Page 1
11
THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR” –
ROLAND BARTHES
Unit structure :
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction : Structuralism and Poststructuralism
1.2 Structuralism
1.4 Overview of the essay
1.5 Conclusion
1.6 Key Terms
1.7 Check Your Progress
1.0 OBJECTIVES
The basic objective of this unit is to familiarize the learners
with the basic tenets ofstructuralist and poststructuralist literary
theories . It also aims to impart the learners with the knowledge of
Roland Barthes’ views on text and authorship.
1.1 INTROD UCTION: SEMIOTICS, STRUCTURALISM
AND POSTSTRUCTURALISM
Semiotics is the science of signs, verbal and nonverbal.
According to Ferdinand de Saussure, who uses the term
"semiology" to describe his enterprise, asign is composed of a
signifier (an acoustic image) and a signified (a concept or
meaning) ,t h e relationship between the two being arbitrary and
conventional. Language is a system of differences without any
positive terms. Semiotics holds that all linguistic and social
phenomena are texts, and the object is to reveal the underlying
codes and co nventions that make them meaningful. Claude Levi -
Strauss applies semiotics to cultural anthropology; Jacques Lacan
applies it to Freudian psychoanalysis; Michel Foucault, to the
history of disease, insanity, and sexuality; and Roland Barthes, to
fashion, p hotography, wrestling, food, and so on.
Structuralism is a theory of literature that focuses on the
codes and conventions that undergird all discourse and on the
system of language as a functioning totality. This system which
Ferdinand de Saussure calls langue, is"the whole set of linguistic
habits which allow an individual to understand and to bemunotes.in
Page 2
2understood." Anticausal and antiphilological, structuralism
deliberately ignores the historical origins of the various elements of
language, the external conte xt of linguistic acts, the agents who use
language, and the individual speech acts themselves (parole).
Structuralism sees language as a system of differences without any
positive terms, embraces the arbitrariness and conventionality of
thesign, brackets any consideration of the referent ,a n dg e n e r a t e s
a vocabulary of oppositions, all of which are more or less
synonymous: langue and parole, synchrony and diachrony , system
and event, signifier and signified , code and message, metaphor
and metonymy, paradigm and syntagm, selection and combination,
substitution and context, simi larity and contiguity. In each case ,the
first term is privileged. Although Saussurian linguistics is its
paradigm, what is of interest is how structuralism analogically
extends Saussure's terms into the analysis of literature. Roland
Barthes provides a go od example. "Literature" Barthes writes, "is
simply a language, a system of signs. Its being [être] is not in its
message, but in this 'system.' Similarly, it is not for criticism to
reconstitute the message of a work, but only its system, exactly as
the l inguist does not decipher the meaning of a sentence, but
establishes the formal structure which allows the meaning to be
conveyed." Rather than interpreting the meaning or value of a work,
the critic examines the structures that produce meaning. The
intent ionality of the author is thereby disregarded; language and
structures –not the consciousness of an author or the willed verbal
acts that em anate from it –generate meaning.
Poststructuralism is a critical theory that uses the concepts
of Saussurian lin guistics ( sign,signifier ,signified ,l a n g u e, parole,
and so forth) and the structuralist application of these terms to the
study of literature as a system of signs for the purposes of
subverting or deconstruction these concepts and centrality of
meaning. Poststructuralism is a blanket term and refers to diverse
writings such as the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida, the late
criticism of Ro land Barthes, the psychoanalytic revisionism of
Jacques Lacan, the feminist criticism of Gayatri Spivak, and so
forth.
1.2ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roland Gerard Barthes was a renowned essayist and social
and literary critic whose writings on semiotics –the scientific study
of symbols and signs –helped establishing poststructuaralism and
opened new avenues in literary theory. In 1976, Barthes became
the first person to hold the chair of Literary Semiology at the Ecole
de France. His outstanding works include Writing Degree Zero ,
Mythologies ,S / Za n d The Pleasure of the Text .O t h e rl e a d i n gmunotes.in
Page 3
3radical French thinkers such as Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault
and Jacques Derrida influenced or were influenced by Ba rthes.
Barthes' ideas are offered asalternatives to the methods of
traditional literary studies and they have had a considerable
following in the academic world of 1960s and 70s. According to
Barthes, classic al literary criticism has never paid any attention to
reader as a subject who negotia tes the signs in a text. He
advocates for multi level –nearly playful –literary criticism based
on the theoretical position that the structural elements of the text
point to contradictions and paradoxes.
1.3OVERVIEW OF THE ESSAY
Roland Barthes, a reno wned poststructuralist is associated
with de const ruction and semiology. Incidentally ,poststructuralism,
which is considered as an extension and re -working of
structuralism, makes certain statements about language. It
indicates that language is a slippery medium and hence no truth
can be referred to in language. This argument is based on the
theoretical premise that words ,which are the signs in a language ,
may have definite number of signifiers but infinite number of
signifieds. This theory indicates that no text can claim to have
single meaning or theological meaning and that it is basically
pluralistic, creating a semantic free play. One can say that
poststructuralism generates a linguistic anxiety which calls into
question all definite meanings. Roland B arthes, who started as a
structuralist, eventually moved into this theoretical position. His
major writings in the 1960s and 1970s question both structuralism
and western philosophy which arecontrolled by binary logic. His
seminal essay ‘Death of the Auth or’, written in 1968, is a classic
example of his engagement with poststructuralism , semiotics and
deconstruction.
Barthes, who belongs to the tradition of French Academic
Criticism, questions the validity of litera ry history by asserting that
the history of literature is often mistaken for the history of authors.
He claims that lexias (small units of meaning/sense) carry many
different meanings simultaneously on different levels as they are
taken from different cultural sources. His basic argument is that text
is not a site of definite meaning but a location wherein meanings
blend and clash to generate a poly semi.
Barthes opens the essay with a quote from Balzac’s novel ,
Sarrasine where the author offers a description of a “castrato
disguised as a woman” (Lodge: 162):“This was woman herself,
with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive
worries,her impetuous boldness, her fussings, and her deliciousmunotes.in
Page 4
4sensibility. ”(Lodge: 162)Barthes’ concern here is with “Who is
speaking thus” (1 63)i nt h e novel: the “hero of the story” (1 63)?
“Balzac the individual, furnished by his personal experience with a
philosophy of woman” (1 63)“Balzac the author professing ‘literary’
ideas on femininity” (1 63)? “Is it universal wisdom” (1 63)? “We shall
never know” (163), he responds for “writing is the destruction of
every voice, of every point of origin. Writing is that neutral space . .
. where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is
lost” (1 63). When “writing begins” (163), he argues, the “voic e loses
its origin, the author enters into his own death” (163).
In other cultures, Barthes claims, the “responsibility for a
narrative is never assumed by a person but by a mediator, shaman
or relator whose ‘performance’ –the mastery of the narrative co de
–may possibly be admired but never his genius” (163 ). The
concept of the author is historically -and culturally -specific, he
argues, the product, that is, of a specific historical stage of a
particular culture: the early modern period of Western Europe. The
notion of the Author is “a modern figure, a product of our society
insofar as, emerging from the Middle Ages with English empiricism,
French rationalism and the personal faith of the Reformation, it
discovered the prestige of the individual, of, as it is more nobly put,
the ‘human person’” (1 64). It is, he contends, only “logical that in
literature it should be this positivism, the epitome and culmination of
capitalist ideology, which has attached the greatest importance to
the ‘person’ of the author” (164) who continues to predominate in
“histories of literature, biographies of writers, interviews,
magazines, . . . in the very consciousness of men of letters anxious
to unite their person and their work through diaries and memoirs”
(164). The “image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is
tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his
passions” (1 64). Literary criticism, he argues, still consists for the
most part in seeking an “explanation of a work . . . in the man o r
woman who produced it” (1 64). Such a view is predicated upon the
assumption that a literary work is “always in the end, through the
more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the author
‘confiding’ in us” (1 64).
Barthes argues that ancient litera ture never emphasized on
the personality of author. He also explains how certain French
writers were trying to unsettle the author from the centre of the text.
He talks about Stephane Mallarme who had first tried to substitute
author’s power with the power of language. Mallarme had
maintained that it is the language that speaks and not the authors.
Barthes also mentions Paul Valery who had made an attempt to
attack subjective interpretations of texts and also the critical thought
based on the theory of inte riority or self. He had mentioned that
self, subjectivity or interiority, is a mere superstition as it is only a
verbal condition. However, Barthes is severely critical of N ewmunotes.in
Page 5
5Criticism though this school of criticism islargely analytical and
objective. H ea r g u e st h a tN ewCriticism fails to remove the author
from the study and identifies the text with the author. Barthes also
comments on surrealism. He partly appreciates the surrealist s’
experiments with language though he believes that the surrealist s’
claim to subvert the code or norm of language cannot be accepted .
Barthes ’argument is that every writer is located within language
and that no code can be subverted; it can only be played upon.
Equally important, the author is thought to “ nourish the book”
(164 ) and to be “in the same relation of antecedence to the work as
a father to his child” (1 64), which is to say that he “exists before it,
thinks, suffers, lives for it” (164). However,
writing can no longer designate an
operation of recording, notation ,
representation, ‘depiction’ (as the
Classics would say; rather, it designates
exactly what linguists, referring to
Oxford philosophy, call a performative, a
rare verbal form (exclusively given in the
first person and in the present tense, in
which the en unciation has no other
content (contains no other proposition)
than the act by which it is uttered –
something like the I declare of kings or
theIsing of very ancient poets. (16 5)
Modern texts must be conceptualised, consequently, as
‘Authorless ’.I nl i eu of the Author, Barthes speaks of the “scriptor”
(165) who neither precedes nor ‘fathers’ the text. Rather, s/he is
born
simultaneously with the text, is in no
way equipped with a being preceding or
exceeding the writing, is not the subject
with the boo k as predicate; there is no
other time than that of the enunciation
and every text is eternally written here
and now .( 165)
Barthes considers writing a slinguistic process .H ee x p l a i n s
that linguistically author is never more than the instance of writing
i.e. a writer becomes a writer only in the moments of using
language. This also means that the relation between author and the
text is not cause and effect. Barthes is of the opinion that language
has no person or personal identity but only a subject. Subj ect is the
one who uses language but not the one who creates language.
Hence, Barthes’ argument is that language can never implicate
subjectivity, self, originality or genius. This would also mean that
writing is a neutral exercise in language and the idea sg e n e r a t e di nmunotes.in
Page 6
6at e x ta r et h ei d e a si n h e r e n ti nal a n g u a g e .B a r t h e sm a k e st h e
famous statement that an a uthor is just the shadow of his book and
instead of writer a script ori sb o r n . Scripto r can be an individual who
inscribes others’ text on a medium whic hi sr e a d i l y available.
As mentioned earlier, Barthes believes that text has no
single meaning. This is largely because thatonce the text is written ,
it belongs to the domain of language. Since language doesn’t
belong to any individual, the text too does n’t belong to any
individual. This would mean that the author loses the authorial
control over the single meaning. Once the author loses the control
over single meaning, the readers will be able to detect many
meanings and even paradoxes and contradictions . This marks the
metaphorical death of the author when the text disowns the author.
According to Barthes, a text which is a linguistic construct
has a multi -dimensional space in which varieties of writings ,taken
from different cultural sources blend and clash. What Barthes
means here is that when a writer uses language, he also draws
upon the different voices, quotes and ideas which are there in the
language itself. It also means that there are voices and text of other
writers in every text that is writte n. This leads to the famous
statement of Barthes –“Text is a tissue of quotations.”
Barthes is also of the opinion that in the process of writing,
the writer draws his ideas from different cultures and hence, the
text is not a unified expression of meani ngbut possibly an inter -
textual pastiche. Hence ,he also believes that any claim to
understand the text fully is unreliable. He argues that it is necessary
to question the role of the critic in the light of this awareness. He
indicates that conventional schools of criticism –biographical,
romantic, or even New Criticism –try to discover the author
beneath the text. Once the author is discovered, the critic believes
that the text is explained. Barthes proposes a different approach
and he says that literat ure and criticism are controlled by the author
and,even worse ,by the critic. The new sensibility that Barthes
points out is that there is nothing to be deciphered in the text but it
should be disentangled from the grasp of authors and critics.
The fina l argument in the essay is that a text’s unity lies not
in its origin but in its destination i.e. the reader ultimately becomes
more important than the author. Reader ,according to Barthes, is
outside the domains of history, biography and psychology and
shares only the language with the author. Such a reader is not
concerned with the personality or the genius of the author. Finally ,
Barthes comes back to the quote from Balzac and says that these
views are not of anyone in particular; their source is languag ei t s e l f .munotes.in
Page 7
71.4CONCLUSION
Within the traditional schema of the literary work, the author
is conceptualised as thefather to the work. Barthes points out that
it may in fact be the other way around. What we know about the
author is less the origin of the t ext than the effect of what we read
there. We cannot confirm the meaning of a text by reference to the
putative life of the writer; indeed, what we know about the writer is
precisely what we can deduce from the text. The text,
paradoxically, gives birth to the writer in this way. Barthes
concludes that the primary determiner of meaning in the text is the
reader who does not just passively ingest the writer’s intention.
Rather, the reader is the active producer of meaning who arrests
theplay of signifiers in the manner that he or she sees fit.
1.5KEYTERMS
Semiology, Polysemi, Intertextuality, Pastiche.
1.7 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q.I Say if the following statements are true or false
1. According to Roland Barthes, it is language and not the author,
which controls the meaning in a text.
2. Barthes observes that every literary text has a definite meaning.
3. “Death of the Author” is an attack on traditional theories and
criticism.
Q.II Define the following:
1.Poststructuralism
2.Pastiche
3.Semiology
4.Polysemi
Q.III Answer the following:
1.Explain the poststructuralist argument in Roland Barthes
“Death of the Author”
2.What does Barthes mean by the expression “Death of the
Author”? Discuss.
