Literary Criticism as a Microcosm

Throughout the course of this class, as I have been blogging and thinking about all of our readings I cannot help but notice a general trend. Literary criticism seems to closely parallel many of the larger concerns and questions in the world today. So far I have observed connections with social hierarchies, psychology, capitalism, questions of life and death etc. Some people might scoff at the study of literature, but it is become more and more apparent every day just how relevant this type of criticism is. It goes far beyond books and text and into the world itself.

Oh Mann!

"Ohmann shows that aesthetic judgements are inflected by capitalist criteria" (1878). This idea is insane to me. It rings absolutely true, but I wish that were not the case. What we find beautiful in a book has more to do with what sells than what is actually quality writing. Capitalism, while it is very much a part of our everyday life, should not affect our appreciation of literary beauty. It is extremely sad to realize that Ohmann is correct in saying that advertising is important to the shaping of the canon. Perhaps I am too much of an idealist, but I like to think of the canon as some pure thing untouched by human vices. I see it similarly to how I view the Bible (although there are obvious differences here). I don't like to think that capitalism and advertising are at the root of our great works of literature. The literature should speak for itself. It's beauty and greatness should be self-evident rather than man-made. This is just my little rant for the day.

On a completely separate note I was struck by the section in Ohmann's essay, "The Shaping of a Canon: U.S. fiction, 1960-1975" that discussed liking works of literature. He asserts that "it doesn't matter that Norman Podhoretz hates Updike novels, so long as he takes them seriously enough to argue with his peers about them" (1887). This is interesting to me because it indicates that the canon has more to do with discussion and popularity than likeability. It matters more how much a text is talked about than how much readers like it. I am not sure how much I agree with this statement. I am sure that the worst book of all time would get talked about a great deal, but would such popularity reserve it's place in the canon? I should hope not.

Originally, I had never really taken the time to look at literature from a perspective of class structure. After reading Ohmann though, I have come to the conclusion that class does play a role in the construction of the canon. All of this discussion regarding the canon and its subjectivity has got me rather frustrated. Is there any such thing as a purely good work of literature?

Speech Act Theory

While reading the introduction to Richard Ohmann's essay I was struck by the fact that he was "one of the first American scholars to introduce speech act theory" (1877). I decided to look this up on the Internet to find out what it was all about. I'm not quite sure why it caught my attention, other than the fact that I had never before heard of it.

I came across a website that was a chapter out of someones dissertation. The site was entitled Rhetorica. Here is the link: http://www.rhetorica.net/speech.htm.

According to this website, speech-act theory was proposed by J.L. Austin. In the simplest terms this theory states that "to say something is to do something." Austin breaks this down into two categories: performative and constantive. An example of a performative speech act would be a wedding, during which the priest says "I now pronounce you man and wife." According to the essay this proposition creates a social reality, and thus the speech is achieving something beyond itself. Constantives are statements that can be judged as true or false and attempt to "describe reality.

I think (if I am grasping the concept speech-act theory correctly) that even the "simplest statement" has much large implications. One cannot simply look at a sentence, but must instead look at it's many layers to find the action it elicits.

I think that the reason Ohmann might have been a proponent of the speech-act theory could be its ties to studying words and sentences within a social context. This clearly has connections to Marxism the the stress it places on society and cultural relevance.

Storytelling and Death

When reading Benjamin's essay I was fascinated by the section about death and storytelling. I had never before thought about the connections between storytelling and the general consciousness about death. It is very true in today's society that people have made it possible "to avoid the sight of dying" (6). Death is a subject that is almost taboo in American culture. It had never occurred to me that our fear and inability to cope with death could stem from our lack of discussion and storytelling.

Here is a practical application of literature (spoken literature). Why should we read? Why tell stories? Instead of hiding death we should learn to cope by talking about it. This is where I think the Marxist aspect of Benjamin's essay really begins to shine through. Death should be imbued in culture, it should be talked about. Discussion of death is much healthier than avoiding the sight of it altogether.

I think too that talking about things and telling stories is a very human way of working through life's problems and mysteries. It is our attempt at explaining the unexplainable. When we stop discussing death, and stop bequeathing our knowledge from generation to generation then death becomes a mystery one more. Something more feared than revered.

