip co lu m nis ts w ho purvey lit erary chitchat. It may also seem so to the you ng po et or n ov elist, beset with his o wn problem s of com position and with his stru gg les to find a subject and a style an d to get a hearing for himself. frn m ^h ot SeC? nd P jaC
Readings on Literary Criticism

251

Alter all, literature is writtet\ to be read.  Wordsworth's  , d i ^ tr° US making to nu*n.‘ In each Sunday T i m e * ,  Mr. J. Donald heteto t e a    man S^.h‘at the hungry sheep look up and are not fed; and le lid ot>ints ° Ut than Mr. A dam s are bound to feel a proper revulnio m*-.H rjrH  4 f* \ ^ s   . rfioral^4^ ‘ „ Moreover,  ,, if we neglect •*- io , —the audience a p ro p eu.»r re vuls n  , , t w • • ■which V T r ' it wasnm u8k ,c-~ ‘ t h-e a' u d i <'"ce w h ic h re ad * on for ~ ! nL u , d . n g t h a t f o r w h i c h i t w a s p r e s u m a b l y w ri tt en , th e l it era ry his—

...............

% « ’l’ rk' “ n i p t t o p o i n t o u t t h a t t h e k i n d o f a u d i e n c e t h at P op e5 had did con-

* p c ; n d o f p o e t r y t h a t h e w r o t e . T h e p o e m h a s its ro o ts in h istory, pa st I ’pen the k e in th e h istor ical con text simp ly cannot be ignored. a present* 1 K t h e s e o b j e ct io n s a s sh a r p ly a s I c a n b eca use I a m sy mp aa

\ h av e s

s t a t e o f m i n d w h i c h i s p r o n e t o v o i c e t h em . M a n 's e x pe ri en ce

. •

* a m l o s s g a r m e n t , n o p a r t o f w h i c h c a n b e s e p ar at ed fr om th e a St? r ge th is f ac t o f in se p ara b ility ag ain st the d raw in g o f distinc15 Yet if w e u nQ p o in t in talkin g ab ou t criticism at all. I am assuming  then thenrs6 a re n e ce ss a ry a n d u sefu l and ind eed inevitable. [hat d isti n ct l° c r i t i c ^ o w s a s w e l l a s a n y o n e t h a t p o e m s a n d p l ay s a n d The forma 1 m e n __ t h a t t h e y d o n o t s o m e h o w h a p p en — a n d th a t t he y noVels a re was r i tt y i on personalities from all are written exen pressio nsg ^  —  particular r— ^ersonaiities and •. and are ara written r 

sorts of motives— for m on oney from esire to exp express oneself for the h " sake ^ off a ey , fr om a d des ire to ress oneself, .h  form critic literary cause,uxetc. Mo reov Jer, the fo rm alist al ist cr itic know kno w s as well as anyone that tha flber j y p te n tia ll u n til they th e y ar a re d -t - th h aa tt is, i* that * » ♦ *■ works•;are ^merely p oote ntia until e rr ee aa d they are r e p e a t e d   i„ the minds of actu al re ad ers , w h o v ary eno rm ou sly in their capabilities their interests, their p re ju d ic es , th eir ide as. Bu t the form alist critic is concerned pri m anl y w i t h t h e  w o r k i t s e l f . Sp ecu lation on the mental processes o f t h e  author takes t h e c r i t i c  a w a y fr o m t he w o r k i n t o  biography and p s y c h o l o g y . T h e r e i s   no reason, o f cou rse, w hy he sho uld no t turn aw ay into biography and psy chology. Such ex p lor at ion s ar e v ery m uch wo rth making. But they should not be confused with an a cc o u n t o f t h e work. Such studies describe the process of composition, not the structure of the thing composed, and they may be per formed quite as v a l i d l y f o r t h e p o o r  work as f o r t h e g o o d o n e. T h ey m a y b e   val i dl y p e r f o r m ed f o r a n y k i n d o f ex p r e ss i o n  — no n-lite rary as well as literary. Chi the other hand, ex p l o r a t i o n o f t h e  various readings which the work has received a l s o   takes the c r i t i c a w a y f r o m   the work into psychology and the history o f t a s t e. T h e  various imports o f a g i v en w o r k m a y w el l b e  worth studying. I . A . R i c h a r d s h a s p u t u s a l l i n h i s d eb t b y  demonstrating what d i f -   ferent experiences may be d e r i v e d f r o m  the sam e p o e m b y  an app arently ho mogeneous group of r e a d e r s ; 6 a n d t h e  scholars have p o i n t ed o u t , al l  along, -------

...........

 Je e w i l l i a m WORDSWORTH (1770-1850),  p r e f a c e to Lyrical Ballads (1800; abov e). ... kw s Donald Adams (1 89 1- 19 68 ), au th or an d editor, best known for his weekly column (wh,eh i ? * “>>943) in the N ew York Times Book Review. "The hungry sheep look up and are not line 125 of John M ilton's "ly cid as ” (16 37), a pas toral elegy for the poet Edward King. ^ xahder po pe (168& -1744 ), En glish po et and satirist. , /1Q9Ql hv the English f ers h ere >° Criticism: A Stud y o f Literary lodgm ent (1929). by  the Enghs and theorist Richards (1893-1979).

Rifling* on Uter.uy OitUbm 252

=

 , . . nn i8th Century as compared with *

K X n > .y divc-W "' 1 •.

the estimates of John

*KiMtorical period. But such work

from a criticism of v.uu.um o criticize the wo,i .he work ..self. The formal,*. L>s ,h at tne rele va nt pa rt , 7 * itself, makes two assumptions, (1) l Ck/ . . . u \u work* th at is hp author's intention is what he got act ually aSSUl^es that the autho r's intention as realized is the inten tion nt s' not nec essarily what he was conscious of trying to do, or what he now remembers he was then trying to do. And (2) the formalist critic as su m es an idea l reader: that is, instead of focusing on the varying s pe ctru m of po ssib le read ing s, he attempts to find a central point of reference from which he can focus upon .........

the structure itructure of the poem oorr novel. But there is ideal reader, reader, someone is no But there  no ideal so .-------- is pro m pt to po in t o u t, a nd he will  _i----- ormaance that allows the critic, with his o ' a t i•’ de al re ad piuuauij . Viim^pll in tnC UUMUWII o f' *--------------------- er ----blindsides and prejudices, to p SUDpo se th at th e p ra ct is in g critic can There is no ideal reader, h is re ad in g an d the "tru e" never be too often remm e ^ § of focusing up on the po em rather reading of the poem. P . ^ e strategy. Fin ally, of cou rse, it is  j , , than upon his own reactions, it is a d e l e n s i u i e siiaicgy the strategy that all critics of wh atever pers ua sion are for ced to ad op t. (The alternatives are desperate: either we say that one person s readings is as good as another's and equate those readings on a basis of absolute equality and thus deny the possibility of any standard rea din g. O r els e w e tak e a low est common denominator of the various read ings that b av e b ee n m ade ; that is, we frankly move from literary criticism into so cio-p sy ch olo gy . To propose taking a consensus of the opinions of "qualified” readers is simply to split the ideal reader into a group of ideal readers.) As c on se q u en ce s o f the distinc tion just referred to, the formalist critic rejects two popular tests for literary value. The first proves the value of the work from the author's "sincerity" (or the intensity of the author's feelings as he composed it). If we heard that Mr. Guest testified that he put his heart and s ou l into b is p oe m s, we would not be very much impressed, though I should see no rea so n to do ubt such a statement from Mr. Guest. It would simply be critically irrelevant. Ernest Hemingway's statement in a recent issue of Time   magazine that he counts his last novel his best is of interest for H em ing w ay 's biogr ap hy , but most readers of  A cross th e R iv er an d In to th e   Trees’ would agree That it proves nothing a, all about the value of the novel-that in this case the judgment ,s simply pathetically inept. We discount also such tests for poetry as that

'■ *1r-l

7English poet (1576-1631).

' t L ^ Z e Z l :' ™

1 P°PUlar “U,hUI

« " » ■ » « « Poems were published daily

HAcross the River and into the Trees  received harch ..... • Hemingway (1899-1961), American writer of faction

“ ^

Published in 195° ‘

Ko«ulinK» on l.lw*

Mposed   by A. E. Housmnn ,w—the bn\st||n 2M S 5 P‘* m' The i:, '," ,si'jv " V ,is l>-nrj , as we hav e already lenr,,,.,) , "" lr i*h„l J- n\  Out reading of a *•** f \ « tolls ° ,ru.si l,s.^ h  i'h.,1 te lls us u s is is somethin*? s o m eth in g a h „ „ t | M m „ Hignilitnn<• ™ ; ’‘ ■ «* " '*y in It* is u n f o r t u n a t e i f t h i s p l a y i n g d o w n lain 'an ity

about

o r r e ad e r . T h e e r t f e . * " * * " « « » « ...

, T ' ' ns<‘s ^'ems to denv -------- - - i ne critic m niiuhand may be indeed inu lurrassment in admitting thetensely moved by them l’,<,y C,'r,,,in Worl« wry

. e fact; but a detailed de^- im"' “' I ' hove •» ‘“ ""on reading certain works has little to do will, i„H of ">y emotional n ^ w h a t the work is and how the parts of7 , ire an in"

STof

r T,r

T°n

1

  h-

-

-

— Wi" f Pend ,he and the “ practice, the c n t. e s , o b .s ra rel y a pu rely critical one. He is much more I ke " l  be involved in dozens of more or less related tasks, some of them trivia! some of them im po rta nt . H e m ay be trying to get a hearing for a new author' or t0 get the attention of the freshman sitting in the back row. He may be co m p a ss two au tho rs, or e ditin g a text, writing a brief newspaper review or reading a pa p er b efo re the M o d em Langu age Association.11 He may even be simply talk ing w ith a frie n d , talkin g abou t literature for the hell of it. Parable, anecdote, epigram, metaphor—these and a hundred other devices av be thoro ug hly leg itim at e for his vary ing purposes. He is certainly not to be asked to su ppre ss his p er so n al en thu siasm s or his interest in social history or in politics. L ea st o f all is h e be ing aske d to present his criticisms as the close ° adine of a text. Tact, co m m on sen se, and uncom mon sense if he has it, are aii requisite if th e p ra cti sin g crit ic is to d o his various jobs well But it will d o the critic no ha rm to have a clear idea of what his specific job

^ a t u r d a y R ev i ew o f L i t e r a t u r e . by the college lect ur er of infec tiou s en u Month Club bulletin s, an d in the co um ns , h  j think an important, role. I have assig ne d th e cr itic a m od es , practising artist, With reference to the h elp w hic h the critic can give P

10

nd Nature of Poetry

smart sidtt'u  x,s jj y ’Classical scholar and poet (1859-1936). Housma" ^ to keep watch over my  J « omine.----------------------.

.

.

u

■

m

v

*

(1933): "Exper ' ----- ^as fought ^oughts ^ >6nence me , when I am shaving o f a morning , to keep watch over my ceaspe „ause' ^ a  hne o f po etry strays into m y m emory; my skin bristles so that the razor  Noughts, be< ceases to act. i oreanization for scholar in EnK>ish jnd fortM>?n The primary North A me rica n pro fess ion s languages and literatures.

2

M

Kwk M n R* on

Literary Criticism'

only negative help. — ° l lc l PL,Ht. Ah critic have no formula to offer. Perhaps L *— hflV le work has suc-

H i . E v e r y t h i n g -- — ; ^

an K, give ^-»n vt

.

t e n d t o g o h an d tter off for being  ^v,nsiderations are never p ro p e r a d v i c e c o u l d  

„ u, ‘h“

i ch w i ll ' a v , f ' ' special, a n d in a g lV " . equal, the case is a l w a y s ^ ' th er, o r * * d  P * *

, sc icn ce o r history or

be: quit reading c r i h o J ”

i fi c a n d p o s i t i v e h e l p

o r j()in t he c h u

-f g

p hilo so ph y— o r I " " doubt that the k 'n s e v e r a l w r i t e r s o f o u r t im e There is certainly ^ ^ , 2 w a s a b le t o g>ve » th a t th er e th at s om e o ne like ^ r a

.

can be. I think

ortant kind of cri

r ; r,?s S l m l a t e d to the *

* * £

%

%

^ av e d es cr ib ed : the re is

& 

 is being b uilt up , the same

m e sa m e in ten se c on c er n w i t h th e t e x t concern with technical p r o b le m * .

o th cr th ing s are in v o lv e d o f c r i t id s m a l t o g e t h e r a m o n g  

m a tt er s w h ic h lie o u t si d e t h e s p e c m them a knowledge of the perso nal ty o t

rtic u lar w rite r, th e ability to

P

stim ulate, to m ake positive su gg es • d o c u m e n t c a n b e a n a l y s e d in A lite ra ry w o r k is a d o c u m e n t a n d a s a ^ m a n i p u i a t e d a s a f or ce

terms of the forces that have pro uc , the fu tu re . These facts it in its own right. It mirrors t h e  does d the m . But the would be futile to deny, and 1 know ot no critic co n stit u te literarv reduction of a work of literature to its causes does not constitute literary criticism; nor does an estimate of its effects. Good literature is more than effective rhetoric applied to true ideas— e v e n if w e c o u l d a g r e e u p o n a philosophical yardstick for measuring the truth of ideas and even if we could find some way that transcended nose-counting for determining the ef fectiveness of the rhetoric. A recent essay by Lionel Trilling bears very emphatically upon this point.13 (1 refer to him the more readily because Trilling has registered some of his objections to the critical position that 1 maintain.) In the essay entitled "The Meaning of a Literary Idea," Trilling discusses the debt to Freud and Spengler of four American writers, O'Neill, Dos Passos, Wolfe, and Faulkner. Very justly, as it seems to me, he chose Faulkner as the co nte m pora ry writer who, along with Ernest Hemingway, best illustrates the power and imporimpor tance of ideas in literature. Trilling is thoroughly a w a r e t h a t h i s c h o i c e will

u o t r m o , e T 's 'e

«"

Society

f.(’Und^ ‘>f Psychoanalysis sic,m o n o f r e u d ^ l n fl u en c e o f t h e A u st ri an Oswald Spengler (1H8(M936) author of ru n > ^ nd the G erm ar» philo sop her of history < «1 8- 22 ), on ,he playwright Ku K<™ O'N eill (IXW-TOS) a n d T " l l y ' (1S00-193H), and  William Faulkner (ls 97 _ , ^ 2 " hn Dos Passos (1896-19 70), Thomas  Wolfe

Reading

on I, -iterary Criticism

255

erhaps perverse, "because," ns he writes, "Hemingway king and lis te d on their indifference to the conscious Intellectual ^  ^ llcnCr have ^ave acquired the reputation of achieving their cf$ > ofaOSr °ur « *'inV connection with any sort of inMK w Uth hZi neet ethe n i gleast e na ct epossible .''? h a l0 s P s s ib | p X  * , L....... or. eeven ° n w "h any son „ f in(|>|. fcctsPy v e n w ith intelligence ." ^

J

Trilling sh o w s n ot o n ly a cute discernm ent

h 

in electing to de al w ith th e h ar d ca ses — with th„

. a" admirable hon-

 ; arlv and easily m ake the case for the im portance of id " " " !8 Wh °  do not E m in e n t and the honesty, but I w ond er whether th„ u 1 aPPlaud the does not ind icate tha t Trilling is really m " ! ! , Wh° ,e discuss‘<,n in * C ritic s" than perhaps he is aware. For M ™ C'°Ser to lhe ^-called ' : l o " to - o n e relatio n b etw e en the T * 'T S S ba d*»  W( W f “ " e m b ° t d no, S a i m h a T ' W Siz a b le ideas of a forc e o r w eig h t are 'used ' in the work," or "new ideas of ^certain force and w e ig h t ar e p ro d u ce d ' by the w ork ." He praises rather the act that we feel tha t H em in g w ay an d Fau lkner are "intensely at work upon he recalcitrant stu ff o f life. T h e la st poi nt is m ade the matter of real impormce.  Whereas Dos Passos, O'Neill, and Wolfe make us "feel  that they feel hat they hav e said th e la st w o rd ," "w e seldom have the sense that Hemingway and Faulkner] . . . have misrepresented to themselves the naure and the difficulty o f the m atte r th ey w ork on ." Trilling has chosen to state the situation in terms of the writer's activity Faulkner is inte n se ly a t w o rk , e tc.). Bu t th is jud gm en t is plainly an inference rom the quality of Faulkner's novels—Trilling has not simply heard -aulkner say that he has had to struggle with his work. (I take it Mr. iemingway's declaration about the effort he put into the last novel im jresses Trilling as little as it im presses th e rest of us.) Suppose, then, that we tried to state Mr. Trilling's point, not in terms of he effort of the artist, bu t in term s o f the structure of the work * * ^ h o u ^ *e not get som eth ing v er y lik e the term s use y t e orma i ironjes and cription in term s o f "t e n s io n s ," o f sy m bo lic eve op describe in terms heir resolution? In s h or t, is n o t t he for m alis t critic trying  ,1the dynamic form o f th e w or k itse lf how the recalcitrancy of Sacknowledged an d d ea lt w ith ?

to acc0mmodate my

Trilling's definition of "ide as" ™ake®1 in which he repudiates the >osition to his. I have already quoted a p "used" in the work, t> >otion that one has to show how recogniza e 1 wrjte: "All that we ,r °ew ideas are " prod uced " by the work. He g ^ ^ important to do is accou nt fo r a c erta in aesth e 1 different from the proce* y >a.rt th iev ed by a m en ta l pro ce ss w hic h is no ^ be judged by someso ^hkh discursive idea s ar e co n ce ived , and w have to look far to 1 by wh ich an idea is ju d g ed ." have been at pamMo ^ "fo rm a l" enough to object to this. ideas or 'pmduce upon is that literature does n ot simply e x c w p

Critic01

that the writer is a . kll(,wU“ltti's- //"w ad er ought to use h.s, in p ro c^

.. ...lings •>" l ll*'r,,ry

1 

, „ nc cla ims

 , IVilliug •>/ mind and his « di(tcursive ideas are c o n c e i ^ in nsl idi"l- > „ V process by wh,t op„n ideas, but it does not / ' - 10. dith-ent fmn’ .f ideas. j * n with the "recalcitrant stuff/, Literatim.' is -<•'< ‘ ,u„ltly. » that involvement. °< wnt ideas pa'lv a» . )b is to deal w commont upon the critic's sr* life." The literaly <■ ,^ .r invites a el ■ *» that one could takPP?'

^ r n i ^ S U i.<« ^der mT sm a d‘,u in" gos of,Faulkner o^ the mi»,c . ' “ n,uvvcur. cific job. As 1b« . put consider ant critics we have, have, some som most brilliant critics that that we

- V:

lx 'ru ’" .......” , th,."m the worK u.

ren " u'

'

...mnc-headed, and and de d un i t e wrong-headed,

”° m .L

*,ra*-'■*

trab ly so . W h at is tru e of Faulkner ,, m an y w n of the past including many writers

”s on y less true of m an y a n o * * ‘c ri ti cs p r o p o s e n e w u s e s “ m e o f ,h em ex. i° " ,ure has many "uses - a n d

form uses to w hich literature can be

citing and sPe/ / “/ / , r Rowing what a given work "means." That knowlbasic.

Sm.cn.re, Sign and Fla, in lh« Discou™ of the Human Sciences b y Ja c q u e s D er r i d a  

We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.

—Montaigne Perhaps something has occurred in the history of the concept of structure that could be called an 'ev en t/ if this load ed w o rd d id n o t en tail a meaning  which it is precisely the function of stru ctu ral— o r stru ctu ra list— thought to reduce or to suspect. Let us speak of an 'e v e n t/ n ev erth ele ss, and let us use quotation marks to serve as a precaution. W h at w o u ld this e ve nt be then? Its exterior form would be that of a r u p t u r e   a n d a r e d o u b l i n g . It w o u l d be e a s y e n o u g h t o s h o w t h a t t h e c o n c e p t o f s tr u c tu r e and even the word 'structure' itself are as old as the ep i s t em e 1—   th at is to say as o ld as W e s te rn s ci en c e an d W e s te r n p h i l o s o p h y — a n d t h a t th e ir roots t h ru s t d e e p in to th e s oi l o f o r d i n a r y l a n g u a g e , i n t o w h o s e d e e p e s t

recesses

the ep i st em e  p lu n g es in o r d e r t o g a t h e r t h e m u p a n d t o m a k e t h em p a r t "' i ts el f in a m e t a p h o r ic a l d i s p l a c e m e n t . N e v e r t h e l e s s , u p t o t h e event which ’A term reined by Michel Foucault (see below, pp. 281-93) to refer to 'the total set of relative science/, Z  * 7 ' ^  discursive that giv e rise to epistemologica l figures, sciences, and possibly formalized systems of knowledge'.

Readinir gs on Literary Critici osm ish to mark out and define,*  structu IUT0 -

 

u

i .

257

1 vVU,‘‘ IL -a lthough it has always been at or rather the ---------------structurally of . mebeen  ___ 3  ^ v/tcn at work, has — always neutralized bv a origin. process of giving it a center or of r e f . ' or " dce a ii fixed a c u origin The i l funrt;-c  ~ point ofpresence, v. orient, balance, and organize the tunction °r of referrr “H,"'e structu j reduced, and

.......

3n unorganized structure—but-ih tructure—0ne Cem«r vvas n ‘I8 !t to a principle of the structure w o u ld ^ 6 a11 to Wake m>f in fact con °n'y to structure. By orienting and orl a! ‘mit " h a tJ e V ? ?   ,ha' *e center of a structure permits (he p"“ ln? coherent 'he * 4 o m£8 And even today the notion of a s£ . °f ts elementT• °f ,he system unthinkable itself. ucture lacking anvmS,de the Nevertheless ,he center a,so doses Qff § ^ P -s e n t^ makes p o s s ib l e . A s c e n t e r , i t U S off the plav ,.,u -  , opens up and tents, e l em e n t s , o r t e r m s is n o lone! P°‘m at whic/tlJ^K “ T c"3 up of the t ra n s fo r m a ti o n o f e l e m e m f L T f le ' A*  £ % £ * * * "  « f conclosed within a s t r u c t u r e ) is f o r b i d d e n A n  may of c ° u r s e bfsT ? U,aHon remained i n t er d i ct ed   ( a n d I a m usine?t,A east this Pemruta! u res en‘ • Wn tbnueht that the ^ 8‘his word deliberately) Th *** a'Ways ways been t ho ug ht: th at th e c en ter, w hic h is by definition unique, constituted —

-----------v x v m

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------—^ j vacua ii nun umqu hat very thing w ith in a stru ctu re w hic h w hile governing the structure, esre, es[  3 oc Qtructurality. Th is is w h y cla ssic al tho ugh t concerning structure  j i a u u u ic  could w to —  __  say that the center is, paradoxically, within   the structure and outside it. The 1 1 center is at the ce n1te r ocf th e totality, an d vet <;inro fu 4 . “~ “• cen^Twh™ to the totality (is n ot p ar t o f the to tality), the totality t o The center is no t the center. T he con cep t o f centered structure-althoug h it represents coherence itself, the condition of the episteme as  philosophy or science—is co ntra dictor ily coh eren t. And as always, coherence in contradiction expresses the fo rce o f a d es ire .1The con cep t of centered structure is in fact the concept of a p lay ba sed on a fun da m enta l ground, a play constituted on the basis of a fundamental immobility and a reassuring certitude, which itself is beyond the reach of play. And on the basis of this certitude anxiety can be mastered, for anxiety is invariably the result of a certain mode of being im plicated in the g am e, o f be ing ca ug ht b y the gam e, of being as it were at stake m the game from the outset. And again on the basis of what we call the cen ter (and which, because it can be either inside or outside, can also indiffer ently be called the origin or end, arche or telos),  repetitions, substitutions, fransformations, an d p erm uta tion s a re always taken from a history of meanlr*g [sens]— th at is, in a w o rd , a h isto ry — wh ose origin may always be reawakened or whose end may always be anticipated in the form of presence- This is wh y on e p er ha p s c ou ld say that the movem ent of any archaeo °8y, like that o f an y esc ha to log y, is an acco m plice of this reduction of e structurality of stru ct ur e a nd alw ay s a ttem pts to conceive of structure on asis of a fujj p res en ce w h ic h is be yo nd play, f tue If this is so, the ent ire h isto ry o f the co ncept o f structure, b et J h P ^ of Which we are speak ing, m ust be thought of as a senes of substitute. -------

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determinations of the center. KouliossonUf'^y „ „ iink.-d ch u t" <" c c nte r re cei ve s different of center for renter, in ,n,ej fashion, « ^ ^ hi8lory of the West, is Successively, «»d * |ory of m etnp hy *"-« >g> „ 9 m atrix— if you will forms or mimes. 1he j u s and nieto y „ ellip tical in order to the history of t 'ese ' ^ m „e and for. ^ "d e te rm in a tio n of Being Pardon me denums rM t em e-.* * * ,h at aU the ^ h c-ome n«ore qo.cUy .o n y P w(, rd, „ couhi b*. 8 hav e always desi 2s»

f n n d ^  < « " * ^ na.ed an invariable p r e s e n c e ^ . . transcendentality, consciousness, existence, substance, sublet), a h tl.ua, God, man, and so forth. disruption I alluded to at the beginning of The event I called a rupture, the dis P when the structurality of this paper, presumably would nave repeated, and this is why I structure had to begin to be thoug , verv sense of the word. Henceforth, said that this disruption was repetition in somehow governed the desire it became necessary to think both thei a ^ ^ ess of signification for a center in the constitution of struc ' • r rpnf.rai (  which orders the displacements and substitutions for this la o central pre sen ce-b ut a central presence w hich has nev er b ee n itself ha s always already been exiled from itself into its own substitute. The substitute does not substitute itself for anything which has somehow existed before it. Henceforth, it was necessary to begin thinking that there was no center, that the center could not be thought in the form of a present-being, that the center had no natural site, that it was not a fixed locus bu t a fu nc tio n, a s or t o f nonlo cus in which an infinite number of sign-su bstitution s ca m e in to play. Th is was the moment when language invaded the universal problematic, the moment when, in the absence of a center or origin, eve ryth ing b ec am e discourse — provided we can agree on this word— that is to say, a sy ste m in w hich the central signified, the original or transcendental signified, is never absolutely present outside a system of differences. The absence of the transcendental signihed extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely. , 8ll* r e " d k ° w d oes this d ece nte rin g, th is th in k in g th e str uc tu ra lity of or an arn C r m ;,raWT , so m e w h a t   naive to re ° der designate this occu rrence. It is no do u bt nart of the totality of an era, our own but still it w „i , , ° ao u M Pa rt 0 1 we itself and begun to w o r k . N evertheless f Z " w T J ‘° 'nam es,' as indications only, and to recall thn W1* h ed to ch o o se several this occurrence has kept most closely to im h ° ? , n w h o s e d iscourse doubtless would have to cite the Nietzchm * ‘T ^ radlca l formulation, we tique of the concepts of Being and tmth ^0^ ° f m e t a P h y s i c s ' lhe cri‘ cepts of play, interpretation and si^ ' , . Whlch were substituted the conFreudian critique of self-presence that i ^ n " wltho ut present truth); the the subject, of self-identity and of self Dw Cr'tul ue of consciousness, of more radically, the Heidegge rean destruction f Y se lf-p os se ssio n ; and, tion of metaphysics, of ontotheologY .1

1

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f Being as presence.2 But ail these destructi 259 rminati°n °  b ^ of s are trapped inw— a—kind ofthe circle. ~  det*A all then* a . the relat rel atio ion n w hi st een x r-M m a kind of c ir c ir S - Ctive dis' dis' *nique•n - the destruc destructi tion on off the histor hi story y of -b c , w ee —VICIS ICIS • h e r t o n e—1me en « * ^   ofc,rck' is * i1 history metaUx*iC$ ^ * — m sio ry metaphysics. There is no sense  __  _ _ _ _ _  ^ . anu anu ^ rTg' rTg'co conc ncep epts ts of metaphysics in order to sha shake metap taphysic sics. m

We

v^ith°ut

<* n pU vew e <*n langU lang

no syntax and no lexicon—which is foreign to this  _ no

noun nounce ce not a singl single e destruc destructi tive ve propo proposition sition which has

r°l r°l Dint Dinto o the the form, form, the logic, logic, and the the imp implicit postulatio stulation ns lr.Tu ^ J aggdeS* Y t0 • ! . !?Lk !?L k s to contest. T o take tak e one on e exam ex amp p le f rom ro m maneSy*e^d a^m som precisel precisely encent e is isago sh shakasens woitho thne ^ l ^  - c e p t V * ? # ....   ........

i yP„ tchM ihc*e r0e is L at *tic iP s n o t r an a n s ce c e n d e n ta t a l o r p ri ri v il il e ge ge d s i J ^ i a " s tr tr at at ei ei n 'h is limft f d an and d tha thall the do J i n or play of sign ifica tio n he nc efo rth has no limft concept ept and w or d 's ig n ' it se lf— w hich is precisely'whe(mU precisely'whe(mUS' re,ec re,ectt even even  fre conc for the signif signific icati ation on 'sign ; h as alw ays b een under underst stoo ood d ^ n / d et rw meanin ing, g, as sign -of , a sig m fie r refe rrin g to a signified signified p c ' m,'ned ,'ned-- its mean t e si sig n i f i e d . I f o n e e ra ra s es e s t he h e ra r a di d i c al al d i f f e ^ b e ' ^ n ™ is the word 'sig n ifier ' itself which which must be ab an do ne es ameta ameta-signified, it is physical conce pt. W h en L ev i S tra u ss s ays in the preface preface to The Raw and the Cooked  that he has 'sought to transcend the opposition between the senfibt and the the intelligible intellig ible b y o p e ra tin g fro m the ou tset a t the level of sign signs/ s/111the the ne ne cessity, force, and an d le g iti m a c y o f his ac t ca nn ot make m ake us forget that that the the con con cept of the sign cannot in itself surpass this opposition between the sensible3 and the intelligible. The concept of the sign, in each of its aspects, has been determined by this opposition throughout the totality of its history. It has lived only on this opposition and its system. But we cannot do without the concept of the sig n, fo r w e ca n n o t g ive up this metaphysical compl complic icit ity y wi with th out also giving up the critique we are directing against this complicity, or without the risk of erasing difference in the self-identity of a signified reduc ing its signifier into itself or, amounting to the same thing, simply expelling its signifier outside itself. For there are two heterogenous ways of erasing the difference between the signifier and the signified: one, the classic way, con sists in reducing or deriving the signifier, that is to say, ultimately in using ere ere agai agains ns submitting the sign to t h o u g h t; th e other , the one we are using the firs firstt one, co n sis ts in p u tti n g in to qu estio n the system in w the the ceding reduction reduction fu n ctio n ed : firs t an d forem ost, the opposii 10  e(j e(j uction uction sensible and the in tellig te llig ible ib le.. F or the  pa  p a r a d o x  is that the sign sign neede d the op po sitio n it w as reducing. e .  the sjgn can be atic with the red uctio n. A nd w h at w e are saying e r e * vsi vsics, cs, in parti articu cullar ^tended to a ll th th e c o n ce c e p ts t s an an d a ll ll t he h e s en en te te nc nce s o — be i ng ng caught in t0 'he 'he discourse discourse on 'stru ctu re '. Bu t ther e are several ways of S 3^_P; 207 n.s, above. 'Sensibl e Cleaning 'perceptible through the senses •