3.“Text is a tissue of quotations”. Explain Barthes’ statement in
the light of t he essay that you have studied.
munotes.in
Page 8
82
“SIMULACRA AND SIMULATIONS” –
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
Unit structure :
2.0 Objective s
2.1 Introduction
2.2 About the Author ( Jean Baudrillard )
2.2 “Simulacra and Simulations” An Overview
2.3 Conclusion
2.4 Key Terms
2.5 Check Your Progress
2.0OBJECTIVE S
The basic objective of this unit is to familiarize the learners
with the essay of Jean Baudrillard on simulacra and simulations.
This unit also aims to make the learners understand Baudrillard's
views on postmodernism, reality and society.
2.1INTRODUCTION
Over the past three decades, technology and human
ingenuity have made it possible to create all kinds of fakes and
simulations that are so realistic. The process is already so far
advanced that, today, a substantial part of our surroundi ngs is
made up of objects and images and people that appear to be
something other than what they are.
The sheer number of simulations that now exist and their
realism is inevitably changing not only our surroundings, but our
psychology and behaviour. On e of the most i mportant changes can
be found is the fact that we now routinely experience simulation
confusion, in which we mistake realism for reality and think some of
these fakes and simulations really are what they imitate. We
experience simulation con fusion when we receive an advertisement
in the mail that is disguised as an official notice, and, at first, fall for
it and assume it is an official notice. Many thinkers deem that
simulation is a symptom of the postmodern society.munotes.in
Page 9
92.2 ABOUT THE AUTHOR ( JEAN BAUDRILLARD)
Jean Baudrillard (1927 -2007) was one of the foremost
French literary theorists and intellectual figures of the contemporary
era whose writings combine philosophy, social theory and cultural
metaphysics. His writings reflect on the keyevents of the epoch. As
a sharp critic of contemporary society, culture and intellectual
climate, Baudrillard is considered as a major proponent of French
postmodern theory. His prolific writing, reflected in more than 30
books, carry insightful commentari es on class, gender, race,
structure of modern society, postmodern consumerism, the world of
media and the technology -driven society; particularly interesting are
Baudrillard's views on the impact of new media, information
technology and cybernetic communi cation in the creation of a
different social order.
Baudrillard has been identified as a cult figure in postmodern
theory and his analysis of culture and philosophy has given him the
status of an original theorist. He also associated himself with the
Fren ch Left in the 1960s by opposing French and the US
intervention in the Algerian and Vietnamese wars. His first book
was The System of Objects (1968 )followed by another work, The
Consumer Society (1970 ). These early works of Baudrillard deal
with semiology and they explain how objects are encoded with the
system of signs and meanings that make contemporary media and
consumer societies. These works also deal with advertising,
packaging, display fashion, emancipated sexuality, mass media
and culture in the wa ke of the multiplied commodities and the
abundance of signs and spectacles. Baudrillard claims that
commodities are bought and displayed for both their sign value and
their use value.
Baudrillard also has an ambivalent relationship with classical
Marxism. On one hand he has expressed the Marxian critique of
commodity production and on the other hand he fails to discuss the
potential of the working class in the consumer society.
Baudrillards “Simulation and Simulacra” announces a
rupture between modern and postmodern societies. This essay
marks his departure from modern social theory to indicate that the
modern societies are organized around the production and
consumption of commodities while postmodern societies are
organized around simulation and the play of images and signs. He
indicates that postmodernism is a situation in which codes, models
and signs are the organizing forms of new social order where
simulation rules. According to him, postmodern society is a society
of simulation in which identities a re constructed by the
appropriation of images, codes and models. He also argues thatmunotes.in
Page 10
10economics, politics, social life and culture are all governed by the
mode of simulation. In Baudrillard’s view, codes and models
determine how goods are consumed and used, politics that unfold
culture is produced and day to day life is lived. Baudrillard’s vision
of the postmodern universe is one of hyper reality in which
entertainment, information and communication technologies
provide more intense experiences than those o fo r d i n a r yd a yt od a y
life. According to him, the realm of hyper -real, created by media
simulations of reality, amusement parks like the Disney Land,
malls, consumer fantasy lands and TV Sports are more real than
the real. In such a world, he observes ,models, images and codes
of hyper real come tocontrol thought and behavior. He indicates
that in the postmodern world ,individuals escape from the 'desert of
the real' for the ecstasies of hyper reality made by the computer,
media and technolog y-driven exper ience. In this world,
subjectivities are lost and the new form of experience emerges that
renders previous social theories and politics irrelevant.
Other significant works of Baudrillard include The Mirror of
Production (1973 ),For a Critique of the Polit ical Economy of the
Sign (1973 ),Fatal Strategies (1990 ),Symbolic Exchange and
Death (1993 ),The Transparency of Evil (1993 ),and Screened Out
(2002 ).With all these works, Baudrillard has raised a few questions
on classical philosophy and social theory. These works have also
proposed theoretical strategies on writing literary forms culture,
modernity and postmodernity.
2.2“SIMULACRA AND SIMULATIONS” –AN
OVERVIEW
“Simulacra and S imulation ”, a path breaking philosophical
statement by Jean Baudrillard wa s published in 1981. This work is
known for linkages and signs and how they relate to the
contemporary society. In this essay, Baudrillard argues that human
beings have started replacing reality and meaning with symbols
and signs and consequently, what is taken as reality is actually a
simulation of reality. According to Baudrillard, simulacra refer to the
signs of culture and communication media that create the reality
human beings perceive. This reality is a world saturated with
imagery, marked with audio visual media and commercial
advertising. Baudrillard maintains that these simulacra of the real
surpass the real world and thus become hyper real –aw o r l dt h a ti s
more real than real, preceding the real. According to Baudrillard,
apathy and melancholy do minate human perception in the world
and they begin undermining Nietzsche's feeling of resentment.
Baudrillard illustrates his basic arrangement using a fable
drawn from the work of Jorge Louis Borges. In it ,a map is createdmunotes.in
Page 11
11in a great empire that is so detailed that it is as large as the empire
itself. The actual map grows and decays as the empire itself is
conquered and becomes a lost territory. When the empire
crumbles, all that is left is the map. In Baudrillard view, it is the map
that human beings a re living in, the simulation of reality and it is a
reality that is crumbling away from disuse.
The basic premise of Baudrillards simulacra and simulation
is the statement –
"the simulacrum is never that concedes
the truth –it is the truth which conceal s
that there is none. The simulacrum is
true." (Baudrillard 429)
Incidentally, the concept of simulacra or simulacrum was
already in circulation in French philosophical thought like that of
Giles Deleuze before the publication of Baudrillards work.
Baudr illard uses ‘simulacra ’to indicate material image which
appears as something else without having the features or essence
of that something. This concept is similar to plateau's objection to
artistic representation that replaces the real. In his essay,
Baudrillard makes the readers think as to what happens in a world
which blocks all access to the real and in which only simulacra and
simulations exist. It is also essential to understand the range of
implications of the terms –simulations and simulacra. Mer riam
Webster dictionary defines simulation as a counterfeit or the
imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process
by means of the functioning of another. It is also defined as an
examination of a problem not subject to direct experime ntation.
Simulacrum, Webster dictionary defines ,as an image or
representation or as an insubstantial semblance of something.
According to Baudrillard, simulation is the condition of the
world in which we live. He maintains that simulations take over our
relationship with real life, fostering a kind of hyper -reality which is a
copy that has no original. He argues that this hyper reality happens
when the difference between reality and representation collapses
and we are not able to perceive an image as refl ecting anything
other than a symbolic exchange of signifiers in culture, not the real
world. Baudrillard goes on to describe three different orders of
simulacra. The first is in which the reality is represented by the
image as a map represents the territor y. The second order of
simulacra is the one in which the distinction between reality and
representation is blurred. The third order, he observes, is in which
the relationship between reality and representation is replaced with
the simulation. Reality thus is lost in favo uro fah y p e rr e a l i t y .T o
prove his point that the contemporary era is that of simulations,
Baudrillard furnishes the examples of Disney Land and Watergate.
He illustrates the point that these locations produce a hyper realitymunotes.in
Page 12
12that let us be lieve that we can tell reality from representation, the
real from the imaginary and the copy from its original.
Though it is adebatable stand whether or not welive in a
world of simulacra, the term is very important in the light of how we
perceive mediu m. Baudrillard’s belief is that the concept of
simulation is vital in shaping our notion of the real and the original,
revealing the preoccupation of media, not as a means of
communication but as a means of representation. When media
reach a certain advanc ed stage, they integrate themselves into
daily 'real experience to such an extent that the unmediated
sensation is indistinguishable from the mediator. Consequently, the
simulation becomes confused with its source. However, Baudrillard
reminds that simulat ion is different from the image and the icon in
the active nature of its representation. What are represented are
not copies of static entities but rather the process of feeling and
experiencing themselves. Beginning as a primarily visual
representation, t he simulacrum (the image of a simulation) has
been extended theoretically to indicate the contemporary media
culture.
The terms simulation and simulacra have subtly different
meanings. Oxford English Dictionary defines simulation as “the
action or practic e of simulation with intent to deceive ”.I ta l s o
considers simulation "as a false assumption or a display, a surface
resemblance or imitation of something." It also extends the
definition by indicating that it is "the technique of imitating the
behavior of some situation or process... bym e a n so fs u i t a b l y
analogous situation or apparatus".
All these definitions convey the ideas that simulation is a set
of action and it is deceitful in its display. In comparison, simulacrum
is defined in Oxford English Dictionary as "a material image, made
as a representation of some deity person or thing". It is also defined
"as something having merely a form or appearance of a certain
thing without possessing its substance or proper qualities". The
same dictionary expands the definition as "a mere image, a
spacious imitation or likeness of something". These definitions
indicate that like simulation, simulacrum bears a resemblance to
the thing that it imitates only on the surface level, but contrary to
simulation ’s mimicry of a process or situation, simulacrum is a static
entity, a mere image.
Baudrillard writes that an effective simulation will not merely
deceive one into believing in a false entity but rather signifies the
destruction of a noriginal reality that it has re placed. He observes:
"to simulate is not simply to feign...
Feigning or dissimulation leaves themunotes.in
Page 13
13reality intact... Whereas simulation
threatens the difference between true
and false, between real and imaginary"
(Baudrillard: 1984: 237).
Baudrillard ’sview is that reality is so nebulous though rooted
in terms like truth and real and an effective simulation will destroy it
completely, leaving the deceived in a world without meaning.
Simulation ,for Baudrillard ,brings human beings into a circular
world in which the sign is not exchanged for meaning, but merely
for another sign. He elaborate sthis point:
…what if God himself could be
simulated, that is to say reduced to the
signs which attest his existence? Then
the whole system becomes weightless...
Never again exchanging for what is real,
but exchanging in itself in an
uninterrupted circuit. (Baudrillard: 1984:
239).
According to Baudrillard, what is simulated is what is
mediated and vice -versa. Those experiences in real life that are
explicitly presen ted as mediated are classified as a higher order of
simulation, one which simulates simulating to ofalsely suggest sa
real that exists outside the surface of truth. Disney Land, according
to him, is the prime example of this phenomenon. He explains :
Disne y Land is presented as imaginary
in order to make us believe that the rest
is real, when inf act the Los Angeles and
the America surrounding it are no longer
real, but of the order of hyper real and
off–simulation". (Baudrillard: 1984:
240).
For Baudrill ard, as there is nothing that is not simulated,
everyday experiences of human beings are mediated through
simulacra.
Baudrillard reminds the readers that the experience in a
hyper real world is one in which media are not simply located in
their own sealed spaces, but dispersed around human beings, in all
forms of experience. His point is that there is no longer any medium
in the literal sense: it is now intangible, diffused and diffracted in the
real. What he means is that the medium is no longer presented to
human beings as a medium (in the sense of a mediator) and the
diffuseness of the medium means that what the individual believes
to be real is never unmediated. Li fein a mediated world ,accordingmunotes.in
Page 14
14to Baudrillard, is now spectralised and the events are f iltered by the
medium, creating the dissolution of television into life and the
dissolution of life into television.
2.3 CONCLUSION
Baudrillard ’s philosophy implicates that a system of empty
signs which signal the destruction of original reality has perm eated
into human society and sensibility. He also reveals the anxiety for
the impending death of the real. His essay gains its significance in
the wake of media like internet and video games which have
proliferated the copies of the original. Baudrillard ’stheory on
simulation and simulacra throw light into the postmodern age,
specially on its politics and aesthetics of representation.
2.4KEYTERMS
Simulation, Simulacra, Hyper -reality .M e d i a t i o n
2.5CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
QITrue or False
1.Simulation ,according to Baudrillard ,is same as the image or
icon.
2.Simulation unlike simulacra, involves mimicry.
3.Hyper -reality and simulation are distinct features of postmodern
age, according to Baudrillard .
4.Baudrillard ’s view on simulation agrees with Plato's view on
representation.
5.Simulation and simulacrum bear resemblance to the thing that it
imitates only on the surface level.
QIIDefine the following terms:
1.Simulation
2.Simulacra
3.Hyper -reality
4.Late capitalism
5.Postmodern era.
munotes.in
Page 15
153
“THE POLITICS OF THEORY :
IDEOLOGICAL POSITIONS IN THE
POSTMODERNISM DEBATE” –FREDRIC
JAMESON
Unit structure :
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Fredric Jameson
3.2 Postmodernism
3.3 “The Politics of Theory: Ideological Positions in the
Postmodernism Debate”: An Overview.
3.4 Conclusion
3.5 Key Terms
3.6 Check Your Progress
3.0OBJECTIVES
The basic objective of this unit is to introduce the readers to
Fredric Jameson’s views on Postmodernism. The unit also aims to
explain the Marxist perspective on Postmodernism.