This again brings to light our culture's current fascination with solitude. Death is too big of a mystery to tackle alone. It is one of those fundamental ties between all of humanity, and we should treat it as such. A powerful combining factor rather than something to be hush-hushed. The unknown is always scarier than the known.

Storytelling may seem obsolete in this day and age, but this small section of Benjamin's essay proves this wrong. In certain areas of culture a novel simply will not suffice. Human interaction has its benefits. We were not made to be solitary creatures who sit and read alone, reveling in our individual experience. Some things are collective, such as death, and they can only be truly dissected in a collective manner such a storytelling.

The Ipod Generation

There is no better testament to Benjamin's Storyteller than today's society. Personal interactions have been minimized more than ever before. Emails, IMs, text messages take the place of interpersonal communication. Even in everyday life, walking from point a to point b, so many of us pop in our Ipod headphones and zone out. We distance ourselves from the world around us, discouraging any type of communication. Ear buds give the signal, "stay away" and indicate the intent not to talk at a particular moment. It's no wonder that art forms such as storytelling are slowly dying out. There is too much hustle and bustle, too much impersonality to afford time for such an activity.

Benjamin seems to argue that the novel has begun to take the place of storytelling. While this may be true, I think that a number of other things have contributed to the demise of storytelling. In our rushed world, there is really no time set aside for listening to the stories of experience or legend. We schedule no times into our days for that. However, there is something to be said for the communication of this day and age. It is efficient and it is accessible. The way we communicate may be different, but it is communication nonetheless.

There is a wealth to be had in storytelling though. There is a richness in a story that has been carefully handed down from one generation to the next. When someone relates a story to an audience they add so much to it that a text alone could not deliver. With oral delivery comes inflection, emotion, explanation, and group response. In this respect, storytelling is akin to theater. It is active, living literature.

Currently, even the novel seems to be an art form that has slowly begun to die out. Children display a decreased interest in reading. The high tech world of video game entertainment is much more thrilling and captivating. Slowly but surely, it seems as though the novel has fallen to the wayside. I cannot help thinking that storytelling could be the answer to this dilemma. Storytelling breathes live to a story. for example, stories told by the fireside at night are always spookier and morbidly fascinating. Perhaps the way to get youth back into stories, is to tell them aloud. Novels can seem very flat and limp in comparison to many things in this world today. It seems that we should try a little harder to keep storytelling alive not only for the sake of storytelling, but for the sake of literature in all forms.

We were talking in class about the misrepresentation of the lower classes that would and has resulted from the decline of storytelling. Who will tell the stories of the lower classes if they are not spread by word of mouth. Who writes novels, gets them published, reads and discusses them? The middle and upper classes. The decline of storytelling could also result in a silencing of the lower class. It could contribute even more to the oppression felt by these individuals.

More thoughts on Personal Economy

I was thinking today about just how "personal" a personal economy really is. Is it ever possible for two people to share the exact same personal economy? Or can two people's economies eventually converge when their experiences begin to overlap?

If two twins are raised together with the exact same conditions, and they spend the entirety of their lives together and share the same experiences, then would their personal economies be the same? Or does personal economy have something to do with personality as well?

I feel as though Herrnstein Smith's arguments regarding literature, could easily carry over into the psychology field. It seems to me that Herrnstein Smith is correct in her assumptions about personal economy though, in the sense that one can learn to like certain works of art. Many school children detest "the great" authors such as Shakespeare, but learn to like them as they grow older. Their experiences shape the value they assign to the text itself. A lot of this rests on the shoulders of society, however. If one does not share an apreciation for the works of Shakespeare then one is considered uncouth and uncultured in some way. Ideas about value hinge on social stature. One can really only climb the social ladder if and only if they appreciate the right wine, music, art, books etc. So do we really like the art, or the benefits it affords us?

On another note, there was something in her essay that confused me. I don't understand why, if our "purposes are continuously transformed and redirected" (1915), we have classic works of art. If our ideas about value are fluid things, and values is not, in fact, inherent, then why don't our ideas about the most "valuable" works of art change as well? As our personal economies change, so should our standards for what makes art valuable.