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. h i , c i r c l e . T he h e y ««■ le ss s y s t e m a t i c , m o m < • i/.uion— i/.uion— ot th isc n v l.. H • >

less empirical, more or

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t o t h e f‘ ,r , r ^ " h U p l o i n t h e m u l ti t i p l ic i c i ty ty o f j j f f e r e o ce ce s w h ‘ J n t h o se s e w h o e la la b o r a t e d is i s a gr g r ee ee m e n t ^ w o r k e d w i t h in in t h e in -

elements or particular is what al-

could do the same for Heidegger himself, for h ers. ers. And today today no exerci exercise se is more_wi more_wide de p w h en w e tu rn to w h at are  Wha  W hatt is the relev rel evan ance ce o f t e m p e r h a p s o c c u p i e s a p ri v il e g e d called sciences . fVio 'human srumces e thn olo gy co u ld h a v e be en bo m n* UckA the place place— — ethn ethnol olog ogy. y. In fact fact one can assume co m e ab ou t: at the as a science only at the moment when a de & v•. c . moment when European culture-and, in consequence, the history of meta physics and of its concepts—had been dislocated,   driven from t s locus, and forced to stop considering itself as the culture of reference. This moment is not first and foremost a moment of philosophical or scientific discourse. It is also a moment which which is polit politic ical al,, economic, technical, technical, an d s o forth . O n e ca n say with with total security that there is nothing fortuitous about the fact that the critique of ethno ethnoce centr ntris ism— m— the the very very condition condition for for ethnology— sh ou ld be systematically and historically contemporaneous with the destruction of the history of meta physics physics.. Both Both belong belong to one and the the same era. N ow , et h n ol og y— like any sci sci ence—comes about within the element of discourse. And it is primarily a European sci scien ence ce emplo employin ying g tradit tradition ional al concepts, ho w ev er m u ch it ma y stru strug g gle against against them. them. Conseq Consequen uently tly,, whe ther he wa nts to o r n ot — an d this does no not depend on a deci decisio sion n on on his his part— the ethnologist ac ce pt s in to his discou rse th the premises premises of of ethn ethnoce ocentr ntrism ism at at the very m om ent w he n h e de no un ces them. This necessity ,s irreducible; it is not a historical contingency. We ought to consider all its implications very carefully. But if no one can escape this necessiW and if no>one is therefore responsible for eivi ei vine ne in it u * ^ U v  , f a ,.. ” giving giving m to it, it, ho w ev er litt little le he may do so, this doe s not m ean that that all the wa vs of givin g in if ^ i .• c Th e quality and fecundit fecundity y of a d isb u rs e ° f eqUal Pertme Pertmenc nce; e; rigor with wh ich this relation to the historv of ™e as u red b y the criHca! conc epts is thought thought.. Here it it is a question question bo th [” eta Pb y slc s an d to inh inher eriited ted guage of the social sciences and a critical resno " u t ” 1' ? relati relation on to the lanis a question question of explicitl explicitly y and sy ste m a tica l' P Slblllty Slblllty of the discourse itself. It

a d i s c o u r s e w h i c h b o r r o w s fro m a h o C " 8 *h ep e p ro ro b le m o f R e  con structio n of that that heritag e itsel itselff A nroW nroW thefres ou rce s ne cessa ry for for the the del f we w e co co n s i d e r , a s a n e x a m p l e ^ C w T ^ trate* * . , o m « and Stra only be cau se of the privilege accord ed t o , m ° fi C la u d e L<5v L<5vii-St Stra raus uss, s, it it is not F b accorded to ethnology am ong the soci social al sciences, 7

ead'HKs

even even becau be cause se the th e thou th ough ghtt o f ° n Utt‘r tt‘rary Crit. it. ^ rarv theo theore reti tica call situation. situation. It is above a H ^ WeiKhs h ^ glared in the work of Levi-Strauss and l  a °n the g r a t e d there, and precisely, in a ^ ^ U a e a ^ " ‘n choke

**

o rd er to f o l lo w th is m „v „ v eS " 8 « fie ^ choose as one gu idin id ing g thread thre ad am amon ong g oth ' he ,L'»t of u ° ,h d culture. D e sp ite it e a ll its it s rej r eju u v en a tio ti o n s a* a* !! ! ! 'e °PP °PP<>sih(, ih(, ! ' hS' rauss, rauss, |(„ Us

cong congen enit ital al to ph ilos ophy op hy.. I , is ev en o]

Soph ophists ists.4 .4 Since Sin ce the stat st atem em en t o f the ODJ

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htf *>een reky re kyed ed t° JUS by m eans ea ns of a ^ h o le V Phy sisl the si slnom nomos os 7 h * S° ld as the 'nature' to law, to e d u ca ca tio n , to art, to t e c h ^ ^ chain w f f * * * ' U bitra itrary ry,, to histor his tory, y, to soci so ciet ety, y, to the the mind ind and an d Ut also to Kber£ f°P? OSes bis researches, and from his first book (T hp ^ f 0 ° n‘ Now' from thp thp he ar' on, Levi-Strauss simultaneously has expend ?m* ?tary St r uct ur l s o f T ^ l  °( this opposition and the impossibility of accepting T ? * *  o f “ ««H  he begm beg m s from this axiom or definite defin ite " 8,k ln ,he ,he El em ent ^  Structures,   he and spontaneous, and a nd not no t depe de pend nden entt on any parti™, parti™, hat hat ,which hich * m i v e j t  term termin ina ate norm no rm,, belon be lon gs to natur na ture. e. Inversely th 7 . CU tureoronanydesystem of n o r m s  regul reg ulat atin ing g societ soc iety y and therefo therefore re is I w depe depend ndss upon a h 6 ° f VaryinX  one socia sociall stru ctur ct ure e to anot an othe her, r, belon be longs gs to culture Th  from   from of the traditional typ e. Bu But in the very first pages of t h are Levi-Strauss, who has begun by giving credence to thefe concerns  ,er  ,ers what what he calls a scandal, that is to say, something which no longer Wer' ates the nature/culture opposition he has accepted, something which   se em s to requ re quir ire e the pred p redica icates tes of nature and and of cult cultur ure e This simult aneous aneously  ly  seem scandal is the i n c es Th e ince in cest st prohibition pr ohibition is unive universal rsal;; in this this est p r o h i b i t i o n . The sense one could call it natural. But it is also a prohibition, a system of norms and interdicts; in this sense one could call it cultural: Let us suppose then that everything universal in man relates to the natural order, and is characterized by spontaneity, and that everything subject to a norm is cultura culturall and is bot b oth h rela re lati tiv v e and a nd partic par ticular ular.. We are then confro confronte nted d with with a fact fact,, or rather, a group of facts, which, in the light of previous definitions, are not far removed from a scandal: we refer to that complex group of beliefs, customs, conditions and institutions described succinctly as the prohibition of incest, which ich presents, prese nts, w itho it ho ut the th e slig sl ight htes estt ambiguity, amb iguity, and insepa inseparab rably ly com com ine ines, t e hvo character char acteristics istics in whi w hich ch we recog rec ogniz nizee the conflicting featu feature ress o wo ally exclusive orders. It constitutes a rule, but a rule which, alone among ^ ia l rules rules,, possesses posses ses a t the sam e time a universal universal cha chara ract cter er..

Obviously there is no scandal except within a system °' Cred'ts the the diffe di ffere renc ncee b e tw e e n n atu at u re an and d culture, y j .es .es hims himsel elff at Wllh the/ the/ac acfu fum m of th e in c e st p ro h ibit ib itio ion n , Levi-Stra Lev i-Strauss uss thus plac ,Philo»Phers and teachers active in Greece in the fifth century BC.

,

 M  y"os ’ recedes des them -rreb a hical con ceptu alization, which is « be said said that that the the opp osition, is d esig ne d to leav e in ,he ^ 1 5 « . e v e r y t h i n g t h a t m a k e s t h i s c „ n c e p , u a i i z a t io n

^“^Thi ^“^Thiss examp^rtw^cur^ri examp^rtw^cur^rily^e ly^examined^s xamined^s only one am on g m any other others, s, imb exdi exdinp npie ie,, ^ . i,mtniaee be ars w ithin itself the necp necpo o. but nevertheless nevertheless it already show s that lan langu gu age ag e oe< e necfs nec fs-sity sity of its its own cri criti tique que.. Now Now this this critique critique m ay be u nd er tak en alo ng tw o paths, paths, in two 'manne 'manners. rs.'' Once tire limit limit of the natu re/cu lture o p po si ion m ake s itself itself felt, one might want to question systematically and rigorously the history of thes thesee conc concept epts. s. This is a fir first st actio action. n. Such a sy stem atic an d hi sto ric questionin g would would be neithe neitherr a philolo philologic gical al nor a philoso phical ac tio n in th e c lassic sense of the these se words words.. To To concern concern oneself oneself with with th e fou nd ing co n ce p ts o f the entire entire P them, is no t to unueiuiiNt unu eiuiiNt m e ue histor history y of phil philos osoph ophy, y, to to deconstit deconstitute ute them, is n ot to u nd er tak e the w or k ouif the th of philosophy philosophy. appearances U is philo philolog logis istt or of the the clas classi sicc historian historian of . DDespite es p ite ap pe ara nc es, it gt coring G innnin inggss of aa step of --------g -------- lbabt - ibty -i y .. d pmba pm the most mos dari daring ng way way Gf off making the beg begin step outside of 'outside philosophy' isis mu much more difficult phil philos osop ophy hy.. The The step ste step p 'outside 'out side philosophy ch m ore d ifficu t to conceive concei w those wh o think the n g aag o w ith cu, than than is is gene genera rall lly y imagin imagined ed V by who theyy m ad e it lo lon alier ease, and who in general are swallowed up in metaphysics m the entire body of of dis discou cours rsee which which they they claim to have dise ng ag ed fro m it. The other choice (which I believe corresponds more closely to TeviQfr^iiQc'Q mAnnpi^ in order in avoid the no ssib ss iblv lv st e ri liz li z in g e ffe ff e c ts o f the firs one, consists in conserving all these old concepts within the domain of em piric pirical al dis discov cover ery y while while here here and there there de no un cing the ir lim its, trea ting them them as tools which can still be used. No longer is any truth value attributed to them: them: ther theree is a readiness readiness to abandon them , if ne cess ary , sh ou ld oth er instru ments appear more useful. In the meantime, their relative efficacy is ex ploited, and they are employed to destroy the old machinery to which they belong and of which they themselves are pieces. This is how the language of the social sciences criticizes itself. Levi-Strauss Levi-Strauss thinks that in this w ay he can can separate method  from truth,  the instruments of the method and the objective significations envisaged by it. One could almost say that this is the primary affirmation of Levi-Strauss; in any event, the first words of the Elementary Structures   are: 'Above all, it is beginning to emerge that this distinction be tween nature and society ("nature" and "culture" seem preferable to us today), while of no acceptable historical significance, does contain a logic# fully fully justi justifyi fying ng its use by mo dern sociology as a m eth od olog ical too l.'i l.'iv

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 /cultu  /cu lture re oppo op posi sitio tio n. M ore or e than th an thirtee thi rteen n years ye ars If . 'W al ,he s nJtute^, Mind faithfully echoes the text I h J ” * l ll’men,«ry S P * " 1„ betwee between n nature and culture cultu re to which I it ' |ust The 'Z e < n o w s e e m s t o be o f p r i m ^ ‘" I * * ™ * 3t Tthis methodological methodologic al val v alue ue is not affected affe cted by its 'onto 'ontolmt lmt-- ,rJ!P° ,rJ!P° rtance rta nce/  /  And •sht be said, if this noti no tion on wer w ere e not no t suspec sus pecth there ereV V 'H Mcal cal nonva,ue V g U  to  t o reabsorb p a r t i c u l a r h u m a n i S ^ X n e S & - opens the w ay ay fo for o th th e rs w hich . . . are tural sciences: the reintegration of culture in nature and finally of |de V thin the whole of its physico-chemical conditions ,v ** on the other hand  hand  still in The Savage Mind, he Mind, he presents as what he calls triedtge  triedtge  what might be called the discourse of this method. The bricoleur  says Levi-Strauss, is someone who uses 'the means at hand/ that is, the instruments he finds at his disposition around him, those which are already there, which had not been especially conceived with an eye to the operation for which they are to be used and to which one tries by trial and error to them,, not hesitat hesi tating ing to ch an ange ge them whenever whe never it appears nec neces essa sary ry,, or or adapt them to try several of them at once, even if their form and their origin are het erogenous —and so forth. There is therefore a critique of language in the form of bricolage,  bricolage,   and it has even been said that bricolage  bricolage   is critical lan guage itself. I am thinking in particular of the article of G. Genette, Struc tructu tura rali lism smee et critiqu crit iqu e littera litt era ire', ire ', publishe pub lished d in homage hom age to Levi-S Levi-Strau trauss ss in a special issue of L'Arc  L'Arc  (no. 2 6 , 1 9 6 5 ) , where it is stated that the analysis of bricolage could bricolage could "be applied "be applied almost word for word' to criticism, and especially to 'literary criticism'. If one calls bricolage  bricolage   the necessity of borrowing one's concepts from the text of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is bricoleur. The Th e engineer, e ngineer, whom Levi-Strauss Levi-Strauss oppo opposes ses to thebricoleur, the bricoleur, should  should b e the on onee to con struct the totality of his his lang languag uage, e, syn syn tax, and lexicon. In this sense the engineer is a myth. A subject who suppos edly would be the absolute origin of his own discourse and supposedly would constr construct uct it 'o ut of n o th in g', g' , 'ou t o f whole wh ole cloth', clo th', would be the the crea creator tor of the verb, the verb itself. The notion of the engineer who supposedly breaks with all forms of bricolage  bricolage   is therefore a theological idea; and.since Levi-Strauss tells us elsewhere that bricolage  bricolage  is mythopoetic, the odds ar the engineer is a myth produced by the bricoleur. As soon < * believe in such an en gin gi n ee r an and d in a discou dis cou rse whic rea s ^ ceived historical historical dis cou co u rse, rs e, and a nd as soon so on as a s we adm it tha eve y ^0urs 0ursee is bound bou nd b y a ce c e r ta in bricolage and that tha t the enginee engi neerr naced naced an ancj cj /e *lso *lso species species of o f bricoleurs,  bricoleurs,  then the very idea of brtcolag infe infere ren nce in wh which ich it took to ok on its mean ing brea s ow

k

which might g u i d e u s i n w h a t is is

lht? second thread

This This brin brings gs us to tnt ^ gn intelle ctu al activity but being bein g contriv con trived ed h * * f,rlV ,rlV(,/rt<^ no nott on Y  M ind in d   'Like bricolage l^vi-St l^vi-Strau rauss ss dts tr Gne reads reads m . b riflian t un fores een rerealso lso as a m yt ho p n^ al Y{   reflection ca to ^  often been 'drawn to on the technical plane plane,, my Conver!*l y , attentu atten tu suits suits on the

^

f bricolage/''

doe9 not sim ply con sist in

9ptea r u rs— c, c, u—ra raI ,1 ,1w•ou d *ld ? fsay °f . L . lW lWv v in his most recent in aap9t rs ^ ’, C n d of mythological £ * * * * £ * w hi h i c h h e a cc cc or o r d s t o hi h i s o w n d is alm almost ost from the the o u t s e t- ° h ia * . -mythologica ls . It ,s ,s h ®re tha t h,s dlscourse course on myths, myths, to what he ca Is h its elf. el f. A n d this thisii m om ent, en t, cour course se on the the myth myth refl reflec ects ts on itse. itse. ^ ^ (he lan gu ag es w htch share share this this criti critica call period period,, is evident evidently ly o L ev i-S tra u ss sa y o f h is 'm yth othe the fiel field d of the the human human science sciences. s. m vtho vt ho p oe tic al v irt u e o f bricolage. logicals'? 1. is here that ' " ^ g i n Th Th is is c ri r i t ic ic a l s ea e a rc r c h f o r a n ew ew s t e e in effe effect ct,, wh what at appe appear arss m andonm ent of all re fer en ce to a center, to a tus tus of discou discourse rse is e s origin or to an ab so lu te archia  archia   [beginningt'The3 theme6 of thfsdecentering could be followed throughout the 'Overture' to his last last book, The Raw and the Cooked. I Cooked.  I shall simp ly rem ark on a few key points. 1. From the very start, Levi-Strauss recognizes that the Bororo myth which which he emplo employs ys in the the book as the 'reference m yt h d o es n o t m erit this name and this treatment. The name is specious and the use of the myth im proper. This myth deserves no more than any other its referential privilege: 'In fact, the Bororo myth, which I shall refer to from now on as the key myth, myth, is, is, as I shall shall try try to show, show, sim sim ply a tr a n sf o rm a tio n , to a g rea ter or lesser extent, of other myths originating either in the same society or in neighb neighbori oring ng or or remo remote te socie societi ties. es. I could, there fore , ha v e leg itim ate ly taken taken as my starting point any one representative myth of the group. From this point of view, the key myth is interesting not because it is typical, but rather because of its irregular position within the group/vii soum soume^ e^IIfThe fThe mv?hUnityr

abso' abso' Ute Sourc Sourcee of ,h e m yth . T he focu s or the the

u n a c tu a liz a b le .L d T o n S m fr n Z V 311? V,ir ,irtUa'it 'itie iess which which are are elusive' structure, configuration, or relationship T h e  f " ' E ve v e r y tb t b in in S b e Si S i n s w it h ture ture that that myth myth itself itself is, is, cannot cannot itsel itselff h f,' ^ d' sco ur se on the ace ntric stru strucccenter. It must avoid the violence that / that  / ! /  an /  an absolute subject or an absolute descr describ ibes es an acen acentr tric ic stru struct ctur uree if it is is no tT* 8 n cente rinS a languag languag e whi which ch ment of myth. Therefore Therefore it is necessarv . ° (sh s h or tc h an S e the form and move move-discourse, to renounce the episteme  lentific or philosophical episteme   whi k ^ iT 8.0 sc lentific absolute requirement that we go bark ^ absolutely requires, which is the founding basis, to the principle a n d *° tbe source, to the center, to the cour course se,, str struc uctu tura rall di disc scour ourse se on mum mum S° ° n ‘ ln °P P °s itio n to epistemic disepistemic  disY s mythological disco urse— must its itseelf

Readings on Literary Critictem

, have the form of *k  M V 'S in Rm» "»
26S

rph ic. I t must .

i J

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to t5l

$-e -Mdv of myths raises a methodological problem in » h •, ^ * t according to the Cartesian principle of breaking Ca,nn<,t be « rmany parts as may be necessary for finding the s o lu ttn T difnCU,,y ^ to methodological analysis, no hidden unity to be erasn J . ? ,s no rt‘al f i n process has been completed. Themes can b e L ifu n ^Ce^ ebreakin8^  J hen you * ink y°u have disentangled and separated them^ fadNtag
This statement is repeated a little farther on: 'As the myths themselves are  based on secondary codes (the primary codes being those that provide the sub stance of language), the present work is put forward as a tentative draft of a tertiary code, which is intended to ensure the reciprocal translatability of sev eral myths. This is why it would not be wrong to consider this book itself as a myth: it is, as it were, the myth of mythology.'1* The absence of a center is here the absenc e of a subject and the absence of an author: "Thus the myth and the musical work are like conductors of an orchestra, whose audience becomes the silent performers. If it is now asked where the real center of the work is to be found, the answer is that this is impossible to determine. Music and mythol ogy b ri n g man face to face with potential objects of which only the shadows are actu alize d — Myths are anonymous.,x The musical model chosen by LeviStrauss for the composition of his book is apparently justified by this absence of any real fixed center of the mythical or mythological discourse. T h u s it is at this point that ethnographic bricolage deliberately assumes ' mythopoetic function. But by the same token, this function makes the .o-ophioal or epistemological requirement of a center appear as mytho^ ' that is to say, as a historical illusion, done eVertheless' even if one yields to the necessity of what Levi-Strauss has discouT6  0annOt ign or e its risks- If the mythological is mythomorphic, are all ical re * * 0n myths equivalent? Shall we have to abandon any epistemologlrement which permits us to distinguish between several qualities of

thec«*„

2t>6

Heading* on UWu" y 

‘s,n

evitable question. It cannot be andiscourse on the myth? A c' a*sic' ^ ' does not answ er it— for as long as swerv'd—and 1 believe that v™ r* u;. hiU)Sopheme or the theore m , on the problem of the relations h wee mVthop oem , on the other, has not the one hand, and the my theme or ' )bU;m. Fo r lack of exp licitly posbeen posed explicitly, which is no 8n\‘ tra ns for m ing the alleg ed transing this problem, we condemn ourse fauj t w ith in the ph ilosop hica l gression of philosophy an unno wouldinto b e the realm. Empiricism genus of w h ,cbh tthese ^faults ^ w ou ld always Vs b e the species. Transphilosoph.cal concepts w

jo demonstrate £ 

philosophical naivetes. Many examp’ ^ for$ , W ha t I w ant to empharisk: the concepts of sign, istory, ru philoso phy doe s no t co n sist in turning crtnu;7;noVta^itr\ size is simply that the passage beyond philo p y the page of philosophy (which usually am oun ts to ph rloso ph iz bad ly), but in continuing to read philosophers in a certain way. Th e risk I am speaking of ts always assumed by Levi-Strauss, and it is the very price o is en eavor. I have said that empiricism is the matrix of all faults menacing a discourse which continues, as with Levi-Strauss in particular, to c on sid er itself scientific. If we wanted to pose the problem of empiricism and bvicolage  in depth, we would probably end up very quickly with a num ber of abso lutely contradic tory propositions concerning the status of discourse in structural ethnology. On the one hand, structuralism justifiably claims to be the critique of empiri cism. But at the same time there is not a single book or study by Levi-Strauss which is not proposed as an empirical essay wh ich c an alw ays b e completed or invalidated by new information. The structural sche m ata are always pro posed as hypotheses resulting from a finite quantity of in for m atio n an d which are subjected to the proof of experience. Numerous texts could be used to demonstrate this double postulation. Let us turn once again to the 'Overture' of The Raw and the Cooked,  where it seems clear that if this postulation is dou ble, it is because it is a question here of a langu age on la ng ua ge :

If cities reproach me with not having carried out an exhaustive inventory of South American myths before analyzing them, they are making a grave mistake about the nature and function of these documents. The total body of myth be long. ng to a given community is comparable to its speech. Unless the population dies out physically or morally, this totality is never complete. You might as well criticize a linguist for compiling the grammar of a language without having complete records of the words pronounced since the language came into being, and wdhout knowing what will be said in it during the future part of its existence. Experience proves, that a linguist can work out the grammar of a given language from a remarkably small number of sentences.. .. And even a partial grammar or an outline grammar is a precious acquisition when we are dealing with un known languages. Syntax does not become evident only after a (theoretically limitless) series of events has been recorded and examined because it is itself the body of rules governing their production. What 1have tried to give is an outline of the syntax of South American mythology. Should fresh data come to hand.

i, *

 

.....

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  ........

< mo  

2#>7

will be used to cluvk or modify f|u, fl t  ***£ so that some am abandoned and n>p|flJ ' n,l,,
, %«u mil ary demand for a total mythological jeoi » " “' i, I «■ »■'•cl>nJ,y •dsh‘‘l"Vuvn shown, such a  requirement has no meaning." .........

...........

T,^ 's d l H  T   C| L  ' " ° ' B hdi/ati h’ K

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I/ U r

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h>o mu ch, m ore than one can say But mm. » . ever ma»h*r. ^ u n e d in another w ay: no longer " " * Ijtude as relegation to the empirical, but from the stand,!,!  , ; T ' P' of of p l^ K  to talizatio n no lo ng er has any meaning, it 1 n h t ' T S n d c n e s s o f a fie ld c a nn o t b e co ve re d by a finite ^ n c e t a * £ £ £   course, but bec au se the na tu re o f the f ie ld - th a t is, language and a finite language— exclud es totaliz ation . T his field is in effect that of play that is to say, a field of infinite substitutions only because it is finite, that is to sav because instead o f being too larg e, there is som ething missing from it- a center which arrests and grounds the play of substitutions. One could say— rigorously using that word whose scandalous signification is always oblit erated in French— tha t this m ov em en t of play, permitted by the lack or ab sence of a center or origin, is the movement of supplementarity. One cannot determine the center and exhaust totalization because the sign which replaces the center, which supplements it, taking the center's place in its absence—this sign is added, occurs as a surplus, as a supplement.xn The movement of sig nification adds something, which results in the fact that there is always more, but this addition is a floating one because it comes to perform a vicar ious function, to supplement a lack on the part of the signified. Although Levi-Strauss in his use of the word 'supplementary' never emphasizes, as I do here, the two directions of meaning which are so strangely compounded within it, it is not by chan ce that h e uses this word twice in his Introduction to the Work of M arc el M a u ss ', at on e p oin t w here he is speaking of the 'overabundance of signifier, in relation to the signifieds to which this over L ^

is

--------------------------

abundance can refer': In his endeavor to understand the world, man therefore always has at h j* _  P0^! a surplus of signification (which he shares out amongst t lings ac_  (he laws of symbolic though t-w hich is the task of am /  study). This distribution of a supplementary allowance ; « b Permissible to put it that w a y -is absolutely necessary n o r * rd-a ^

r j ]Yflole (he available signifier and the signified It “*(”* ‘ ‘ ( ^honship „f complementarity which is the very con,I,I,on of tl« k°I*c tho ught.x,u

 ,f  sv„tum

,

(It could no doubt be domonstr.i cation is the origin of the rat io  it: after Ltfvi-Strauss has mentione tude of all finite thought':

pure state, and therefore capable of becoming charged with any sort of symbolic content whatever? In the system of symbols constituted by all cosmolo gies, m a m  would simply be a zero symb olic value, th at is to say, a sign m arking the necessity of a symb olic content supplementary  [m y italics] to that with which the signified is already loaded, bu t wh ich can take on a ny va lue required, pro vided only that this value still remains pa rt of the a va ilable reserv e an d is not, as phonologists put it, a group-term.

Levi-Strauss adds the note: 'Linguists have already been led to formulate hypotheses of this type. For example: "A zero phoneme is opposed to all the other phonemes in French in that it entails no differential characters and no constant phonetic value. On the contrary, the proper function of the zero phoneme is to be op posed to phoneme absence." (R. Jakobson and J. Lutz, 'Notes on the French Phonemic Pattern', Word 5, no. 2 [August 1949]:155). Similarly, if we schema tize the conception I am proposing here, it could alm ost b e said that the func tion of notions like mana  is to be opposed to the absence of signification, witho ut entailing by itself any particular sig nific atio n.'xiv The overabundance of the signifier, its supplementary  character, is thus the result of a finitude, that is to say, the result of a lack which must be supplemented. It can now be understood why the concept of play is important in Levi-Strauss. Flis references to all sorts of games, notably to roulette, are very frequent, especially in his Conversations in Race and History,™  and in The Savage Mind.  Further, the reference to play is always caught up in tension. Tension with history, first of all. This is a classical problem, objections to which are now well worn. I shall simply indicate what seems to me the form ality of the problem : by red ucing h istory, Lev i-Strau ss has treated as it de ser ve s a conce pt w hich has alw ays been in com plicity w ith a teleological and esch atolo gical metap hysics, in othe r word s, paradoxically, in complicity ,x v

. ■ith

p h i lo s o p h y o f p r o s e ,H O t „ w l i / . i . , , 4 The th e m at ic o f h is to ric ity nhi

K* on t it u,<#r*iry ............

Wa» 1>HU,

,

^ i v ' , . 1 in p h i l o s o p h y , I nis « l w « y 8 I ,, ., !" ," /’ 1' " ni»‘| >is presence. With o r w i t h o u t . . .. 11 l » i r e t| h „ *  

......

th°l'^h 't o f h i s t o r i a , if history is always th <>f et,isl*'W j J < h0f ru.h or .he development 7 “ ^  Ji; ;; ,h e ap pro priation of truth in p * “ " “ «

, <>f  cU sj
"l£ “*«»•

S ltH ig e in con scou sness-of-self. History ha8 " f 8," f-Pr«cnce "^ 'H‘ £ movement of a resump t.on of history, as a d ' ^ bw" co n i " a ,h‘ But if it is leg itim ate to su sp ect this conr 1 tour between J d as  f i t is edu ced w ithout an ex plicit statement ofP(h°fhist,,r>'' 'here i s " ^ L here, of falling b ac k in to a n a histo ricism o 1 l Probleni 1 am ind.cm % , into a de term ine d m om en t o f the history of n 'ype- ,hat is to Bcebraic form ality o f the p ro ble m as I see it Mo Sucb is «w 0f tivi-Strauss it m us t be reco gn ized that the re sn eT r Wy' in the work ^ internal originality o f the structure, compels a » S'ruc'urality, fo, , ° n °< «me and history. For exam ple, the appearance of a new s ta r t system, always co m es ab ou t— and this is the very m n T ' ° f 3n ori8inal tural sp e ci fic ity -b y a ru p tu re w ith its past, its origin a " ,? ^ 8 Struc' Therefore one can d esc ribe w hat is pe cu lia r to the structural Cause' only by not taking into account, in the very moment of this d e S o n T past conditions: by o m ittin g to p o sit the problem of the transition  f r Z o n e structure to an othe r, b y p u tt in g h istor y betw een brackets In this 'struc turalist' moment, the concepts of chance and discontinuity are indispens able. And Levi-S trau ss does in fa ct often ap peal to them, for example as concerns that structure of structures, language, of which he says in the 'Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss' that it 'could only have been born in one fell sw oop ': Whatever m ay h av e b ee n the m om en t and the circumstances of its appear ance on the sca le o f an im al life , la ng u ag e cou ld o nly have been born in one fell swoop. Things could not have set about acquiring signification progres sively. Follo w ing a tr a n sfo rm at io n the stu dy of which is not the concern of the social sciences, but rather of biology and psychology, a transition came about from a stag e w he re n o th in g ha d a m eanin g to another where every thing possessed it.xvii

s standpoint does not prevent Levi-Strauss from recognizing the slow s' the process of m aturin g, the continu ou s toil of factual transformations, ;r°,ry (for ex am ple, Race History). But, in accordance with a gesture Was also Ro ussea u's and H us serl's , he must 'set aside all t w •«■ • foment when he wishes to recapture the specificity of a structure. Like

™

Readings on

Literary Criticism

rf ^ ^

^

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Rousseau, he mus, always c o n ^ e of r f ■, natu re, a nature, intermodel of catastrophe— an ove ^ aside o f  n ature. o p tio n of the natural sequence, a settmi, (here * a ls o th e tension p Besides the tension between play sru tion of pre sen ce. Th e presence betw een play and presence. W * s ub s, i, u ti v e r ef er en c e m s cn b ed u t a of an element is always a ' an r f a ch ain. Pl ay is alw ay s play of absystem of differences and the moyeme radiCally, play must be consence and presence, but if it is to b e and absen ce. Be ing m ust be conceived of before the alternative ot of the po ssib ility of pl ay and not ceived as presence or absence on than any other, ha s brou ght to the other way around. If Levi-btra ' tition of play, one no less perceives in light the play of repetition and t P of no sta ig ia for orig ins , an ethic his work a sort of ethic of prese , Qf presence and self-presence in of archaic and natural innocence, ° P e wh ich he ofte n presen ts as speech—an ethic, nostalgia, an wh en he m ov es toward the archaic the motivation of the et no ogic P . . ^is ey e s. Th ese texts are well y societies which are exemplary socicti lennwn xv'** Turned towards the lost or impossible presen ce o f th e ab sen t origin, this structuralist thematic of broken immediacy is therefore the saddened, negativen , ostalgic, guilty, Rousseauistic side of the thinking of play whose other side would be the Nietzschean affirmation, that is the joyous affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of becoming, the affirmation of a world of signs without fault, without truth, and w itho ut ori gin wh ich is of fered to an active interpretation. This affirmation than determines the noncenter  otherwise than as loss of the center. And it plays without security. For there is a sure play: that which is limited to the substitution of given and existing, present, pieces. In absolute chance, affirmation also surrenders itself to genetic indetermination, to the seminal adventure of the trace. There are thus two interpretations of interpretation, of structure, of sign, of play. The one seeks to decipher, dreams o f de cip he rin g a tr uth or an origin which escapes play and the order of the sign, and which lives the necessity of interpretation as an exile. The other, which is no longer turned toward th( origin, affirms play and tries to pass beyond man and humanism, the nam< of man being the name of that being who, throughout the history of meta physics or of ontotheology in other words, thro ugh out his entire history— has dreamed of full presence, the reassurin g fou nd atio n, the orig in and th< end of play. The second interpretation of interpretation, to which Nietzsch pointed the way, does not seek in ethnography, as Levi-Strauss does, the 'in spuation of a new humanism' (again citing the 'Introd uctio n to the Work c Marcel Mauss ).