3.1INTRODUCTION: P OSTMODERNISM
Postmodernism is a term that is used in a variety of art
forms ,and across domains and disciplines. It is used in the
contexts of architecture ,visual art, popular culture, fiction, literary
theory and social sciences. Tim Woods in Beginn ing
Postmodernism explains the aesthetics of Postmodernism. He
defines Postmodernism as:
Aesthetic self -reflexivity, in which
artifacts explore their own constitution,
construction and shape (eg: novels in
which narrators comment on narrative
forms, or paintings in which an image is
left unfinished, with `roughed -in’ or blank
sections on the canvas). ( Woods: p -7)munotes.in
Page 16
16Plurality is considered to be the characteristic feature of
postmodernism. Self, truth and vision appear to be pluralistic and
fragmented in postmodern expression. Tim Woods explains this
aspect of postmodernism in the contexts of reason and identity:
Postmodernism pits reasons in the
plural – fragmented and
incommensurable – against the
universality of modernism and the long
standing concep tion of the human self
as a subject with a single, unified
reason. The subject is the space
demarcated by the `I’, understood as a
sense of identity, a selfhood, which is
coherent, stable, rational and unified.
Based upon this sense of individuality
(‘individuus’ is the Latin word for
‘undivided’ ), it is believed that people
possess agency and can use their
capacities to alter, shape and change
the world in which they live. ( Woods: 9-
10)
Postmodern Theory is largely suspicious of the notion of
unifie d coherence self, which is considered to be the foundation of
rationality. Hence, it no longer believes in ideology or belief
system.
3.2FREDRIC JAMESON
Fredric Jameson is a famous American theorist who has
worked extensively on Literary Theory, Marxis m, Culture Studies
and the relationship between art forms and ideology. Jameson
positions himself as aMarxist analyst who tries to locate, like Georg
Lukacs, the ideological apparatus that operates within the literary
movements like Modernism and Postmode rnism. Jameson
provides his neo -Marxist perspectives in his works –Marxism and
Form ,Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism and
The Politics of Postmodernism. Jameson tries to deviate from
conventional European models of literary theory by extending his
interest in various cultural expressions like television serials, films,
painting and architecture.munotes.in
Page 17
173.3“THE POLITICS OF THEORY: IDEOLOGICAL
POSITIONS IN THE POSTMODERNISM DEBATE :”AN
OVERVIEW.
Fredric Jameson who has taught at severa l American
academic centres including Harvard, Yale and DukeUniversity, has
been generally considered as a leading proponent of Marxism in
America. His works also reveal his grasp on structuralist and
poststructuralist theories. One of the major concerns in Jameson's
writing has been postmodernism. He analyses postmodernism in
terms of its features and its socioeconomic context of late
capitalism. Jameson’s theory is that postmodernism is a product of
consumer society and it reflects the ideology of multin ational
capitalism. Jameson's essay, "The Politics of Theory: Ideological
Positions in Postmodernism Debate", is one of three influential
articles he has published on the theme of postmodernism and its
ideology. This essay, first published in 1984, explore st h ep a r a d o x
of postmodern art which seems to be capable of generating
advocacy and appropriation from politically reactionary and
progressive critics. Jameson provides an in -depth Marxist analysis
of the aesthetic sand ideology of postmodernism.
Jameson begins the essay with the statement that the
problem of postmodernism is both aesthetic and political. He also
states that postmodernism symbolizes a social system which is
structured on consumer society and capitalism. To prove these
arguments, Jameson a nalyses the logical possibilities ofvarious
theories on modernism and postmodernism and the structure of the
new commercial culture from which postmodernism emerges.
Jameson is of the opinion that art forms which are classified
under postmodernism such a sp o e t r yo f John Ashbery , music of
John Cage and the painting of Andy Warhol are so varied in
techniques and experiments that they reflect the same
fragmentation of modernism. He also analyses the new narratives
of William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon and Ish mael Readt o
suggest that they produce what might be called as nostalgia art.
Jameson also considers postmodern architecture of Robert Venturi,
Michael Groove and Charles Moore to prove the point that
architectural postmodernism is not a unified period sty le but rather
a wide range of allusions to the styles of the past.
Jameson also maintains that the debate on style is also a
debate on the politics of postmodernism. Jameson reminds that ,a s
Ihab Hasan points out, postmodern style could be considered as
anti-modernist. Jameson's opinion is that certain theorists like Tom
Wolfe and Charles Jencks who are pro -postmodernist sbelieve that
postmodernism subverts modernist ideology. He says that Wolfemunotes.in
Page 18
18and Jenck s attack the utopian impulses of modernism, critiqu ing
the reactionary cultural politics of James Joyce and T. S.Eliot. In
the hands of Wolfe and Jencks ,along with those of Hilton Kramer,
postmodernism liberates people of responsibility of classical
modernism by celebrating superficiality. Their stand is that
postmodernism is fundamentally anti -middle class. However,
Jameson reminds the reader that the setheorists cannot disengage
themselves completely from capitalism. He points out that the
foundation of postmodernism is the bourgeoisie itself. Though it
tries to reject the middle class values ,he says that postmodernism
repudiates and entertains the middle class and hence it has a
symbiotic relationship with the capital.
Jameson also considers the theoretical positions of Jurgen
Habermas, Francois Lyota rd,Manfredo Tafuri and Hilton Kramer to
classify them into pro -postmodernist sand anti -postmodernist s.
Jameson explains that Habermas ’view of postmodernism springs
from his conviction that modernism attacks the middle class
sensibility .Though Habermas c ritiques the utopian spirit of
modernism, he refuses to consider postmodernism as
enlightenment. Hence ,Jameson believes that Habermas is a pro -
modernist and anti -postmodernist. According to Jameson ,both
Tafuri and Lyotard are political figures and they h ave a commitment
to older revolutionary tradition. While Lyotard endorses the
supreme value of aesthetic innovation as a form of revolution,
Tafuri has a Marxist framework to analyze postmodern art.
Jameson also reminds the reader st h a t Tafuri ,despite dec laring the
traditional Marxist tradition ,has affiliation with post -Marxism like
Lyotard has. According to Jameson, Tafuri's Marxism is pessimistic
and his judgement on postmodernism is largely conditioned by this
pessimism. By analyzing the political posi tions held by the various
theorists, Jameson comes to the point that postmodernism should
not be merely understood on aesthetic grounds but also on its
cultural and historical context. However, he doesn't believe in
making any absolute moralizing judgments on postmodernism but
rather believes that ideological judg ements on postmodernism are
necessary. He states that a judg ement on ourselves and on cultural
productions will enable one to grasp a present historical period.
Jameson also takes the theoretical e ngagements on
postmodernism that overlooks the complacencies of
postmodernism and salute sthe new forms in postmodernism. He
argues that it is relevant to assess postmodernism as a new
cultural production or as a social reconstruction of late capitalism.
Jameson's view is that, in the architectural context,
postmodernism has refused the high modernist space by
generating a radical disjunction from the spatial context of
traditional art. He states that postmodernist buildings celebrate the
insertion into th e heterogeneous fabric of commercial strip and fast -munotes.in
Page 19
19food landscapes of the contemporary American cities. These
buildings ,with their commercial icons and spaces ,renounce the
high modernist claim to innovation. Jameson's point is tha tt h i sn e w
architecture with it s populist outlook emerges from a new
commercial culture –beginning with advertisements and moving on
to the formal packaging of all kinds from products to buildings to
bestsellers and films. Jameson also considers postmodernism as
an aesthetic en tity that effaces the traditional distinction between
high culture and mass culture. He also argues that it creates
illusions and fantasies as any capitalist endeavor wo uld. Jameson
believes that postmodernism tries to alter the realm of authentic
experien ce by altering the surrounding environment. Such an effort
to create philistinism of schlock and kitsch , of commodification and
ofReaders ’Digest culture is an effort to create the illusions of a
new object world. According to him, B -grade Hollywood films ,t h e
Las Vegas strip, airport paperback books of popular biography,
science fiction or fantasy novel are all the crucial symptoms of the
same process.
In the final reckoning, the problem of postmodernism for
Jameson is only a manifesto of a cultural muta tion or commercial
culture. He also believes that the postmodernist claim of having
created a depoliticized society is not acceptable. He maintains that
it is necessary to resist the cultural positions of postmodernism to
locate oneself properly in both thepresent and the past.
3.4CONCLUSION
Fredric Jameson clearly reveals his concern for the society
and his Marxist leaning in the analysis of postmodernism. He also
shows a strong resistance to accept the point of thinkers like
Lyotard and Ihab Hassan th at postmodernism is a verifiable socio -
cultural reality. He also emphasizes the point that postmodernism,
like modernism, is a capitalist cultural product.
3.5KEY TERMS
Late Capitalism, Multinational Capitalism, Consumer
Capitalism, Postmodernism, schlo ckandkitsch
3.6CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q1 Say if the following statements are true or false
1.Fredric Jameson, though supports modernism, attacks
postmodernism on its ideological ground.
2.Postmodernism, according to Jameson, is as varied as
modernism in its manifestation.munotes.in
Page 20
203.Fredric Jameson provides a Marxist interpretation of
postmodernism.
4.Jameson believes that postmodernism creates a
depoliticized society.
5.Jameson believes that postmodernism tries to alter the
realm of authentic experience by altering the sur rounding
environment.
Q.II Define the following:
1.Late Capitalism
2.Modernism
3.Postmodernism
Q.III Answer the following:
1.How does Jameson make a Marxist assessment of the
aesthetic and political aspects of postmodernism?
2.Explain how Jameson evaluates various theoretical positions
on modernism and postmodernism in the essay.
munotes.in
Page 21
21Unit-4
“FEMINISM AND CRITICAL THEORY” –
Gayatri Spivak
Unit structure :
4.0 Objective
4.1 Introduction to Feminism
4.2 Key Terms and Concepts in Fe minist Literary Theory
4.3 Introduction to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
4.4 “Feminism and Critical Theory” :A nO v e r v i e w
4.5 Conclusion
4.6 Key Terms
4.7 Check Your Progress
4.0OBJECTIVE
The objective of this unit is to familiarize the readers wi th
basic concepts and terms used in Feminist Literary theories. It also
aims to impart the learners with the knowledge of Gayatri Spivak’s
views on Feminism, Marx and Freud.
4.1 INTRODUCTION TO FEMINISM
Feminism is considered as an organized movement, wh ich
promotes equality for men and women in political, economic and
social spheres. Feminists, in general, believe that women are
oppressed mainly due to their gender in the dominant ideology or
patriarchy. Patriarchy is a system, which oppresses women thro ugh
its social, economic, political insti tutions and cultural practices.
Men, to maintain greater power over women have created
boun daries and obstacles for women. Patriarchy also perpetuates
the oppression of minorities and homosexuals. Various schools of
Feminism like Radical Feminism; Liberal Feminism, Cultural
Feminism and Socialist Feminism have advocated drastic changes
in the power relation between men and women.
Feminist theory is an extension of Feminism that tries to
interrogate gender bias throu gh theoretical engagement. Feminist
theories have developed largely under three main categories:
a.Theories having an essentialist focus, which include
Psychoanalytic Feminism.munotes.in
Page 22
22b.Theories aimed at defining and establishing a feminist literary
canon or theorie s seeking to re -interpret and re -vision l iterature,
culture and history. This branch includes Gynocriticism and
Liberal Feminism.
c.Theories focusing on sexual difference and sexual politics. This
group includes Gender Studies, Lesbian Studies, Cultural
Feminism, Socialist Feminism and Queer Theory.
Simon De Beauvoir’s study, The Second Sex, is generally
considered to be the origi n of feminist literary theory. Though
Beauvoir’s work is attacked for a flawed perception of her own body
politics, it is nevert heless considered as a ground breaking book of
feminist theory that interrogates the ‘othering’ of women by Western
philosophy. However, merely unearthing women’s literature did not
ensure a prominent place for feminist theory. Hence, subsequent
feminist theories were engaged in assessing and questioning
number of preconceptions inherent in a literary canon dominated by
male beliefs. Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique (1963), Kate
Millet’s Sexual Politics (1970), Judith Fetterley’s The Resisting
Reader (1978), Elaine Showalter’s Literature of Their Own (1977)
and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s Mad Woman in the Attic
(1979) are just a handful of many critiques that question cultural,
sexual intellectual and / or psychological stereotypes about women.
4.2 K EY TERMS AND CONCEPTS IN FEMINIST
LITERARY THEORY
A discourse in Feminism or a feminist interpretation of
cultural text invariably touches upon certain terms and concepts
that are popularized by various branches of feminist literary theory.
A basic u nderstanding of these terms and concepts is integral in
the study of feminist approaches to literature and cultural
expressions.
Feminist Critique
According to Elaine Showalter, Feminist Critique is an
interpretation of text from the feminist perspective to expose
clichés, stereotypes and negative images of women, generally
focusing on male literary and theoretical texts. Feminist Critique
also calls attention to the gaps in literary history that has larg ely
excluded writings by women. This approach which dominated
feminist criticism first emerged in the 1970s and is strongly linked to
the decade’ s political agendas. Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics ,f o r
example, connects the mis -treatment of women in fiction by Henry
Miller and others to the oppression of wom en in a patriarchal
society. Showalter suggests that by continuing to emphasize
writings by men, the strategy of Feminist Critique remained largely
dependent on the existing models of interpretation.munotes.in
Page 23
23The main interest of Feminist Critique is to explore the extent
of patriarchal ideology in literature, namely to explore the material
forms of social, economic and political discrimination of women.
Further, it examines the representations of women and
homosexuals to show how gender, in contrast to biological s ex, is
culturally constructed and how; therefore, masculinity and femininity
are depicted in literature.