Personal Economy

How high society aesthetes must detest Barbara Herrnstein Smith. To propose that art has no inherent value seems to be a type of heresy in such circles. Herrnstein Smith proposes that "all definitions of art and all evaluations of specific "artworks" depend on a complex set of changing variables" (1910).

I believe that Hernnsetin Smith's argument resides within the confines of a larger argument. Questions of cultural relevance seem important here. How much are we affected by our culture? Does our culture make us who we are? It all comes back to the all important (and elusive) question of Nature vs. Nurture.

To say that there is an intrinsic value to art simultaneously seems like commonsense and silliness. Don't we all appreciate the works of Da Vinci, or Michelangelo, or Van Gogh? If our appreciation of art is not intrinsic then why are there "classic" works of art?

It seems to me that Herrnstein Smith argues for the "Nurture" side of things. We are conditioned by our surroundings and this builds our "personal economy" (1914). Our experiences with the world and with our culture shape who we are and what value we assign to things. We are told that Michelangelo and Da Vinci are the greats. from the get-go we are taught to assume that their art is some of the best. No child would go to a museum pick out a painting by either artist and assert that it had the most value of all the art in the museum. Though we like to think that we are autonomous, we are clearly possessed by our own personal economies.

This is where things get dicey. In terms of the canon (of great works of literature) we tend to assume that writers like Shakespeare are and have always been the greatest. But why? Here is where I think we are in danger of being blinded to just how much culture shapes our way of thinking. We have been taught to read Shakespeare's works through the lens of greatness. And how else can you view something then? It must be great. This almost seems to hinder the literary world though. Because everything must be weighed and measure against the greats. If a work has no echoes of Shakespeare or his greatness, then its value is diminished slightly. Our personal economies eat away somewhat at the value to be placed in individuality and creativity. One cannot deviate too much, for fear of alienating oneself from the canon.

So then , is there any way to set aside one's personal economy just long enough to objectively look at a new work?

from work to text

http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/lisa_smith.barthes.html

After discussing Roland Barthes' essay "from work to text" in class I was inclined to look up more information regarding this subject. To be honest, I was hoping to come across something more explanatory in order to help me better understand Barthes' essay. However, i came across something much more interesting. There is an essay online by a writer named Lisa Smith. She is a member of the English Department at Brock University and her her essay was entitled "from Work to Text?"

Smith begins her essay by attempting to explain the distinctions Barthes makes between "work" and "text." She admits that the main purpose of her essay is to "explore how Barthes delineates a methodology of reading." for the purposes of introduction, Smith then proposes to look at Barthes' own essay as a work and as a text. This is the part of her essay that caught my attention. What better way to attempt to understand Barthes meaning of work vs. text than to apply it to his own essay. Here is an excerpt:


"In this context, it would be interesting to look at Barthes' own essay as a work and as a text. In many ways, Barthes signals his own separation from the "Newtonian" texts that claim to be works (Barthes 192). In other ways, however, the philosophy of the work inevitably permeates his own claims to avoid its dictates. As a work, as an entity which is separable from the discourse surrounding it, Barthes can claim that his essay is in conformation with the view of the text. Paradoxically, when viewed as a text, this separation from those texts which claim to be works is not achieved.
If I were analyzing Barthes' essay from the point of view of the theory of the work, I would accept his authorial claims to place "text" at the critical centre of attention and to throw the concept of "work" onto the periphery. At the beginning and at the end of his essay, Barthes clearly indicates his intention to separate his own critical formulations from critical formulations of the work. Since meta-language employs logic in order to set its own string of signifiers apart from the text, he will avoid doing so. He sets up the "arguments" and the "logic" which others employ in opposition to his "propositions" which are to be "understood more in a grammatical than in a logical sense" (Barthes 192). During the course of the work, he attempts to maintain the distance between the binary opposition of "work" and "text" by defining each term in contrast to its Other. At the end of his essay, he again insists that his "few propositions . . . inevitably" fail to form a meta-language which would dictate how a text should be read (Barthes 197).
In other ways, however, the essay belongs to the textual world consisting of texts conceived as works. For instance, though he claims to avoid formulating a Theory of the Text, he cannot in fact escape the need to understand language through theorizing. Though he signals his aversion to logical constructs by attempting to assert rather than attempting to explain what constitutes a work and what constitutes a text, he cannot do so without operating according to the dictates of a meta-language. "

To the best of my understanding I think that what Smith is saying is undermining what Barthes was trying to do in his essay. Essentially, because it is difficult to compartmentalize Barthes' essay into either a work or a text his own theories about the two fall flat. The distinctions between the two seem almost abstract and cannot be applicable even to his own essay. Yes, there are elements of both in his writing, but when it comes to choosing the one that best fits his essay, one runs into some difficulty.