• more *han enough indications tod ay to su ggest w e might peI w Z c™ \ i r 6 fmteripretations of interpretation— which are absolute! econcilable even if we live them simultaneously and reconcile them in a

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hbor " e   ward those w ho, in a so cie ty f r o m ^ ' ^ ’ - i n l ^ W o' d s , U u ey es a w a y w h en f a c ed b y t h e a s   'V hicf* I d o n o ,b u t a ,s » w i t h   l " 1! '- w H h  a and w hich ca n d o s o , a s i s n e c e s s /* U n na,>iable L l* d u d e m y /* f an«

to ^ fo c h L^^ t h ei r   under the species o f th e nonSnp 7 w h ^ n ev er m ' - - u t ies P, in t yi ng f o r m o f m o n s t r o si t y ? C l e s '   « i th e f0rm , b,rth is in t h e o T r * 8 k s el f  

Notes 'The reference, in a restricted sense, is to the Freudian theory of neurotic symptoms nd of dream interpretation in which a given symbol is understood contradictorily an sboth the desire to fulfill an impulse and the desire to suppress the impulse. In a as general sense the reference is to Derrida's thesis that logic and coherence themselves can only be understood contradictorily, since they presuppose the suppression of differance, 'writing' in the sense of the general economy. Cf. 'La pharmacie de Platon,' in La dissemination,  pp. 125-6, where Derrida uses the Freudian model of dreaminterpretation in order to clarify the contractions embedded in philosophical coherence. [Translator's Note] •The Raw and the Cooked,  trans. John and Doreen Wightman (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 14. [Translation somewhat modified.] * The Elementary Structures o f Kinship, trans. James Bell, John von Sturmer, and Rodney Needham (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), p. 8. "'Ibid., p. 3. Mind  (London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Chicago: The University vThe Savage of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 247. >d.,p.l7. The Raw and the Cooked,  p. 2. - kid., pp. 5 -6 . ^dvp.U. pp. 17-18. ^dv pp. 7-8. differ' and 'to defer . ^rrida s term punningly unites the senses of to

“ 8es  

l Horary Criticism

thing which is missing, or to Virriaa's deconstruction of ia»im*nt—to HUpp'y - TW» a>«*We * " 5f £ , ! - ! < •« « *  “ " v ’ln'Thc Violence of the Letter. From  ,„,,ply wmethmtt»a a ‘ , r 1' am,ly»i» of U-vi-Strauss begun in na tion al ‘■^‘'’" ' “ ’ rnwhlch .he contradictions of U vi-S.r«usa to « » * 1 clarify the uni apparatuses of linguistics this essay in order turtner ^ modern cone*j traditional logic M j Mauss, Sociologie et \ \o r >s Note] and1lilt’ the social --Mattel Mauss , in Man x ***' •“ 'Introduction M i ^ p- xlix. 1950), xli*’ anthropologie (Paris: • . c trauss (Paris: Plon, 1961). 272

Hcaain^sont-

‘

xtv Ibid., pp- xlix-l.

w George Charbonmer,

™ Raceand 

avec d a u d e l * * * * * * *   V

q  publications,

1958).

de parcel Mauss, P - * ^ ’ ^ (London: Hutchinson, toTristcs tropics, bans. John Russc

1961). (Translator's Note]

Heroic Ethnocentrism The Idea of Universality in Literature by Charles Larson*  In the fall of 1962, when I began teaching English literature to high school students in Nigeria, I encountered a number of stumbling blocks, which I had in no way anticipa ted-all of them cultural, experien tial. This w as not a matter of science or technology and their vario us b y -p ro d u cts as I h ad antic ipated ('What is a flush toilet?') but, rather, matters related to what I have learned to call culturally restricted materials. It was enough, to be sure, just for my African students to read throug h a 4 50 -p ag e V icto rian n ov el (required reading in those days for the British-administered school certificate exami nations); and, as 1 later learned, in the lower levels at least, students were ac customed to taking several months or even the greater part of a year to read through and discuss the plot line of a single novel. Length alone was enough to get them, since English was their second lan gu ag e an d the pro ble m of vo cabulary was especially troublesome. But once the problems of language, vocabulary and verbosity had been overcome, reading through the words became a less difficult process than understanding what the words them selves related the 'experience of literature' as w e are w o n t to say.

f i e d f r ^ r What l ° es um ean " to k iss" ? ' T ha t w a s a m u ch more dif ficult question to answer than the usual ones relating to the plot or the characters of the novel— a real shock u , ? P , ,T had a rather naive boy in my class So I h  Wa* bJ ° “ Sht to my attention that I y

*From 'Heroic Ethnocentrism* THp (Summer), 1973.

° I bru she d the qu estion off until it was

•

niversality in Literatu re' The American Scholar  42 (3)

Rt'a,li"K»°nU

 , . number of times ami I slowly b„ r f ^ d n° real idca ° Whn,; t n,ennt

Sits h‘

me because most of my students w ' T ls in their early tw e n ti e s -" !,jT ? occasion abo ut their girl friends. It w L^T ’

" y Critic

«<»

.........

Un

.

n' y M,‘- 

5 M* COUr»*-'. h.wd7i * tr w l^ L v s were married, although by school mg,!'.!," " ' " ’" “ red that V Z " ) " " S ui be. Nevertheless that question and oil er" r M'y Wt'm not s‘ “ * in  _  Knmbe i«or%... rs of a lil^f P* r\i\ HonKf p-xst  _  part, no doubt, cam e , ~  ___ 

" Z'Z

/*

CmwJ Why -  did H ardy's'Sh '! Wad'hg Th«ma“

were kissed (or more likely, when th , h ractt?rs get

m

' Ure

klpt

f. Har
‘S 'ef the European-educated African t e a c h ^ " ‘ kissed)? Z h Z wha>  mady to - t u m .o that sam e q u e S T SwWhy *w 2£ if* * m that Africans, traditionally at lea«u a  ' 1 Was m°re than « a,VVays thought was 'natural' in o ne soc iety is not' natural ataU b ‘eam ^tural. Not all pe oples kiss. Or, stated more ' but Earned th f - * have learned to kiss. (W hen I la ter attended American n0t a11 Pe°P ^ ' I understand wh y the au die nce often went i n t o C ^ ^ A hk^ ticscenes in the film s.) nto hysterics at the romanHow was one to rea d a Th om as Ha rdy novel with n u ^ without ever having been kissed? How was I t n l i •th° Se frustrated this to my African students? Or, to limit my experienrpV „ S° methin8 like matter concerning t he nov el's form which also perplexed mv T  a   technical about those long pa ssag es of des cription for which Hardv ^®tudeP ^ what MyAfrican students cou ld n't und erstan d what page after paee ? ebrated? of the countryside ha d to do with the plot of the novel. Whaf they h ^ S v e n me, as I later learned, w as an othe r c lue to the differing ways in which culture shapes our interpretations of literature. It was not until I seriously began studying the African nov el itself, how ever, that I could put all of those pieces together; just as the questions about those kisses revealed something about myAfrican studen ts' c ultura l background, so too, did their concern about the descriptive passag es of H ard y's bo ok. The fact that descriptive passages were virtually nonexistent in African fiction initially seemed particularly puzzling tome, since the fir st gen er atio n of Africa n Anglophone novelists, at least, had been brought up almost entirely on the Victorian novel. Whereas other ele ments of the Victorian novel had found their way into the African novel, de scription had not. Could it be that this omission in the African novel revealed something basically different between African and Western attitudes toward ^ture, toward one's en viron m en t? Kissing and de scrip tion, attitu des toward love and nature are t eseai ?* ■ so different for .he African? Is the African way of life less •ophrtoMd hkan our own? O r is the b e li e f tha t thes e supposedly un,v
27 4 

Readings on Literary Criticism

Inferior? IVrhnps tlw term ilwlf ^

, S

X

«

t r

: u

h o w ev er^ r

own. And these reactions, in turn, ^

their interpretations of literature. „m cd u mia.ieo a » For the most part, the term 'universa l' ha s be en when it has been applied to non-Western literature, becau se it ha s so often been used in a way that ignores the multiplicity of cultu ral e xp erie nc es. Usually, when we try to force the concept of universality on someone who is not Western, 1 ~ n nr own culture should t>6 the standard of

S

different—at least for the African.

» '» « . « S

« h i.h i h ^

m

,» L

„ d i5

5

n„ h ir« rv.mnc In his preface to Tsao-Hsueh-Chin's eighte enth -cen tury Ch inese novel, Dream of the Red Chamber,   Mark Van Doren says, Th e greate st love stones ha ve no time or place.' I frankly doubt this, in spi te of o th er W este rn literary critics, who have also said that the most com m on them e m literature is love. (Leslie Fiedler, in his Collected Essays,  for instance.) After re adin g d ozens and dozens of contemporary African novels, I can in no w ay acc ep t Van Doren's or Fied ler's assertions. There is at least one wh ole sect ion of the w orld where the love story is virtually nonexistent. I can think of no contemporary African novel in which the central plot or theme can be called a 'love story,' no African novel in which the plot line progresses because of the hero's at tempt to acquire a mate, no African novel in which seduction is the major goal, no African novel in which the fate of the lovers becomes the most sig nificant element in the story. No African novel works this way because love as a theme in a Western literary sense is simply missing. Romantic love, se duction, sex—these are not the subjects of African fiction. In fact, in most contemporary African novels women play minor parts; the stories are con cerned for the most part with a masculine world. There may be marriage, bride price and an occasional tele a tete   but that is not the concern of the nov el, it is always something else. There are no gr ap hi c d escrip tion s of erotic love , there are no kisses, no holding han ds. Th ere is, in sho rt, no love story as w e h ave com e to think of it in W estern fiction. N o t ev en t he un requited lover pining away. African fiction simply is not ma de of such stuff ___   W es tern ro m an ce is only one th em e th at m ay puzzle th e African reader. H e m ay h ave trouble understanding the lack of con cern abou t death in some  W es te rn nov els, too. Or, w hat is m ore likely, th e ^Vestern re ader may totally m iss the significance of a dea th in a piece of Africa n fiction tha t he is reading. A. Alv arez, in his fine book, The Savage God,  s ay s t ha t 'pe rhap s half the liter atur e of the wo rld is about death.' Yet our so ciety has w orked so hard to neu tralize the shock of death that it is quite possible for us to miss the emotional overtones of a piece of African writing in which death occurs. Sembene O usm an e's celebrated short story, 'Black Girl' ('L a noire de . . .') is one such

,„le. The story co n ce rn s a you ng , ‘ Crt,l( ■»rn 275 ‘es a" f- to Antibes when the French ^'Icxy gir|n •‘'‘"  f toFran ce. O u s.n nne begin s his story h” h‘18 Worked «d C>iH" ‘»w wh t«rn5,h„ , illu str ating h er ex cite m en t an by pr',i<'cti,„, f,,r in SenoJ ,i W o n d e r f u l e x p e rien ce: the c h , ^ ^ ^ 7 ^ " France u 5“ ,„s shortly become a nightmare. Overw i.Ve c bay*

African5- called a nigger by the four children S ' f*» «M in™ g iHUa"a'. I he French fw , her fc‘,,(>vv A nths Diouana commits suicide bv s h «h  S £ e m reader may think that O u ^ t e : ; ' ! " "  Wr,is Melodramatic account of racial p r e j u d i c e - ^ “ s|mPly a n u ^ T * MfVabout modem slavery, and what t h ^ 1 ls' ln Part But u her

S U * f » « » * » « . life, deaths m the ocean m order to escape sla y e ry T ^ ^ M ° V,erb°ard >° £ takes her own Me to fin d rele ase from h er own ens ayed ^ W° rld' D“ oana only a part of it, for in co m m u tin g su ic id e -o n e of ,gd atioa But ‘bis is many African so c .e tie s -s h e has only temporarily re e ! a T 8**' ,ab« » in trapped her an ce sto rs , bro ke n th e cycle of life and if «T • hereelf- She has has ended the fam ily lin ea ge . Sh e has , in short comm a, V "  ° nly chiId-she nation, and the African reading the conclusion to Ousman l  ‘T ‘ble abomitied by what sh e has don e. It is, the refore , the reliein„c f 8torF ls horri' ancestral w orsh ip th a t th e W ester n read er will p r L b l y cMmpTetiy"™° The hero c o n c e p t -t h e be lief in the individual who is different from his fellowmen is [a lso ] alm ost totally alien to African life; and, as an extension of this, the hero in co n te m pora ry Africa n fiction is for the most part non-existent. The hero is alm os t n on ex iste nt in con tem porary Western literature too, but his descendant, the anti-hero, the isolated figure, is a force to be reckoned with. This is not true of African fiction, however. Rather, it is the group-felt experi ence that is all im portan t: w hat h ap pe ns to the village, the clan, the tribe___  One begins to wonder if two peoples as widely different as Africans and westerners will e ver b e a ble to read ea ch othe r's literature and fully understand it. This is not, how ev er, the ques tio n I started out to ask. Literature is not so lim iting that only one interpretation is possible. We cannot all be both African and westerner, black an d C aucasian. W hat is important, it seems to me, is that when we read a piece o f non -W es ter n literatu re we realize that the a make of it ma y be w ide ly differen t from what the artist inten e , ^ ^er_  The timehas H  that we should no t exp ec t people who are not o our, ltage to respond in the sam e w ay that we do to our ow 'unjVersal.' What c°me when we should avoid the use of the p e p r a j literature are cul* e really mean when we talk about universa exPe r tern tradition. essay are African in ral responses that have been shaped by our own Although most of the examples I h a v e use erience of other non > I would h azard a final c o n j e c t u r e that t h P ^ also suppc  Wes*rn literatures (C hin ese and Ja pan ese , for exa P

Criteria of Negro Art So ma ny persons have asked fo r the complete tex t o f the Bois at the Chicago Conference of the National Associa^i Colored People that we are publishing the address here.

chos en. Such people are thinking some thing like this. H ow is at an orga nization like this, a group of radicals trying to bring new things into the world, a fighting organization which has come up ou t of the b loo d and dust of battle, struggling for the right of black men to be ord ina ry h u m an being s—how is it that an organization of this kind can turn aside to talk about Art? After all, what have we who are slaves and black to do w ith A rt? ' Or perhaps there are others who feel a certain relief and are saying, After all it is rather satisfactory after all this talk abo ut r igh ts a nd fighting to sit and dream of something which leaves a nice taste in the m ou th." Let me tell you that neither of these groups is right. The thing we are talking about tonight is part of the great fight we are c ar ry in g on and it rep resents a forward and an upward look— a pushing on w ard. Y ou and I have been breasting hills; we have been climbing upw ard ; there h as be en progress and we can see it day by day looking back along blood-filled paths. But as you go through the valleys and over the foothills, so long as you are climbtbe direction, north, south, east or w est,— is of less imp ortance. But when gradually the vista widens and you begin to see the world at your feet sod the far horizon, then it is time to know more precisely whither you are going and w hat you really want.  Wh a t do we w ant? W hat is th e th in g w e are afte r? A s it w as phrased last night it had a certain truth. We want to be Americans, full-fledged Americans, with all the rights of other American citizens. But is that all? Do we want simply to be Americans? Once in a while through all of us there flashes some clairvoyance, some clear idea, of what America really is. We who are dark can see America in a way that white Americans can not. And seeing our country thus, are we satisfied with its present goals and ideals?1 1

1The Crisis;  the add ress was delivered in 1926.

Read ings on Liter

ary CriticiSm —

277

hich school where I studied we learned mo^t r c In thS by heart. In after life once it was my privilege , " 'S "U d y >>< « !A*e ‘ yitw as quiet. You could glimpse th ed eer ward * * the lake- » t s S < yvou could hea r the soft ripple of romance on ?h" dm n8 in unbroKb^lThVcadence of that po etry of my youth. I fell asleerTf’ Around % 5 o f the Scottish border. A new day broke a n d . “c “ * en‘  J.n U * 'X hS‘ uths;

They poured upon the little pleasure b„at

* " *  Were l<,ud

o l o n e ' i d e a nd d ro op in g c i /a r s

2 ?

W1h ° s h a r f l ! h e i r c o n v e r s a t i o n w i th t h e w o r ld . T h e y a ll

 ; get everyw here first Th ey pushed other people out of the way. They ‘ a !all sorts of incoherent noises and gestures so that the quiet home folk ^Athe  visitors from other lands silently and half-wonderingty gave way Z   them. They struck a note not evil but wrong. They carried, perhaps, a ° qp of strength and accomplishment, but their hearts had no conception of beauty which pervaded this holy place. lf  you tonight suddenly should become full-fledged Americans; if your r faded, or the color line here in Chicago was miraculously forgotten; C° ° ose, too, you became at the same time rich and powerful:—what is it SU^ ou would want? What would you immediately seek? Would you buy ^ ost powerful of moto r cars and outrace Cook County?3 Would you buy ^ most elaborate estate on the North Shore? Would you be a Rotarian or a r!e ™°T a what-not of the very last degree?4 Would you wear the most strikU° clothes give the richest dinners and buy the longest press notices? mg Even as you visualize such ideals you know in your hearts that these are . fhp thincs you really want. You realize this sooner than the average Ta^come1 us not^nly^a"certai:n^^^te^o ^he 'tew d^an ^^m ljo^i^b'^

s r r K it '.r »-a i - i s

a

s

work, the inevitable suffering that always co , men know, where ing, all th a t- b u t, nev erth eles s, lived m a life. It is men create, wh ere they realize them se V^ rgelves and for all America, that sort of a world w e w ant to create . it? j remember tonight four After all, who shall describe Beau y • g in stone, set in light and beautiful things: The Cath edra l at ColoSI3e' lemn SOng; a village of the changing shadow, echoing with sunlig  l „ sand ladies ( . 810), by Sir Waller S»« Apoem in six cantos about early- 16 th-century nig  V771"1832*' described as £>unty in which Chicago is located. mirations; Freemasons are Rotary and Lions clubs are national service org ^ l322. achieving certain degrees. begun in 1248 and consec Magnificent Gothic cathedral in Cologne, Germany, g 

278

Readings on Literary Critici

Veys‘ in West Africa, a little thing f  'room wh ere on a and shininB in tire sun; a ^ c u r v e s o f th e V e nu s o f M i l o /   old and yellowing marble; the b kuth_ utter m elody, hau ntin g and apPe8'e phrase of music in the South^ . and etern ity, b en eat h th e m oon. P al' ing, suddenly arising out ot n b its pos sibility is en d le ss . In norTv^ Such is Beauty. Its variety is * The w orld is full of it; and Ve? ? ? al

* ■  We black folk may help for we have w it hin us a s a race new stirring  stirrings of the beginning of a new ap preciation of joy, of a n ew desire to cre ate, of a new will to be; as though in this m or nin g o g ro u p life w e h ad awakened from some sleep that at once dim ly m ou rn s the p a st an d dreams a splendid future; and there has come the conviction that the Youth that is her today, the Negro Youth, is a different kind of Youth, because in some n ^ way it bears this mighty prophecy on its bre as t, w ith a n e w realization itself, with new determination for all man kind . °*  What has this Beauty to do with the w orl d? W h at h as B eauty to d Truth and Goodness—with the facts of the w o rld a n d th e ri e h t a rt ° Wltb men? "Nothing," the artists rush to answer. Th ey m ay be righ t I a m ^ 8 ° f humbie disdpie of art and cann ot pre su m e to say. I a m on e w ho tel truth and exposes evil and seeks with Be auty an d for B e a u ts c wu the n 8 HtR T ^ atTSOmehOW' s o m e w h e r e e t e r n a l a n d p e r f e c t B e a u t y s i t s a h ^ TrUth and Right I c an co n ce iv e , b u t h e r e a n d n o w a n d i n t h e world • 1 th e y a re f or m e u n s e p a r a t e d a n d i n s e p a r a b l e . d w h l c h 1 w o rk

a p e o p l e . T h e m h a s c o m e ^ r u t - a ^ ^ C s T o m e 5 ^ WC ° Ur o wn Past as we are going to honor tonight8_ a realiz^Ho 1 P e c ,ally thro ug h the man years we have been ashamed, for w hir i f f that P as t' of wh ich for long  nothing could come out of that nagf u-   u"6 bave aP°logized. We thoueht we wanted to hand to ^ em em b ^; S b e p r ou d o f ° t " w

r e al it y' a n d i r>a h a l f s h a m

t h l s s a m e p a s t i s taking

d L a n d lie f ^ ^ U m b e r i n g t h t th w ith y ou m u st h°ate n ^ ^ M iddle Agey u m u s t h a v e it h e r e a n d n o w a n d

^ W * Y W e are b e g ^ 8 t o I ? ! n a n c e o f t h e w o r ld d id not Y ° U W a n t r o m a n c e to deal

d m your ow n hands.

torA friSnVA°OdSOn(187S- 1950)/ to

1916 f°Unde d T

e

>

° loVe <2d c - B-C.E. copy of a 4th c.

~ t , W a s ° ^ A fen^ C P in 1926  aw arded the Spingam Medal °f "egro History. Atn can Am eric an ed uca tor and historian who in

^

R^ di n

t-nevv a man and woman. Thev had *

Literary Critic^ 279

' 0£ . e and a d aug hter who was brown; ^ ' ^ " ' “ ^ “Bhterwho 7 , white man; and when her wedding was 2 . Who Was white < * * * L  brown prepared to go and celebrate. But K ? " " da"Khtc-r 0  7, bIown daughter went into her room and turned n T m " Mid' "No!"  3iidthe ant Greek tragedy swifter than that? d he «as a"d died. C ag ain , here is a little Southern Town and you are in the n, uv  ^ Jd e of the square is the office of a colored lawyer and P ^ IcustluareOn °n men who do not like colored lawyers A white wn ^ 3 the °ther e a c  n d points to the w h i . ^ ™ ^ ^ ? * bl^Cdred dollars now and t fl do not get it I am going to s c r e a m f‘Ve b Have you heard the story of the conquest of German East Africa’9 Listen the untold tale: There were 40,000 black men and 4,000 white men who *° “ . German. There were 20,000 black men and 12,000 white men who  W d English. There were 10,000 black men and 400 white men who talked tal h In Africa then where the Mountains of the Moon raised their white french. ,d heads into the mouth of the tropic sun, where Nile and and sno ‘ ^ ^ £ reat Lakes swim, these men fought; they struggled on Congo r i s e antj vaUey, in river, lake and swamp, until in masses they sickmountain, ^ died; until the 4,000 white Germans had become mostly ened, craw c  ^ n^ . al) the 12/000 white Englishmen had returned to bleached none., ^ Frenchmen to Belgium and Heaven; all except a South Africa, « ^   men died; but thousands of black men from East, mere handful() m Nigeria and the Valley of the Nile, and fromthe  West and South Afrit*, b and died For fOUr years they fought and  West Indies still strugg c , b hear about it is that England ^ won and lost German East A r and Belgium conquered Gtrmar Romance is bom and from Such is the true and st.rr.ng stuff of whw (q remembe th , thl this stuff come the stirrings of nu n »* 8 QWn kind is beckonmg  kind of material is theirs; and tins a .1 , interpretation of thesenew them on. The questionco comes next J P ^   caDable? me question m es ne xt as as to to «p ab le? We We have have had lie

(he

,
of this new spirit; O f w hat is t ie co . jar unanimity of ju itcomes part of both colored and w h,f * £ ^ is work must be inferior b e c a u ^ ^ .g  past. Colored people ha ve sa ic . b ve said; " I t1S in^ , realization from colored people." W h i t e peop ig coming to bo . storiescome done by colored p eop le ." Bu t toe ay ^ inferior. Interes i bad studthat the work of the b lack m an is not a J read to a c l a s author. They to us. A profess or in the Unive rsity o ^ them to gaess . down to *d literature a pa ssa ge of po etr y and a   Br0wning  ^ guessed a good ly co m p an y from

Bois

founts events of World War I.

•“— -Sum-

280

Readings on Literary Criticism

Countee C o u nte r Cullen.10 7Or‘ again the 1 ~ .. 1 1   The author w as v minarv sem inary, Qne one Q£ Tennyson amt w en t d ow n ‘ ^ ^ S o u t h . T h e s t u d e n ts sa t Enfitish erme lo '1 ,, ounfi white wo somc response ou t of th, the sort which ft 1CCS while he tried W t> poets." They hesitate. He with w.....................o o d en ^ ^ o(f you yOUr Du unnb !12 G r bOU|‘r ‘ '*ren ce D b aar" r" !12 ith their ... Finally he said, "Name m best: Pa ul L o f th e se v e re h a n d i 0W g n » io n o f N e g ~ » ^ ‘" h h e a n d b l a c k . T h e y a r e «idfinally," I' l l st^ With the growing b  ,g occu rr ing W b 7 , lu tio n o f th e c o l o r p r o ble m . caps, one comforting 8ou, Hore is the re wbite'3 a n d o t h e rs s h ow s whispering, "Here Hughes, F ' , W o r k ! A l l w i ll b e w e l l! " The recognition * * ? £ £ ep q uiet! D o n't c o m p a r e ^ c o n s p . r a c y P c r h a p s ,  j (h is chorus a m there is no tea co e t o d a y a s u r p r i s in g

j  , *

1T " t mo ^ p t d o u s V . 1 e r e S s f a c t i o n o u t o f th ese am na ^ hile people w ho are g e ' " 8 8 • t o s to p a g i t a ti o n o f t he yoTnger Negro writers b e c a u s e * ^ o j gyo ur fighting an d com plain Negro question. They say, ™ a' ,here „ And m any colored people mg! do the great thing and tbeJ , ice. especially tho se w h o ar e w ea ry of the are all too eager to follow th s ^ are afraid to fight an d to w ho m the eternal Struggle along the co ' pub licity are su bt le an d dea dly ^

^ h 2 l Py “

S

t

use of'fighhng? W hy n o t sh o w sim p ly w h at

We f° r *h e A dv an cem ent of Colored People comes upon the field, comes with its great call to a new bat tle, a new fight and new things to fight before the old th in gs ar e w h o lly w on ; and to say that the Beauty of Truth and Free do m w hi ch sh all so m e da y b e our heritage and the heritage of all civilized men is not in our hands yet and that we ourselves must not fail to realize. There is in New York tonight a black wom an m old in g cla y b y he rse lf in a little bare room, because there is not a single school of sculpture in New York where she is welcome. Surely there are doors she might burst through, but when God makes a sculpture He does not always make die pushing sort of person who beats his way through doors thrust in his face. Th is gir l is wo rkin g  her hands off to get out of this country so that sh e ca n g et so m e so rt of training . a   ™*!™' alive torf ^ lf he had been white he w ou ld hav e been alive today instead of dead of neglect. M any he lp ed h im w h en he asked

^ (1925), used classical models such as (1792-1822), R o w S g" * S ^ ^ Bysshe SheUey Masefield (1878-1967). ' Altred' Lord Tennyson (1 80 9- 18 92 ), and John "EngHsh poet, dramatist, and critic (1882-1937)

^oet, fiction writer, and playwright. W n African American artist (d. 1917)

nOVellst*LA NGSTON HU GH ES (1902 - 1967), G m° n ^ause* (ca. 1884—196 1), novelist and editor.

«.u* w as n o . t h e k in d o f b o y . h a , a lw a y s ^

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tt,aa»h' uls and a sc ore of lea de rs o f Art have an ![ "“ ‘ UD"ner wh an' S,|e m n '^ p ii ca tio n blank of this school says- "i a^ muri« n sch,x  ,  Wall« &• * J $ a * * * to * e school.” ^ 1 a white A m l l mus«

>erican and l o n th e stage; w e ca n b e ju st a s funny as white Americans wish _ ia y a ll th e s o rd id p arts that America likes to assign to » ? f l l can g ° ,h in g else there is still small place for us. ^ . v i e  ca n P

ww -

-

as t0J> S -bu t f° f W g o on . B u t le t m e s u m up w ith this: Suppose the only And s ° 1 m lg e d so m e ce n tu rie s h en ce w as the Negro painted by white A who *urVlV ve is a n d es sa y s th ey h av e written. What would people in  jslegr° nS in th e n o A m e rica n s? N o w tu rn it around. Suppose you

A ^ U v ^ Z a n d

p u t in it the kin d of people you know and like and a to wrhe a story ^ p o li s h e d an d you might not. And the "might not" ill far bigger than the m ,gh t." The white p u b l i ^ 11me "mightnot W ine Vou t h a n the "m ig h t." T he white publishers cater^~ - ’would say. It is no t in t e r e s t in g " - ^ whhe filk ^ fcaterinS to white is stiU &

-ant Uncle Toms, T op sies ,16 goo d "d ar kies” and clow nJ^f'ura% not. They awant story with all the ea rm ar ks o f tru th. A young man savs thJTh *   my °fflce t0 write and ha d his s to n e s a ccep ted . Th en he beean , he Slar,ed out things he knew best about, that is, about his own people h " ' 8 f 0Ul the story ,o a magazine which said ”We are sorry, but we c L n o t ^ ' - ^ a down and revised m y stor y, ch an gin g the color of the character, a locale and sent it und er an assumed name with a change o f a d r W . a ? wasaccepted by the s am e m agazine that had refused it, the editor promTstog to take anything else I m ig ht sen d in providing it was good enough " 8 We have, to be sure, a few recognized and successful Negro artists; but they are not all those fit to survive or even a good minority. They are but the remnants of that ability and genius among us whom the accidents of educa tion and opportunity have raised on the tidal waves of chance. We black folk are not alto gether p ecu liar in this. A fter all, in the world at large, it is only the accident, the remnant, that gets the chance to make the most of itself; but if this is true of the white world it is infinitely more true of the colored world, it is not simply the gre at cle ar tenor o f Roland Hayes17 that opened the ears o f America. We ha ve had m any vo ices of all kinds as fine as his and America was and is as deaf as she was for years to him. Then a foreign land heard Bayes and put its imprint on him and immediately America with all its imi btive snobbery woke up. We approved Hayes because London, Paris an din approved him an d n o t s im ply beca use he was a great singer. folk

-1950). Fontainbleau: Fontainebleau, a ^merlcan conductor and composer (1862 resort.