Ecriture Feminine
This concept was mainly developed in the work of French
feminist, Helene Cixous. She defines it as wri ting from / by the
female body .Founded in part on Jacques Derrida’s linguistic
theories, it is a revolutionary concept that tries to explode the
oppressive structures of the conventional, androcentric (male -
centred) language and thought. According to Cixous, what makes
ecriture femini nestrong is the subversive and excessive character
of female sexuality; like feminine sexuality, it is multiple instead of
single, diffused instead of focused, oriented towards process
instead of goal. Celebrating multiplicity and openness, ecriture
femin ine breaks apart the binary oppositions that organize
masculine writing: head / heart, active / passive, cult ure / nature,
father / mother. However, ecriture feminine has met with certain
objections because it often seems to define femininity as a quality
inherent in female biology and essentially opposed to masculinity
thereby reinforcing the very dist inction it tries to dismantle. Yet in
French, the adjective feminine is ambiguous –referring both to
biological sex (the female) and to cultural / historica lg e n d e r( t h e
feminine) –and this ambiguity is also present in the references to
ecriture feminine by Cixous and others. Though it frequently
invokes the images of the female body, ecriture feminine is
sometimes defined as a product of culture and histor ya sp e r
instance, the idea that women learn to speak with and through their
bodies more than men do. Thus, it can also be applied to describe
a style of women -centred writing.
4.3 INTRODUCTION TO GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY
SPIVAK
Nigel Wood, the co-editor of Modern Criticism and theory :A
Reader (1988) has rightly pointed out that it is particularly difficult to
characterize the thinking of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1942 -).He
holds the view that Spivak not only introduced deconstructive
critical strategies i nto literary criticism but also developed wider
cultural analysis. Her introduction to the translation of Jacques
Derrida’s De la Grammatologie into English (1967; trans. 1976, as
of Grammotology) offers the most cogent Third World feminist
insight into th e deconstruction’s political agenda. Spivak’s
allegiance to the semantic associations of the alienation of the
voices of the Third World Women cannot be ignored because itmunotes.in
Page 24
24points out inherent possible antagonisms between feminist, marxist
and deconstructiv e readings.
In her seminal essay, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ Spivak points
out how an exclusively textual route towards understanding non -
western customs is necessary to correlate to occidental patterns of
understanding. In tune with this essay, varied pe rspectives are
highlighted in her 1986 essay “Feminism and Critical Theory”. In
this essay, she positions herself outside the theoretical debate to
get at the material forces that give rise to particular brand of
feminism.
4.4 “FEMINISM AND CRITICAL THEO RY”: AN
OVERVIEW
In “Feminism and Critical Theory” Spivak embarks upon a
series of comments on a few essentialist notions of ‘woman’ by
articulating her thoughts on the issues and relationships
intersecting feminism with Marxism, psychoanalysis and
decon struction. She begins her essay by enlisting her notions on
feminism within the ambit of poststructuralist critical discourse.
Such an analysis holds importance because the issues emerging
from the above mentioned disciplines continue to interest people
and the configurations arising out of these ideas continue to
change. The essay progresses in four sections. The first section
deals with the talk she gave several years ago. The second section
is reflects her earlier work. The third section holds an interme diate
moment. And finally the fourth section incorporates the present.
Each section reflects her strong insights on beliefs about various
critical debates. Although the essay is short, it is loaded with
comprehensive arguments on feminism and critical theo ry.
The first section of the essay deals with the problems of
essentialsing definitions and its relations to women in critical
discourses. She states that no definition can be applied to both the
genders –the only alternative to definition can be that of a
polemical or provisional one. As definition reshapes itself in varied
circumstances, it should not be misinterpreted as a kind of
dichotomy. As a deconstrucinist, Spivak calls for a debate on the
very enterprise of redefining the premises of any theory in literary
criticism. She comments: “ One, no rigorous definition of anything is
ultimately possible, so that if one wants to, one could go on
deconstructing the opposition between man and woman, and finally
that it is a binary opposition that displaces i tself” (Spivak: 495).
Spivak’s concerns on the politics of production of language is
reflected in this essay wherein she propounds that most critical
theory sees the text as a discourse of human science wherein the
problem of the discourse of human scie nce isclearly visible. In thismunotes.in
Page 25
25way, Spivak indicates: “In the general discourse of humanities,
there is a sort of search for solution, where as in literary discourse
there is a playing out of a problem as the solution, if you like”.
(P-495)
This argument is further elaborated in the way that the human
discourse can be articulated in three shifting ‘concepts’: “language,
world and consciousness”.(p.495) Spivak makes a point by stating
that any world is organized through language: an expression t hat
we cannot possess, for we are operated upon by those languages.
This category of language then, embodies the categories of world
and consciousness even as it is determined by them. Spivak
comments: “A safe figure, seemingly outside of the language –
(speech) –writing opposition, is the text –a weave of knowing and
not-knowing which is what knowing is. (This organizing principle -
language, writing, a text -might itself be a way of holding at bay a
randomness incongruent with consciousness)” (P -495).
Spivak further advocates that theorists consider Marxian theory
as texts of labour, production, circulation and distribution and Freud
as a psychoanalyst. However, she claims that it is necessary to
understand human textuality as something which represents the
world and the self. She states: “This human textuality can be seen
not only asworld and self, asthe representation of a world in terms
of a self at play with other selves and generating this represention,
but also inthe world and self, all implicat ed in an
intextuality”(PP.495 -496). Hence, such a concept of textuality
should not necessarily reduce the world to just texts, linguistics
texts, books, criticism and teaching. Spivak critiques the tendency
of the critical pracices that take literary text as offering a solution
whereas. in reality, one should be awre of unavailability of a unified
solution. In Spivak’s view Marx’s or Freud’s interpretations are
seen in terms of evidence and demonstration. Spivak thus
comments: “They seem to bring forth ev idence from the world of
man or man’s self, and thus prove certain kinds of truths about
world and self”.(p.496).However, Spivak reminds that their
depiction of self and world are based on inadequate evidence and
she counters by an idea asserting that, “I would like to fix upon the
idea of alienation in Marx and the idea of normality and health in
Freud.” (p -496)
According to Spivak, one way of understanding Marx is in terms
of use -value, exchange -value and surplus value. Marx’s notion of
use value is that which is directly consumed by the agent.
Exchange value is what can be achieved in terms of either labour
power or money. Surplus value is considered to be more worthy
because in the process of abstraction through exchange –the
buyer of labour’s work ge ts more (in exchange) than the worker
needs for subsistence.munotes.in
Page 26
26In this context, Spivak interestingly allegorizes the
relationship of a woman within the above triad parameter –“use”,
“exchange” and “surplus”. She illustrates the case of a traditional
woman in a given social situation. On one hand she is the one who
produces more than subsistence and becomes a source of
continuous production for man or capitalist who owns her or his
labour power. Another view she holds is that the mode of
production of housewor k is also not capitalist, hence such an
analysis could be paradoxical. On the other hand, in relation to the
contemporary woman is the one who seeks financial compensation
for housework by abstracting use value into exchange value. It is in
this bargain, S pivak argues that the situation of domestic workplace
cannot relate to Marxian theory, which is considered as ‘pure
exchange ‘. In Spivak’s point of view, the Marxian exigency leads to
two queries: “What is the use -value of unremunerated woman’s
work for h usband or family? Is the willing insertion into the wage
structure a curse or a blessing? It is in this context Spivak
confronts as to how would then one fight this idea, which is
universal and patriarchal, that wages in fact are the only means of
value -producing work? Nor does she quite agree with the saying
that “ Housework is beautiful.” (496 -497) Moreover, what would be
the implications of leaving women outside the purview of capitalist
economy only. In lighter vein, she adds that “Radical feminism ca n
here learn a cautionary lesson from Lenin’s capitulation to
capitalism.” (p.497) that nothing is more interesting than the idea of
externalization or alienation because within this framework of
capitalist system “the labour process externalizes and the worker is
considered as a commodity”(p.497).
Having broached upon the earlier ideas, Spivak feels the need
to elaborate the notion of reproduction with Marxian paradigm. She
argues that a womb makes the woman an agent in any theory of
production .But in matrilineal and patrilineal societies, “The man
retains legal property rights over the product of a woman’s body.
On each separate occasion, the custodial decision is a sentimental
questioning of man’s right. The current struggle over abortion right
has fo re grounded this acknowledged agenda” (p -497).
Spivak also expresses the view that time has come to rework
the theory of production and to interrogate Marx’s view that women
and children make desexualized labour force. She then calls for
rewriting rules of economy and social elthics from a feminist point
of view and questions essentialisations and Marx’s transgression in
relation to where ”rules for humanity and criticism of socialites are
based on inadequate evidence”. (p.497) She then suggests, “that i f
the nature and history of abbreviation, labour and the production of
property are reexamined in terms of women’s work and childbirth, it
can lead in to a reading of Marx beyond Marx”.(497 -498)munotes.in
Page 27
27Spivak then comes to an idea where she expresses that it is
wiser to move beyond Marx to Freud who wrote Beyond the
Pleasure Principle . Freud’s outstanding study of “imagined”,
anticipated and avoided pain made observations on subject’s
history and theory. In this connection, Spivak unearths the relatively
untouche d and undefined concepts such as womb -envy as against
Freud’s Penis -envy. It is here she places on record the importance
of womb as “a tangible place of production”(P.498) where there is
pain in productivity and normality without sentimentalizing the pain
of the subject in relation to childbirth, because “The opposition of
pleasure and pain is questioned in the physiological normality’ of
woman” (p.498) as subtly figures in Freud’s texts. It is here Spivak
comes in and says that if one deconstructs the pain of man and
women it operates differently. She aligns with Luce Irirgaray and
admits that since the “womb is a place of the carrier and the carried
which needs correction”. Spivak also charts “the itinerary of womb -
envy in the production of a theory of con sciousness” and points out
how “the idea of the womb as a place of production is avoided both
in Marx and in Freud” (p.498) with exception of the American neo -
Freudian, Erich Fromm, a prolific critic of on Freud’s legacy.
Spivak takes the argument forwar d on Freud and says that her
task is not to reject the idea of penis -envy but to avail the idea of
womb -envy to define human psychology and production in society.
She says “In Freud, the genital stage is pre -eminently phallic, not
clitoral or vaginal. This particular gap is significant. The hysteron
remains the place which constitutes only the text of hysteria.
Everywhere there is a non -confrontation of the idea of the womb as
a workshop, except to produce a surrogate penis” (p.498).
Spivak says that these are certain ideas of the world and self
that circulate out Freudian and Marxist theoretical bases which
need to be examined. In this context, Spivak opines that one should
not mistake the evolution of the ideas of the theorists, or the world
only with the purpose of appreciating a literary text because certain
kinds of notions preexist in the world and consciousness of even
the most ‘practical’ critic. Hence, she opines: “Part of the feminist
enterprise might well be to provide ‘evidence’ so that these gre at
male texts do not become great adversaries, or models from whom
we take our ideas and then revise or reassess them. These texts
must be rewritten so that there is new material for the grasping of
the production and determination of literature within the general
production and determination of consciousness and society.”
(p.499) Here, she means that after all both men and women who
produce literature have general ideas of the world and
consciousness in them which they cannot define.
It is with this judgm ent, Spivak asserts that any literature
written by male or female are also governed by the general ideas ofmunotes.in
Page 28
28the world and consciousness to which they shouldn’t essentialize
them. She concludes the first section with a reasoned argument
establishing that th e general currency of the understanding of
society will change if one continues to research women’s writing
and their past in this manner, Spivak states :
The kind of work I have outlined
would infiltrate the male academy
and redo the terms of our
understa nding of the context and
substance of literature as part of the
human enterprise. (p.499)
At the beginning of second section of the essay, Spivak
observes the missing element in the earlier remarks with regards to
the dimension of race. Spivak renews her interest and calls for
sensitivity to race, gender and class. She goes on to add that in the
case of American feminist, the chief problem is in the matter of
identification of racism as constituted in America. She observes that
the object of investigation should be not only the history of Third
World women, but “the production, through the great European
theories, often by way of literature, of the colonial object”(p.499).
Spivak then observes that as long as “American feminists
understand ‘history’ as a positivistic empiricism that scorns “theory”
(p.499) and become ignorant of its own, then it is for the ‘Third
World’ to revisit theories of the First world intellectual practices and
develop a reading method that is sensitive to gender, race and
class .
Spivak’s enquiry into gender is based on the premise that
“Freud today involves a broader critique by offering a critique of his
entire project. It is a critique of not only of Freud’s masculism but
also of nuclear -familial psychoanalyst theories of the co nstitution of
the sexed subject.” (P -499) This critique extends to alternate
models of concern with the production of colonial discourses as
well as most Western feminist challenges to Freud. She also
asserts that the extended or corporate family is a soci o-economic
organization which interweaves sexual constitution with historical
and political economy.
Spivak appreciates the efforts of Giles Deluze to locate
family romance within the ambit of politico -economic domination
and exploitation. Spivak, in this regard, considers her critique to be
an argument within larger familial situation.
In the later part of the essay, Spivak openly proposes for a
‘discourse of the clitoris’ (P -500). She comments:
In this interest of the broadening
scope of my critique, I should like to
reemphasize that the clitoris, evenmunotes.in
Page 29
29as I acknowledge and honour its
irreducible physiological effect, is , in
this reading, also a short -hand for
women’s excess in all areas of
production and practice, an excess
which must be brought unde r control
to keep business going as
usual.(p.500)
Further, Spivak‘s attitude towards Marxism takes into
account the historical antagonism between Marxism and Feminism.
Marxists at best have either dismissed or patronized women’s
struggle. Although the his tory of European women has been an
opposition to Bolshevik and social Democrat women, Spivak
contests what is important is to understand the conflict between the
suffrage movement or the union movement. Such a historical
problem always persisted. Spivak’s present essay is also related to
the ideological development of the theory of the imagination in
eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries and dictates that
Marxism or Feminism cannot be separated from history. Further,
Spivak claims that she is inte rested in class analysis of families.
Her chief interest delves into reading of International feminism that
which operates on production and realization of surplus value.