This is where Barthes' essay confuses me. I absolutely understand the distinctions he is making between the work and the text. We outlined them in class, and they are very logical distinctions. The problem however, arises when the attempt is made to apply these distinctions to a sample of writing. It is not so cut and dried then.

Organizers and Anchors

Reading Foucault was like a breath of fresh air in terms of discussion about "the author." I feel as though he outlined the role of the author in a much more realistic way that the previous critics we have read. Perhaps this is simply because he actually acknowledges the author as opposed to trying to "kill" him. The depiction of the author as both an organizer and an anchor seems to b very accurate and astute.

The author most definitely affords organization. It seems to be one of the most basic ways through which we can group texts. In the introduction to Foucault there was a comment that stating " we ascribe a certain unity and coherence to all the works written by a single author, or at least we feel that an author's drastic changes in style or opinion must be explained" (1616-17). I feel that this is extremely true today. I think that the author is slowly evolving into something of tantamount importance to the work itself. for example, in the case of the Harry Potter books, there is an enormous obsession with the author J.K. Rowling. On a more generic level, when fans today become obsessed with a certain series, or a certain group of books by one author, the next logical step seems to be book signings or fan web pages, or even blogs. Many authors now have their very own blogs to keep fans updated on their work and their lives. And fans eat it up. The author has become a marketing tool. It follows then that when fans become enamored with a certain work, or group of works by one author that they would look into others by the same author.

However, the part of the quote that discusses "drastic changes in style or opinion that need to be explained" rings even more true. There are entire web pages devoted to author bashing resulting from a change in style or opinion. And this is where foucault's observations become problematic. When the author is seen as both an organizer and an anchor it can also be stifling. The author has little to no room to change their ideas, content, genre, opinions, style etc. when they have developed a decent fan base. They are expected to produce work like what came before and if they fail to do so they are seen as deviant in some way.

In terms of an author's role in the critical world, these observations are very correct, but they provide yet another problem in the author dilemma. Any situation that limits or hinders the creative liscense of the author should be seen in a negative light...

Todorov

I remember thinking when reading Todorov for the first time that his ideas seemed like common knowledge. for example, the "action of the narrative" in which the plot moves from an "equilibrium to disequilibrium and concludes in a new equilibrium" seems to be something that even a high schooler would know (2098). However, this all seems to make sense when it is looked at with the understanding that Todorov's writings were "foundational." It makes me wonder if Todorov completely set the stage for this kind of thinking. If that is the case, than structuralism, however displaced it may seem, must have been very influential to current literary thought.

Despite the influence of structuralism, I still seem to be at odds with the whole thought process behind it. I am so used to thinking of literature and science as two very separate and distinct fields. It is very difficult to try and apply scientific thinking to the literary world. I think I struggle the most with trying to understand why you would want to make the study of literature more scientific in nature. The only conclusion I have come to is that it could be done with hopes of making literary study more respected. for whatever reason, science is a very respected field. This probably has something to do with its concreteness. There are facts in science and this allows for validity. Literature on the other hand, affords no such concrete facts. There is only theory, questions, conjectures. Science seems to be viewed as a more necessary field while literature is seemingly auxiliary and superfluous.

So why not make literature more scientific? It seems to make perfect sense. I still don't agree though. And perhaps my view of literature is too romantic for many people's tastes, but I do not think that is should be molded into something that it is clearly not. Todorov repeatedly uses language such as "theoretical" "external" "internal"and "descriptive" (2001). I just don't understand how this terminology even relates to the study of literature. Or why it has to.

If my understanding of Todorov is correct, then he is attempting to limit the subjectivity of literary study. Yes, subjectivity can be viewed as a negative thing, however, in the case of literature it can also add richness and meaning to a text. Different reader interpretations are what make a text a living thing, as Todorov calls it when he quotes Henry James.