Uncle^Torn  ]7Afl' ^arriet

3re ^ ncan American characters , a sain tly and an impish slave , respec-

African A n ie riJ eech e's ical nov w el or Un Cabin (1852). s,nSererSto ow f class kscle anTom’s d spirituals (1887-1976), theson o f former slaves.

n literary Criticise be gin this g re at w or k of 582 Reading* on , k Am e n ca 4 6Qf th e re a li z a ti o n of  , Hounden duty of b l a c ^ c f m e n h a v e u se d b eThus it is ‘ ^ b of the p r e s c ^ ^ m ethods g b y? First of all the cre atio n ^ ^ use in this w o ^ ^ arti9ts m ^ a s cie n tis t seek in g   Beauty,and havebeen the t . 0 f tru th, itse lf a s th e hi gh es t understandnith but as one upon ^ 0 ne gre 3t VHnessCin all its a sp e ct s of justic e, handmaid « ' , ! » ^ ^ G o o d » - ^ g ^ n c »ton b u t a s th e o n e tru e !?onor8aI!d“ g h b - n o O ^ and h um an i" ler^ sUe of T r uth a n d R ig ht n ot m e t h o d o f ga ting sy P ^ beComes the ^ Pp he is b ut his freed om is r

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S purists. I stand in utter f " * “ writing has been used always^ or P

a r t i h a v ' e for ! a g an d a fo r g a in i n g th e r ig h t o f b la ck ^   any ar, ,hat ls not used for

o t p i l n d a “ u fT do i m w hen p ro pa ga nd a is c on fin ed to o n e s .d e w h tle

the other is Stripped and silent.

"W hite C ar g o" an d "C o n g o ."18 In In New York we have w o plays. " “ ' - J , p „ C o n g o " fh e fallen

^ a n ^ w W t e d n ^ W h i t e C arg o" the b la ck w o m a n g o e s d o w n f u rt h e r a nd further and in "Congo" the white wom an begins w ith d eg ra d a tio n b ut in the end is one of the angels of the Lord. You know the current magazine story: A you ng w hit e m a n go es d ow n to Central America and the most beautiful colored w o m a n th er e falls in love with him. She crawls across the whole isthm us to ge t to h im . T h e w hi te m an says nobly, "No." He goes back to his white sw ee the ar t in N ew Yo rk. In such cases, it is not the positive pro pa ga nd a of p eo p le w h o believe white blood divine, infallible and holy to which I object. It is the denial of a similar right of propaganda to those who believe black blood human, lovable and inspired with new ideals for the w o rld . W h ite a rtis ts th em  selves suffer from this narrowing of their field. They cry for freedom in dealiug with Negroes because they ha ve so little fre ed om in de alin g w ith wh.tes_ CtuBose Heyw ard w rites " P o rg y "1'* an d w rite s b ea u tifu lly of the do a s fm H a M h w T r ° r L B u‘ Why d o e s h e d o t h is ? B e c a u s e h e c an no t h L ouTof ,ow nSThe „ , W hte P euPle ° f C ha rleston, or they w ou ld drum d egra da tion w a s to t e l" i t of c o l o rue dpeople. p e t r e lI ' should h '* ‘. T not * ' ° fbeP isurprised tif ul h u ™anf if the Primitive (1925), by U-on G o t don3 " 1 CheSler DeV‘>,' dc *VW T he 1925 novet by H cyward < 18 85 -m o , th a, w as th e b asis for ^

Cargo: W hite Cargo: A Play o f  ^

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Readings on Uterarycnticisrrv

20 h a d a p o r   ..us R ° y Cohen  % edperm ission to write abont ' ^ ^ n s tr o s ih e s h e h a s c r e a t e d :  b u

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fr° m its artists i-f  ,nred races for rS ^ “ as far as colored racesare areconcerned, concerned,and anditiwill ^ ' fpay dis'°« no other.still nd e young and slowly growing black public a ?lC\ far aS C'Oy, han d' th the er ' d \^c6'th e other h a ' st e qu ally unfree. We are bound by all sorts of cus' Oh 1 pfophets a , Qvvn as second-hand soul clothes of white patrons. We .jnts lt5T ave com e ° ^  lower our eyes e y e swhen w h e npeople will talk of it. Our ----- »%.v/ui i ■st side tha d of sex aI\ „ rotition. Our worst side has been so shamelessly has been so shamelessly ememh a v e o r CVCi lia n y i n gg we we have ave or or ever ever had had aaworst worstside. side. In Inall Mlsorts ^ of Ire ashf^0lds us ***' ^ - ^ denyin rf|i8'° Me that have to go fight their n ays w ■■■> .we — o uarren e ’w y oduou n g ranew r ti st e young h ? ' S K artists f e a U »■ &

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T he u l ti m a t e ; u d g e h a s g o t t o b e y o u a n d v o „ b „| ves u p in t o t h a t w i d e j u d g m e n t , t h a t c a t h o l i c i w ? 8 ° ' ,0 build yourgoing t o e n a b l e t h e a r t i s t t o h a v e h i s w i d e s t c h a n c e L ford the T r u th . W h i t e f o l k t o d a y c a n n o t . A s i t i s n o w

f ^ , a Per2‘ w ldch is w e c an a f-

tWng over t o a w h i t e  ju ry I f a c o lo re d m a n w a nts to pu b& h ^ " t 8 t ° ° k' he *“ » got to g e t a w h i t e p u b l is h e r a n d a w h i te n e w s p ap e r to then y ou a n d I s a y s o . W e m u s t c o m e t o t h e p l a c e w h em th “ 8 T * ; and when i t a p p e a r s i s r e v i e w e d a n d a c c la i m e d b y o u r o w n fre e 1 1  , °f art

 ju dgm ent A n d w e a r e g o i n g t o h a v e a r ea l a n d v a lu ab le and e t e Z n u l g ment o n ly a s w e m a k e o u r s e l v e s f r e e o f m i n d , pr ou d o f b o dy an d ju st o f soul to all  A men. n d th e n d o y o u k n o w w h a t w i ll b e sa id ? I t is already saying. Just as soon a s t r u e A r t e m e r g e s ; j u s t a s s o o n a s t h e b l a c k a rt is t a pp e ar s, som eon e touches the r a c e o n t h e s h o u l d e r a n d says, "He did that because he was an A m e ric an , n o t b e c a u s e h e w a s a N e g r o ; h e w a s b o m h e re ; h e w as trained here; h e i s n o t a N e g r o — w h a t i s a N e g r o a n y h o w ? H e is ju s t h um a n; i t is the kind o f t h in g y o u o u g h t t o e x p e c t . " I d o n o t d o u b t t h a t t h e u l t im a t e a r t c o m i n g f ro m b la ck fo lk is g oin g to b e  j u st

a s  b e a u t i f u l , a n d b e a u t i f u l l a r g e l y i n t h e s a m e w a y s, a s th e a rt th at com es

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----- 1through art they compel recognition u*^. —■-- - a s i t i s o l d a n d a s o l d a s n ew . . rVip 0 f will that their art is as new as it is old and as a s™ ^ _ . died One of 1 - - ««fJ1 had a classm ate once who did in the classmate once whofound aiu three — and then w em r-iK    „,hn fire ' I story of a fo lk w ho found f i r e a n d    then them was a r, and*1humorist (1891' 1959) — r f Qhort story writer,

20South Carolina p layw righ t, no ve 21Range of disposition.

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Queer Theory by A nnam arie Jagose Annamarie  Ja gose © all rights reserved

The appeal of 'queer  it means.

theory- has outstripped anyon e's sense o f w h a t ex ac tly

— Michael Warner A response to this piece has been received from C . W. Y ou ng . Once the term 'queer' was, at best, slang f o r h o m o s e x u a l a t w o r s t a term of homophobic abuse. In recent years 'queer' has come to be used dif ferently sometimes as an umbrella term for a coa lition of c u ltu ra lly m argin al sexual self-identifications and at other times to describe a nascent theoretical model which has developed out of more traditional les bia n an d guy stu dies. The rapid development and consolidation of lesbia n a nd ga y s tu d ies in un i versities in the 1990s is paralleled by an increasing d ep loy m en t of the term 'queer'. As queer is unaligned with any specific identity category, it has the potential to be annexed profitably to any nu m ber of d iscu ssio n s. In the h is tory of disciplinary formations, lesbian and gay studies is itself a relatively recent construction, and queer theory can be seen as its latest institutional transformation. Broadly speaking, queer describes those gestures or analytical models which dramatise incoherencies in the allegedly stable relations between chro mosomal sex, gender and sexual desire. Resisting that model of stability— which claims heterosexuality as its origin, wh en it is m ore pr op er ly its effect— queer focuses on mismatches between sex, gender and desire. Institutionally, queer has been associated most prominently w ith lesb ian a nd ga y su bje cts, but its analytic framework also includes such topics as cross-dressing, hennaphrodihsm gender ambiguity and gender-corrective surgery. W he th er as transvesr l Z r e n Z 'Z f ° r T deC°,n stru c" o n . q u ee r lo ca te s a n d e xp lo its th e in^he h l n OS? term s w hich stabilise he terosex ua lity. D em onstrating the imp ossibility of any natural sexuality, it calls into qu estion ev en su ch ap p a r e n tl y u n p ro b l em a t i c t e rm s as ' m a n ' a n d ' w o m a n '

Readings on Uterary Criticism

2m

. n 0 f th is co nfro nta tiona l word 'queer' in alto•n t e rv e n n f sCo u rs e s su gg es ts that traditional models have eC e ^ 1 a d e ^ iC , ra n ce also m ark s a continuity. Queer theory's < $ £ i\ te (    ay et a^PT > n d er s an d sexu alities develops out of a specifi e r b le s e * * * '  gv »n e o f t h e po st-str uct ura list figuring of identity  f  * of sta GaV rcW ° r i () a n d u n sta b le positions. Queer is not always <

? G K'uU'?V ie elaboration of or shorthand for 'lesbian and c c e" pS‘! tu *- - ...... k o m............... e q u eer as 'another - w - ~ ■ c a t O r e " 7 a7n a rt'eo

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 ,h . I . . . » « * « . -h i ," “ r - A s s j  ,d 0 / historical am n es.a , th e stance s and de man d, 7 J y repli«te s, w .h l ides identificatory categ ories whose poetics ie r 7 pro8 res*ive than ,se o f  the lesbian a nd g a y po pu lations w ith which th  Whatever am bivalence s stru cture queer, there is 1 ^ aIignedleployment is m ak ing a substan tial impact on lesbiw that its recent nost as soon as qu eer esta blished m arket dominance a ? y Studies-Yet' d certainly before consolidating itself in any easy v e rm r,!* dlacntical term, sts are already su gg esting that its m oment had passed and SOme the' s may by now, have o u t l i v e d  its political usefulness'.2 D o e s a n Z Z  P° U* fund the mom en t it is an intelligible and widely disseminated term? 5 °™ ! lauretis, the th e o rist  often c r e d i te d w i t h  inaugurating the phrase 'queer they \ abandoned  it barely three years later, on the grounds that it had been
the political o r critica l a c u m e n she once thought it promised. In s o m e q u a r t e r s a n d i n s o m e e n u n c i a t io n s , n o d o ub t, q ueer

oes 1 e

ore than function as shorthand f o r t h e  unwieldy lesbian and gay, or ° >elf as a new solid ific ation of identity, by kitting out more a ^ an£j herwise unreconstructed sexual essentialism. erra m y most ten uncritical ad o p tio n h a s a t tim es f ^ c l ^ s ? w a retajns, however, a ^ i c o n t — an d n e c e ss a ry — a b o u t the term . gite 0f e n g a g e m e n t ^ceptually unique potential as a necessan y un 0^jjjsation of queer, contestation. A d m itte d ly n ot discernible in every mobi

 Wb

HemUng* on l.lu r.uy n arra ti ve of dis illu sio nm ent. .u.»mntive to de Lauretta s ‘ au ee r will con tinu e to this co'AsntuU's ‘" A‘ >t lry to anticipate exa ct y ^ co ntr ary , she arg ues chaUong" normative structures and dj ^ r^ ay in which it und erstands the that what makes queer so officaciou 1 the refo re ca n n o t b e an ticieffects of its interventions are not s " 8 UU eti8 did w he n initially pr opated in advance. Butler understands, as con serv ativ e effec ts of tdentity moting queer over lesbian and gay, them selve s as sel f-e vid en t declassifications lie in their ability to n_a. , uee r is to a vo id s im p ly re pl ica tin g  scriptive categories. She argues t a i T form atio ns, it m u st be con the normative claims of earlier lesbian and gay ceived as a category in constant for”'®d? n '. .. Dresent, n ev er fully ow ne d, M will have to remain that which is, P from a prio r usa ge and in but always and only redeployed, twisted, q pu rpos es, an d pe rha ps also the direction of urgent and expanding poll P F ctpctivelv yielded in favor of terms that do that political wor hirP of aueer Butlf* In stressing the partial, flexible and responsive nature of queer, Butler offers a corrective to those naturalised and seemin gly se ev go ne s of identification that constitute traditional formations of identity politics. She specifies the ways in which the logic of identity po litics w ich is to gather together similar subjects so that they can achieve shared aims by mobilising a minority-rights discourse— is far from na tu ra l or self-e vid ent. In the sense that Butler outlines the queer project— tha t is, to the ex ten t that she argues there can't be one— queer may be though t of as activ ating an identity politics so attuned to the constraining effects of naming, of delineating a foundational category which precedes and un derwrites political intervention, that it may better be understood as promoting a non -identity— or eve n anti identity— politics. If a potentially infinite coalition of sex ua l id entitie s, p rac  tices, discourses and sites might be identified as queer, what it betokens is not so much liberal pluralism as a negotiation of the very concept of identity itself. Fo r qu eer is, in part, a response to perceived limitations in the lib eration ist and i entity-conscious politics of the gay and lesbian feminist m ov em en ts. The rhetoric of both has been structured predominantly aro un d self-recognition com mu nity and shared identity; inevitably, if inadvertently, bot h movem ents ^ ls° . resuUed m ^elusions, delegitimation, and a false sense of universalPro,' f« ation of '' conhngent and ideologically motivated, ooed o n  Ca,ef r es C e ll e d lesbian or gay, queer has devel,he ‘beo nsing of often u nexam ined con straints in traditional e t ty politics. Consequently, queer has been pro du ced la rgely outside the registers of recognition, truthfulness and self-identity Queer, then, is an identity category that has no interest in consolidating  or even stabilising itself. It maintains its critique of identity-focused move ments by understanding that even the formation of its own coalitional and ^

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its own hegemony, queer is less « iX n m ? ^ ,Pn<’'ili‘ s having „„ * o f idem)™ * * * % in no position to imagine itself outside , J   identity politics. Instead of defending itself , <>fPn>l’lem8 ener* * * *   f f ,!’ operations inevitably attract, queer allows such e r r " ’1** Cri,icism« ^ L now unimaginable—future directions. 'The t,C,sms to shaPe 1 vised, dispelled, r en dered o bsolete to the ex t e n But, er' 'wil1 K ^ n d s which re sist the term precisely because “ yi,eId.8 to the  J en\ t is mobilized'. The mobilisation of queer —tin I p  n  exclus,ons by - h f ‘f ounds the conditions of political m p ~ on- T °f *  ^fects, its resistance to and recovery by the existing networks' a"d e% ,r U a lp m n , as for Butler, queer K a way of pointing ahead w L u t knowfor certain what to point at. Queer . . . does not designate a class of al™dv objectified pathologies or perversions', writes Halperin6; "rather, it deribes a horizon of possibility whose precise extent and heterogenous scope -snnot in principle be delimited in advance . Queer is always an identityunder Cnstruction, a site of permanent becoming: "utopic in its negativity, queer theC° curves endlessly toward a realization that its realization remains impossi  The extent to which different theorists have emphasised the unknown 0X\ " 7  k 6 ntial of queer suggests that its most enabling characteristic may well be its poten looking forward without anticipating the future. Instead of theoP°ten 3 eef ^ terms of its opposition to identity politics, it is more accurate to ^ J n t it as ceaselessly interrogating both the preconditions of identity and ^ Oueer is not outside the magnetic field of identity. Like some postltS

it turns identity inside out, and displays its supports exbetw een er and more traditional identity formaoskeletally. If the g £ is_ that is not because they have nothing  tions is sometimes fraugh , authenticity or even political efin common. Rather, lesbian ^ ^ ^ ^ p e n s k m of all such classifications ficacy of identity ca te gon es an who can say beyo nd?-the amenergise each other, offering fnhire  f

r

^

e

c

Z

e

modem arclu ec tu r d

n

bivalent reassurance of an unimagmable fo tu ^

AmMiarieJagosfi is a Senior LecWre University. This piece is extracted with perm.ss, Theory,University of Melbourne Press 19 ^ See the discussion on Global Quo essay On Global Q ueetiDg- .

,

„ Melbourne

fromher new book, Queer  ^

^

 

Airman s targ 

rp, eived from C Jl U to m S '

A response to this piece has been rece.

References Teresa (1991) 'Queer T h eo r y :

L esb i a n a n d G a y

°J Feminist Cultural Studies 3,  2,  pp. iii-xviii.

Sex ua lities', differences:

i iinrarv Critte^^

**

R"“'

3- t K

*S

... T,m,ardr « < *» Hagiography, New York:

Sflint Foucault* 

. .

t ? W

(^

' , 3w h a ,.s SO Q u e er H ere? P h o to g r a p h y a. t h e Gay an d

S u n Mardi Gras’, Eydittf 26, PP5. Butler, Judith (1993a) Bodies That Matter. On 6 ^

-

i

d

Discursit* Limits o/ 'Sex’, New York:

(19 93, Sain, Toncauit: Totoards

T: ii I M,

Gay H agiography, N e w Y ork:

7. Eldeman,ILee( 1995 )^Queer Theory: (ins tatin g De sire’, CLQ: A Jo urn a, o f UsKan and Gay Studies 2 , 4, pp. 345-6-

n° ‘ « -

 John Keats and Nature, an Ecocritical In quiry Interiorising Exteriorities, Exteriorising Infe rior ities an d the Dynamics of Becoming: An Ecocritical Inquiry on John Keats by Charles Ngiezvih TEKE, PhD

The hush of natural objects opens quite To the core: and every secret essence there Reveals the elements o f good and fa ir   Mak ing hint see, whe re Lea rn in g hath no light.

This essay attempts a critical study of the poetry of John Keats (1795-1821) with regard to ecological consciousness which plays a central role in the un derstanding of the aesthetic, philosophical and ethical ramifications of his theory of the imagination, with the philosophy of bec om ing large ly seen in his apprehension of poetic and philosophical maturity as an evolving process rather than a completely accomplished task. This internalisation and exteriorisation therefore centre on a dialogic stance which 1 term 'ecopsycho-aesthetics'. Even if Keats's conception of nature has affinities with at d‘SCemed m the works of Rom untics tike W illiam W ordsworth r ll o V , t Ta?k>r Colerid8e (1772-1834) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 1822), the intention of this w rite-up is not p rim arily the fullness of spiritual experience in nature. [\\ Writing to Fanny Brawne in February 1820, Keats said, I f I s h o u ld d i e , I h a v e le f t n o im m o r ta l w o r k b e h in d m e - n o t h i n g t o m a k e m y f n T - n r T u ° / ^ y ™ m o yy— b u t 1 h a v e l o v 'd t h e p r in c ip l e o f b e a u ty i n a ll th ing s, and if 1 had had tune I would have m ade m yself rem em ber'd . (Selected letters, 422)

Readings on Literary Criticism

. a a n c e l•S tthe self-chosen inscription on Keats's tomb

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^hich lie* one whose name was writ i„ V v„ A„ot"* r in . ........... ......... - • ile se are some of the comm ents that m r T identify with Keats's idealism, an ,/ !?r,,P < > , , v i t i a t e   their contention that Keats's i/ W."1Pfincip °«o , --“h' .i ns. him him aa U Deconstructionist mn,c °nd sJ f‘CH v''ha|>ih ec on•su u m u.eiu ai.' ^itradictory char ..... f m‘lke iiriLint here is th at th ese re m ark s, within m ' The ajSl , be taken to represent Keats's ironic a n /n T 'a bTO,mnC sh° 11 I n the stric t rh eto ric al im plications of the words ? d
wifh Keats? b r of ch arac teristic features in Keats's poetry Though the re ar e a nu m VVordsworth, his nature-consciousness u ffiliate w ith C o le ri d g e an d Keats's poetry and prose show

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handle

the mat,er in a

I K re83dr qu a lly that b i s p o e t r y - d s c " It can be argued e q u a l I y^ Yet, h is ec o-p transcendental and, hire from an o r g a m c i s t vie P ^ the visionary a ^ ^ m  ,hat of his analyse, does no t p la ce p ^ d im en sion o n j wjthin thecon , therefore, the d om in an t s p in nature pnm j ntal|y as a un,ve ' elder colleagues, for it tend* to ^ over ,t fund sym. of his aesthetic q uest ra j ionging sexq uisitc-ly P *j aS an force or the ba sis o f h .s s p a f " * JeH c itself, *  genius a » ! ° Keats saw the secr et of « * * • na ture and a ^ ^ wasi ah»P' % iden< pathy with nature. A p p r e ever-increasing an d Keats infused m o st o f h lS P in his epistolary se lf-c o n sc io u

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point to the thread of

a n d Poetry/ 'I S t o o d on the I m a g i n g " “ '" c s w Tn aicn ted thought of his rider ro l ^ ^ ,T h e r o o t, 5 '“ ^ C r i c k e t. .Q d e o n # An cxainintth*’’’ ' j ,  ,q the Grasshopp ^ a rt / Endymian,  Wl, ^ , wcrc S ' ^ V ^ e m p l i f y Keats's self. Tip-toe upon a  , ae sthetics an d to an exNightingale, ' ' ' S ' ' . . , nj 'Ode to Autu 'Hpistle to Drar l^ yn oU a »nd ^ fabnc of h » a«sth

'The Poet' conveys a strong nature situates its vitality to man

osvcho-somatic existence, p Y

A , M o m , a . N o o n , at E v e , a n d M i d d l e N i g h t , H e passes forth into the charme d air W ith talisman to call up spirits rare From plant, cave, rock and fountam .-To his  sign The hush o f natural objects opens quite To the core: and every secret essen ce there Reveals the elements of good and fair   M ak in g him see, where Learning hath no light. Sometimes, above the gross and palpable things Of th is diurnal ball, his spirit flies On awful wing; and with its destin d skies Holds premature and m ystic comm unings. Till such unearthly intercourses shed A visible halo round his m ortal head.

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With regard to Romantic idealism, there are undoubtedly elements here that show Keats's enthusiasm for nature. The italicised section evinces both the physical and metaphysical dimension of nature. The last lines can also be argued to demonstrate a transcendental bent. The m atu rin g cr eat ive an d ph ilo sophical mind benefits immensely from natural landscape more than from institutionalised learning. The title is an important clue to the question of eco-psycho-aesthetics. The psychological relationship b etw ee n the po et and nature provides creative material. In terms of aesthetics o ne w ou ld descr ibe this as the internalisation of natural imagery and exteriorisa tion thr ou gh poetry. In Sleep and Poetry Keats s basic interest ha s to do w ith the m app ing of his artistic ambition, which entails a gradual and spiral movement towards aesthetic vision and excellence. One of the dev elopm ental p ha ses in this pro gression has to do with eco-consciousness. Nature therefore undoubtedly plays a fundamental role in his poetics of beco m ing a self-po rtraye d artist. Keats begins the poem with a series of rhetorical qu estion s, relating na ture to his philosophical and psycho-aesthetic apprehension of sleep. As the poem s title indicates, sleep and poetry are highly intertwined, sleep seen here not as a psycho-somatic state of dormancy, but as a psycho-aesthetic state which g enerates and enhances creative pro ductivity Ke ats no doubt adu lates nature s beauty and grandeur. Nature serv es as a kin d of nativity, a muse or a springboard to the poet's artistic quest, whereby he shows the

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in poesy; so [ may d<) fh That my own soul has to itse lf d  > ^ >C Then I will pass the countries thitT**1, SU-self

In long perspective, and continual/ ^ Taste their p u r e fountains. First t!, O F l o r a , and old Pan: sleep in th 6 I'll Feed upon apples red, and s t r a w h ^ 8' T * * 8' And choose each pleasure that (L. 96-104) my fancy sees Flora and Pan h e r e r e f e r t o K e a t s ' s m e Greek m y t ho lo g y . T h o u g h K e a t s ' s s ch e m

I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free As though the fanning wings of Mercury Had played upon my heels: I was light-hearted, And many pleasures to my vision started; (L. 23-26) This excerpt suggests an experience with a mystical and sublime aspect, what he even later qualifies as a natural sermon (L. 71). The inspiring com ponent of natur e is noted w ith the rheto rical question that the poet asks, ' For what has m ad e the s ag e o r poe , write /Bu . the fair paradise of Nature's light?" (L. 1 2 5 -1 2 6) r of nature, showing that Keats goes further to describe the * 8 P ^ act of writing poetry, but nature is not m erely co nce rn ed with receptive to it: could serve a med ical pu rp ose to who eve r is p

The breezes were etheral, and pure, And crept through half closed lattices to cu The languid sick; it cool'd their fever ®e ' And soothed them into slum bers fu an thjrsting, Soon they awoke cleared eyed: nor urn Nor with hot fingers, nor with temp es (L. 221-226)

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Readingson . ct on the cr ea tiv e im ag ina.. 0 f the breeze and it* 11 t « ev is here evoked. One The Romantic sy WorJsWorth, Coleridge, an gitivity to the w ay air aftmn, commoi ■ obviously express” K 0 . and psycho -pathology , which Keats had studied in his . tic or pharmaceutical importance of md therapeutic perspective is not j u s t a C o

mind post-Novalian philosophy. Novalis (Friedrich Freiherr von H cupied with the pharmaceutical ope bration of both the psychic and soma

e to the bo dy an d sou l. is ecoco nn ect ion , b u t br ing s to

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bu rg 17 72 -1 8 01 ) w as ve ry preocof mature in human life, a celeof m an . H e ad op ted a hom ecg of natUre and hum an

opathic tradition to explain is ^ P ^ aceutical principle, a poison nuisite for wholeness and the consciou sness, stressing that nat ^I and a healer. He saw illness as a P °s,t^ P ^ £ * e pharm aceutical principle. soul as the embodiment in this ph en om en on . There is a connection between Novaiis anu is k o . r , , 121 In fa " . Keats’s brooding* over nature actually p e n t to a nu m be r of con  cerns that are intricately related to his study of medical sc.ences and his phi losophy of the imagination. The nature of the R om an tic im ag ina tion her e is its aesthetic implications and how it conne cts ine xtric ab ly w it is pro gres sive philosophy of life. The concern here is not unrelated to Keats s imagina tive view of art, expressed in a letter to George and Thomas Keats, dated December 21,1817. The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of m ak ing all d isag ree ab les evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth (John Keats: Letters, 370)

Keats's notion of beauty and truth is highly inclusive. That is, it blends all life's experiences or apprehensions, negative or positive, into a holistic vision. Art and nature, therefore, are seen as therapeutic in function. Keats's views on nature are not to be found only in his po etry b u t also in his letters. Writing to Tom (1818), he associates natu re w ith po etic inspiration and expression. In other letters to George and Thomas Keats (1817), he talks of the negative capability of the poet that calls for a synaesthetic and empathic vision in life, to Reynolds (1818), he asserts the conviction that all de partments of knowledge are to be seen as excellence and calculated towards a great whole, to John Taylor (1818), he outlines certain axioms of poetry amon g which is the notion that if poetry com es not n atur ally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all. All these connect the imagination with nature-consciousness and demonstrate an affinity with the Plotinist or Spinozist monism inherent in Wordsworth and Coleridge. But the major issue lies in apprehending nature as part of the creative process rather than the poet's adherence to nature's spirituality.

Readi"8So„Ut C«ticism the letter to Tom, more specifically vin «|* is v,.at vital m in m the * ^ o. . n  o .f,, dscape eu —nderstanding ,a nding oo ^f ^Z M^ 'e W Ian

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what astonish me more than anything is tho . the moss, the rock-weed; if I m 8 he tone, the Co]n . 'uch PlaceS’ The Sp3CeS/ the maSnitude of ^ *** “t ^ 8' sl^e, the ^ e d before one sees them; bu, this a" d ^rpass every imaginat,on and defy any rememh ° r ^ ‘e lle c S f are "ell  J d  henceforth write more than ever, for the Th ^ 1sha11 leam 1 * must a mite to that mass of beanH/ . . bstract endr»,.._ m P°etryherp pu rials, &y lIie 111 " ar uua/ fellow s. (John Keats: Letters, 402)

What one can discern here about Keats's strono , imaginative intensity isthat nature's material d , J nT cn„°/ f rceP«°" an, aesthetic composition of poetry, but poetry that delink, ^Ute only •» th sion of life and existence. One sees a strand of eknhras 3 d^ep aPPreher and internalisation of the scenery urges the search for - 5 *he observatioi image for utterance. So the letter sheds light on the aPProPnate Ian fological implications of Keats's nature-consciousness InTht°Snsland 0r has to be infused with complex insights of human existence 'Ode to a Nightingale' one can d i s c e r n  _______  ,

hat soft incense hangs upon the hough, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of lies on summer e\ es. (Stanza V, L. 41-50) hadowing the These lines ex pr es s th e sp le n d ou r of sprin g whi ^ ^eauty and lux Proach of summer, whic h w ill ha ve its own storf ° >for intense speculat s earlier said, natu re h ere s ee m s to be a  f  i ue  which strongly pr m face of the im p e rm a n en ce a nd m uta 1 ity ^Pies the poet.