Spivak, then,makes a study on “domestic and political
economies in order to establis h the subversive power of ‘women’s
work’ in models in the construction of a ‘revolutionary
subject’(p.501). This study has been in relation to wage theory and
women’s work. She cites the example of Anotnio Negri, an
autonomist who argued that “inevitable consumerism that
socialized capitalism must nurture. Commodity consumption, even
as it realizes surplus -value as profit, does not itself produce the
value and therefore persistently exacerbates crisis. It is through
reversing and displacing this tendency w ithin consumerism, Negri
suggests, that ‘revolutionary subject’ can be released”. (p.501)
Spivak concludes the section of the essay by analyzing the
discourse of race through history, politics, psychoanalysis, Marxist
feminism that foregrounds the operati ons of the New imperialism.
Spivak adds that it is her deconstructive view that resists
essentializing the concepts of gender, race and class. Such a view
will not allow her to establish a hegemonic ‘global theory’ of
feminism. She feels that deconstructio n doesn’t open the way for
feminists, the figure and discourse of women rather opened the
way for Derrida as in Derrida’s Spurs (first published as ‘La
Questions du Style’ in 1975), Spivak argues:
The early Derrida can certainly be
shown to be useful for fe minist
practice, but why is it that, when hemunotes.in
Page 30
30writes under the sign of woman, as it
were, his work becomes solipsistic
and marginal? What is it in the
history of that sign that allows this to
happen? (p.502)
Spivak keeps delving upon this question for some time till she
moves towards the third and fourth sections. The third section holds
importance because it illustrates her preoccupation with some
uneasy concerns about race and class -a list of illustrations from
Margaret Drabble’s The Waterfall .She sug gests:
Reading literature ‘well’ is in itself a
questionable good and can indeed
be sometimes productive of harm
and ‘aesthetic’ apathy within its
ideological framing. My suggestion is
to use literature, with a feminist
perspective, as a ‘nonexpository’
theory of practice.(p.502)
Spivak illustrates, with a study on Drabble, how a women
writer who undertakes an extreme situation, to answer the question
as to ‘Why does love happen?’ She positions Jane, Drabble’s
protagonist in the most ‘inaccessible privac y’ and James watches
over her in empty house as she regains her strength after birthing
alone by choice. The Waterfall is supposed to be a story of Jane’s
love affair with James, who happens to be her cousin Lucy’s
husband. Drabble describes Jane as “dread ful with blood and
sweat yet love blossoms”(503). This means Drabble is taking up
the challenge of feminine positivity and yet creating it as the tool of
analytical strength. Drabble, Spivak says, considers Jane
provisional and self suspending, where she d eceives Lucy, and
makes the both the women rivals. Spivak fails to understand how
Drabble considers the story worth narrating. Spivak contests:
“Drabble manipulates her to examine the conditions of production
and determination of microstructural heterosexu al attitudes within
her chosen enclosure. This enclosure is important because it is
from here that rules come.” (P -505)
Spivak comments that Drabble doesn’t want to talk about
race but sensitively lays her fingers on class. Her most important
issue is sex ual deprivation and not race or class. She also finds
irony in Drabble creating a class bound yet analytical Jane which
makes the plot doubtful and she mockingly refers it as ironical
which is to be generated from ‘ outside the book’.(p.505). This
means Dr abble manipulates Jane’s behavior within the framework
of Jane’s enclosure. Drabble admits that there are limitations to
interpret any narrative the whole truth within a fictional form to themunotes.in
Page 31
31‘humanist academic’(p.506). Hence she had to change from the
third person to first person narration. Spivak interprets this:
What can a literary critic do with
this? Notice that the move is
absurdity twice compounded, since
the discourse reflecting the
constraints of fiction -making goes on
then to fabricate another fi ctive text.
Notice further that the narrator who
tells us about the impossibility of
truth -in-fiction –the classic privilege
of metaphor –is a metaphor as
well.(p.506)
Spivak explains that there is subversion of the ‘truthful’
language, that a speaker u nwittingly can get rid of by being
structurally unconscious and narrate without role -playing. Spivak
takes a critical view of Drabble’s third person narrator. Spivak
concludes the third section of the essay by expressing that Drabble
may have filled the sp ace of the female consciousness with a
particular eloquence, but fails to present problems of race and
class, and the marginality of sex by her fictitious Jane. Spivak
articulates:
She engages in that microstructural
dystopia, the sexual situation in
extremis, that begins to seem more
and more a part of women’s fiction.
Even within those limitations, our
motto cannot be Jane’s ‘ I prefer to
suffer, I think’ –the privatist cry of
heroic liberal women; it might rather
be the lesson of the scene of writing
ofThe Waterfall ;t or e t u r nt ot h et h i r d
person within its grounds mined
under. (p -506)
In the fourth section of the essay, Spivak continues her
tirade against the perceived comprehension of feminist students
and colleagues in American academic with the pr oduction of literary
texts, more so by women today. She exposes the politics of men in
obstructing third world women in their wage enhancement. She
illustrates a case of South Korean factory owned by Control Data, a
Minnesota -based multinational corporatio n and says, “No one can
deny the dynamism and civilizing power of socialized capital” (p -
508). The search for greater production for surplus value is rooted
through the conspiracy of corporate philanthropy and civilization at
a humanistic ideological level . South Korea in this case is not amunotes.in
Page 32
32recepient or agent of a socialized capital. Spivak adds a new
dimension to her theoretical debate by expressing that “socialized
kills by remote control” happened as Americans watched South
Korean men decimate women alth ough they denied it completely
later. Spivak argues that, “however active in the production of
civilization as a by -product, socialized capital has not moved far
from the pre -supposition of a slave mode of production” (p -508).
Spivak relates another inst ance of Control D ata’s radio
commercials s peaking of how its computers open the door to
knowledge at workplace and home for men and women together .
The acronym given to this computer system is PLATO. This means
that one is given to think that this noble na me represents ‘efficiency’
and ‘democracy’ in their endeavour to promote knowledge. Spivak
reads into the underlying notion of the symbolic value of the
acronym PLATO in their efforts for civilization. She states:
The slave mode of production which
underl ay A thenian civilization
necessarily found its most pristine
ideological expression in the
privileged social stratum of the city,
whole intellectual heights its sur plus
labour in t he silent depths below the
polis made possible. (p -508)
Next, Spivak’s para ble of argument leads one to a book -La
carte postale -on p hilosophy as telecommunication (Control D ata’s
business) which use dan unnamed, sexually indeterminate woman
(control data’s vict im) as a medium through which interprets the
relationsh ip between So crates and Plato (Control Data’s acronym)
traversing through Freu da n d beyond, wherein she comments,
“Here deconstruc tion becomes complicit with an essentialist
bourgeois feminism” .(p-509) She goes further by critiquing Control
Data’s social ser vice pages where K it Ketchum, former treasurer of
Minnesota was appointed again for commending Control D ata for
their commitment to employing and pr omoting women. It is here
that S pivak doesn’t ha sitate to add: “B ourgeois feminism, because
of a blindness to the multinational theatre, dissimulated by ‘clean’
national practice and fostered by the domi nant ideology, can
participate i nt h et y ranny of the proper and see in Control Data an
extender of the P latonic mandate to women in general” .(p-509)
Spivak conc ludes the essay by explaining her brand of
feminist deconstruction :
Feminism lives in the master -text as
well as in the pores. It is not the
determinant of the last instance. Imunotes.in
Page 33
33think less easily of ‘changing the
world ’than in the past. I teach a small
number of t he holders of the can(n)
on,male or female, feminist or
masculi nist, how to read their own
texts, as best I can. (p -509)
4.5CONCLUSION
Feminist Literary C riticism by and lar ge revalues women’s
experience. It also examines representations of women, ge nder
and sexuality in literature by men and women. Furthermore, it
explores the question of whether there is a female language and a
woman -centred way of thinking, experiencing and expression .
Spivak rightly has expressed her views on the sexist and racist
biases of literary theory and points out the limitation of the textual
approach of Western literary theories on Third World subjects.
4.6KEY TERMS
Gender, Sexuality, Feminist Critique, womb -envy, essentialism,
humanistic academic.
4.7 CHECK YOUR PROG RESS
QI. State whether the following statements are true or false
1.Spivak appreciates the western theoretical approaches to the
Third World women.
2.Spivak’s essay provides a feminist re -reading of Marx and
Frued.
3.Spivak’s essay deconstructs many essentialis td e f i n i t i o n so f
women, gender and class
QII.Define the following
Deconstruction
Third World Femnism
Womb -envy
Commodity consumption
QIII Answer the following
1.Explain how Gayatri Spivak launches into a feminist
deconstruction of theories on race, gende r and class in
“Feminism and Critical Theory”?
2.What are Spivak’s views on Mark and Freud as revealed in
Feminism and Critical Theory”?
munotes.in
Page 34
345
“READING PROCESS:
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH” –
WOLFGANG ISER
Unit structure :
5.0 Objective
5.1 Introduct ion: reader -Response Criticism
5.2 About the Author: Wolfgang Iser
5.3 “Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach” :A n
Overview
5.4 Conclusion
5.5 Key Terms
5.6 Check Your Progress
5.0OBJECTIVE
The objective of this unit is to familiarize the re ader with the
basic concepts of Reader Response Criticism. It also aims to
introduce Wolfgang Iser’s views on reading process.
5.1INTRODUCTION
Reader -Response criticism is the systematic examination of
the aspects of the text that arouse, shape, and gui de a reader's
response. According to reader -response criticism, the reader is a
producer rather than a consumer of meanings. In this sense, a
reader is a hypothetical construct of norms and expectations that
can be derived or projected or extrapolated from the work and may
even said to be embedded in the structure of the work. Because
expectations may be violated or fulfilled, satisfied or frustrated, and
because reading is a temporal process involving memory,
perception, and anticipation, the charting of r eader -response is
extremely difficult and perpetually subject to construction and
reconstruction, vision and revision.
Reader -response criticism, however, does not denote any
specific theory. It can range from the phenomenological theories o f
Wolfgang Iser and Roman Ingart en–both of whom argue that
although the reader fills in the gaps, the author's intentional acts
impose restrictions and conditions –to the relativistic an alysis ofmunotes.in
Page 35
35Stanley Fish, who argues that the interpret ative strategy of the
reader creates the text, there being no text except that which a
reader or an interpretive community of readers creates .
Writers such as Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser and Hans
Robert Jauss make the core of the Constance School of Criticism
that propagated Reader Response theories.
5.2ABOUT THE AUTHOR (WOLFGANG ISER)
Wolfgang Iser (22 July 1926 –24 January 2007) was a
German literary scholar who studied and worked in the universiti es
ofHeidelberg and Glasgow, where he started to take an interest in
inter-cultural exchange .He is known for his reader -response
theory. This theory began to evolve in 1967, while he was working
in the University of Konstanz, which he helped to found in the
1960s. Together with Hans Robert Jauss, he is considered to be
the founder of the Constance School of Reception Aesthetics.
Reader -response theory shares many goals and insights with
hermeneutics; both aim to describe the reader's contact with text
andthe author.
5.3“READING PROCESS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL
APPROACH”: AN OVERVIEW
Wolfgang Iser is a leading member of Constan ceSchool of
Reception Aesthetics which developed in the 1970s, placing the
reader at the center of a litera ry text. Reception Aesthetics or
Reader Response criticism maintains that reader is actively
involved in the production of meaning. It is also based on two
philosophical foundations –Hermeneutics and Phenomenology.
Iser, along with Stanley Fish and Hans Robert Jauss, make this
significan tschool of thought .The basic premise of Reader
Response criticism is that to read a work, the readers need to be
familiar with the literary technique and conventions which the work
deploys. The reader smust have some grasp of the codes of a
literary work and they must also mobilize their general social
knowledge to recognize the secodes ofa work. Reader response
criticism also implies that the most effective literary work forces the
reader into a new critical awareness with which his/her
expectations and opinions are constantly modified. Iser is of the
opinion that a literary work interrogates and transforms the beliefs
the reader brings to it. He also argues that while the readers modify
a text with their reading strategies, it simultaneousl ym o d i f i e st h e m .
Iser’s reception theory is based on a liberal humanist
ideology –ab e l i e ft h a ti nr e a d i n g , one should be flexible and open
minded, prepared to put one’s beliefs into question and allow themmunotes.in
Page 36
36to be transformed by the text. The theoretical base of Iser’s seminal
essay, “Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach ”,i s
Hermeneutics, a branch of philosophy which maintains that self is
enriched from an encounter with the unfamiliar. Iser believes that
every reading is such an encounter. Howeve r, he believes that
readers do not encounter a text in a void: all readers are socially
and historically positioned. Though Iser is aware of the social
impact of reading, he ch ooses to concentrate on the psychology of
reading and the aesthetic model of rea ding. This essay, which is a
part of a full length study ,The Act of Reading , published in 1978 ,is
largely concerned with the literary text and the production of
meaning in the context of the reader. While illustrating the
phenomenological theory of readi ng, Iser establishes the point that
there are two types of readers –the implied reader and the real
reader. The implied reader is a part of the text itself i.e.,the writer’s
anticipation of the intelligence of the reader. The real reader is one
who fills the gaps in the text and undergoes a process of a self -
correction in the experience of reading. Further, Iser argues that
reading is a dynamic process wherein the text and the reader
interact to create patterns of meaning. Phenomenology is the
second theo retical base of this essay. It is a branch of philosophy
which maintains that consciousness is intentional, that it is directed
to an object. Further ,phenomenology also upholds the view that to
be conscious is to be conscious of something. Iser imports th is view
in his Reader Response theory and tries to establish the argument
that reading is an intentional act of consciousness of thereader and
this act makes it possible for the reader to be conscious.
Iser also uses what is called the Hermeneutic c ircle to
explain the reading process. Hermeneutic circle could be explained
as the reader’s engagement with the parts and the whole of the
text. Iser maintains that readers cannot understand any part of a
text without understanding the whole, yet they cannot un derstand
the whole without understanding its parts. According to him an
answer to this puzzle is that readers reconcile part and whole
through successively adjusted provisional understandings.