In short, there is something singular about literature. It stands on its own and should not be molded to fit into something it was not made for. It seems almost demeaning to have to make literary study something it is not.

The Death of the Author

"The Death of the Author" sounds so terribly ominous. While I strongly disagree with the argument that the work should be evaluated only after complete separation with the writer, I cannot help but empathize with Barthe's argument in his essay. I suppose that in ordinary culture we do, in fact, view the author as superior to the reader in a way. Barthes is making the argument that reading and the reader should be superior and primary thing when looking at literature. I am somewhere on the middle of this issue, but that is not the point I am hoping to make in this blog.

I am slightly confused by the author/reader tension. Maybe the argument is beyond me, but I am just not sure why there needs to be a superior or primary thing in literature. It could be idealistic on my part, but literature seems to be made up of so many elements, all working together to create a cohesive, beautiful and working whole. Both the reader and the writer are necessary for a work of literature to achieve it's purpose. Without the author, and the author's intent there could be no work and no meaning. Without the reader there is no interpretation or reception of the work. The reader makes the work realized, because without him/her it doesn't matter that anything is published. A book could be written and sit on a coffee table and come to nothing if it isn't read. I suppose this leads to yet another philosophical question about reading though. If a book is written by an author and sits unread, does it still have worth and meaning?

I have no idea. To say that a work means nothing without a reader though, is also saying that the author then is responsible for the construction of all meaning. So if this question were posited to Barthes would he say that since the reader and reading should be the superior and primary thing that a book must be read to have any meaning or purpose?

Barthe's also seemed to imply that every act of reading was an act of writing or rewriting. Does this then make us all writers if we are all readers? How then is any distinction to be made between the actual writer, or rather the scribe in this case, and the reader-writer?

I feel as though more questions surface as a result of Barthe's essay than answers. It would most certainly make for a good debate...

The Displacement of Structuralism

Unfortunately, I am one of the few who has had trouble keeping up with their blog. My posts have been few and far between, but I am going to make a valiant attempt to remedy this today. Sorry that most of my posts will pertain to past information. I just have quite a bit of catching up to do.

I remember reading in the biography of Tzvetan Todorov that his branch of Literary Criticism, structuralism, had been "less discredited than displaced, supplanted by more socially engaged approaches--among them, Marxism, feminism, the new historicism, and cultural studies" (2098).

This doesn't surprise me at all when looking at the differences between the different literary schools. Structuralism, while a legitimate critical school, focuses so little on the author and so much on the theoretical that it cannot help but be displaced by other schools. Marxism, feminism, the New Historicism and cultural studies all allow the critic to look at the author, the culture, the background, the history. In other words, a critic is given such a wider lens through which to view a work. When one is limited to the overall system of which the work is a part, it almost seems simultaneously too broad and too narrow. What exactly is the whole system of which the work is a part? How do we find and define such a system?

On the other hand, when looking at a work through a cultural, economic, or historical lens it is easier to understand what to look for and now to go about looking for it. The scope then, is much narrower, but the amount of places in a work that a critic has to look for their topic of study is broad and rich.

I personally also think that in order to be a structuralist, especially in this post-modern era, a conscious effort must be made. Sometimes, in order to separate a work from its author and its historical background great pains must be taken. It would take a great deal of effort, that almost seems counter intuitive to make literature yield a scientific knowledge. It almost seems like an attempt to make literature something that it is not.

Perhaps it does not matter that e=mc^2 was posited by Einstein, but in the literary world, I cannot help but think that the author of a work is of paramount importance. It gives a scholar no more information about the equation to know who wrote it, but it cannot be denied that knowledge of an author adds some richness to a text.

Perhaps none of this makes much sense, but I am merely trying to say that structuralism seems a more restrictive field of study when compared to the literary schools that have replaced it. I doubt that very many of us would sit down in class and begin discussing a work from the vantage point of a structuralist. In fact, I think it would prove very difficult for most of us. To separate a piece from an author and a history would be painstaking for most of us today, as we have been raised in a literary tradition where it is desired for reader and author to connect and make meaning from the fusion of the two.