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Read ings on Literary Criticism

R

de r a pVienomenologi-

To put « in other words, the sung logical meta m o ^ h o sis that encal process of seH-transformahon or a  p»J<* ab,c through death. Yet the hances a deep desire for the eternal andiun a9jsing the m aten al and poet submits to a stoical fortitude, ystruggle to m a.n tam a perm asensuous realm of existence rather han tn ,c m atjs ed as .magm ahve nent and idealistic state. This has often d c F amb ivalence between refailure, or as a characteristic Keats,an tradem ark ality and imaginative illusion. Co leridg e- Th e R om an tics as  Joseph Sw an n's "Shelley, Keats an m en eu tic an d phenom en oDeconstructionists" (1995) has dismisse lan gu ag e of the ode is logical basis of reading this poem. He argue j n ^ js decons truction physical and highly characterised by impede p 0em is kno win g ist position Swann contends that the subjec anent in ev ery WOrd, the and unknowing, the death of meaning tha in es ca pa ble ero ticis m of dark otherness in the objects we mee t'® , underm ines any recourse to meaningful discourse The issue, as to why this happens as exemplified exem p lin in the las t stanz a of the poem, is a philosophical and spiritual dispo sition that s ou e iscusse within the context of Romantic idealism however prob lem atic it w as. Though greatly infused with natural description, tw o im po rtan t extracts from Endymion can best illustrate Keats's ontological perception and under standing of nature: W herein lies Happiness? In that wh ich beck s Our ready m inds to fellow d ivine; A fellowship with d ivine essence, till we shine Full alchymized and free of space. Behold Th e clear Religion of He aven . . . {Endymion 1. 777 -78 1)

at the tip top, There han gs by unseen film, an orbed drop Of light, and that is love: Its influence, Thrown in our eyes, genders a novel sense, At which we start and fret; till in the end, Melting into its radiance, we blend, Mingle, and so become a part of it . . . (Endymion  1. 805-811)

These excerpts bear a close affinity with Coleridge's Neo-Platonist views and therefore connect a common thread of thought between the two poets. The first lines may be rightly read as Keats's affirmation of his belief in Platonic or transcendental reality, given that they express in like manner the workings of the imagination as an associative and spiritual faculty. Divine

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0  o w s h , p with    essence will be   s,  W „„ ,. and prmap/es in nature. £ Sst.n,SI'««<'s,U(J '" ‘ r,. Logos, or transcendent reality ,n C«" te l*/’ P-MiH,,, experiences or ,n the fi nal ou£ ,n »h i ch " to,p ru (H in *» K e a t s u s e s chemical t h . , . 1' of be,. fui* in „ ht,fo t„  f e P'lke  disposition. A lchemy has ta d ' V  to advan‘’? ' n& f W ^ aw>b, " ^ ’<1 fo ,^ '" * ' " ‘'M o nt i t *   from a base to a higher subsH 'V'd> tJ>e Cb an «e»th V e excerpt a bo v e a lso strengthen u®' ,,ls p ! ' lc a  nd ....

thetics, p h i l o so p h y a n d sp i r?tS b ' s Sc'o n t i f ° f e* i t eL ,Cess <>f t ra »'!,SoPhicai  rn,a«on onpthis f e cUa.% Keafe work  ana l O gies ? X'Tst e» ■hetics, n u osame « T '^princip spirituality. Keats C apprehends" " "ee  " 8,n of"art' aes^ r k on this sam e prin cip le. So his allusions to sc. n ce a l ' crea«vi,y . cr«>(iw,„to Ipirical terms, but in imaginative, aesthetic and philns T ' ° be in 'at it in other w ord s, sense impressions are i m a g i n a S Ph,Cal ,erms- To distilled- This leads to higher forms, ethereal f o f m s  and r C°"centrated and “ aturity and phi lo so ph ical acuity. nd hnally to aesthetic

m The secon d e xc er p t also g iv es a n insight into what Keats « been propagating in his n atu re-m ys tic thought. It aptly iu s H f E T d *° have  W h olen ess and unity exem plified with the ver bs^ eltin e h, hf .  stru88le ling, and b ecom ing. A ll o f these verbs are dynam ic verbs, fug ge sti^ are re focus awareness of process and the active interaction between psyche and nature. These w o rd s a ll re la te to C ol er id ge 's definition of the secondary imagination and the poet in ideal perfection, where we find counterparts such as pa rtake, s yn th es ise , diffuse , dissip ates, and dissolve which share the same characteristic features discussed above. The basic premise of the imagination as inspiration and at the same time a base for epistemological and ontological investigation, therefore, becomes  justifie d.   Reality, as it were, is sanctioned by the philosophical injunction of becoming, sin ce life is see n as a co ntinu ou s pro cess rather than a static or an end product. To put it differently, a certain goal is perceived which cannot be interpreted from the p oem s as achiev ed but rather as an anticipated end. The poem which Keats wrote that has attracted much attention with re gard to nature is 'To A u tu m n .' H ow ev er, the con troversy surrounding it is a result of the d i f f e r e n t   theoretical and critical perspectives that are employed .. ,, veiled expression of Keats s to read and interpre t it. The histo ricists see tic.historical t r e a t y revolutionary id ea ls, a n d , Nicholas Roe's K ea ts a n d t h e C u t “ . J r a Keats's 'Green W orld :' P olitic s, example of such a historic al read ,nS.

A sse nt (1997), and particularly John ® d   the Poems" (2000), offer  g ^ o rexa ”1P. iln cings, Roe's approach, ^ rtistiC/aesthetic or spintua g ^

plored nature ima gery, n o t in te rm s ^ but in terms of K ea ts's so cio -p oli tica l c

d o usness of EnSj? J ^ is seen as a Gfeek Flora and Pan)

hire (in connection w ith th e gl or i ica ^ symbolic representation of the idea s o The structuralists see it as a culrm ru Maturity, argu ing th at th e rip en es s ex p translation of aesthetic achievement an

pea ce, and free expression of ar 1 , jn jt is an exp deu r, Helen Ven

vigion and ^  implicit ,g p ^ O d e s

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any r- ' . d undermines its critical judgem ent can be So the P“ m.s^ ra'nSing, however p e«e,v* ? J / c r Wordsworth, K eats a n d the eating thought /mean rf e"“ eP u O'Rourke's found in Susan Wolfsongs in w (1987) and Jam es w gstionQ Interrogative Mode m Romantic

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Odes and Contemporary C ^ ^ ^ n a l y s e d the poem from w ithin its inRomantic visionary enh asm has a y eUher on the grou n d s of ar-

terpretative matrix from PrmCipJ T ™ d i« l pattern of the s ea so ns therein chetypal criticism with regard to the y w ith th e u n if ic a ti o n an d implied, or from a monistic per spective a e 6 wholeness of nature. expressing K eats's organicist W h a t is c e r ta i n i s t h a t t h e p o e m e ^ ^ ^ ^ h i c h correlates w ith the conception of life and poetic f * pr P obviously still conscious of not having written much for posterity. It should therefore be renterated that the aesthetic, philosophical and spiritual implications or dispositions of the poem can be interpreted with regard to the question of beco m ing ra ther th an th e v iew that it represents Keats's full imaginative visio n a nd ac hi ev em en t as the Romantic visionary critics or structuralists would expo un d. This interpretation is connected with the philosophical speculations that run through 'The Human Seasons' and the sonnet 'Afte r dark vapours have op press'd our plains.' They all complement the sea sons w ith m editation and con templation on life and death. 'The Human Seasons/ for instance, reads thus: Four seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate and by such dreaming nigh His nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mist in idleness—to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook He has his Winter too of pale misfeature Or else he would forgo his mortal nature. This poem's intricate relating nf human life which culminates with d e a t w T 8 7 ^   the different Phases ° / learly im plicates K eats's concern

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r‘,ry C.ritjt is,,,

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alm or s s h o p p e r and Cricket' and 'Bright Star, would I were sted**  'On the C ra ^ Gf K e a ts 's so nn ets tha t necessitate critical investiga-t as th° u art ar e to th e p re se n t d eb at e o n nature. In the former poem, with sta te m en ts th at go bey on d the deceptive simplicity of the

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 f  parth is nev er dead. n e  p0euThe birds are faint with the hot sun, When all tne v i treeS/ a v oic e w ill run And hide in c o o i g t h e new-mown m e a d ; Fr0ffl hehdgG ra ssh o p p e r's -h e takes the lead is the Gras PP_ hag never done In Summer s luxu y, tjred out with fun

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Wi*h ? a , eeags e b e n e a t h s o m e p l e a s a n t h e e d .

He rests at ea The poetry of ear

reasing never. when the frost

On a lone winter e v e n in g , Has wrought a silen c ,

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th inc rea sing ever,

The Cricket's son g, i sineSS h alf lost, Andseems w o n e --------And seems to gra ssy hills. •" c The among some grassy • Grasshopper's The G r a s s h o p p e r s a m o i g ,t._ t flao nnp tfV

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^ exhausted is a

e poet's ecolog ical as se rtio n th at the P°*~*P[annot have enough of the great ^iteration of the Spinozist idea that ™ inspired by any season, give" th asures of nature. Poet ic co m positio n ca ^ and creative springprehension tha t an y se a so n ca n be a ge takes a seemingly simf rrent thematic ad y men tioned a*•-b o je ,,^ . are natui*'s=>— e,em ^ ?matic issue, iss ue, alre alread menuox e naturc this poem Th com tension in in this po em .. T hee gra gr asssh sh op op pe pe rr and ^ the changing season.’ In nature, aland convey Aifft,rpnt sm ^ UK>nd ^^ dif fer en ttim timeeaxe ax es in ter ten J? blend 0f0faesthetics aestheticsaan> ich tin ea le p oe m , on e sees . d spiritual dispos to the the nnightingale insigh t to philosophical and P at the same time an ’n<

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KiNulUn^ on u u‘n' ry CnUL'H ^ t il im age, the star. T he star , with an eUimen m ed itati ve an d contt The latter p<*'m w corn-i. ^araeter»ses the P ° ^ t is obv io u sly c o n d o r , .ho to be a» bitter tides". This *. templativc nun e. P nes9 to get away fro be ca u se he an ticip ate s ‘ r  a consequence of his willmgnc. • t> tendency, but beca use is not because of any illusory o :n and despair. . . . ; a realm of existence ihat surpasses p a " ™ * of Poetry to B n t o h R o m an U as m Formal  g s-tan cehrC   d Susan Wolfson's Aopted in T h e Questioning  (1997) furthers her deconstruchomst st Mo(Je Rom antic Poetry Presence: Wordsworth, Keats and the inter   » s#s po etry is ov erp ow ered (1987). In the latter work, she claimed tfes Q(   meaning since any atwith questioning without providing any jn form er she em pha tempted m eaning leads to an interpretive imp oetrv 's form s un de rm ine sises the view that Keats's lyrics show W ith reg ard to 'Br igh t the claims of form to create a p leg riv f form " to regis. o ^ d Star,' she argues that the dash at the e^  J f oth er wordS/ th e poem ter "the radical insecurities of experience (lo7)* only confirms unreadability and undecidability. It should be reiterated that Keats's philosop hical co nce p io n o 1  e was based on suffering and agony. These were necessary qu alities tha t str en gth  ened metaphysical longing and capacity. Romantic idealism favoured this hermeneutic and phenomenological outlook on life. At this juncture, we want here to address and emphasise the question of the p o em 's in sp iratio n by the natural phenomenon, the luminous star. Keats here clearly utilises and reduces nature to his distinctive aesthetic and philosophical ambi tions. He does not seem to treat it as a universal force as Coleridge or Wordsw orth persistently does in his pantheistic and m on istic en gag em ents eve n thou gh it has been illustrated that there are strand s of C ole rid ge an and Wordsworthian consciousness in his work. But his recourse to nature points strongly to his consciousness of process, given his understanding of it as constituting the path that leads to a more mature aesthetic vision and philosophmal speculation in life. A considerable part of Keats's poetry undoubt edly demonstrates how internalising ecology engenders reorientation and m aturity m aesthetic longings. The foregoing analyses have pointed to nature consciousness in Keats's poetic practices. Existing critical readings have not paid much attention to is p enom enon in Keats and the present argu m ents canno t claim to have attemp ted an exhaustive view on the matter. Thou gh K ea ts's oo etrv indicates the difficulties of tracing a clear line between ae«iv,,.o • P . , 6 . . oerween aesth etic ism an d spirituality, the arguments here are more inclined to aestheticism and philosophy rather than spiritua lity given tha Keats consciously uses nature to satisfy the former end eve n thou gh this poetry g ives allowance to the interp retation o f the latter. He undoubtedly utilises and reduces nature. Vet, one can argue that his nature poetry does not only limit itself to an individualised traiS. Them are certainly strands of pantheistic and monistic readings in his work, pointing

the shared affi nit ies bet w een k.

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spiritual t hought o f t he l i kes of r T   *lnd th Q h  I at is open t o furt her cri t ical rf u ° ° ri(Jge «° ^nak. tici«m suggesti on here w1 ^ * The » C S '" Philo*. study of K« ils and the environ d be ,f>re in .d 18 an jSls c

he p e r s i s t e n t l y t he First

h a n d le s th e s u b f ^ ^ * ° k ^ o w t SubK>efP ^ * w i *h t h  Generation R o m a n t ir fr° ^ i k ° f

an<* e*h

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yiously  not mere aesthetics

***** did ^ Su*«e The argument is that Kea, , 8 Ven ">■„ ^ « v e# even though largely discussedh interiorisin alUr<* becomingas aesthet ic dev el nn d here vi J 8 an<*e*f„ • y s ob*  -with Coleri. dge's  W oorsd^  risi^ g of  orr W Dk-. of estaM u° hecv11***',0 , /„ o rsd w oPmeiuand rth 's pi ge s u . Phll°S0Dhv ^uversalism of - •f»kC i heistic s tole i cnd  and s K Cy of self in ^corr° ^ ch"^ and monistic m on istic phjj°rtb ph ilosophy. A

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Pnr exa m ple K ea ts 's ae sth etic spec ulation s in poems like 'Sleep an  ,  sto od Tip -toe U p o n a Little H ill' and 'The Fall of Hyperion' den poetrY' ce rU in i m p o rt an t st ra n d s of similarities with Coleridge's 'Kubl onstrf ^ levels of aesth eticis m a nd spirituality. As 'Kubla Khan' depici Khan Thetical na tu re of ae sth etic an d spiritua l enthusiasm, vision and cor the antl do K ea ts 's n at u re po em s. Th ey can be read and interpreted ecc tinuity' s°r^ ie d el in ea te p ri m ar ily h is aesth etic and philosophical engage criticallyyco n str U c ti v e q u es t. K ea ts him self consciously mapped hi ments |n 1 : lr.oODh ic a l an d s p iri tu al dev elo pm en t with expressions lik aesthetic, p an (j P a n ", "th e ch am be r of maiden thought", "the dar "* e f > lm, v a ie of t e a rs ", "th e spiritual yeast and ferment", "the cham ^ o f T g h t " an d " t h e va le o f s ou l m a kin g". q

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Endnotes 1 I have argued K ea ts's sp irituality on the grounds of Gnosticism in Towards a Pi^dcs of Becoming: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's and John Kea.s's Aes.heUcs Between Idealism and De con struction (2006). ™ s j s handledI j n C g p g S o ^ and the Gnostic Tradition: Inn er-Se lf Searching and e 8 d textual evidence, no doubt, in establishing a link bv tw ^n Keats s nature p ry the nature poets on grou nd s of spirituality an rans Disease, and Death 2. See, for examp,e, David Farrell fn o^ om ptete and in German Idealism and Roman ticism (19  ), ideag ghare an affinity available copy of N ovalis's work in Englis , u concept of nature and self, with most of his German coun ter pa rts, especial 3Y ° duces the question of nature, He however adds a d imen sion to h is analyses a to add here that Nova is s P°etry, imagination an d p sychopath ology. K 1S 1 ^ tausm/Romanticism than mig influence was felt gre atly in America n Transcen in french philosop ica have been the case in England. He is also very common circles.

300

Readings on Literary Criticism

References „ h t t o www.asle.umn.edu/conf/wla/1994/ Glotfelty, Cheryll, "Wh at is Ecocriticism , http.w glotfelty.html 14/04/2008. O IJP 1990. Keats, John. Works. Ed. Elizabeth Cook. Ox or • ' rd University Press, 2002. , „ th • Qerman Idealism and —Selected Letters. Ed. Grant F. Scott. Mass^ Knell, David Farrell. Contagion, Sexuality, Disease, and Deatntn G ainesville: University Romanticism.   Bloomington: Indiana University O ’Rourke, James. Keats's Odes and Contemporary Criticism. Press of Florida, 1998. j . r'Ur^nfinn Press 1997 Roe, Nicholas.  John  Keats and the Culture of D issen t x ™ Challenges of  "John Keats's "Green World": Politics, Nature and the Poe ms, The  C M t a g e s q f Keats: Bicentenary Essays 1795-1995. Eds. Allan Christensen et al. Amsterdam, / c /  GA: Rodopi, 2000,61-77. Scheese , Don. "Som e Principles in Ecocriticism" http: //www.as e.umn.e u con other_conf/wla/1994/scheese.html 15/08/2008 Swann, Joseph, "Shelley, Keats and Coleridge: The Rom antics as Deconstructionists," The Keats— Shelley Journ al, 1995. Tag, Stan. "F our Ways of Looking at Ecocriticism" http: / /www.asle.umn.edu/conf/ other_conf /wla /1994 /tag.htm l 15/04/2008 Vendler, Helen. The Odes o f John Keats. Havard: HUP, 1981. Wolfson, Susan J. The Questioning Presence: Wordsworth, Keats and the Interrogative  Mode in Romantic Poetry. Ithaca: Cornell University Pr ess, 1987. "Romanticism and the Question of Poetic Form ," Questioning Romanticism. Ed. John Beer. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995,17-45. Formal Charges: The Shaping of Poetry in British Romanticism.  Stanford: SUP, 1997. a

© Ch arles Ngiewih TEKE, PhD, June 2008 Sen ior Lecturer Department of English Highe r Teacher Training College (ENS) Yaounde Un iversity of Yaounde I, Cameroon

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on an individ- a/ Wher, ^w lric trading A term used by Louise M. Rosenbl.ff • ^ • A t o n a l T heory o f t he L it er a ry W o rk (1 97 8) to d e s c r i b ^ f ^ * e8* r' « » Text th, o a reader transacts with a text. During this event the *1 ®* * ° f readjng o M h e " ^ " readers mak e o f th ei r re sp on se s to the artistic stim , bject of aesthete com* Pr,°Cess ^ I / T b j e c t . such as a sta tu e, or a set o f verba?^ ^ £ 3 ° ^ ne of their responses to the tex t." The term refers to P a ’uR ders t e m p l a t e their b 3 £fand how individual readers find and create meaning when fo a n tc d n 'T T resP ° "* ° ° a

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Ithetics The bran ch o f phi los op hy that d eals w ith the concept of rh* w Mdetermine the crite ria fo r be au ty in a w ork o f art. It asks such nil~ T eautlful » d strives & . is the so urc e o f b e a u ty ? I n t he o bj ec t? In th e p e rc ei ve " W ^ n ? ^ , 5 ^ “ beauty recognized? Uty’ and How is aesthetic theory A sy ste m at ic, ph ilo so ph ica l body of beliefs concerning how meaning and functions in texts, espe cia lly the ele m en t of beauty or pleasure. § occurs affective fallacy A term used by N ew Critic s to explain that a reader's emotional response to a text is neither important nor equivalent to its interpretation. Believing those who evaluate a work of art on the bas is of its em otio nal effec t on its perceiver to be incorrect, New Critics assert that the affective falla cy co nfu se s w hat a po em is (its meaning) and what it does. The term was first introduced by W illi am K. W im sa tt, Jr., a nd Monroe C. Beardsley, who believed that a poem's meaning was de ter m ined so lely from a clo se reading of a text. affective stylistics A term coined by the reader-oriented critic Stanley Fish to describe his reading strategy (also referred to as reception aesthetics). Fish believes that the meaning of a text resides in the re ad in g co m m u n ity to which the reader belongs, what Fish calls the interpretive community. The interpretation of a text, therefore, depends on a reader's subjec tiveexperience in one o r m ore o f these interp retive communities. African-American criticism An approach to literary analysis that develops a black aestoetics to be applied when interpreting African-American writings. One of its leading advootes' Henry Louis Cates, Jr., believes such an aesthetics provides a new theoretical framer 0? for developing and analyzing the ever-growing and popular African f « * new framework, Gates Insists that African-American literature be viewed as a form of no( as a representatj()n sociaI practices or culture. Accor ' af  « «'« must be derived from the black tradition itself and must mcludewhathe « ^^ ^ ageof blackness, the signifying difference which mak es t re declaring that '™ Gates asserts the "double-voicedness" of African-Amer.can literatunr, dec

301

302

Glossary

, ihe white and the black . It Is the joining of this literature draws upon two voices and cultures of this literature. See cultural «h»™ two discourses, soys G s.c s, that ,hc U" ' ’ instincts housed in the unconscious, the studies and postcolonialism. »g* re«» lv« instin ct According to Freud, one o jnstincts can work harmoniously, other being the sexual instinct, ot libido. Although these two often they act as enemies. See destructive instinc . critic Rertolt Brecht to describe his alienation effect A term coined by the Marxist t e* ^ectatio ns whe n view ing a dram a. For technique to interrupt the theater audience s norma e P ^ ac^ors direct ly app eal to the auexample, in the middle of a drama, Brecht may ave one j the mQral and socia l issues dience via song or speech to keep the audience cons an y to which they are being exposed. ^ Qr idea rcprese nts another. The allegoric reading A reading in which one d«rac  , P ' ind end ent of the action in the characters, events, or places within a text represent me g ^ V ^   be moral/ political,  j surfa ce story. These interpretations are most often religio , personal, or satiric. allophone The family of nearly identical speech sounds that comprise a phoneme. For exam ple, the sound of the p in pit and the p in spit are allophones or slight variants of the p oneme /p/. alterity A term used by postcolonialists to refer to the state or quality of a person being labeled "different" or "other." This sense of otherness excludes the individual from a position of power and labels the person as inferior, subhuman, savage, and oftentimes evil. Amazon feminism A contemporary approach to feminist criticism that is ded icated to female images, either fictional or real, in literature and art that emphasize the physiques of female ath letes and physical equality of both males and females. It argues that no mention of gender should arise when discussing such topics as occupations. No characteristics exist that are pecu liarly m asculine or feminine.

ambiguity Commonly defined as a stylistic error in everyday speech in which a word or ex pression has multiple meanings. Since the publication of William Empson's Seven Types of   Ambiguity  (1930) and the specialized use of this term adopted by New Criticism, ambiguity is now synonymous with  plurisignation, both terms implying the complexity and richness of po etic language that allows for a word or expression to simultaneously have two or more distinct mea nings. New C ritics believe that ambiguity become s one of the chief to ols tha t good poets use intentionally and effectively to demonstrate the multiple valid meanings of a word or expres sion. See connota tion and denotation.

aiuil stage

Sigmund Freud's second stage of child development in which the anus becomes the object of pleasure when the child learns the delights of defecation.

analytic al psychology Founded and developed by Carl Gustav Jung, this system of psychol ogy is akin to psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on the functions that the conscious and the unCr ? T P 3y " V nfjuencm8 human behavior’ Emphasizes humankind's racial origins and adap ts the use of the free-association technique in studying an individu al's problems.

Anglo-American feminisms

A contemporary feminist theory and criticism authored by Briti sh and A merica n fem inist critics, notably Virginia Woolf, Judith Fetterley, Annette Kolodny, Nina Baym , Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and others.

anima

A term used by Carl J ung in mythic criticism to describ e the archetype of the feminine in the male.

animus

A term used by Carl Jung in mythic criticism to describe the archetype of the mascu line in the female.

anti-cathexes

A term used by Freud in his economic model of the unconscious. In this model the pleasure principle is held in check by the anti-cathexes, an anticharge of energy gov erned by the reality principle that inhibits free rein of the pleasure principle in an individ ua l's psyche.

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»«f> 7 •mP rlst>nmcn*' frus*">'«>". «nd f c. *"v" » « *«'an,„ ^ *n ifi£ ji. '*" > c.„   g of   It,*  __  .   Jintr to the German . ,l*ntrv .. . *pt ,,f According to the Ge rm an phi|„sopher c U‘ri*rVWork! 11  terstatement, or antithesis. Out . ojunterstalement, C)ut i T 01* H‘'Rel (li for * ‘h* . called .he ay ' U  n .h .,1 ., develnp,. »"d d l* u„ ^ V devel, 1 d,'b- ' - a n d ^ C ' f v-'V -h ,.i. _  .ynthM|., tr* -a ». isB ^ ‘ .idea ,  called rnism 's undec undeddabilitv ah„... (he natl »h*»u dnd* „.r,n is also used m deconstruc tion theory a "'allty and ,i < p a l i n g statements that cannot be r e s o l v e d ^ , ™ ’' '" * P a r a d ,„ „ " *  ,w ,

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A t - u g h . into literary criticism via ,h C”n ,raJiction,. d,c,i™». and • C According to Richards, human beinES ar t n ' Wrilings of the ( RichaKis hcrliovesthat to achieve psychic ^ ? , lc s «y b u„ dk, c r i t i c , . A, ^ W bv creating a personally acceptable vision of t h l K  every Person m ,es,res called ^ i o a S h a r d s declares that p oetry can now b e s ^ or,d‘ ^ e a s baIa"ce t h ^

^ ' , e s and create a fulfilling and intellectually ac ce p ta b l^ "126 3nd sati4 hum ‘V  3r°Vided

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l i t   Also known as practical criticism . In applied c riti c i^ u Cnticis™ to a partir , ^jfand explains, evaluates, or justifies a particular text. def^ the standard ^ wjietypal critic ism An approac h to literary analysis th * S « o p Frye, and other critics to literary analysis. An a r c h e d , theories Carl lun. Kms of repeated human expe riences (archetypes) found ^ g es o r£? other works of art. mn a specrftc text and common to archetype A recurrent plot pa tte rn, image , descriptive detail n u the reader strong but illog ical respo nses. This term was b r o u e h H n ^ r ? ^ that evokes from psychological writings of Carl Jun g. Jung belie ved that the mind w 7 ry Criticism v* the the personal conscious,  the  per so nal un cons cious,  and the collect! ° mposed °f three parts; within the mind in the collective unconscious is the collective kn Un5°nscious- tying deep memories of hum anity's past . Forme d through the repeated excerion
* * * A linguistic term designating a sound such as the p in pat, in which a brief delay ocfore pronouncing the vowel sound with an accompanying release of air. S t,VC readin8 Coined by the post-A lthusserian M arxist critic Pierre Macherey to de’deoW ty^e read *ng tha t reve als the mu ltip le ideologies operating in given toxt.. 5 °rwrit^ es often wo rk d ire ct ly a g ai ns t wh at the write r assumes he or she is y g

304

Glossary  _

, .. „. {L.r» to the ex iste nc e of a text. For the hv New Crit ics tna . iec t th at ca n be an alyz ed .

N ^ w c lh U ^ x t existsVn its own riftht as ™  “' ^ “ „1 UV Now Critics for the k‘nu

c ritic w h o in sis ts o n im p os in g extrinsic . t to di sco ve r its me anin g.

Including M ikhail ^  w h . * . R cv olu tio n an d its ru le u nd er  Joseph Bakhtin Circle A group of Uussian sch olars a ,» dressed the social and cultural inf lue nc es ^ VUcbsU and then Le nin grad , Russia, and Stalin. The group met from 1913 un ^ WnoVf an d oth ers. included Bakhtin, P. N. Medvedev, V. in  . economic structure of society. According to ^ the relationship s they engender base A term used by Karl Marx to designate Marx, the various methods of economic proau m   asserts that the capitalists exploit the form the base. In the United States, for examp , wo rkin g co nd itio ns ; their salaries working classes, determining for them their sa lane s and trie and working conditions are the base

term introdu ced into litera ry theo ry by Jacques which he believes Western m etaphysics is binary operations (binary oppositions) Derrida to represent the conceptual oppositions on based, such as light/dark, goo d/ba d, and bi g/s m a .

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it

A term coined by die feminist critic Elaine Show alter to t a a f e f one rf.four models or ways to construct a female framework for analyzing women’s literature, a process models or ways to co iw u u female body marks itself on a text by pmtermed gynocriticism. This model emphasizes how trie r y viding a host of literary images along with a personal, in timate tone, black arts movement Spans the decade from 1965 to 1975, beginning with the assassination of Malcolm X, and advocates black power or militant advocacy of arm ed self-d efen se w hile in spiring a renewal and pride in African heritage and asserting the goodness and beauty of all things black. Its chief spokesperson was the Greenwich Village b eat po et Am iri B araka and its literary magazine, Cricket. bourgeoisie According to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto  (1848), this term refers to the social elite, or members of the upper class, who control and define the eco nomic base of society through economic policies and the production of good s. T he bourgeo isie also defines a society's superstructure and its hegemony. canon The collected works of an author or of a tradition.

biological model

capitalist Another name given to the bourgeoisie by M arx and E ngels. Th e capitalists in society enslave the working class (the proletariat) through economic policies and the production of goods. carnival Coined by the Russian Formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin to describe some novels' polyphonic style—that is, some novels have a carnival sense o f the w orl d, a se nse of joyful aban donment in which many different voices are simultaneously heard and directly influence their hearers (and readers). Each participant in the novel tests both the ideas and the lives of other partiopants, creating a somewhat seriocomic environment. This notation of carnival is one of bakhtin s most significant contributions to literary theory. Coined by the Russian Formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin to describ e a sense of joyful «h erV' ^ r , h P° ,y P^ T nov? causf by * *  watching multiple chara cters influence each other with their particular understanding of truth. See carnival.

carawaltetlc

castration complex According to Sigmund Freud, if a child's sexual development is to procee normally, each must pass through the castration complex . Boy s know they have a penis like their fathers, but their mother and sisters do not. What stop s th Jm a le child from having in cestuo us desires for his mother is fear of castration by his father. Th e child therefore, rep rise s se ss es T mother’‘ and ^ to a woman as'his father now PosS l d r e a w ft h a t vw « nconsc'°usly makes a successful transition to manhood. The female d “ h ' hke her ™other' she 15 already castrated. Knowing that her father possesses what she desires (a perns), she turns her attention away from her mother and toward her father. After unsuccessfully attempting to seduce her father, she returns to her mother, identifies with her, and successfully makes her transition to womanhood.