Iser establishes a point that a literary text should be
concei ved in such a way that it will engage the reader’s imagination
because reading becomes an aesthetic experience only when it is
active and co-creative. He says that the features ofat e x ti n v i t et h e
readers to participate in a game of imagination. He mainta ins that
more than the written part, the unwritten part of the text stimulates
the reader’s creative participation. According to him ,the written text
is only an outline or a gestalt which has to be animated by the co -
creative reader. Iser’s significant ar gument ,in this essay ,is that the
structure of a text can never exercise complete control over
reader’s comprehension and the readers participate both in the
production and the comprehension of the work’s intention.munotes.in
Page 37
37According to him, literary text sshould contain conditions of
actualization that will allow their meaning to be assembled in the
responsive mind of the readers. Hence, he believes that the implie d
reader is a textual structure designed by the author. This concept
implies that a literary text is a network of response -inviting
structures which impel the reader to grasp the text in an active
process. For Iser, text is a sequence of sign impulses which are
received by the readers. He believes that reading is a process of
inserting reader’s idea into a process of communication. This
means that it is the reader who creates the signified which is
constantly modified with every new sentence –thecorrelate. Iser
illustrates this dynamic process of reading by analyzing the reader’s
positions in Henry Fiel ding’s novel ,Tom Jones .H ea r g u e st h a t ,in
this novel ,a reader creates a signified which is not often denoted
by the signifier. By doing so, the reader creates a b asic condition of
comprehension. Iser also explains how reading is a process of self -
correc tion wherein a signified is formulated by the reader which is
subsequently modified. For instance, Iser explains that in Tom
Jones readers initially think that Squire Al lworthy has a sound
sense of judg ement as he rewards Tom with promotion every time
when the lat ter does a good work. However ,in a sudden act of
impulse ,Allworthy terminates Tom ’sservices on flimsy evidence of
theft. At this point ,readers will have to modify their opinion of
Squire Al lworthy. This kind of a text which playswith expectati ons
and opinions of a reader is really interactive in nature. According to
Iser such a reading is cybernetic as it involves a feedback of
information throughout the sequence of changing situational
frames. Iser explains reading as the process in which smal ler units
of meaning progressively merge and gather meaning, so that
meaning gathers meaning in a kind of snowballing process.
Iser also explains the Hermeneutics structure of reading.
According to him ,all structures or sentences do not lead to the
fulfillment of reader’s expectation but to their continual modification.
He says that the reader ’s position in atext isat the point of
intersection between retention and prote ntion. Retention is a
memory of what is already read and prote ntion is the expectati on or
anticipation of the sentences to come. Each sentence prefigures
and then becomes the background for the next one and thus
necessarily be modified.
The sequence of sentence in a literary text partly frustrates
the expectations aroused by it. In doing so, each sentence also has
a retroactive effect on what has been already read. What has been
read shrinks in the memory to become the background which
should also condition a new correlate. In reading, there is a
constant interplay between modified expect ation and transformed
memories. Iser explains that the text itself does not formulate
expectations and th eirmodifications ;they are done by the readers.munotes.in
Page 38
38To explain this point, he goes deeper into the process of reading or
interpretation. A literary text i s made of sequent sentences or
correlate s.E a c h correlate creates a hollow section by itself. It is
connected to the next correlate which is partly anticipated bythe
reader. A correlate also has a retrospective section which answers
the expectations arous ed by the preceding sentence. These
correlates indicate a Hermeneutic structure which plays out a
conundrum of the parts and the whole.
Iser also explains that reading is a process in which the
aesthetic object is constantly structured and restructured by the
reader. According to him, the response -inviting structures of a text
create the implied reader. These structures in literary text make
meaningful gaps or spots of indeterminacies such as symbols,
metaphors and implied meaning. The actual reader brings his/her
experiences to concretize the text. Concretization is thus the
readers’ conscious efforts to fill the spots of indeterminacies .
However, Iser believes that the reader holds in mind not only the
expectations on the basis of memory of events and cha racters but
also these expectations are constantly modified as the text
advances.
“Reading Process: APhenomenological Approach ”is thus an
essay in which Iser concentrate srigorously on the act of reading
itself –on the gradual unfolding process inwhic har e a d e r
assimilates and incorporates the various levels of a text .Int h i s
essay, Iser combines phenomenology, hermeneutics, formalism ,
semiotics and the psychology of reading.
5.4 CONCLUSION
Reader Response criticism br ings to the fore the dynamic
role played by the reader in the p roduction of meaning of a text. It
also promotes an enquiry into the process of reading on the basis
of the understanding of the reader’s psychology .T o d a y ,it is applied
to all kinds of texts including literature, film an d the visual arts.
5.5KEY TERMS
Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Retention, Prote ntion,
Concretization.munotes.in
Page 39
395.6 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q.I Say whether the following statements are true or false.
1. The basic premise of reader response criticism is that to read a
work, the rea ders need to be familiar with the literary technique and
conventions which the work deploys.
2. Iser believes that the implied reader is a textual structure.
3.Iser also explains that reading is a process in which the aesthetic
object is constantly structured and restructured by the writer .
4 The actual reader brings his/her experiences to concretize the
text.
5. Concretization is the readers’ unconscious efforts to fill the spots
of indeterminacies in the text .
Q.II Define the foll owing:
1. Hermeneutics
2. Phenemenology
3. Concretization
Answer the following:
1.Consider the role of Wolfgang Iser in the development of
Reader -Response criticism with special reference to “Reading
Process: A Phenomenological Approach .”
2.Discuss how Wolfg ang Iser explains the phenomenological
structure of reading process?
3.What does Iser mean by the term concretization? Explain its
significance in the theory of reading.
munotes.in
Page 40
406
“RESONANCE AND WONDER” –
STEPHEN GREENBLATT
Unit structure :
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction: New Historicism
6.2 Stephen Greenblatt
6.3 “Resonance and Wonder”: An Overview
6.4 Conclusion
6.5 Key Terms
6.6 Check Your Progress .
6.0 OB JECTIVES
This unit aims to provide the learners with a basic
understanding of New Historicism. Its objective is also to impart the
learners with Stephen Greenblatt’s views on cultural poetics and
the historicity of cultural artifacts.
6.1 STEPHEN GREEN BLATT
Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the
Humanities at Harvard University. Also General Editor of The
Norton Shakespeare ,h ei st h ea u t h o ro fm a n y insightful works ,
including The Swerve: How the World Became Modern;
Shakespeare’s Free dom;Will in the World: How Shakespeare
Became Shakespeare ;Hamlet in Purgatory ;Practicing New
Historicism ;Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New
World ;a n d Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture .H e
has edited seven collections of criti cism, including Cultural Mobility:
AM a n i f e s t o , and is a founding coeditor of the journal
Representations .H i sh o n o urs include the MLA’s James Russell
Lowell Prize for Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of
Social Energy in Renaissance England ,t h e Distinguished Humanist
Award from the Mellon Foundation, the Wilbur Cross Medal from
the Yale University Graduate School, the William Shakespeare
Award for Classical Theatre, the Erasmus Institute Prize, two
Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Distinguished T eaching Award
from the University of California, Berkeley. He was president of the
Modern Language Association of America and is a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Americanmunotes.in
Page 41
41Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and
Letters.
Stephen Greenblatt is also one of the founders of New
Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as
"cultural poetics". His works have been influential since the early
1980s after he introduced the term , ‘New Historicism’. Greenblatt’s
works such as Learning to Curse and Shakespearean Negotiations
examine how cultural practices such as marriage, religion and
language are negotiated and exchanged in Shakespearean plays,
indicating how the individual agency of the playwright m ingles with
the socio cultural mood of the time. Greenblatt's fascination with
history and the minute details of culture soon caught the
imagination of many other scholars working on different historical
periods, leading to the increasing popularity of cul turally and
historically -minded studies in the 1980s and 1990s.
6.2 NEW HISTORICISM
New Historicism which is also referred to as Cultural
Materialism in Britain , is composed of a group of critics interested in
recovering lost histories and in exploring t he mechanisms of
production, distribution and exchange in culture. New histo ricists
draw upon many discipl ines such as political science, anthropology
and literature. Terms like circulation, negotiation, profit and
exchange explain how culture including li terature is informed by the
values of the market. New Historicism is also concerned with
questions of power and culture, exploring the link between society
and culture or the connection between the supposedly autonomous
self and the political institutions which produce that self. New
historicists reject the western tendency to write history from the top
down or in grand narratives. Instead, they are more concerned with
'little narratives' and how they participate in the consolidation of the
status quo. New historicists also argue that all levels of society
share in the circulation of power through the production and
distribution of cultural and social texts. Power, they argue, does not
reside somehow 'above' lawyers, politicians and the police but
rather fol lows a principle of circulation whereby, everyone
participates in the maintenance of existing power structures. Apart
from Stephen Greenblatt, Hayden White and Pierre Bourdieu are
considered to be the noteworthy new historicists.
The term ‘New Historicism ’ was first clearly explained by
Wesley Morris in his work, Towards a New Historicism , published in
1972. Morris indicates that the human subject is a construct of
cultural practices and history is an ideological construction. The
New Historicist s also bel ieve that reading of the past is conditioned
by a desire to position oneself in the present.munotes.in
Page 42
42Traditional historians ask questions like 'what happened?'
and 'what does the event tell us about history?' In contrast, new
historicists ask 'how has the event be ing interpreted?' and 'what do
interpretations t ell us about the interpreters?' Thus New Historicism
resists the notion that history is a series of events which have a
linear relationship and it holds that historians are subjective
interpreters of what the y observe.
New Historicism focuses on the way literature expresses –
and sometimes disguises –power relations at work in the social
context in which the literature was produced, often this involves
making connections between a literary work and other kin ds of
texts. Literature is often shown to ‘negotiate’ conflicting power
interests. New Historicism has made its biggest mark on literary
studies of the Renaissances and Romantic periods and has revised
motions of literature as privileged, apolitical writin g. Much New
Historicism focuses on the marginalization of subjects such as
those identified as witches, the insane, heretics, vaga bonds, and
political prisoners.
6.3 “RESONANCE AND WONDER”: AN OVERVIEW
New H istoricism or cultural poetics was a literary and cultural
study which emerged in the 1980s largely due to the writings of
Stephen Greenblatt, Jonathan Dollimore, Wesley Morris, Alan
Sinfield and Clifford Geertz. It was a term coined by Greenblatt
around 1980 to suggest “the historicity of the text an dt h et e x t u a l i t y
of history.” New Historicism begins with the Marxian theoretical
premise that life is a historical reality though a work of art may be
autonomous. It considers that a work of art is the product of
negotiation and the modes of cultural prod uctions ina society.
Traditional history deals with what happened. New historicism is not
merely about the past. It considers that there is no history but only
representation of history. It is more historicist than historical.Clifford
Geertz defines New H istoricism as the study of history from below.
Very often New ,Historicism is considered as an extension of
Marxist Criticism because it is inspired by the theories of Raymond
Williams and M ichel Foucault who had studied culture in terms of
the circulation of power .
New Historicism can be considered as a study of power
relationships embedded in cultural artifacts. It addresses issues like
production, circulation and reception of cultural products. It also
explains the term exchange –thecultural give and take of objects,
institutions and discourses between generations or cultures. New
Historicism indicates that discourses are dynamic and they
negotiate with one another. It also deconstructs the distinction
between history and literature: history is conside red as text andmunotes.in
Page 43
43literature is considered as cultural artifact ,h a v i n gi t so w nm i n i a t u r e
history .
Stephen Greenblatt’s “ Resonance and Wonder ”is a chapter
taken from his seminal text, Learning to Curse (1990).This essay
which sketches the basic premises of NewHistoricism helps the
readers to look into the cultural and historical bases of art.
Greenblatt begins the essay by stating that cultural artifacts give a
deceptive impression that they are fixed in time and space. He says
that every artifact has its miniature history and this history evokes a
vision of its cultural production. He says that cultural artifacts
transmigrate and move from one use (zone of display) to another
and from one place to another. He illustrates this argument by
tracing the eventf uljourney of Cardinal Wolsey’s hat which is kept
in the library of Christ College, London. He explains that the hat has
a history of its own as it had passed through different hands and
different ownership before reaching the l ibrary. Firstly, he explains
how Cardinal Wolsey used to carry the hat ceremoniously as a
symbol of his religious power. Greenblatt also explains how
subsequently the hat was passed on to Bishop Burnet, Burnet ’s
son, his housekeeper, Countes s Abermarle, famous British
politician ,Walpole and the great Shakespearean actor Charles
Kean, and subsequently to his daughter and finally to the Christ
College Library. He also says that the hat is doubly significant
because Kean used to play the role of Cardinal Wolsey wearing the
original hat. This anecdote of the hat also proves the point that
cultural artifacts mo vef r o mo n ez o n eo fd i s p l a yt oa n o t h e r .C a r d i n a l
Wolsey’s hat has migrated from being a part of Catholic symbol of
power to theatrical costume and finally to a museum piece .
Greenbla tt says that material referent –hat or a book –is only a
tiny element of the culture. He says that by the ti me Cardinal
Wolsey’s hat reached the library, it had lost its political significance
and yet as a cultural artifact it radiates an amount of cultu ral energy
and evokes a miniature history of its own .
Greenblatt explains the transmigration a sprocess through
which objects, gestures, rituals and fashions are moved from one
zone of display to another. He also argues that art and artifacts are
the prod ucts of historical transactions and they carry the marks of
history and human intervention on them. Greenblatt illustrates the
transmigration of cultural practice with an analysis of
Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream .H ee x p l a i n st h a ti nt h i s
play,the fairy king Oberon appears after the wedding and he
declares that he would bless the beds of the three newly married
couples. Oberon also explains that this ritual would ward off moles,
harelips and other physical deformities in the babies they may
beget .G reenblatt reminds that this scene is witty allusion to the
traditional catholic blessing of the bride -bed with holy water –a
ceremony which was attacked by English Protestants. Greenblattmunotes.in
Page 44
44shows how Holy water changes into dew drops and the Catholic
ritual is changed into a theatrical comedy by Shakespeare to mock
the Catholic practice.
Greenblatt observes that art and artifacts cannot be studied
without their context s. He reminds that the decontextualized
analysis of art began with New Criticism and Formal ism. He says
that New Historicism describes the embeddedness of cultural
objects in the contingencies of history. He also explains the
difference between historicism and new historicism. He observes
that in historicism and traditional history, there is a b elief that
processes are at work in history that man can do little to change.
He says that this formulation evacuates human agency and New
Historicism uses “man” in particular sense –as a subject whose
identity is conditioned by class, gender reli gion, ra ce and
nationality .New Historicism, Greenblatt maintains, explores
simultaneously how history conditions man and how man alters
history. The second point of distinction between Historicism and
New Historicism is in the attitude towards the past. Historici sm
upholds the view that historians must avoid all value judgments in
the study of past and former cultures. Greenblatt indicates that New
Historicism , in contrast, is cultural criticism and it critiques past and
the cultures. The third point of distinctio n is in the approach of the
past. He says that in Historicism demands an unconditional
veneration of the past whereas in NewHistoricism has its interest in
the unresolved conflicts and contradictions of history and the
cultures. He says that NewHistorici sm is concerned with the
margins of a culture as much with its centre.
Stephen Greenblatt also explained the key terms –cultural
negotiation and exchange. Negotiation is a process of historical
debate between different cultural practices when they come face to
face. Exchange is a give and take of cultural practice and artifacts
between two cultures after negotiation. Subsequently, Greenblatt
defines the two operational terms of the essay –‘Resonance ’and
‘Wonder’ . He says that wonder is a term borrowed from formalism.
It indicates the power of an object to stop the viewer on tracks, to
convey an arresting sense of uniqueness caused by amazement.
Resonance is defined as the power of an object to evoke the
cultural forces from which it has emerged to cross the formal
boundaries of art and to communicate culturally with the viewer.
Greenblatt indicates that the concern of new historicism is with
resonance –to trace the historical circumstances of production and
consumption of artifacts.
Further, Greenblatt observes that artifacts carry the ‘marks ’
of human intervention on them. Marks indicate how an artifact was
used by different generations. He says that these marks create very
richresonance. He also indicates that even accidents create marksmunotes.in
Page 45
45and resonanc e. According to him, resonance can be found in
destruction, absence and unexpected survival of cultural artifacts.
He illustrates this point by explaining the case of the State Jewish
Museum of Prague. He explains how a synagogue is converted into
a museum and how it becomes a memory complex. Greenblatt
indicates that one of the rooms of the museum preserves Tora, silk
and religious materials of Jews and this space resonates heavily
with the other rooms which carry the paintings of Jewish artist Karl
Fleisc hmann and some jagged paintings of children who were held
inthe camp of Terezin before they were massacred by the Naizis .
He says that these paintings carry tremendous cultural significance
as the last expressions of the few Jewish individuals. Greenblatt
also brings to notice the charcoal marking on a shabby wall of
another room in the museum and reminds that even the wall with
such markings of Jews has great resonance because most of the m
were later killed by the Nazis.
Greenblatt also indicates that pr oximity to cultural space can
create aesthetic significance for certain objects. He explains how a
coke -stand which imitates the structure of Nahoch Mul Pyramid and
which is placed at the entrance of the pyramid in Yucatan peninsula
and a reminder of Pre -Columbian Maya civilization, Coba in Mexico
has certain artistic values. He believes that if the coke -stand could
be shifted to Museum of Modern Arts (MOMA), New York, it would
be considered as a piece of art and not a coke -stand .
Finally, Greenblatt spell s out the basic perspective of New
Historicism. He says that it is a desire for cultural resonance. He
also indicates that the objectives of NewHistoricism –to try and
convert wonder with secure knowledge and to renew the
marvellous at the heart of the r esonant.
6.4 CONCLUSION
Stephen Greenblatt has argued in this important essay that
the art of the Re naissance could only be understood in the context
of the society from which it has sprung. His approach –New
Historicism –drawsfrom history, ant hropolo gy, Marxist theory,
poststructuralism, and psycho analysis and in the process, blo w
apart the academic boundaries insulating literature from the world
around it. “Resonance and Wonder ,”charts the evolution of that
approach and provides a vivid and compelli ng exploration of a
complex and contradictory epoch s.munotes.in
Page 46
466.5 KEY TERMS
Circulation
Negotiation
Profit and exchange
Embeddedness
Cultural artifact
Transmigration of art
Marks
Resonance
Wonder
6.6 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
I)S t a t ew h e t h e rt h ef o l l o w i n gs t a tements are true or false:
1)New historicism is merely about the past. True/False.
2) It considers that there is no history but only representation of
history. True/False.
3) It is less historicist than historical. True/False.
4) Greenblatt says that cul tural artifacts transmigrate. True/False.
5) Greenblatt indicates that the concern of historicism is with
resonance. True/False.
II)D e f i n e :
a) Historicism
b) New Historicism
c) Transmigration of art
d) Cultural artifact
e) Cultural negotiation
3) Answe r briefly:
a)What is the difference between Historicism and New
Historicism , according to Stephen Greenblatt ?
b)Explain what Greenblatt indicates by Resonance and Wonder in
the context of New Historicism .
c)What was Greenblatt trying to explain th rough the anecdote of
Wolsey’s hat?
munotes.in
Page 47
477
“CULTURAL IDENTITY AND DIASPORA” –
STUART HALL
7.0 Objective s
7.1 Introduction
7.2 About the Author
7.3 Introduction to the text
7.3.1 The Black Subject in Third Cinema
7.3.2 Two positions of Cultural Identity
7.3.3 Hall's Model of Caribbea nI d e n t i t y
7.3.4 Hall's Notion of Diasporic Identity
7.4 Conclusion
7.5 Key Terms
7.6 Check Your Progress
7.0 OBJECTIVES
The objective of this essay is to sensitize students to
postcolonial issues like identity and Diaspora and to enable them t o
understand the process of identity formation and to appreciate
Hall's model of Caribbean identity.
7.1 INTRODUCTION
Stuart Hall's “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” (1997) is a
discussion on the discourse of culture based on his own historical
backgrou nd. The focus of this essay is the formation of identity
within a histo rical and discursive framework. It examines the
experience of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean and the
narratives of displacement. Hall looks broadly at the issues relating
toidentity. He observes that far from being fixed, identity should be
seen as a ““production” which is never complete, always in process
and always cons tituted within, and not outside, representation.” Hall
brilliantly pinpoints the absolutely central role of cu lture –and
representation in particular –in constituting identities -in-process, far
from assuming a direct or simple relationship between what we
think we perceive and what we think we know about people .munotes.in
Page 48
487.2 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Kingston, Jamai ca in 1932, Stuart Hall shifted to
England with his mother in 1951 and lived in Bristol .B e i n ga
socialist, in the 1950s ,hecollaborated with fellow sociologists to
launch two radical jour nals, The New Reasoner and the New Left
Review .I n1957 ,h e joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND).
Hall edited the New Left Review (1959 -1961) and taught
Media Studies at Chelsea College. In 1964 ,he co -authored The
Popular Arts and joinedthe Centre for Co ntemporary Cultural
Studies at the University of Birmingham .In 1968, he became
director of the Contemporary Cultural Studies unit. In 1979 ,Hall
was appointed as professor of sociology at the Open University
from where he retired in 1997 and was appointed to the
Runnymede Trust's commission on the future of multi -ethnic Britain.
Hall’s books include Situating Marx: Evaluations and
Departures (1972), Encoding and Decoding in the Television
Discourse (1973), Reading of Marx's 1857 Introduction to the
Grundrise (1973) ,Policing the Crisis (1978) ,The Hard Road to
Renewal (1988), Resistance Through Rituals (1989), Modernity and
Its Future (1992), The Formation of Modernity (199 2),Questions of
Cultural Identity (1996), Cultural Representations and Signifying
Practices (1997) and Visual Culture (1999) .
7.3INTRODUCTION TO THE TEXT
Stuart Hall’s richl y allusive but elliptical essay ,“Cultural
Identity and Diaspora” represents an epistemic shift where recent
attempts to conceptualise Caribbean culture are concerned. He
argues that films and other forms of visual representations
invariably discuss the bl ack subject and problematize his/ her
cultural identity. In this work, he attempts to address the issues of
identity, cultural practices, and cultural production.
In this essay, Hall considers the nature of the “black subject”
(Braziel: 392) who is repres ented by “film and other forms of visual
representation of the Afro -Caribbean (and Asian) ‘blacks’ of the
diasporas of the West” ( Braziel: 392). “Who is this emergent, new
subject of the cinema? From where does he/she speak?” (392).
Referring to the semina lwork of Émile Benvenis te,h ec o n t e n d s
that what
“recent theories of enunciation
suggest is that, though we speak,
so to say ‘in our own name’, of
ourselves and from our ownmunotes.in
Page 49
49experience, nevertheless who
speaks, and the subject who is
spoken of, are never identical,
never exactly in the same place.”
(392)
Hall’s argument is that rather than thinking of identity as an
“already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then
represent” (392), one should think instead of “identity as a
‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and
always constituted within, not outside, representation” (392).
Hall points out that there are two principal ways of thinking
about (cultural) identity. The traditional model views identity in
terms of one, s hared culture, a sort of collective ‘one true self’,
hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed
‘selves’, which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in
common. . . . This ‘oneness’, underlying all the other, more
super ficial differences, is the truth, the essence of ‘Caribbeanness’,
of the black experience. It is this identity which a Caribbean or
black diaspora must discover, excavate, bring to light and express.
...( 3 9 3 )
Hall mentions that the “rediscovery of this identity is often the
object of what Frantz Fanon once called a ‘passionate research’”
(393) and that such a “conception of cultural identity played a
crucial role in all postcolonial struggles” (393). However, he
questions whether such a view merely enta ils “unearthing that
which the colonial experience buried and overlaid” (393). For him, it
is better to envision a “quite different practice” (393), one based on
“not the rediscovery but the production of identity. Not an identity
grounded in the archaeolo gy,but in the re-telling of the past” (393).
Such a viewpoint would mean that this is an “act of imaginative
rediscovery” (393), one which involves “imposing an imaginary
coherence on the experience of dispersal and fragmentation, which
is the history of all enforced diasporas” (394) and leads to the
restoration of an “imaginary fullness or plentitude, to set against the
broken rubric of our past” (394). Africa, he stresses, is the “name of
the missing term, the great aporia, which lies at the centre of ou r
cultural identity and gives it a meaning which, until recently, it
lacked” (394).
The second model of (cultural) identity which Hall mentions
acknowledges the “critical points of deep and significant difference
which constitute ‘what we really are’; or rather –since history has
intervened –’what we have become’” (394). From this point of view,
cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’. It
belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something
which already exists, tra nscending place, time, history and culture.munotes.in
Page 50
50Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But like
everything which is historical, they undergo constant
transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised
past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and
power. Far from being grounded in mere ‘recovery’ of the past,
which is waiting to be found, and which when found, will secure our
sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to
the di fferent ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves
within, the narratives of the past (394) .
Inspired by the work sof Michel Foucault and Edward Said,
Hall argues that cognizance must be taken of the “ways in which
black people, black experiences, were positioned and subject -ed in
the dominant regimes of representation” (394) .Hall stresses that it
is one thing to “position a subject or set of peoples as the Other of a
dominant discourse. It is quite another thing to subject them to that
‘knowledge’ ,n o to n l ya sam a t t e ro f imposed will and domination,
by the power of inner compulsion and subjective conformation to
the norm” (394). Hence, from this perspective, it must be
acknowledged that cultural identity is not a fixed essence at all,
lying unchan ged outside history and culture. It is not some
universal and transcendental spirit inside us on which history has
made no fundamental mark. It is not once -and-for-all. It is not a
fixed origin to which we can make some final and absolute Return.
(395)
Cultural identities , Hall reminds, are the “unstable points of
identification . . . which are made, within the discourses of history
and culture” (394).
Influenced by Derrida’s notion of différance, Hall posits that it
is possible to “rethink the positionin ga n d repositioning of
Caribbean cultural identities in relation to at least three ‘presences’,
to borrow Aimé Césaire’s and Léopold Senghor’s metaphor:
Présence Africaine ,Présence Européene ,a n d Présence
Américaine ”( 3 9 8 ) , none of which can ever be fully present
(presence is deferred). Drawing upon both the spatial and temporal
metaphors which Derrida employs, Hall is implicitly comparing
Caribbean society to a sign within a wider sign -system, a signifier
located along the chain of signification and, by e xtension, a text
which is linked ‘intertextually’ to other region -texts.
Hall argues that an “Afro -Caribbean identity became
historically available” (398) to Caribbean persons only in the 19 70s
through an “indigenous cultural revolution” (398), through th e
“impact on popular life of the post-colonial revolution, the civil rights
struggles, the culture of Rastafarianism and the music of reggae”
(398). These and related factors made possible or became the
“metaphors, the figures or signifiers of a new constr uction ofmunotes.in
Page 51
51‘Jamaican -ness” (398). These and similar cultural endeavours
“signified a ‘new’ Africa of the New World, grounded in an ‘old’
Africa: . . . this Africa, as we might say, . . . as a spiritual, cultural
and political metaphor” (398): this i st h e“ A frica we must return to –
but by ‘another route’: what Africa has become in the New World,
what we have made of ‘Africa’: ‘Africa’ –as we retell it through
politics, memory and desire” (399). From this point of view, Africa
“‘has acquired an imaginative o r figurative value that we can name
and feel’. Our belongingness to it constitutes what Benedict
Anderson calls an ‘imaginary community’” (399). This ‘Africa’ is a
necessary part of the “Caribbean imaginary” (399): the
displacement which has marked the reg ion has given rise to a
“certain imaginary plentitude, recreating the endless desire to return
to ‘lost origins’, to be one again with the mother, to go back to the
beginning” (402).