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term used by the feminist critic Julia K n o -

Bpro«»s a c t u a l l y ^ £ * 1 , ic - g y, h , * „ f p e in thehuman

f^ydun drat characterizes the im ag inary „ , der of ^ c W c T y * ^ ^ «ow „ , fluidity dM. readers A term used by the New Critics fo, the kind of T ' nt * orinriples of New Cnt.c.sm to a text to arrive at an in te rp re t wh» applies the  Jd detailed reading and analy sis of the text itself to derive i n " mplled m lhe term L  c l ^ £„ al , or cultural input. enve * n'eanmg wUhou. A term used by the New Critics for the kind of read applies the principles of New Criticism. Implied in the term is a r W ° r f ? lysis of a text that the text itself (its verbal qualitie s) to arrive at an interpretation w i th o u t ^ 31131x818 °f authorial, or cultural concerns. A close reading of a text became the h a ll m a rk 'X 5 S'° ncal cities' methodology. Sometimes referred to as explication de texte in French literary studies dose reading

A term used by the reader-oriented, subjective critic David Bleich as as a substitute for the word interpretation. According to Bleich, a text's meaning is developed when a reader works in cooperation with other readers to achieve the text's collective meaning, or its in terpretation. Bleich argues that only when each reader is able to articulate his or her individual responses within a group about the text can the group, working together, negotiate meaning andarrive at the tex t's collective meaning. collective meaning

A term brought into literary criticism via the psychology of Carl  Jung. The collective u nconscious is that part of the psyche that contains the cumulative knowl edge, experiences, and images of the human race. This knowledge evidences itself as "primor dial images" in humankind's religions, myths, dreams, and literature and can be tapped by writers through the use of arch etyp es. concretized A term used by reader-oriented critics for the phenomenological process whereby the text registers upon the reader's consciousness. See phenomenology, condensation A term used by Sigmund Freud in psychoanalysis and dream designate the process whereby one compacts a feeling or emotion toward a perso g Rectifies it into a simple sentenc e, phra se, or symbol. ^ o u i i . n The implied mea ning o f a word, as opposed lo its diefionary defer,bon. See collective unconscious

c#nscious A term br ou ght in to literary criticism via the p X , . state The term was also * ers to one of the three parts o f the human psyche, a person s human he See 8  ^   by Sigmund Freud to define the rational and waking part °nal ur>conscious and collectiv e uncon scious. h d'es in Great Britain. ^ ral ^ c i s m A term used interchangeably with cultural s criticism asserts 2 E Also known as radical feminism. Thrs hjjd' ^ Ils ma,„fene .: > * *  * « « r walily and biological differences exist between nrenan^ C - W w n l l y and biologically kinder and gentlerham™ w°m' w°men's gentler and kin de r wa ys shoul e s Ways are better than me n's.

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* ' * ? cn.tnml studie, Thcbody o f " N . t t« American, wom en, and other, wh„ „( subaltern writer, such a, ^ f a" 5’ dominant cu ltur e, These w riter, are now ta lon * theh are suppressed and n-pn-ssed by their m ( |helt un de rsta nd ing o( reality, of society , and place at the literary table, where they can p bro ad gro up in, „ three categories. of personal sell-worth. Some scholars d.vio ^ „ ud,e8.

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in America in 1 « 6 in a speech given by lacqu es D errida a, ,ohns ‘ “ plans University, this poststructural approach to literary an alys is is be st c on sid ere d a strafe, gic device (or intemreting a text rather than a critical theory, sch oo l of criti cism , or philosophy. Such theories, schools of criticism, and philosophies, Derrid a as ser ts, mu st ide ntify wit h a body of knowledge that they decree to be true or, at least, to conta in truth. Th e ide a that truth or a core of metaphysical ideals can be definitely believed, articulated, and supported is exactly what Derrida and deconstructionists wish to "deconstruct." Considered to be the most intellectually formidable approach to literary analysis, decon struction bases its ideas on the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and his assertion that lan guage is a system based on differences; for example, we know the difference between the sounds /b/ and /p/ because we have heard both and can note the difference. Derrida enlarges this concept of difference by declaring that how we come to know concepts is also a matter of difference. Denying any center of truth, such as God, humanity, or the self, deconstruction maintains that we can never be certain about our values, beliefs, and assum ption s. If this is the cas e, then we can never be certain about a text's meaning, and we can, therefore, n eve r d ecla re a text to have but one meaning. The "undecidability" of a text's meaning is the cardinal rule of deconstruction deconstruction theory An approach or strategy for reading devised by the French literary . c critic Jacques Lacan to discover "how " a text means bv ask in a * ^ structuralist critics do. Its aim is to show that what a text r\ L ,Set ° * cluestlons ^ an m e discem ibly different. See d e .n n s tm c ^ m ^ ^ ^ Wh“>“ “ Vs defamiliarization ^ c o i n e d by the Rn .s ia n Fo rm alist V icto r S hk lo vs ky . 1, is the process

Of making strange (see ostranenie) the familiar or putting the old in a new light or in a new "*>>" sphere of perception. Through poetic diction or w or t -u ° ---------line or word, slowing down the act of perception t b ^ T ' t POCt " makeS stranSe" * e poetic * * * * ' * ' ° reeXaminC the( word, line, image, or any other poetic device In so d o in ^ their world in a new way by intensifying the act of p e ^ o n CXperience a Sma11 P3* ° f denotation The dictionary definition of a word as distinct from its connotation, or its suggestive or emotional meaning. -

Descnptive grammar A linguistic approach to the study of a language's grammar that ex amines the structure of a language-its words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and so forth-as used by the speakers of that language. Descriptive grammarians then formulate rules about the

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C°MsO known as the aggressive instinct, this term was coined by Freud to A rincts housed in a human s unconscious. More frequently than not, the basic i n 3 '   the eros or sexual instinct (later called the libido by Freud) i n ct    attacK < •ous houses our biographical memories along with suppressed

>nc ^ d' theUn

t0 pA c o n f i x R us sia n For m alis ts to denote the internal mechanics of a work of d use d b y th e lan gU ag e. T he se devices are an integral part of the work’s form. A C i a n y it9  p0e t’C,ineu istics to designate a process of language study in wWch Ian-

i .< n g e

-fn o n -n

?* * ''a l. ** a *m*g •« .^ ic

* ««*» Thc Comnm

t e r m l a,so used in otber *e,ds in which

‘ H f V life determines determine * ^-eryday disco

ihc Unnal;

o“ - la T v spirinral reality * *a W ’fc. . r * and col%« ^ derived from any sp o( production jupmW lrtuK. a" 0rds. life and are n^ t h e a n d idcoloS1 m bv ,he

di»,er tiC J i c m i n ' " " " * E sta blis h

>\

question. What

*h ”

n F o r m a l . * - ^ (ofm a re

_ 

308

Glossary

* l v% i unitving element in the universe? What then? ‘

««»***-

answer is ths t all mea ning or interpr^^^ ,rabic mea nings and interpretations

* • 7 - v r : r ,!.X - ..w .» » » « by uie„u,Ry, a * * * , du:

discourse  refers not only to speech patterns but discourse A way of seeing *nd thinking cation, politics, and a variety of other ** '» *" ^ ' j j |cai assump tions that predispo se a person to also to a particular mindset secured by p t interpret the world in a particular fashion. DSVCho an aly sis to de sig na te the process displacement A term used by Sigmun^ re d ^ ^ ^ psyches to hand le by CQn whereby we suppress wishes and desires th ■ • j desire. Our unconscious mind may Xe m a dream . cealing them in symbols that take the place of Y switch, for example, a perso ns hatred o y u f . double consciousness A postcolonial term used y double-voicedness A term coined by the African-American M era ry ^ c n U c H ^ ^ Gates lr., to assert that African-American literature draws upon two voic ©redu ces the un ” the black. According to Gates, this joining of the two distinct disco urse s p es the unique-

,

ness of African-American literature. dyna mic m odel The earliest of Sigmund Freud's models of the human psyche; with it, Freud declared that our minds are based in a dichotomy co nsisting of the conscious (the rational) and the unconscious (the irrational). ecocomposition. A term coined by ecocritics in which the principles of ecocriticism are directly applied in a composition classroom. Through journal a n d /o r mem oir w riting, students develop ecosensitive human relationships. In addition, ecocomposition encourages environ mental "life writings" by examining autobiographies through the lens of environmental con cerns and by encouraging students themselves to write ecoaw are autobiograph ies, ecocriticism The most recent school of criticism to ap pear in literary studies, ecocriticism is best defined by Cheryll Glotfelty in her coauthored text, The Ecocriticism Reader: "Simply put, ec ocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment." economic model Sigmund Freud's later or revised model of the h um an p syche , which he de veloped after the dynamic model. In the economic model, Freu d introduce s tw o new concepts: the pleasure principle and the reality principle. ecofeminism (or eco-feminism) A contemporary approach in feminist studies that assumes that patriarchal societies are relatively new and that society's o riginal con dition, kn own as fem inist Eden, was matriarchal. Whereas patriarchal societies, say ecofeminists, are detrimental to women, children, and nature, matriarchal societies protect the environment, natural resources, and animal life while caring for women and children. ecosphere A term used by ecocritics to highlight humanity's interconnectedness to all the eart h's living organisms and the physical environment. i cr i t u r e f em i n i n e  A term used in feminist criticism to refer specifically to "women's writ ing." Modern feminist critics speculate that a style of writing pecul iar to w ome n exists and that this ecriture femin ine is fundamentally different from the way men write and obtain meaning  through the writing process. efferent reading A term used by Louise M. Rosenblatt in The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978) to refer to that type of reading in which the prim ary co ncern of the reader is with what he or she will carry away from the reading." We read efferently, for example, when we read solely for information, as we do when we read the directions for heating a can of soup. During this pro cess, we are interested in only newly gained information. Efferent reading is different from aesthetic reading, in which the reader "l ives th rough" and ex perience s the reading process, ego A term used by Sigmund Freud to designate the rational, logical, waking part of the psy che as differentiated from the id and the superego. Electra complex The female version of the Oedipus complex as defined by Sigmund Freud. Freud borrows the name from Greek mythology: Electra, the sister of Orestes, aids him in killing 

I

 , rivtemnestra, to avenge their father, Al!, U ** V F r e u d , all g'ds must successfully neKof.^ '"'n o n , wh t0 L i o d  to being a normal, mature w l ‘ m o t h e r   and recognizes that her fd,h LJke* boy “" W 'ru,r'l*r, , 1 “ rlv^  f t ? ? ' *   *'rl '* * 2 ' *   * ted * u% . t h e girl realizes she is already castrated a thdt WhiCh A T i ! ' 3 Penis' *he turns f  her « J ^ C t e r the s e d u c t io n  of her father fails, she tu rn ,. * ' dosi^ to h ^ * * krl'*"" tl>Ward and aw4w **** L t ^   fhus successfully negotiating the Klectra r . Z ^ f^

* *  t a n e * * •“ " l ; u sc d .b y F ,!rd in a " ‘i d e S a u s s J ” , " "***'  * « C ,£ * * V r f l a n g u a g e su c h a s p h o n e m e s , m o r p h em e s , w o r d , L8" 1 " » * basic ^ ' L a l e r D ev elo prd b y th e p la yw r ig ht an d M a il„ ' W d 50 » " U"" » « t>u,ld,„ < f , h e e r y a nd p r o d u c ti o n t h a t a d v o c a te s a n a ba nd ® C" “ c " " M t Bred ,, , ,

 time, pla«. and act,on, mcluding the assume",° T m °( 'be Arisw kmd* «*. “le th a l what they are seeing ,s real. Epic theater ' " * a“dience2l“" pr™ « of  p "Zitng the drama by a direct appeal to the audience^, aU' " a ' W ? ** to "^instantly aware of the moral and social issues to w f" « °"P « ch J r “' h“s m‘ •*„, Brecht believed that dramatists should not hi ,” hlch "'ey are b *,. k“'P" * audi.  jSan the drama and should revolt and seize the m o d « ’““'Seois'' *• >T ‘d

epiphany A s u d d en u n d e rs ta n d in g o r i ns ig h t, e sp ec ia lly c o n c e r n " ^ “ * 8™ >  J o a l na tu re o f tr u th . T h e te rm ts o fte n u se d in it s C h r i s t ia n T 8  * dirt™ being or rh. Bken place o n January 6 w i th th e m a n ife sta tio n o f C hrist to t h e S i ^ EP 'P h £y W and thereafter o b s e rv e d a s a h o l y d a y m th e C hr is ti an C h u r c h I T " “ tm “ » ‘d n n r f i eM^

bringing this term into literary critical usage to mean a sudden ^ 1^ ® b resP ° " * £ person, situation, or object. en' ^tuitive understanding ofa term borrowed from the French writer, philosopher and *, . andused by New Histoncists to define the unifying principle or nlu M,chel Foucault ^ historical epoch. Through language and thought, each period in history dtjd ^ ceptions about the nature of reality (or what it defines as truth) and sets Upits e p is te m e

A

behavior.

relating to the branch of philosophy called epistemology,whichstudies the nature of knowledge, especially its limits and validity. erasure Coined by the French deconstructionist critic Jacques Derrida to describetheprocess of believing, i f only temporarily and for the sake of investigation, that valuesandbeliefsare stable and are objectively true. By positing the objective existence of such values and beliefs, Derrida declares that he can show through a deconstructive reading the absence ofanydefiniepistemological

O f  or

tive meaning f o r  these values or beliefs. eros Another name  f o r  the sexual instinct, one of two basic human instincts that, accordingto Freud, are housed in the unconscious. A text meant for private as opposed to public circulation. e s s e n t i a l i s m The classical humanist belief that the true essence or identity^/itmeans tobe e s o te r ic w o r k

p osed o f f i n i t e a n d f i x e d p r o p e r t i e s t h a t m a k e u p t h e e s se n ti a c om p on e hu man. E s s e n t i a l is t s b e l i e v e t h a t t o b e h u m a n m e a n s h a v in g an unchangeable frue and in va ria ble es se n ce .

estrangement

A t er m u s ed b y R u s s ia n F o rm a lis ts to sh °

strange the familiar, t h e r e b y c a u s i n g t h e r e a d e r s o a e x e xp e ri en ce i t a n e w . S e e defamiliarization  an d o str an en ie .

etymologically

T h e a d v e r b i a l f o r m o f e ty m o lo g y , ° r

Ve,0P m e n t o f a w o r d , i n c l u d i n g i t s v a r i o u s m e a n in g Cord ed o c c u r r e n c e i n a l a n g u a g e t o t h e p r e s e n t ,

exoteric treatise

A t e x t m e a n t f o r g e n e r a l p u bl ic

a

^ language's ability to make P ^ ^

word or imageand to tracing the historical de-

PQTTnS/  from the word s ear it

310

Glossary

reader s privilege to ft. inaividuaU.y °f expressive school Emphasizing the mdiviaua y .ye theories of art, expressive critics share in this individuality. Disavowing .*etoreca‘ ^ s . Wordsworth and other mneteenthemphasize the subjective experience o s j cf thought century Romantics are prime examples of this schoo ^ outside the text (e.g., historical events extrinsic analysis The process of examining e erne and meaning. ana biographies) oiograpiuvs, to uncover u»w .. the text's T Victor Shklovsky. According to Shklovsky, all ........

Aterm coined by the Russian Forma 1 ^ Fabula is the raw material of the story prose narrative is composed of either fabu a or syuz , . outlioe that contains a story's and can be considered somewhat akin to the author s working chronological series of events. literature comprises one complete ^ Qne of these phases is the fall fall phase According to the mythic cntic North P story called the monomyth, which is composedo p^ happiness and freedom to disaster phase, which recognizes humanity s tendency to fal Pr and bondage. , . , , £false consciousness A term used, u v * warv to describe how the consciousness of by Karl Marx to aes , the working class is shaped and controlled by the bourgeoisie. By defining what it means to be an individual and, thereby, prescribing its class consciousness, the bourgeoisie creates a false consciousness for the proletariat and perpetuates the dominant class s socia structure, female phase The name given by the feminist critic Elaine Showalter to the present state, di rection, andconcerns of contemporary feminist criticism, usually dated from 1970 to the present, feminine phase The name given by the feminist cntic Elaine Showalter to the first historical period of feminist theory and criticism, dating from 1840 to 1880. feminism An approach to textual analysis having its roots in the Progressive Era in the early decades of the twentieth century. Some of its earliest and major philosophical tenets are articu lated by the British feminist Virginia Woolf (A Room o f One's Ow n , 1919) and the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex , 1949). Feminists assert that Western societies are patriarchal, or controlled by men. Either consciously or unconsciously, men have oppressed women, allowing them little or no voice in the political, social, or economic issues of their society. By not giving voice and, therefore, value to women's opinions, responses, and writings, men have suppressed the female, defined what it means to be feminine, and devoiced, devalued, and trivialized what it means to be a woman. Men have made women the "nonsignificant Other." A goal of feminism is to change this degrading view of women so each woman will realize that she is a valuable person, possessing the same privileges and rights as every man. Women must define themselves and assert their own voices in politics, education, the arts, and all other areas ot society. By debunking stereotypical images of women found throughout the literary canon, rediscovering and publishing texts written by females but suppressed by men rereading the canonized works of male authors from a woman's point of view, and engaging* the dis cussion of literary theory, women can challenge the concept of male superiority and work to J ward creating equality between the sexes.

fabula

\

B e c a u s e f e m i n i s m i s m o r e a n a p p r o a c h o r m i n d s e t t h a n a s c h o o l o f c r i t i c i s m , f e m i n i s t th e o r y a n d enhosm h a v e b e e n em b r a c e d b y s c h o l a r s b e l o n g i n g to a v a r i e t y o f c r i t ic a l s c h o o l s , su c h a s ; M a r x i s m d e c o n s r u c t io n , p s y c h o a n a y s r s, a n d N e w H i s t o r ic i s m . S o m e o f th e l e a d i n g t w e n ti e t h - c e n t u r y f e rm m s t s a r e V i r g in i a W o o l f , S i m o n e d e B e a u v o i r , E l a i n e S h o w a l t e r , H e l im e C i x o u s . Sandra Gilbert, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

feminist phase

T h e n a m e g i v e n b y t h e f e m i n i s t c r i ti c E l a i n e S h o w a l t e r t o t h e s e c o n d h i s to r ic a l p e r i o d o f f e m i n i s t th e o r y a n d c r i t ic i s m , d a t i n g f r o m 1880 to 1920.

A term used by the Russian Formalists that refers to the language of a work of art. Literary language is different from everyday language. Unlike everyday conversation or language, literary language shouts, "Look at me; I am special." For example, when a poet writes, "The cow jumped over the moon," such language stands out and demands contempla tion and analysis.

foregrounding

* ■ • < * < /«  fit* * 

P *

L *

The verb form of foregrounding of past experiences (mem„rll.s) rt"

rn * u * J  b  y ^ features - o f

(.1, ^•iry

Ibat n*

'r» brj

t h e R u s s i a n F o r m a l i s ts t o d e n o t e t he a

S u c h f e at u re s in c lu d e

’ ll

n* »o

„ m J ^ * * * '   «r

language (see devices). A lso ^m , s a

l f^ ^ riricW - 't ° n,ean the overaU effect a text c n J Won 7 ^ T    Used by thi K * o f   J f N ^ l the actual structure of the text along with th l? ^ th* P e r s ^ ^ ^ d ^ ' ' ' ^^ji^ ory, alf elements of a text work together to A wrm used '° desiBnate critics (fomiali

" lfcd efco kn«™ ^ £

^ d e t e r m i n e i ts m e a n in g . T h e t er m i s o ft en a pp lie d ,W h? ^

° " a work' ,

***   Russ^n Fo L * ^  ° r »*uc* * * vv-ho i n s is t th a t t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f a w o r k o f a r t m e xtrin sic el em e n t s s u c h a s t h e a u t h o r ' s lif e o r ^ USt 7 ° lve from the ^ 0 ? ? New a n o b je c t i n i ts o w n r i g h t t h a t c a n b e a n a l y z e d wi h C° n te x t For sUch S Struch"e, Ifc e or sources suc h

as histo ry, po litics, or soc iolo gy

° Ut referri"g to any e x Z T l *

.ist L i t e r a r y t h e o r i s t a n d c r i t i c w h o e m D h a « i ^ i n t e r p r e t i n g a t e x t S uc h c rit ic s u su ally a dh ete f ra g m e nt at io n

* «

*

W°rk

e xtua leviand t e c h * ^

A te r m d e v e l o p e d b y M a r x i s t c r i ti c s t o d e s cr ib e , h ,

M£ o f s^ ety e a u ^ by the workers' detachment hunt

cdier. See a l i e n a t i o n

y produce

effect.

frankfurt school, the

N e o - M a r x i s t c r it i c s d e v o t e d to d e v el op in g w

Thesec ritic s a s se r t t h a t th e s u p e r s t r u c t u r e r e fl ec t s t he e co no m ic ttxtreveals a c u l tu r e ' s f r a g m e n t a t i o n , n o t i ts w h o l e n e ss . Freudian slips

and from Mch

b a w ^ Ma^ tp rin dPI« ey also believe that a

A t e r m u s e d i n p s y c h o a n a l y s i s t o d e s c ri b e a cc id en ta l d

, ,

Accordingto Freud, these "disguised truths" are stored in our unconscious uIS °   *5®t0ngUe theyslip into our conscious minds and pop out in statements in our speech madverten% SV  Ie*hian studies Beginning in the mid-1980s, this school of criticismborrows rnd develops the gender concerns of the feminist and gender critics and targets the heterosexual/ homosexual binary, emphasizing sexual differences. Gay studies examines sexual differences applicable to the male, and lesbian studies, to the female. Both groups analyze thesocial struc turesthat have defined gays and lesbians as deviant or abnormal, questioninghowsuchdefinitoonsdeveloped throughout history and seeking to know the reasons heterosexuality hasbeen sopositively defined but homosexuality has not. gender studies A term sometimes used synonymously with feminism; however, this fieldof studybroadens traditional feminist criticism to include an investigationof notonlyfemaleness but alsomaleness. To the multi voiced feminist theories, gender studies adds the ever-growing andincreasingly diverse concerns of black feminists, the ongoing concernsofFrenchfeminism, andtheimpact of poststructural theories on customary feminist issues, good critic A term used by New Criticism to characterize the kind ofcritic Pern's (or any text's) structure by scrutinizing its poetic elemen ft/ovemll meaning as the ■tsinner tensions, and demonstrating how the poem supp Writer reconciles th es e te n sio n s in to a un ified w hole. gra mm ar

.

T h e s y s t e m o f r u l e s t h a t g o v e r n s th e  production a "

I n sc r ip t iv e g r a m m a r r e f e r s f o m a t t e r s o f " c o r r e c t n e s s ,

^

soch as

pretation 0f   language, ® the word ain't or say-

/ d e sc r ib i n g how <0 “ '

2 Tt isI" rather than "It is me." Descriptive grammar is the pmee I* 3 ers use their lan gu ag e fo r co m m un ica tion .

Wc^ U n atic aI

O f o r r e f e r r i n g t o t h e r u le s o f g r a m m a r t a

£ 0rds or groups o f w ord s. * nUnatic a I s e n t e n c e

See sen tence .

«c*ablish relationships amo  g

312

Glossary

. grammatology

rk-rrida's name for the science of writing ltroctionUt J*cq^}fanmes The Frenchdeconstruct-- argUes for a redefining of writing, as. ^ origin of languagt.

curs prior to it.

.he letters of .he a.phahe,, h . -presen, , grapheme The symbols of a critic Elaine Showalter that has become phoneme. the feminist scholar ^ wjth four models about the gynocriticism A‘ermc Y as writers. It Pr° d f ncerns of feminist criticism. wrempasMhe full analytic scope: btoto^caUmg sh wal,er to deftne .he pnv ^ rtrica Atermcoined by the feminist schol ^ women's literature to develop new 5 ^ constructing "a female experience, rather than to adapt to male models [of interpretation] based on the stu y models andtheories." See gynocnticism. Althusser to describe the process

to

hailing the .«hj« * Coined by .he Marx^cnh ^ ^ ^ interpell„ i. „ . wherebythe dominant ideology tor tQthe tragic hero's mistake or error "missing the mark" (from the Greek hamartia A termusedby Aristotle in t e that leads to a the hero of a tragedy will commit an action or P reversal of fortune. hamartanein, to err ). Ansto

exhibit a frailty (hamartia) t at wi e , tQthe system of beliefs, values, and meanhegemony Atermused in Marxist cri 1C1S™ , ib Marxist critics assert that the dominant 4 which most people * X S e ^ - 1  ofSe W g S l e . 1. is the bourgeoisie who conculture ma given society is u Accordingto the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, a given'socie.y?he^emony”may be successful but neve, complete. Rathe, than one allencompassing rulingclass, .here usually exist several interconnected yet somewhat divergen classes, each influencing the superstructure at different times and m different way* Marx,s. revolutions, then, can begin within alternative hegemonies rather than direct political action, heresy of paraphrase Atermused by New Critics to suggest that a work of art is not equal to its paraphrase. Apoem, for example, is not the same as its paraphrased version because the paraphrasedversionwill miss the poem's uniqueness, with its many connotations and various complexities of thought. hermeneutical principles The rules governing the interpretation of a text. See hermeneutics, hermeneutics First defined by religious scholars as the art and science of biblical interpreta tion, this termnow refers to any theory and practice of interpretation. (From the Greek hermeneutike, meaning the "act of interpretation.") hermeneutics of recovery The process of investigating how a text was received and evalu ated by its contemporary readers. hermeneutics of suspicion The process of investigating the implied assumptions—political, sexual, religious, linguistic, and so forth—of a text and its author.  _ ., interpreted 4------ "other ui Literally or \aiiitrrtf different tongues" from the Russian word heteroglossia raznorecie,  this term was coined by the Russian Formali: Form alist critic M ikh ail B ak htin to dem onstrate in culturi the multiple languages that operate in any given cu lture. For Ba kh tin, all form s of social speech that people use in their daily activities constitute heteroglossia. te heterc !•_*.!--------- *  holistic approach An approach to literary study that o l o m o n i c - -4-W.~ - » - l! 1r “lvuJl) aiuuy mat investigates, analyzes, and interprets all elements of the artistic situation-text, author, historical context, and so on-instead of concern trating onone or more specific aspects. Atermused by reader-oriented critic Hans Robert Jauss to refer to all of a historical period s critical vocabulary andassessments of a particular text. German phenomenologist Wolfgang Iser uses this same term to refer to those expectations each reader

horizon of expectation.

Glossary hJtt will or may or should happen next in any Riven text v , "

V,

C

-

z

r

3^ 3

* '™ 's ~

V change each o( .he h»o culhm, in .  j V > y CftRMbha calls hybridlly. Bhabha notes that "hybridiation i, a discoJ v e ^ ”0^ cit* e %tcce*s  B* iveprocess having to dowith the struggle around authority, author^ ' and the ,(l’>oriZ pastes andrevision fashions.of authority. It's a scxial process. It's not about person* of ^ A termusedby the Russian Formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin for the clashingof bi-^ ** *0 unguages in a single utterance. See heteroglossia. g ►^rent la'J cooperative principle The belief that published works are worthy to be wl*!* mre because they have been evaluated and declared literary texts by a group of ailedlltera^i people such as scholars, critics, and publishers. v!ell'infortn J 4  by Sigmund Freud to designate the irrational, inshnctual, unknown, and unC ^ Aterm tof the psyche as differentiated from the ego and superego. ^pscioasPa^ ^ term devised by the narratologist Gerald Prince to differentiate among the  jjeal **a * and ideal readers. According to Prince, the ideal reader is one who explicitly and teal, virtu3 ' stands all the nuances, terminology, and structure of a text. See virtual reader ‘’^dreader. andrea ^ Atermdevised by the Freudian psychoanalyst NormanHolland, whoargues identity® us receive fromour mothers a primary identity. Througheachof ourlife's exthat,atbir ^ sonaiize this identity, transforming it into our own individualized identity periences^cbbecQmes the iens through which we see the world. theme, aDOaratus Aterm used by the Marxist critic Louis Althusser as a synonym f t S S J b . dominant clasps .deology. tor ° Amuch-debated term in Marxist criticism, which often refers to a culture's collecid«ology^_^ consciousness (as opposed to the material reality on which experience is tive ors tQthe culture's internal awareness of a body of laws or codes governing its law religion, philosophy, and art to which that culture's bourgeoisie and its super politics, asu'bscribe por Marx and Engels, a culture's ideology is more frequently than not StrUCtU,mous with "false consciousness" because it has been defined and established by the r l " i e and represents a set of false assumptions or illusions used by the elite to domib0^ he working classes and to maintain stability. An ideology, then, may be conscious or Elicit (inprecepts that state and shape a society's philosophy, laws, or acceptable customs), orUmaybe a somewhat vaguer and implicit understanding of its controlling beliefs (e.g., as inceremony). ,, , imarinarvorder According to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, oneof three parts of thehuman psyche-,Contains our wishes, fantasies, and images. In this preverbal state (fromtor* to.age sixmonths), Lacanbelieves humans are joyfully united with their mo^ ' andall comforts fromthemand relying on images as a meansof Perceivl^ and ’^ g world. In this psychic stage of development, our image of ourselves is always in fluxbecause wearenot able to differentiate where one image stops and anot er egins. ..

Atermdevised by the German Phe"° b^°|"aJS^ e r 8A«ording to Iser, the atebetweentwo kinds of readers: the implied reader an . , -ddown, not by an emimpliedreader is the reader who "embodies all those pre ispo firmly Pinealoutsidereality, but by the text itself. Hence, the implied reader has his plantedinthe structure of the text." r^r^nnallv see in a ™lpressionistic critics Critics who believe that howwe feelan ™ *laf £int of viewand at workof art arewhat really matter. Capturing what we see froma p implied reader

•a

314

Glossary

* specific moment in time is whit is z

s z

s s E

x

s

^ “

M ltw !l

r r a^ »--r=,zr  

makes on the artist rather than the actual representation of an o jec 1 p inflection Used in linguistics to describe the various forms a word undergoes to mark changes in elements such as tense, number, gender, and mood. For examp e, e e   m e wor worked signals the past tense, and the -s in the word dogs signals the p ura orm o a wor in medias res Fromthe Latin, meaning "in the middle of things/' this term refers to a story or narrative such as The Iliad that begins in the middle rather than at its chronological starting point in time. intentional fallacy Atermused by New Critics to refer to what they believe is the erroneous assumption that the interpretationof a literary work canbe equated to the author s stated or im plied intentions or private meanings. Claiming such external intormation to be irrelevant in as certaining a text's meaning, NewCritics base interpretation on the text itself. The term was first used by WilliamK. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley in "The Intentional Fallacy" (1946). interpellation Also known as "hailing the subject," this term was coined by the Marxist critic Louis Althusser to refer to the process whereby the dominant hegemony, or prevailing ideology, forms the attitudes of people in society. interpretive community Atermcoined by the reader-oriented critic Stanley Fish to desig nate a group of readers who share the same interpretive strategies. intertextuality Aterm denoting that any given text's meaning or interpretation is related or interrelated to the meaning of all other texts. Hence, no text can be interpreted in isolation, and all texts are intertextual. irony The use of words whereby a writer or speaker suggests the opposite of what is actually stated. According to NewCritics such as Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, and I. A. Richards, irony is the key to the "dramatic structure" of poetry and unlocks the door to show how meaning is contained in and evolves froma poem's structure. NewCritics believe a poem's meaning is structurally determined, created by the tension between the denotative meaning of a poem s words and their connotations, which are, in turn, determined by the context of that par ticular poem. Irony, then, is "an equilibrium of [these] opposing attitudes and evaluations," which ultimately determines the poem's meaning and is the master trope in New Criticism.  jouissance Atermused by the psychoanalytic critic Jacques Lacan to refer to a brief moment of joy, terror, or desire that somehow arises fromdeep within the unconscious psyche and re minds us of a time of perfect wholeness when we were incapable of differentiating among im ages from the real order. See imaginary order and symbolic order. language Defined by the linguist Thomas Pyles as "a systematized combination of sounds that have meaning for all people in a given cultural community." Broadly speaking, language may be considered any system of signs or codes that convey meaning, such as road signs, the"language of fashion (wearing different clothes in different social settings), or even the language of eating. langue The linguistic termused by Ferdinand de Saussure to refer to the rules that comprise a language or the structure of the language that is mastered and shared by all its speakers. Bythe age of five or six, children have mastered their language's langue, although they have not mas tered the exceptions. For example, a six-year-old may say, "1  drinked a glass of milk" and "I climbed a tree." Having mastered his or her langue, what the child has learned is that most English verbs form their past tense by adding -d or -ed. What the child has not mastered is the many exceptions to this rule, in this case, the past tense of the irregular verb to drink. latent content Aterm used by Sigmund Freud in psychoanalytic dreaminterpretation. It is Freud's view that the ego (the rational part of the psyche) hides the true wish or latent c o n t e n t of our dreams, thereby allowing the dreamer to remember a somewhat changed and often radically different dreamthan the one that actually occurred.

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h a tin g ^ #|ock or the entire vocabulary of a language. 8" wW^ $igmund Frcud in psychoanalysis that has become V&«° Kd term uthis designation to refer to the emotional enervv th^ ynonym ou» vwith ^ith nymous *s ^* . jJneica* r i v—oe - i s usually directed toward some goal. thatSpnn«s pnm-Pr,ngs fromprim ^t>i°logiC a U sed to refer to someth.ng something that has a definitebeeinnim, definite be***—-»'v Atertnused it> Aterm u one’s worldvtew. worldview, for for example, consic C' vot lifeor example, may may be be considered S ’ ^   Aphiscience of language and human speech, including .u ' 8  the study of sounds, inflectjug^^ure, and modification of language. model A term coined by the feminist critic Elaine Showalter to h u *  for constructing a female framework for analyzing litera 1   o?^ "1beone°^he to* 7 3/known as gynocriticism. The linguistic model particularly a d d r ^ T 31* " 8 ° Vera11 " f ^ r s e . investigating the differences be,wee„Phow met a n d 1“»*<*• **2ing to Showalter. women create and write in a language peculiar to M

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S (*e concept it represents). See sign. me S18 literacy experience An event that occurs when a reader and print interact, literariness Aterm used by the Russian Formalists to refer to the languageusedin a workof * Suchlanguage calls attention to itself as language, thus foregrounding itself. literacy experience A term used by the reader-oriented critic Louise Rosenblatt to explain W happens when a reader interacts with print. According to Rosenblatt, when a literacyexW3 or eVent occurs, the reader and the text transact, effectively shaping each other. lit rary competence An internalized set of rules that govern a reader's interpretation of a text The critic Jonathan Culler states that all readers possess literary competence, or theability tomake sense of a text. literary critic One who interprets literature. This term often implies one who is an expert at interpretinga text. Anyone, however, who reads and offers an interpretation of a text isa prac ticingliterary critic. ,, . literary criticism According to the nineteenth-century English critic and writer Matthew

Arnold, "a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagatethe ^attempts^ study analyze, theworld." Literary criticism is, therefore, a disciplined activity that attempts to study, analy interpret, and evaluate works of art.

literary theory A set of principles or based. Our personal literary theory is our consci ^—■includingvalues, aesthetic sense, and morals—^con^erT

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literature Derived from the or verse. Jacques ^ rrida ^centers." manlyto the written word, especial y p Heconstructionis J errida ca hasiSfora» A .erm used by .be fru.hs, « » .be Astern culture's proclivity for desiring or center of  W°centrism is the belief that an ultima e 0urOughts and actions.

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 J _ i >n nsVchoanalytic dream Interpretation. ^  true wish or latent content Aterm used by Sigmund Freud P nunKtil content ewha| changed and often radically Freud Argues that the ego or the rational part ot tut y ot out dreams and allows the dreamer to rememoe . m ls the manifest content that ditterent dream uiau than what actually — j occurred. its i uim-mu uivaui the dreamer remembers and tells his or her r*am a succcssfuUy a commodity sells, market Atermused by Marxist enhes to de me incipies articulated by Friedrich Marxism An approach to literary analysis f°un P primarily a literary ther ^ S ' ^ T   politica Engels and Karl Marx. Unlike other ory hut can be used to interpret a text. It is first a set ' th
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ii a^ ary ^ ^ t h a t we literally see ourselves in a mirror, and/or w Z rM°rc*er, ? ? the the lm iI*#' * afl a$se mother's .iUnr'c imaffe. nnr. ^ etaphoricallv yseeourimage. Seeine Seeingthis thismirror mirrorimaoo image permits * 1V*^ ndaries, thereby allowing us to become aware of o w s d v « t h a t ' h a v e discrete ^parate fromour mothers. as mdependent beings 7 ^ Atenn used in feminist criticismto refer toa hadedordistmst womm \ L aks According to the deconstructionist critic Jacques Derrida at Som ‘ authorloses control of language and says what was supposedly not T  ma11 ^ p e a k in g .- Sueh slips of the tongue usually occu, ta ^ 2 strongdeclarations. By examining these slips and thebinary operations that govern*em 2 ridabelieves he is able to demonstrate the undecidability of a text's meaning § modernism Aliterary movement in both England and the United States cons.deredbysome tohavebegunwith the influence of the French symbolist poetry of Charles Baudelaire and Paul Valeryat thebeginning of the twentieth century. Some assert that this period begins in 1914 *,th the start of World War I, and ends right after World War II; still others mark its ending around1965. . . . , , , However its span is dated, modernism is marked, as T. S. Eliot notes, by an impersonal viewofhumanityandproduced a literature that is distinctly antiromantic andantiexpressionistic. Inits ardent search for meaning through form, modernismtypically uses hard, dry language thatassertsthat feelings and emotions are elicited by the text itself throughthetextual arrange mentof its images. By rejecting a merely personal reading of a work, modernismdeclares that a text'smeaningcan be found by examining its structure, a technique that is especially true for poetry. The modernist period provides literary criticism with a formal explanation for howa poemor anyother work of literature achieves or produces meaning through its form, modernity Atermused synonymously with the Enlightenment or Ageof Reason (eighteenth century) by many critics who hold to two basic premises: a belief that reason is humankind's bestguideto life and that science can lead humanity to a new promised land, monomyth Atermused in the archetypal criticism of Northrop Frye, who states that all liter aturecomprises one complete and whole story called the monomyth. This monomyth can est k diagrammedas a circle containing four separate phases, with eachphase correspon ingto a seasonof the year and to peculiar cycles of human experiences. The phases are romance summer story of total happiness and wish fulfillment), antiromance (the ^rlI*l*er ^• ^Hdage, imprisonment, frustration, and fear), comedy (the spring story t a e s o * *  Nation to freedomand happiness), and tragedy (the fall haPPmesstodisaster). According to Frye, all stories fall somewhere within these g ■ «°n>h«ne Usedin linguistics to describe the smallest part of a word tha‘has *e^ica ° g he ^ificance. For example, whereas the word dog contains one morpheme, g! , rnmnound dogs contains two morphemes, (dog) and {-s). Used in linguistics to desCTibethe process of word formation, such as compoun dsandinflections.

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. C taUi\v Uvi-Strau»» that refers to the Aterm coined by the structuralist ^ myth# Ihcw>basic structures, mythtnifi many recurrent theme's running through humankma _ th, primary building blocks of he maintains, are similar to the individual sounds * ^ and through their relationships language itself, l ike these sounds, mythemes lino m lZ ^ lhe mpaning b v llu meaning of any individual myth myth within the mythic structure, not in their oven ini found within the story, depends on the interaction and order of the myt tm ^ archetypal patterns to explain the esDecially emphasized by Carl mythic criticism Criticism that examines archetypes a structure and significance of texts. This type of criticism was esp y  Jung and Northrop Frye. See archetypal criticism. . . r „rald prinCe to refer to the person to narratee Atermusedby the structuralist and t u r n ^ narratee is not the actual person whomthe narrator of a text is speaking. It is Pnnce s v reading the text but, in fact, is produced by the narrative itseli. narrateme A term synonymous with narrative function. w narrative functions According to the Russian narratologist Vladimir Pr° P P ' * " [ ° * ° r  tales are composed of a sequence of thirty-one fixed elements, or narrative occur in the same order in all fairy tales. Each function identifies predictable patterns that central characters will enact to further the plot of the story. narratologist A particular kind of structuralist who uses the principles of narratology to in terpret texts. narratology Aform of structuralism espoused by Gerald Prince, Vladimir Propp, Tzvetan Todorov, Roland Barthes, and Gerard Genette that illustrates how a story s meaning develops from its overall structure (its langue) rather than from each individual story s isolated theme. To ascertain a text's meaning, narratologists emphasize grammatical elements such as verb tenses and the relationships and configurations of figures of speech within the story, naturalism A term that refers to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century view of life that emphasizes the importance of scientific thought and determinism in literary study. A natu ralistic critic views humans as animals who respond in deterministic ways to their environ ments and internal drives. neoplatonic A term used to describe any philosophical system that closely resembles that es tablished by Plato, thus the prefix neo, meaning "new." The term originated in the third century in Alexandria in a philosophical system that mixed Asian, Platonic, and Christian beliefs. neurosis A nervous disorder that has no known bodily or physical cause that can lead to a va riety of physical and psychological abnormalities. New Criticism Aloosely structured school of criticism that dominated American literary criticism from the early 1930s to the 1960s. Named after John Crowe Ransom's 1941 book The New Criticism , the theory is based on the view that a work of art or a text is a concrete object that can, like any other concrete object, be analyzed to discover its meaning independent of its author's intention or the emotional state or values of either its author or reader. For New Critics a poem's meaning must reside within its own structure (in New Criticism, the word  poem refers'to any text, not only a poem). By giving a poema close reading, the New Critics believe they can determine a text's correct meaning.  J  Often referred to as "the text and text alone" approach to literary analysis, NewCriticismhas found many practitioners, such as John Crowe Ransom, Ren£ Wellek W K Wimsatt R P Blackmur I A. Richards Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn Warren. With'the publication of Brooks and Warren s 1938 college text Understanding Poetry, New Criticism became the dominant approach to textual analysis until the 1960s. New Critics Critics who use the doctrines, assumptions, and methodology of New Criticism in their literary analysis. New Historicism The American branch of Cultural Poetics. Appearing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, New Historicism is one of the most recent approaches to textual analysis. Ledbysuch

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sucking our thumbs and, still later, ^ s,n« _ a ^ 9lructur, is simiiar to a living pUnt, organic unity Atermdesen ing ‘ ® 1P complex interrelationship. First advancedby withall itspartssuPPorhngeachotherandlw 8 * h concept of the organic unity of a the nineteenth-century support "he text's centra, .deader * workof art declares that each par Daradox. No part of a text is superfluous, but similar the NewCritics would call it, thewor P whoie. The whole is, therefore, greater than to a livingorganism, each part serves to enhan thesumof its parts. theory bv Edward Said that refers to the creOrientalism Atermintroduced ^ AsianS/ are indolent, thought f  ation of non-European stereotypes that suggest Orientals, or S' less, sexually immoral, unreliable, and demented. „ ... ____ Atermused by Russian Formalists that translates as making Strang* Through t T *  rhyme1  other litemry devices, poetic diction or % % strange" familiar words, thereby causing readers to reexamine and expenence afresh word, image, or symbol. See defamiliarization. Other Atermusedin feminist criticism(the "not-male" and thus unimportant) andpostcolo nialism(thecolonized) to mean "different from" and unimportant, that which is dominated, paradox Atermused by the NewCritics (especially Cleanth Brooks) to help explain the naEire and essence of poetry. According to Brooks, scientific language must be precise and exact. On the other hand, poetry's chief characteristic is its many rich connotations, not the scientific denotations of words. The meaning of a poemis, therefore, built on paradox, a juxtaposition of connotations andmeanings that all support the poem's central idea. Language, assert the New Critics, is complex and can sustain multiple meanings. According to Brooks, the language of poetry is the language of paradox." parapraxes Atermcoined by Sigmund Freud for slips of tongue, failures of memory, acts of misplacing an object, and other so-called mistakes we make, all of which can be directly traced to our unconscious desires, wishes, or intentions. parole Alinguistic termused by Ferdinand de Saussure and others to refer to an individual's actual speech utterances, as opposed to langue, the rules that comprise a language. An individ ual can generate countless examples of parole, but all are governedby the language's structure, its langue. For Saussure and other linguists, the proper study of linguistics is the system—the langue—not parole. patriarchal A termused by feminist critics and others to describe a society or culture domi nated by men; the adjective formof patriarchy. patriarchy Asocietal or social organization in which men hold a disproportionate amount of power. In such a society, men define what it means to be human, including what it means to be female. penis envy According to Sigmund Freud, the unfulfilled desire all women have for a penis; this desire causes themto possess a sense of lack throughout their lives. See Electra complex. personal conscious Atermused in psychoanalytic criticism to refer to the part of the human psyche that directly perceives and interacts with the external world. It is sometimes referred to as the waking state because the personal conscious is the image or thought of which weare aware at any given moment.

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phenomenology Founded by Edmund Husserl, a modern philosophical tendencv Z T phasizes the perceiver. Objects exist and achieve meaning if and only if we register themn consciousness. Phenomenological critics are concerned with the ways that ou r  conscTousnZ perceivesworks of art. philologist The name given to a linguist before the mid-twentieth century. Aphilologist is onewho describes, compares, and analyzes the languages of the world to discover their similaritiesand relationships. philology The science of linguistics before the mid-twentieth century; in current usage, the termrefers to historical and comparative linguistics. Typically, whereas philology approached the study of language diachronically, present-day linguistics uses both the diachronic and synchronic approaches. phoneme A linguistic term for the smallest distinct and significant sounds that comprise a language. Phonemes are the primary building blocks of language. American English, for exam ple, contains approximately forty-five phonemes, such as /p/, /b/, and /k/. phonetically The adverbial form of phonetics. phonetics The study of how sounds are classified, described, and transcribed within a partic ularlanguage. phonocentrism A term coined by the French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida that asserts that Western culture pri vi le ges  or prefers speech over writing. See privileged. Phonologically The adverbial form of phonology. Phonology The study of the various sound changes in a word or a particular language, o “Eludingthe study of phonetics. , . nsvche ^*a*ure Principle Introduced by Sigmund Freud in his economic m e instantaneous sah f efinedaSthat part o (  the human psyche that craves on y p eaS,UP. estat,jjShedbysociety. a new interpretation actionof instinctual drives. It ignores moral an d sexu a oun Atermused by Louise M. Rosenblatt that refers to ‘h e of countless rereading* ofth mea reader transacts with a text, whether it is a firstreadl g h YNewCritics generally textinterpretation becomes the poem, thenewcreation. N Z ^ * is termto refer to any literary work.

322

Glossary

Written by Aristotle, the earliest known work containing a definition of literature particularly thegenre of tragedy. poetics Atermused by the Russian Formalists to mean an analysis of a literary work's con stituent parts, including all its linguistic andstructural features. See form.  p o et ik es The Greek word meaning "things that are made or crafted. In critical theory, this word refers to Aristotle's text Poetics, which contains the components or crafted parts" of a tragedy. political unconscious Aterm coined by the Marxist critic Fredric Jameson. Borrowing Freud's idea of a repressed unconscious, Jameson posits the existence of apolitical unconscious, or repressed conditions of exploitation and oppression. The function of literary analysis,  Jameson declares, is to uncover the political unconscious present in a text, polyphonic novel Atermcoined by the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin to describe thosenov els for which their authors had no prescribed outcome or overall structural outline before writ ing the texts. The "truth" that the novel expresses is an active creation in the consciousness of theauthor, the reader, andthecharacters interacting asequal participants. For Bakhtin, thetruth or worth of apolyphonic novel requires a plurality of consciousnesses; it is not solely thework ingout of the author's worldview. See nonpolyphonic novel. postcolonial criticism Criticismthat investigates ways that texts bear traces of colonialism's ideology and interpret such texts as challenging or promoting the colonizer s purposes and hegemony. Those who engage in this type of criticismanalyze canonical texts fromcolonizing countries. postcolonial feminism Atype of feminist criticismthat embraces the theories andpracticesof postcolonialism. Postcolonial feminismrejects thephallocentric, patriarchal systemestablishedby white males andrecognizes that it is engagedin apolitical andsocial struggle against male domi nance. Postcolonial feminists likenthemselves to colonized subjects who are definedby the "male gaze" andare thus reducedto stereotypes andsubjected to the long-lastingsocial andeconomic ef fects of colonialism. These critics reject the termwoman, believing that such usage defines females by only their sex. postcolonialism or post-colonialism Oneofthemostrecentapproaches to literaryanalysisto appearontheliteraryscene. PostcolonialismconcernsitselfwithliteraturewritteninEnglishinfor merlycolonizedcountriessuchasAustralia, NewZealand,Africa, andSouthAmerica, whichwere once dominated by but remained outside of the white, European males' cultural, political, and philosophical tradition. Postcolonialismusually excludes Literaturethat represents either British or American viewpoints. Often referred to as "third-world literature" by Marxist critics—a termmany other critics think pejorative—postcolonialisminvestigates what happens when two cultures clash and one of them, with its accompanying ideology, empowers and deems itself superior to the other. Postcolonial theorists include Fredric Jameson, Georg Gugelberger, Edward W. Said, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin, Frantz Fanon, Ian Adam, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, and others. postcolonial theory Astrain of postcolonial criticismthat moves beyond the bounds of lit erary studies and investigates social, political, and economic concerns of the colonized and the colonizer. postist critics Critics who come after structuralism, such as postmodernists, poststructuralists, and postcolonialists. postmodern feminisms One of four categories of contemporary feminist theory dating from 1990 to the present; includes theorists and critics such as Jane Gallop, Judith Butler, Uma Narayan, and Mary Daly. postmodernism Atermoften used synonymously with deconstruction and poststructural ism. First used inliterary circles in the 1930s, thetermgained in popularity during the late 1960s Poetics

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part of the mind allows to be brought to consciousness without disguise in some otheZZf These memories are manageable m the consciousness without "masking." prescriptive grammar Rules sanctioned or authorized by grammarians who believe edu catedpeople should speak and write in the correct way (i.e., the correct wayspecifically defined bythese grammarians). private symbol

See symbol.

A term introduced into literary criticism by the Frenchdeconstructionist Jacques Derrida. According to Derrida, Western society bases its values and metaphysical assump tions on opposites, such as good/bad, light/dark, and true/false. In each of these pairs, Derrida asserts, Western culture values or  p r iv il e g e s the first element and devalues or unprivileges the second. privileged

p ro du ct io n t h e o r y

A t e r m d e v e l o p e d b y t h e M a r x i st c r it ic L ou is A lt hu ss er lh at r e j e c t s ^ a s 

sumption of reflection theory t h a t t h e superstructure m u s t d ir ec tl y r ef le ct th e ^ asserts that literatu re sh ou ld n o t b e stric tly relegate d to the superstructure; furthermore, iieves that the su pe rstru ctur e can an d d oe s influen ce the base. proletariat

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Proletariat, defines and articulates a society s ideology. oetry, such as rhythm, meter, Proso<*y The mechanical or structural elements that c° P us|ywith versification. tyme, stanza, diction, alliteration, and so forth. Used sy y emoti0nal and psychologP*ychoanalysi» A method first used by Sigmund has the patient talk freely  J* 1^^ders. During this type of therapy, the psyc 0r her childhood experiences and dreams. Sigmund Freud 5 c r i t i c ! The application of ^interpreting works of literature. Because developing *naes P ain the hows and whys of human actions vvi

hoanaly^^

324

Glossary

, New Historicism use psychoanalyse

V. irvism feminism, and

. oretiCal assumptions.

of crtflcal « * » * » ,U* "^withoui violating thou own >#arlists arc neurotic. Unlike methods intheir ‘" f SeismisFreud's »ss“" P“anitetations and results of neurosts

Central topsychoanalytic of the outward m ^ wholeness. other neurotics, the artist esc P ^ yhvvayback to ^ne or fantasy. Atext, then, can be by findingin the act of cmat» J f is really an arhst s d d wish. Just as if he were Freud believes that a l that the dreamis ^ wish as lt evidences it* analyzed like a drca"\F to uncover the meaning *  J d ^ ethodology of psychoanaly-

Northrop Frye, andJacques Lacan, have revise

their ownmethodologies for literary analysis. inist criticism devised by Elaine psychoanalytic model One of four approach^ ^ a femaie framework for the Showalter under the umbrella name the female psyche and demonstrates how analysis of women's literature. This model ana'>, the flux and fluidity of female writing  suchan analysis affects the writingprocess, emphasizing  asopposedto male writings ngidity andstruc use§ biographical data of an author psychobiography Amethod of m* f ^ ^ 8ltures and other sources to construct the augained throughbiographies, personal letters, Jectares^ neuroses, thor's personality, with all its idiosyncrasies, internal and external coni public symbol See symbol. «»«« t h e y Oneof the most recent schools of literary criticism (1991-present), rt questions the terms we use to describe ourselves such as heterosexual or homosexual. Such words, claims queer theory, are socially constructed and do not define who we are. Disavowing essentialism andembracingsocial constructivism, queer theory assumes that our personal identities are un stable andin constant flux. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, one of queer theory's leading theorists, declares, "All peoplearedifferent." What it means tobe male or female is always in flux. Queer theorychallengestheassumptions of sexual identity, gender, and sexual difference, maintaining that our identities are connected to what we do andwho we are, not to our supposed essence. Our identities arenot the cause of our performances. Who we are is performative; that is, what we ourselves declare ourselves to be. race Used in postcolonial theory to refer to a class of people based on physical and cultural distinctions. reader-oriented criticism Rising to prominence in literary analysis in the early 1970s reader-oriented criticismasserts that the reader is active, not passive, during the reading pro cess. Both the reader andthe text transact and share a transactional experience: The text  f c l  as a snmo'us for ehciting various experiences, thoughts, and ideas of the reader those found !n both real life and readingexperiences. Simultaneously, the text shapes the read selecting, limiting, andorderingtheideas thatbest conformto the text ^ e r H e>? ? * a a * ’ honis a newcreation called a poem For reader orient u ^ r e s u l t m 8  ^terpretathepoembeing another name to, the text’s interpretation'orm^tag POem ----- —meaning  + text? W*hoiTthe^eader? D^Tt^reader ot thetext^ °* qUeStk™ 'SUCh3S' Wh3t * 3 text's interpretation? What part does the author nlav COI?bmatlon of both determine the most important, What is ^reading process? P Ym 3  WOrks ^erpretation? and perhaps differe" ' — S T * " consists of the physical world^indu^int^ho 6

o' 'he -d in g

ftage °f Psychic development, which

a, including the material universe and everything in it. It also

G,(*sary

u Hies ev ery t hi ng a p erso n i s n o t m ,

325

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 ft*1 ^ J s of readers—real, virtual anH 'Qt°^0g ist r ° n' e r c°m.n ^ , r the « , ^ P „„Ce  j,deal reader. Person a c f ^  then*rra t*° d i f f e r ^ , .

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aeS ^ - H* P ^ P i ^ o S " 1^ 'h e n e e d for Lie *  ch^ s desire *vSee pleasure principle. for pleasure. r a ---WK, ne f^ H . .. ~C£  *•_ an3* aesthetics Another term for affective stylistics. p

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i * * * ! are applied to textual analysis. A text's meaning, th e ^ u e ™ * * *  theore*a l aspresent reader's personal response and from a critical e x a m S !™ 1? J 6 derived both from P ^ text through time, including contemporary critics of the a ?u°f * * history of the  jiving at the present moment. e auth°r of the text in ad-

In linguistics, the entity-object, state of affairs, and so forth-in u, * * * « ?  or symbolized by a word or form. For examp,*. the r e l e r e n ^ X ^ d S

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L d h . t h-'X ° " e ° ‘, * e «rhes, Iheories developed by Marxist critics toexplain dw SUp S " “ ^ 2 ^ * h SUpere,rUC,Urc' A PosiHon held by Kar, Marx earlyt career, Ibis Iheory asserts that the base or economic structure of society directly affects Ld Lroines a society's values; social, political, educational, and legal institutions; art; and beliefs—or- taken collectively, what Marx calls a society's superstructure. Simply put, the rstructurereflects or mirrors the base. Although a few Marxist critics still hold to this posi tionmost nowassert that the relationship between the base and the superstructure is much morecomplex than originally believed. The term vulgar Marxism is used to describe the form ofMarxismthat still holds to the reflection theory, reflectionism See reflection theory. relativism The belief held by some literary critics that a text has an infinite number of valid interpretations. relativistic critic Critic who uses various and even contradictory theories in critiquing a workofart. rhetoric Often defined as the art of speaking and writing effectively. Founded ^ Greeceby CoraxofSyracuse in the fifth century BCE, rhetoric set forth the pnnc.pfesandrules^compos. tionforspeech. Today the term is used by such critics as Kenneth Barthes,andJacques Derrida and refers to patterns of structure oun w . writers Hiebasisfor much modem criticism. rhetorical criticism A form of criticism that emphasizes the^^cdved ways, emphasizing ^ tomanipulate readers to interpret the writers' works in preconceived ways, P critic, to explain theone ***art andtechniques of persuasion. ronuncePhase One of four phases used by Northrop F*^e' * the romance phase is completeor whole story of literature, the monomyth, n e total happiness. summer" story when all our wishes are fulfilled an we vVilliamWordsworth anTcnticism Aliterary movement that dates t o  t h e ction  against the eighteenth^ Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in 1798. As to , living P -" ';'

2 * ? AS' ■>»^ason. Romanticism asserts that the worldI » «

^ lnlth, Romanticsrt de-

clare?hatbeC°min8/ and asPirin8 *denying r e a s o n as1 of themselves an * * chtoa tadivi? ,Intuition can lead them to an understand g b lued.A* an app ’dual concerns, the emotions, and the imagination are to

i 326

Glossary

text. Romanticismconcerns itself with the artist's feelings and attitudes exhibited within the

Using the principles of science, the Russian Formalists believed that to study a literary work is to studyits literariness, or the language used in the text. Unlike everyday speech, literary lan guage foregrounds itself, shouting, "Look at me; I amspecial." Through structure, imagery, syntax, and a host of other literary devices, literary language has the capacity to make strange ordinary words, putting them in a new light, a process called defamiliarization. Such estrangement causes readers to slowdown their perceptionof the word or image and experience afresh that word or image. Because the Russian Formalists were not willing to view literature through the Stalinist regime's political and ideological perspectives, the former Soviet government disbanded their literary groups. Their influence flourished in the former Czechoslovakia in the writings of the Prague Linguistic Circle andindirectly influenced Anglo-American NewCriticism, sadistic-anal phase Another termfor Freud's anal stage in a child's development, schools of criticism Agroup of critics who share common concerns about reading, writing, and interpretation. Examples of such schools are NewCriticism, reader-oriented criticism, structuralism, deconstruction, NewHistoricism, and ecocriticism. semanalysis Anewsciencedevelopedby the psychoanalytic critic Julia Kristeva, whobelieves that during the Lacanian premirror stage of development, a child experiences a lack or separation fromthe mother, who shapes meaning and gives significance, moving fromthis lack to desire. An emotional force tied to our instincts, called semiotique, develops. Using these ideas, Kristeva ex plores howsignificationor meaning continues to develop throughout our entire lives, semantic features Used in linguistics to refer to those properties of words that help identify the different shades of meaning and relationships a word may have to surrounding phrases, clauses, and sentences. semantics Used in linguistics to denote the study of howw’ords combine to make meaning within a language. semiology Proposed by the structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure, this new science would study howwe create meaning through signs or codes in all our social behavioral systems. Because language was the chief and most characteristic of these systems, Saussure declared that it was to be the main branch of this newscience. Although semiology never became the impor tant newscience Saussure envisioned, a similar science, semiotics, did develop and is still practiced today. scmiotic interpretation Areading of signs to determine a text's intemretati™ rwinned

that allow it to operate. Because it ■*«* often used interv-k, ___ f ^ploy;

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'are f Z UT d ^ ^ h a n g e a b lT ;^ m«hods 3» ^ ‘ Tar field of study, structuralism is more an * * H°'veVer ^ Lby stnictur . L e e A group of words that expresses ^P" Mch >ol i t e ^ - e n u ^ *" «« » * * %

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“ "forms to "restsbcontemporary feminist criticism that advocates separation from  , «tin*s,n A J ,ccUmes that women must first see themselves in a diff m«i, ,0r 2 * T Afferent   *h e n e c e s s a r y " t heX i n d i v i d u a l i t y .SUC" 3 SePa' a' ,0n '15 S st eP
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A , c rm i n tr o d u c e d b y K a te M ill et ! w ith

" “ " s t e rn as lib id a

" P*«

* becom e s y n o n y m o u s w i t h th e s ec o n d w a v e o f f e r n i t u l ^ “ ' W ‘' i « ( lW ) Th , L a l i t y an d id e o lo g ic a l i n d o c tr in a t io n h a v e b ee n th e c h j Wh,Ch that L L ™ S p a t r i a r c h y a , th e c e n te r o f t h e fe m in is t n T e m ^ °' o p S ™ ' ” T d is tin ct io ns b e t w e e n s e x a n d g e n d e r , t h e f i rs t b e i n g

^ “f '

' or m a ls o d

a l Conforming o r n o t c o n f o r m i n g t o p r e s cr ib e d c u l tu r a l le x m l « dL " " be“ * Psychologi L o f w h a t M i ll e t d u b s s e x u a l p o l i t ic s . * * r° le s d i n a , ed b y society

P The t er m

h a s a l s o b e e n u s e d b y A n n e t t e K o l o d n y t o as s er t t ha t f

a pluralistic appr o ach to litera ry criticism . K olodny assumes that a n ! " ™

mtics must accept

bUity of many differen t rea d ing s; suc h an app roach, she argues, is both

sign A lingu istics term first use d by the Fren ch structuralist Ferdinand de s ,

^

^

Ummatm8 '

thedefinition for a w o rd. Fo r Sau ssu re, a word represents an abstract concept n S T Jf the objective world or a sy m bo l that s up po sed ly equ als something else A X d is a “ thing that has m ean ing) co m po sed o f both a signifier and a signified. ^ (s° me'

Aterm used in literary criticism, theories of reading, and linguistics to denote theprocess by which we arrive at meaning through linguistic signs or other symbolic means. signified Aterm used by the French structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure that denotes one part of a word. Saussure proposed that all words are actually signs composed of two parts: the signifier and the signified. The signified is the concept to which the signifier—a writtenorspoken wordor sound—refers. Similar to the two sides of a sheet of paper, the linguistic sign is theunion of the signifier and the signified. signifier Aterm used by the French structuralist Ferdinand de Saussurethat denotes one part of a word. The signifier is the spoken or written constituent, such as the sound /1/andthe or thographic (written) symbol t See signified and sign. simile Afigure of speech that compares two unlike objects using the word like or as, such as "His nose is like a cherry." The objects being compared cannot be fromthe same class. For ex ample, the statement "London is like Paris" contains no simile because the objects beingco paredare from the same class (i.e., both are cities).  jocial constructivism A theory concerning the nature of eTilTno^ercore umamst's concept of essentialism. Social constructivism argu describe peopleareso0 humanessence that can be defined with finite terms. A1 terms u mus^be deconstructed a i nUJie/   and female  are Pa^y instructed and steeped in ideological assumptions,  J .hey can be reconstrocted. Words such as h o w o s e x m l ™ B, ^meaning with societal prejudices and must be reexamined. For soctal construct, ^ words is always in flux. rfeature tells one story, the 2 * * * Fh.se According to the mythic critic Northrop Frye, ^ storyo( humanity's r,l °my,h. which consists of four phases. The spring P hunt frustration and anxiety to freedom and happmess. signification

328

Glossary

structural modal Another name for the tripartite model of Freud's model of the human psy. che consisting of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. structuralism An approachto literary analysis that flourished in the 1960s. By using the tech-

niques, methodologies, and vocabulary of linguistics as articu ate y cr man e aussure, structuralismoffers a scientific viewof howwe achieve meaning not on y in 1 erary works but also in all forms of communication and social behavior. Structuralists believe that codes, signs, and rules govern all social and cultural practices, in cluding communication, the ''language" of sports, friendships, e ucation, an iterature. Structuralists want to discover the codes that they believe give meaning to all our social andcul tural customs. The proper study of meaning and, therefore, reality is an examination of thesys tembehind these practices, not the individual practices themselves. For structuralist critics, theproper study of literature becomes a study of the conditions sur rounding the act of interpretation itself, not an in-depth investigation of an individual work. Structuralists believe that a studyof the grammar, or the systemof rules that govern literary in terpretation, becomes the critic's primary task. Practiced by such critics as Jonathan Culler, Tzvetan Todorov, Roland Barthes, and Gerard Genette, structuralismchallenges NewCriticism's methodology for finding meaning within a text. structuralist narratology Aformof structuralismdefined as the science of narrative and used by such critics as Vladimir Propp, Tzvetan Todorov, Roland Barthes, and Gerard Genette. Narratologists illustrate howa story's meaning develops fromits overall structure, including elements suchas theme, persona, voice, style, grammatical structure, and tone, structural linguistics Atermused synonymously with linguistics, the science of language. stylistics Aformof structuralism that interprets a text on the basis of its style—that is, dic tion, figurative language, syntax, vocabulary, sentence structure, andothers. subaltern writers Atermcoined by the Marxist critic Antonio Gramsci to refer to writers among those classes of people who are not in control of a culture's ideology or its hegemony. These writers, such as African-Americans, provide newways to see and understand cultural forces at work in literature and in ourselves. superego AtermusedbySigmund Freud to designate that part of the psyche that acts like an internal censor, causing us to make moral judgments in light of social pressures, as differenti ated fromthe id and the ego. superstructure Atermusedby Karl Marx to designate that part of a culture that contains the social, legal, political, and educational systems along with the religious beliefs, values, and art of a society and which embodies a society's ideology that is controlled by the dominant social class, or the bourgeoisie. By controlling the base, the bourgeoisie determines a society's super structure and, thus, controls and oppresses the workingclass, or proletariat. See Marxism. supplement Atermcoined by the French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida to explain the relationship between two parts of any hierarchy upon which Western culture bases its meta physics. For example, Derrida says Western society values light over dark. The exact relation ship between light and dark, Derrida asserts, is not totally clear. Derrida uses the term supplement to refer to the unstable relationship between the two elements contained in this hier archy. Rather than being two totally separate entities, light and dark supplement each other. Who, for example, can declare it to belight or dark whenit is dusk? Each termthus helps define the other and is necessary for theother toexist. supplementation The act of supplementing. See supplement. symbol An image that represents someth,ng else and that can have multiple interpretations. Ihere are hvo types: a pubhc symbol embodies universal meaning, such as a rose representing love or water symbohzmg hfe, and a private symbol obtains its meaning fromthe way in which it ,s used ina text, suchas the scarlet A in Nathaniel Hawthorne's romance The Scarlet Utter.

Glossary 329 rding 1° )aCClUCS LaC37 ' the Sym^ °U uC° rder is the second phas* of our AccOrt« h which we leam language. In this stage we alsolearn to d.fferentiw0liC °rfn0tnent. du" J ter gender differences, and learn cultural norms and laws. genderS' that our fathers represent these cultural norms, and thus we master a >te

t^ e w’Or^ ’ introduced by the French structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure ot \inguistiC terms of language analysis that studies one language at onepartiala'a wrot»ic , ;onate a ProCe* :7;ne. how that language functions, not its historical deveW 

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titne in wa long eXPa

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matical structure of a sentence, particularly

develop-

^arucularly the arrangementof ts e d tu n g u is U c s to describe ihe rules goveuun* IV  , ^rds ^inophrases, rd sendees. . governing the arrangement rrf clauses, duu ^ uences 1thesis

A term used by the German nk-i nr. According (o Hegel, a Ihesis is presented? at develops from the ensuing debate or discuis

~ 6 lllt *  Geor§ Hegel to " *  by a ho* *w ideas

» A - - termed coined by the Russian Formalist v “ " * ^

prose  ; narrative has two aspects: fabula fabula or or svuzh «v.t,k ,a ?^° r ShW°«ky. Accord  , devices writer uses s to r y ^ ^fabuI^opWB* Ufhet <« Plot) c o n s ^ , ?  ,ces aa writer uses to to transform transform the the story (see ......

digressions, surpnses, disruption, and so forth, the wrLr° , ^ “ ^such^literarydei work has the potential "to make fabuIa' makingthe —of literature • s u r pthat n s e snow render a fresh view of the text's languagethe T S F * * ' miliarization. 8 8 ' the reader s world, or both. See (logical The adjective of the philosophical term teleology, the studvof thee -a

in the natural world. It denotes a worldview or philosophyof life assem1 F^osetui  g forward toward some known end, especially one relating to nature. ion A term used in literary criticism that is synonymous with conflict. It designatesthe 3 >sitions or conflicts operating with a text. Aterm used by the Russian Formalists to mean a unified collectionofvariousliteraryde»and conventions that can be objectively analyzed. iretical criticism Type of criticism that formulates the theories, principles, andtenets of lature and value of art. By citing general aesthetic and moral principles of art, theoretical :ism provides the necessary framework for practical criticism.

-is Aterm developed by the German philosopher Georg Hegel to explain hownewideas

ir. Hegel asserts that a thesis (a statement) is presented, fo llow ed  by a counterstatement, the thesis. The new idea that will emerge from the debate or logical argument is t e syn k description Coined by the cultural M th r o p o lo ^ ^ li ^ r d O ^ ^ b ^ J^ the criticism via Cultural Poetics, this term is used y singly insignificant but abundant details presen in any y

e details, Cultural Poetics critics believe they can revea kwithin a culture. d-world feminism A term s y n o n y m o u s with postco H-world studies A term coined by the French

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According to Matthew Arnold,^ Iines a n d   writteacher, scholars and critics must "have a w a y 1Pa^ &{  the “sublime, ^ poetry." BycorT ^ f masters, and to apply them as a touchstone contain eleme * ^ the “masllnesby contemporary poets to the classical p or bad. HaV1"gher a contemporary C ,ritlc will instantly know whether a new  p o e m ■* j ^ f o g vvhe ch s to n e t h e o r y

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330

Glossary

work is good. In Arnold's theory the critic functions as an authority on values, culture, and tastes, becoming a watchdog tor high culture and its literature. toxic consciousness Coined by the ecocritic Cynthia Dei tering, this term refers to those works of literature that highlight apocalyptic themes in postindustnal ecosystems, traditional historical approach Methodologyof interpretation that asserts that a cntic place a work in its historical setting, paying attention to the author's life, the time period in which the work was written, and the cultural milieu of both the text and the author, tragedy Although the term is used in many different ways, in literary criticism, the term chiefly refers to Aristotle's definition found in the P o e t i c s . Tragedy is an imitation of a noble and complete action, having the proper magnitude; it employs language of linguistic adorn ment, applied separately in the various parts of the play; it is presented in dramatic, not narra tive form, and achieves, through the representation of pitiable and fearful incidents, the catharsis of such pitiable and fearful incidents." See hamartia. transactional Atermintroduced by Louise M. Rosenblatt to describe the process or event that takes place at a particular time and place when a reader transacts with a text. According to Rosenblatt, the text and the reader condition each other because the text acts as a stimulus or a blueprint for eliciting various experiences, thoughts, and ideas of the reader those found in both real life and in reading experiences. The result of this experience or "aesthetic transaction" is the creation of a poem, or what has been traditionally called the interpretation. See aesthetic read ing and transactional experience. transactional experience According to the reader-oriented critic Louise M. Rosenblatt, both the reader of a text and the text itself transact (not interact) during the reading process. The text acts as a stimulus for eliciting various experiences, thoughts, and ideas from the reader, those found in both our everyday existence and in reading experiences. Simultaneously the text shapes the reader's experiences, selecting, limiting, and ordering the ideas that best conformto the text. This overall event or act is what Rosenblatt dubs the transactional experience. transcendental signified Atermintroduced into literary criticismby the French deconstruc tionist Jacques Derrida. In trying "to turn Western metaphysics on its head," Derrida asserts that fromthe time of Plato to the present, Western culture has been founded upon a classic, fun damental error: the search for a transcendental signified, an external point of reference upon which one may build a concept or philosophy. Once found, this transcendental signified would provide ultimate meaning. It would guarantee a "center" of meaning, allowing those who believe in it to structure their ideas of reality around it. According to Derrida, Western meta physics has invented a variety of such centers, including God, reason, origin, being, truth, humanity, and the self. tripartite model Sigmund Freud's most famous model of the human psyche. In this model Freud divides the psyche into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. trope Atermsynonymous with a figure of speech or a word or phrase not meant to be taken literally. The termhas nowbeen used by several schools of criticismin a variety of specialized meanings. typographical model Amodel of the human psyche devised by Sigmund Freud. In this model Freud divides the psyche into three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.

Atermusedin Freudian psychoanalysis to refer to the part of the humanpsyche that receives and stores our hidden desires, ambitions, fears, passions, and irrational thoughts, undecidability Atermused by deconstructionists and other postmodern critics to decree that a text's meaning is always in flux, never final. Accordingly, foreclosure of meaning for any text is impossible. See aporia, arche-writing, deconstruction, misspeaks, and poststructuralism. unfinalizability Atermdevised by the Russian Formalists to assert that people can never be fully known, either to themselves or anyone else. unconscious

matical A term used to refer to “ * C n to the grammatical rules of a la n g u ^ * ' p,’r<*«. cW ^ COhomeU»«o A term coined by the p„8tcoU a"
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^ p r iv il eg e d

A t er m i nt ro du ce d into literary crL ^ T raues Derrida. According to Derrida, Western societvT ^ by the French d

‘" M * **

umptions on opposites, such as good/bad, light/daA, a7 d' Z Z u ™ rvrrida asserts that Western culture values or Vri v ik ^ Z   ake->"«*h wh,W p r i v i l e g i n g  the second. See privileged and binary operaLs unvoiced

In linguistics, an y sound made without vibrating the vocal folds, such as/,/ .

and /k/' f 1, Verhaltnisse Acco rd in g to Marxist critics, everything, including ou, social lh,„ • dynamic re la tio n s h ip -a V er haltm ss e-w ith each other. For Maoist critics, nothmgZ Z . isolation.

Vermittlung

A term used in Marxist criticism to assert the interrelatedness of all things, everything exists in a dynamic relationship mediated by social forces.

1reader

A term devised by the narratologist Gerald Prince to differentiate among the * i l i r h m l    and i deal r eaders. According to Prince, the virtual reader is the reader to whom, the In hor believes he or she is writing. See real reader and ideal reader. M  in linguistics, any sound in winch the vocal folds a^brought d c . together ard r t 

to vibrate, causing air to pass between t

rectly reflects or mirrors the base

reflection theory concerning thereU-

sue

evn,

^

^ ^

criticism,

, fnr worldview. . ... b to rwA'■» wage slaves Another term or  Weltanschauung The German wor lhe ultimate «“ ’ o S^ 'abU*ed. worker's paradise, ~ w the

the in ^ wnim highest stage, According the worker's workertos paradise, para ^ text text The Tte Universe U" ' ^ us,y 0r unconsoo® 5Next u w m * . James Sire in his “ nrldview Arm to nJarrte n h o l d ,  either either conscious co - — y o  _^;veasimaginative andt enutiveasn o si tio wee all riaview -^ e nrding ' s that w

nptions or presuppositi lie makeup of our world. irtkunst The German wor :ts of literature are its essential c

tic symbol A term used in & a cup, a cave, or a vase.

^at t^e imagi

h a

Kleratur  that i

f0r any 1

nts, o

m

p

crlttc>»

> 

i

Absolutist critic, 7 Academy, 20, 21 Adamson, Joni, 234 Addison, Joseph, 32-33 Adorno, Theodor, 171  Adivntures of Huckleberry Finn, 194 Aesthetic experience, 56-57 Aesthetic reading, 73 Aesthetics, 14 Aesthetic theory, 124 Affective fallacy, 58 Affective stylistics, 81 African-American criticism, 210-219 analysis, 218 black arts movement, 215-216 Civil Rights Era, 215 critics, 218-219 Great Depression, 214-215 Harlem Renaissance, 213-214 post-Civil War era, 213 Aggressive instinct, 126 Alienation effect, 172 Alighieri, Dante, 27-28 Allegoric reading, 28 Allophones, 94 Althusser, Louis, 173-174  Always Coming Home, 236 Amazon feminism, 157-158 American deconstructionists, 118-119  American Women, 150 " A Modest Proposal/' 187 Anal stage, 128 Analytical psychology, 124  Anatomy o f Criticism: Four Essays, 124,132 Anima, 132 Animus, 132 Antiessentialist theory, 229. See also Queer theory Antiromance phase, 133 Antithesis, 167  An Apology fo r Poetry, 30 Aporia, 120 Appetencies, 71 Applied criticism, 7 Aquinas, Thomas, 145 Arab-Israeli War, 204 Archetypal criticism, 132 Archetypes, 131 Arche-writing, 112-114 Aristotle, 22 -24,145 Arnold, Matthew, 6, 40-42

 ArS 24^25
^ P°etry)/ 

 Art and Social Life, 170 Artifacts, 14 rhe Art of Fiction," 43

n

d

e

x

ASLE. See Association of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) Association for the Advanceme nt of Sustainability in High er Education, 230 Association of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), 2 34 Attentive reading, 174 Auden, W. H., 91 Autotelic artifact, 70 The Awakening, 151 Bacon, Francis, 86 Bad critics, 62 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 44-46 Bakhtin Circle, 44 Baldwin, James, 215 Balzac, Hono rs de, 146 Baraka, Amiri, 216 Barthes, Roland, 101-102 Baudelaire, Charles-Pierre, 146 Beardsley, Monroe C., 57 Beauvoir, Simone de, 149-150 Behn, Aphra, 147-148 Benjamin, Walter, 171,186 Bhabha, Homi K., 205-206 Binary oppositions, 110-111 Biological model, 153 Black Skin, White Masks, 203 Bleich, David, 80-8 1 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 28-29 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 146,170 Bourgeoisie, 168 Brecht, Bertolt, 172 British Empire, 200 Brokeback Mountain, 220-223 Brooks, Cleanth, 61 Brown, Mary M., 51-52 Bryson, Scott, 234 Buell, Lawrence, 232-233 Bunch, Charlotte, 162 Butler, Judith, 227-22 8

 _  jt uu -l V J 7 r ___  Camivalistic atmosphere, 46 Carr, Kevin, 223 Carson, Rachel, 233 Castration complex, 128-12S Castro, Fidel, 201 Catalyst, 57-58 Catharsis, 24 Cathexes, 126 Chay, Deborah G., 21 9 Chen, Jeffrey, 223 Chopin, Kate, 151 Chora, 156

ClimateCommitment docui 230,231

332

Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 143 Close readers, 53 Close reading, 56 Coleridge, Samuel T., 233 Collective meaning, 80 Collective unconscious, 131 Colonial interests, 200 The Colonizer and the Colonized, 201 The Color Purple, 214 The Com munist Manifesto, 167,168 Concretized text, 79 Condensation, 129-130 Connotation(s), 60 Conscious, 125 The Coun try and the City, 233 Course in Gen eral Linguistics, 92 Cricket, 216 Criteria of Negro Art, 276-284 Culler, Jonathan, 104 Cultural criticism, 199 Cultural Critique, 217 Cultural feminism, 158 Cultural materialism, 187 Cultural model, 153 Cultural Poetics, 183 accepted ideas, 192-193 analysis, 195 assumptions, 188 critics, 195-196 historical root, 184-187 history, 191-192 interpretative analysis, 191 methodology, 193-195 rejected ideas, 192 texts, 191 Cultural studies, 174 Culture and Imperialism, 205 Culture and Society 1780-1950,174 Cuningham, Kate, 143 "D ancing through the Minefield," 144 Darwin, Charles, 147 Das Kapital,  168 Decolonization, 201 Deconstruction. See also Derrida,  Jac qu es American, 118-119 analysis, 119 assumptions, 109-112 critiques and responses, 121-122

historical development, 107-109 methodologies, 112-115 reading strategy, 117-118 textual analysis, 116-117 Deconstruction theory, 225 Defamiliarization, 50

o f P t*11? '  3°' 3 7

 /»P^?ynthU,236

pristine, 147 ^ Jacques, tN, 107, 175, ^ 7 206,225.S«r<»/*> Dea^trucfon w^vvntmg, U2 - 114 •di^raiH^ »*-»5 Lwocentnsm, 1 1 0 metaphvsics ot presence, 111-112

phonocentrism, 1 1 1 Saussure'ssignand, 109 andstructuralism, 108 supplementation, 114 transcendental signified, 109-110 pescartes, Ren£, 85-86 The Descent o f Man, 147 pescriptivegrammar, 96 pestructiveinstinct, 126 pevices,49 TheDevil's Trill Sonata , 123 piachronic approach, 92 The Dial , 233 Dialectical criticism, 174-175 Dialectical materialism, 167 Dialectical self-awareness, 175 Dialogic heteroglossia, 2 Dialogized heteroglossia, 45 Dictionary of the English Language , 31

Differance, 114-115 Displacement, 129 Dollimore,Jonathan, 187  ADoor into Ocean ,  236 Doubleconsciousness, 205 Double-voicedness, 218 Douglas, Susan, 163 Douglass, Frederick, 213 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , 124 Dreams latent content of, 129-130 manifestcontentof, 138 significance of, 129-130

Dryden, John, 30-32 DuBois, VV.E. B., 210  , 213 Durrant, Sam, 206

Eagleton, Terry, 174, 175 w ly Spring Aubade, 51-52 Feocriticism analysis, 236-237 assumptions, 234-235 conceptof, 231-232 critics of, 237-238 ^oncaldeve^ ment 232-234 Methodology, 235-236 overview 230_231 cocriticism

Reader:

Landmarks 

Economic model, of Freud, 126 Ecosphere, 235. Sec also Ecocritlciftm Ego, 127 Elder, John, 234 Electra complex, 129 Eliot, T. S., 55-56, 9 1 Elizabethan worldview, 182 Ellison, Ralph, 215 Ellmann, Mary, 150 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 146, 233

The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, 201 Endymion, 294

Engels, Friedrich, 167-168 Enneads, 26

The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation o f American Culture, 232

Environmentalism, and ecocriticism, 232-233. See also Ecocriticism Environmental Studies AssociationofCanada, 234 Epic theater, 172 Epiphany, 7 Episteme, 189 Epistemology, 227 Erasure, 112 Eros, 125-126 Esoteric work, 22  An Essay o f Dramatic Poesy, 31 Essentialism, 225 Exoteric treatises, 22 Extrinsic analysis, 54 Fabula, 50 Fall phrase, 133

9 False consciousness, 168-169

Faludi, Frantz, Susan, 163 Fanon, 201,203-204 151 Female phase, 1^ The Feminine M ysOf/u,

Feminine phf^' Feminism, 143^16455 American, l-> analysis, 161 ^ assumptions, 1 British, 155 iticjSm, contemporary enne

l^r^pon^

cri,iCh ISMS?

. ' 61- ’ 64

,

methodolog^^ticism/'144 "Feminist L>

^ g m e nu t 1o n ,,7H

Freeman

m

Pr^,S,'gmaJnydK|^ l^ J M nn dream*, 129-130 economic model of )2a Phaseof, 127-128

*^26-127*Cal models

Freudianslips, 126 Friedan, Betty, 150-151 Fromm,Harold, 231 Frye, Northrop, 124,132-133 duller, Margaret, 233 Fundamental Problems of   Marxism, 170 The Future o f Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, 232 Gallagher, Catherine, 187 Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 216, 217-218,219 Gay and lesbian studies, 226-227. See also Queer theory Geertz, Clifford, 190-191,194 Gender, 228 Gender Trouble, 228 The Genealogy o f the Gods, 29 Genette, Gerard, 104 Gilbert, Sandra, 136 Giovanni, Nikki, 216 Glotfelty, Cheryll, 231, 232 Going to the Territory, 215 Goldberg, Jonathan, 228 The Golden Notebook, 151-152 Good critics, 62 " A G o o d Man Is Hard to Find, 8 Go Tell It on the Mountain, 215 Grammar, 96 qs Grammatical morphemes,» Grammatology, 112 rra m sci, Antonio, l . . Grams,  gnvlutu-m: A THe History of FeministDe*g>*ft *   Am erican Homes, L GraPnblTtt"terhen,188,f Greenblan,- \ also "Green studies, Ecocnhcism 9 Grif^FaraMasm.ne,

Guatta'n^if

Gugelberg1 ' ^ Gynoenj^' i

„^ 3

5»Tljrt:/

30

econm,Cm°d<‘l °f, 125-126

Gubar, Susan, 136^

"Flowering

’"'

Gynocritics-

M.,203

334

Index

I foiling the »uhject

lUmwtw. W

rt }l2

»fommon lup'^-r. 210. 212 Harlem 2i Harmon, Nuholaa, ^ Hartman. Geottrev. Hawthorne, Nathaniel 66, 14°' 1^4. W5, 228 Hawthorne. Sophia, 194 Hayden, Dolores, 158 Hegel Georg W. F., 167 Hegemony, 172-173 Heresy ot paraphrase, 60 Hermeneutical principles, 4 Hermeneutics of recovery, 4 Hermeneutics of suspicion, 4 "Heroic Ethnocentrism," 272-276 Hesiod, 145 Heteroglossia, 45 History of English Literature, 38-39 History of Sexuality, 229 Holistic approach, 47 Holland, Norman, 80 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 147 Horace, 24-25 Horizons of expectation, 78 Horkheimer, Max, 172 The House of the Seven Gables,  194 Huffer, Lynne, 229 Hughes, Langston, 214 Hurston, Zora Neale, 214 Hybridity, 205-206 Hybridization, 45 Identities, 228 Identity theme, 80 Ideological state apparatus, 173 Ideology, concept of, 168 Iliad, 20 Imaginary order, in Lacan's model, 134 Impressionistic critics, 54 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 213 Intentional fallacy, 57 Interpellation, 173 The Interpretation of Dreams, 124 Interpretive community, 81 Intertextuality, 8 Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Twenty-first Lecture),   128 Invisible Man, 215 Irigaray, Luce, 136 Iser, Wolfgang, 78-79 I Stood Tip-toe Upon a Little Hill/ 287  Jacobs, Harriet, 213  James, Henry, 42-43, 66 Fre? ric' 174~17^ 203  janMohamcd, Abdul, 217  Jauss, Hans Robert, 78  Jazz, 214

Keats, John, 2 * * 'Z

t 123

KemdKe.

Wch-rd. 233-234 K ern el, D»n.elM., 223 Kolodny, Annette, Krino (Greek word)' 6 Kristeva, Julia, 136,1 Kritikos (Greek word), 6 “La Belle Dame Sans Mem/' 233 Lacan, Jacques, 125/1 33human psyche model ot, 134-136 I'** and textual analysis, 13o Lamming, George, 201 Language and parole, 96 structure of, 93-96 Latent content of dream, 1 37-1 38 Lauretis, Teresa de, 224 Lazos, Book VIII, 21 Le Guin, Ursula K., 236 Le Livre de la Cite des Dames,   147 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 170 Lesbianization of language, 160 Les Guerilleres,  152 Lessing, Doris, 151 Letter to Can Grande della Scala, 2 8 Levin, J., 235 L£vi-Strauss, Claude, 100-101 Lexicon, 95 Linear, defined, 189 Linguistic model, 153 Linguistic revolution, 92-93 Linguistics, 49 pre-Saussurean, 91 -92 Literacy experience, 73 Literariness, 49 Literary competence, 104 Literary critic, 5-6 Literary criticism defined, 5,6-7 historical survey, 19-47 readings on, 249-299 Literary theory, 17-18 defined, 7-9 function of, 15-1 7 reading process and, 10-12

f i u S j

Macherey, Pierre, 174 The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, 238  Mad fo r Fo uc au lt: Rethinkin g the Foun dations o f Queer Theory,

229 Mailloux, Steven, 81 Mander, Anica Vesel, 162  M an ich ea n A esth etic s: Th e Politics o f Literature in Colonial  Afri ca , 217

Manifest content of dream, 138 Marcuse, Herbert, 171 Marx, Adolph Bernhard, 165 Marx, Karl, 167-170 Marx, Leo, 238 Marxism, 165-180 analysis, 179 assumptions, 176-178 critics of, 180 methodology, 178-179 Russia and, 170-171  M ar xi sm an d Fo rm , 174  M arx ism an d Li terary Criti cis m , 175 McBride, Sean, 222 McCarthy, Todd, 221 McGann, Jerome, 187 Melin, Eric, 222 Memmi, Albert, 201 Metaphor, 95 Metaphysics, 25

l^oduction, 175

function of, 15-17 literary theory and, 14-15 l iterature and Ecology: An

Experiment in Ecocriticism," Literature and Revoluti on, \7 q

u ! Z u7Joseph, asExp,oration^2 L'tvak, 228

 Jefferson, Th om as 1
 Jewett, Sarah Orne, 151

Longinus,25-26 Love, Glen A., 234 LukAcs, Georg, 171,186 Luther, Martin, 145 Lyceum, 22 Lyotard, Jean-Franqois, 89 Lyrical Ballads, 35,36,233

t-ocke, Alain LeRoy,2 l3 - 2u Eogocentrism, 110,225

Metaphysics of presence, 111-112 Miller, J. Hillis, 119 Millett, Kate, 150, 224 Mimetic theory, 92 Mirror stage, in Lacan's model, 134 Misogyny, 152 Modernism,54 Modernity, 85-87,90-91 Moi,Toril, 144 Monomyth, 133 Morpheme, 94 Morphology, 95 Morrison, Toni, 219 Murphy, Patrick D., 238 My Larger Education, 213 Mythemes, 100-101 Mythic criticism, 132 Narratemes, 103 Narrative functions, 103 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 213 Narratology, 76-77,102-103 Native Son, 215 Naturalism, 54 Nature, 233

ind

ex

Plekhanov, Georgy V., 170 Plotinus, 20, 26-27 Poem, 53

A.,222 „ Q-54,

Poemson Various Subjects,

Religious and Moral, 212

feminist theory and

Poetics, 4*9

^ i ’^'^sponses. t&-£*  ********  i^8 1*3 188 -~ny - ^

- r ,s5

 j S -t J S w vv«»*’ w,217 ytrfl*2® < **

^ t h e o r y of art 57 Flannery, 2-4, 5, 7-8

^ S U ^ , ^ 296

I ^ W

1''”233' 293

S5?Smpl«.>2»

a Gremmatology, 112, 2 0 6

-OntheGrasshopper and Cricket/' 297

Ontological critics, 53 Oralphase, 127 Organic unity, 59 Orientalism, 204 Orientalism, concept of, 204

n, Outsider.215

Fankhurst, Emmeline, 161 Parapraxes, 126 Parmenides, 26 Parole, 96 Party Organization and Party Literature, 170 Past the Last Post: Theorizing Post-Colonialism and Post-Modernism,  2 0 1 Patriarchal culture, 228 Patriarchy, 144 Penis envy, 129 Pennsylvania Magazine,   2 1 2 Personal con scio us , 131 Personal un co nsc iou s, 131 i^ers, John, 212 gallic stage, 128 -U * 5ym,

^Mocentri:

133

^Uocentri: S^Uus, 135

w!?0menoj S S 3 r*

2 ^ Cs,94 Pia^°!°gy,94 PL./ ^ 22 ,14 5

in

Principle 126

Poetics, 2 2 - 2 3 Political unconscious, 175

The Political Unconscious, 175 Politics and Letters, 174 Polyphonic novel, 46 P o p e, A l e xa n d e r, 3 3 - 3 4 , 1 4 5 Popick, Jon, 222 Porphyry, 26 Postcolonial criticism, 207

Kinder studio an
Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, 224 y Quind len, Anna, 162

Ransom, Kevin A., 223 Reader Postcolonial Criticism: History, actual, 79 Theory , and ffo? Worlt o f  close, 53 Fiction, 20 3 ideal, 77 Postcolonial feminism, 158 real, 77 Postcolonialism, 197-20 9 virtual, 77 analysis, 208 The Reader, the Text, the Poem, a s s u m p t io n s , 2 0 3 - 2 0 6 10, 72 critics, 209 Reader-oriented criticism, 65-84 historical development, 200-201 analysis, 82-83 methodology, 206-2 08 assumptions, 73-75 Postcolonial Narrative and the Work critiques and responses, 83-84 o f Mourning, 206 historical development, 69-73 The P ost-Colonial Studies methodology, 75-82 Reader, 20 2 Reading Postcolonial theory, 207 aesthetic, 73 Postist critics, 197-198 close, 56 Postmodern feminisms, 157 efferent, 73 Postmodernism, 88-90 Reading "Capital," 173 Postmodernism, or the Cultural Real order, 136 Logic o f Late C apitalism,  175 Reception aesthetics, 81 Poststructuralism, 106-107 Reception theory, 78 Pound, Ezra, 91 Reflection theory, 171 Practical criticism, 7 Relativism, 58 Practical Criticism: A Study o f  Relativistic critic, 7 The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Literary judgm ent, 71  Ap proac h to Am erican Preconscious, 126-127 Fiction, 144 Pre-Saussurean linguistics, 91-92 Rhetorical criticism, 69-70 Prescriptive gramm ar, 96 Rich, Ad rienne, 163 Prince, Gerald, 76-77 Richards, I. A., 56, 70-71 Principles o f Literary Criticism, 71 Rogers, N ick, 222 Production theory, 173 Rom ance phase, 133 Proletariat, 168 Romanticism, 54 Propp, Vladimir, 102-103  A Room o f One's Oum, 224 Prosody, 62 Rorty, Richard, 89 Proud hon, Pierre-Joseph, 146 Rosenblatt, Louise M., 10, 72-73 Proulx, E. Annie, 220 i, Robert, 222 Psychoanalysis, 124 >eau, Jean-Ja cque s, 145 Psy cho ana lytic criticism , 123—142 cert, William H., 232 analysis, 141 Anne K., 162 assumptions, 137-138 c,Aftn j  1icm 48— 52 critiques and responses, 141-142 historical development, phase, 128 Wadie, 204-20 5 125-136 methodologies, 138-141 alentine d e,  147 Psychoanalytic model, 153 a,216 ius, 212-2 13 Psychobiography, 138 s, 222 Queer theory, 223-229, 284-287 analysis, 228 _  and com partm enta 1ization,

 _ 

335