Hall’s notion of diasporic identity is one based upon
différance and hyb ridity. It rejects old “imperialising” (401) and
“hegemonising” (401) forms of “‘ethnicity’” (401). Gesturing to the
ongoing problem of the Palestinian homeland, he argues that his
model does not conceptualise the securing of identity solely “in
relation t o some sacred homeland to which they must at all costs
return, even if it means pushing other peoples into the sea” (401). It
is “defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a
necessary heterogeneity and diversity . . . hybridity ”( 4 0 2 ) .H all
claims to offer a “different way of thinking about cultural identity”
(402) by theorising identity “as constituted, not outside but within
representation” (402) and hence of cinema or literature “not as a
second -order mirror held up to reflect what alr eady exists, but as
that form of representation which is able to constitute us as new
kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover places from
which to speak” (402). Hall ends by citing the relevance to his
model of identity of Benedict Anderson’s redefinition of the
community as “distinguished, not by their falsity/genuiness, but by
the style in which they are imagined” (402).
7.3.1 The Black Subject in Third Cinema
Third Cinema, Hall argues, is a filmmaking approach that
subverts cinematic code s, embraces revolutionary ideals and
combats the passive film -watching experience of commercial
cinema. Stuart hall uses the example of “Third Cinemas” and points
out how cinema does not essentially reflect the existing status of
identity. He calls attenti on to their role in promoting the Afro -
Caribbean identities of the Diasporas of the West by producing
representations which constantly constitute the third world’s people
as new subjects against their representations in the Western
dominant regimes. He exp lains how visual representations deny the
black subjects new positions from which to speak about
themselves. Hall argues that cultural identities are never fixed ormunotes.in
Page 52
52complete in any sense. They are not accomplished, already -there
entities which are represen ted or projected through the new cultural
practices. Rather, they are productions which cannot exist outside
the work of representation. They are problematic, highly contested
sites and processes. Identities are social and cultural formations
and construct ions essentially subject to the differences of time and
place. Then, when the black subject speaks of anything, they are
essentially positioned in time and space and more importantly in a
certain culture. Hall claims that it is therefore important to
inves tigate the subject of cultural identity and representation.
7.3.2Two Positions of Cultural Identity
One of the major arguments in the essay is that there are
two principal ways of thinking about (cultural) identity :
The first way of looking at cultural identity attempts to define
it as a single, essential black Caribbeanness which sees the
Caribbean as one homogeneous culture to which all Afro-
Caribbeans belong .There is an attempt to understand the common
history and the fixed shared culture that c an be excavated from
beneath layers of depravity and social exclusion. This is the
traditional way by which postcolonial societies have come to terms
with themselves and have asserted themselves. In this way,
cultural identity is taken to be singular and c ollective
simultaneously. As postcolonial struggles are centred on their
conception of cultural identity, Hall suggests that taking recourse to
Frantz Fanon's suggestion of ' passionate research’ to enable
rediscovery of this identity is important. But, wha tw o r r i e sH a l li st h e
fear that the rediscovery would be limited to the unearthing of the
past. What Hall feels more pertinent is to go beyond rediscovery to
imaginatively produce an identity by retelling the past so that the
gaps, in the narration of past history regarding their dispersal and
fragmentation during the change of their status from natives to that
ofenforced diasporas , can be bridged and they can re -feel a sense
of completion. Hall refers to a poria in identity. Aporia means placing
aclaim in doubt by developing arguments on both sides of an
issue. In the terminology of deconstruction, aporia refers to af i n a l
impasse or paradox ,the site at which the text most obviously
undermines its own rhetorical structure, dismantles, or deconstructs
itself. In the essay, Hall opines that the great aporia that lies at th e
centre of a black subject's cultural identity is Africa and the lack of
clarity in their understanding of their roots there.
The second way of thinking about cultural identity to which
Hall subscribes is based on the fact that the cultures that arrive d
from Africa were originally extremely different from each other,
having come from different tribes and having different gods and
cultures. Moreover, Africa and India are not monolithically united
entities and each island is profoundly different from theothers .munotes.in
Page 53
53What is more intriguing is that not all were subjected to the same
degree of otherness. For instance, those from the metropolitan
centres get a different treatment as compared to the rest. Hall
provides the islands of Martinique and Jamaica as exam ples of this
cultural difference in relation to each other, noting that the “richer,
more ‘fashionable’” Fort de France contrasts with the “visibly
poorer” Kingston .Difference, therefore, persisted inand alongside
continuity and it was only theshared trauma of slavery that united
them. This dialogic of difference and commonality has always
defined the African Caribbean culture. While he acknowledges that
a common history has unified us across our differences, this
common history “does not constitute a co mmon origin, since it was,
metaphorically as well as literally, a translation” (396). Hall notes
thatthere is a need to record the moments of significant changes in
the trajectory from the point when they arrived to the point where
they have become someth ing else in their present due to
intervention of history. He prefers to view cultural identity as
something that is not “an essence but a positioning ”( 3 9 5 ) .H a l l ’ s
use of the term positioning refers not only to the idea that cultural
identity can be viewe d as rooted in a history, whether common or
detached, but also as something positioned or placed both from
within the culture and from outside of the culture; the term
positioning also refers to geographical positions and boundaries at
which and in which c ultural identity is rooted.
Hall insists that " identities are the names we give to the
different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within,
the narratives of the past. "A si ti si m p o r t a n tt or e c o g n i z et h e i r
common African past, Hall feel si ti se q u a l l yi m p o r t a n tt or e a l i z et h e
differences between that past identity and their present Afro -
Caribbean identity. For this purpose, Hall suggests that their
identity be traced along the two axes of similarity or continuity and
difference or ruptur e. Grasping the truth of the second axis is what
Afro-Caribbeans find more challenging, as it is difficult for them to
come to terms with this play of difference within identity and
discontinuity within continuity. Understanding this dimension of
cultural identity formation is difficult as it demands the
understanding that identity is always in a state of flux.
7.3.3Hall's Model of Caribbean Identity
Hall puts forth that although the colonialization has brought
in to play a number of binary oppositions like past/ present and
them/ us, according to Derrida this cultural play being much more
complex cannot be thus represented .This is because the boundary
between the binary oppositions is porous and keeps changing,
depending on the question asked, and the place and time. Hall
makes use of Derrida’s notion of ‘différance ' and contends that
meaning is forever "deferred" or postponed in binaries through an
endless chain of signifiers .The play of 'differance' within identity,munotes.in
Page 54
54thus becomes possible. For instan ce, presence/absence of Africa
makes it a signifier of new conceptions of Caribbean identity. In
other words, by tracing their roots to find Africa at some point, they
would discover new meaning of their black, brown or mulatto skin.
So, m eaning continues to unfold . . . beyond the arbitrary closure
which makes it, at any moment, possible. . . There is always
something left over” (396).
Derrida also talks about ' trace' to refer to a "mark of the
absence of a presence, an always -already absent present", Hall
uses t his aspect to enable Caribbeans to rethink the positioning
and repositioning of Caribbean cultural identities. He refers to at
least three ‘presences’ in the Afro -Caribbean identity. These
dominant presences or traces are:
1)Presence Africain e which is the site of the repressed. This
presence implies that what once was is no longer true as it has
changed. Therefore ,it is important to acknowledge the past but this
is not possible until the West desist from continuing to represent
Africa in the same way as it was years ago.
2)Presence Europeene which is the site of thecolonialist. This
presence includes issues of power and how the Europeans have
positioned black in visual representation in dominant discourse.
The dominant have the power to r epresent the other’s identity
through constructed images but this needs to be resisted.
3)Presence Americaine also known as the New World which is the
site of cultural confrontation. Hall describes this presence as an
empty place where many cultures meet and collide. This New
World is therefore itself the beginning of diaspora, of diversity, of
hybridity and difference, which makes Afro -Caribbean people
already people of a diaspora .
Thus, Hall establishes the argument that Caribbean identity
is intern ally and culturally pluralized as it is more a matter of
differential signification and aporia than a matter of presence.
7.4 CONCLUSION
In this essay, Stuart Hall argues that the cultural practices
and visual representation of the Afro -Caribbean blac k subjects from
positions of enunciation need to be investigated. He discusses two
kinds of identity, one of being which proposes a sense of unity and
commonality and the other as ‘becoming ’, which points out the
gaps in the Afro -Caribbea n subjects' identi ty formation. Hall,then,
proceeds to argue that although the first one is truly important for
these subjects, it is the second one which highlights theirmunotes.in
Page 55
55postcolonial predicament. Hall uses Derrida's concept of differance
to point out the influence of the traces of the three presences –
African, European, and American –in the Caribbean to
demonstrate the Caribbean identity as dias pora identity.
7.5KEYTERMS
differance ,diaspora, enunciation, ethnicity, hybridity,
hegemony, identity, traces
7.6CHEC K YOUR PROGRESS
Q.ISay whether the following staments are t rue or false
1. The meaning of 'differance' is difference.
2. The Caribbean identity can be said to be a Diasporic identity.
3. Hall’s essay, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” represents the
Amer ican cause.
4. Hall sympathises with the Palestinian quest for the holy land.
5. Hall argues that cinema should not function like a second -order
mirror and only reflect what already exists.
Q.IIDefine the following terms:
1.Differance
2.Enunciation
3. Tr aces
4.Aporia
5.Third Cinema
Q.IIIAttempt the following:
1.How is identity defined by Stuart Hall? What has identity to do
with subject position? Why is it both being and becoming?
2.How does Hall describe the hybridity of Caribbean identity as a
mixture of the African , European and American identities ?
3.What, according to Sturat Hall, is D iaspora identity ?Explain.
munotes.in
Page 56
568
“LITERARY STUDIES IN AN A GE OF
ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS” –
CHERYLL GLOTFELTY
Unit structure :
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction : Ecocriticism
8.2 Cheryll Glotfelty
8.3 Ecocriticism
8.4 “Literary Studies In an age of Environmental Crisis”: An
Overview
8.5 Conclusion
8.6 Key Terms
8.7 Check Your Progres s
8.0 OBJECTIVES
The basic objective of this unit is to provide the readers with
an interface ofCheryll Glotfelty’s views on Ecocriticism. The unit
also aims to outline the development of ec ological approaches to
literature , in the light of Glotfelty’s essay.
8.1INTRODUCTION: ECOCRITICISM
Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known
by a number of other designations, including Green Cultural
Studies, Eco-poetics and Environmental Literary Criticism.
Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two
seminal works, both published in the mid -1990s: The Ecocriticism
Reader ,e d i t e db yC h e r y l lG l o t f e lty and Harold Fromm, and The
Environmental Imagination byLawrence Buell .In comparison with
other types of political ly inclined criticism, there has been hardly
any dispute abo ut the moral and philosoph ical aims of E cocriticism.
Glotfelty's definition in The Ecocriticism Reader is that "E cocriticism
is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical
environment", and one of the inherent objectives of the appro ach is
to regain professional dignity for what Glotfelty calls the
"undervalued genre of nature writing". Lawrence Buell defines
Ecocriticism “as [a] study of the relationship between literature and
the environment conducted in a spirit of commitment tomunotes.in
Page 57
57environmentalist praxis”. The respect and concern for nature and
other species on earth is integral to this theory.
In an article that extends E cocriticism to Shakespear ean
Studies, Simon Estok argues that E cocriticism is more than “simply
the study of Natu re or natural things in literature; rather, it is any
theory that is committed to effecting change by analyzing the
function –thematic, artistic, social, historical, ideological, theoretical,
or otherwise –of the natural environment, or aspects of it,
represented in documents (literary or other) that contribute to
material practices in material worlds”. This statement affirms the
functional approach of the cultural ecology branch of E cocriticism
which establishes the analogies between ecosystems and
imaginative texts and speculates that such texts have an ecological
function in the cultural system.
8.2 ABOUT THE AUTHOR: CHERYLL GLOTFELTY
Cheryll Glotfelty, a renowned Sanford professor of the
Humanities was instrumental in developing studies in
environmental literature, ecocriticism and women's literature. She
has also coordinated different courses in ethnicity, gender, animals
in literature, in addition to her Ph .D.from Corne ll University, New
York. Along with Laurence Buell and Harold Fromm, she is
considered as a founder of Ecocriticism. She was the co-founder
and president of the Association for the Study of Lit erature and
Environment (ASLE). Glotfelty has also organized seminars on
Ecocriticism and Theory; Regionalism and Bioregionalism;
Literature of the Wild; Representing the Other –Animals in
Literature; Environmental Justice Literature and Theory; and
Ecofeminism. Fascinated by the Great Basin, Nevada, and
influenced b yt h e o r i e so fb i o r e g i o n a l i s ma n dr e i n h a b i t a t i o n ,
Glotfelty has dedicated herself in recent years to "digging in" and
"giving back" to the region. Her edited collection, Literary Nevada:
Writings from the Silver State (2008) is a monumental 831 pages
comprehensive anthology of Nevada literature. Its goal is to
highlight Nevada’s rich literary heritage and to cultivate a love of
place among residents. Her most recent book, co -edited with Tom
Lynch and Karla Armbruster, is The Bioregional Imagination:
Literature, Ecology, and Place (2012), which proposes to think
about place and planet from an ecological perspective.
8.3 “LITERARY STUDIES IN AN AGE OF
ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS” : AN OVERVIEW
Glotfelty's seminal essay, "Literary Studies in an Age of
Environmenta l Crisis" is an introduction to what might be called as
a source book on environment -literature synergy –The Ecocriticismmunotes.in
Page 58
58Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology , published in 1996. This
introduction provides a simplified definition of Ecocriticism, in
addition to the proper classification of articles included in the book.
Glotfelty considers Ecocriticism as the study of relationship
between literature and the physical environment and she argues
that Ecocriticism takes an earth -centered perspective o nlitera ry
studies. This introduction is a powerfully conceived essay that also
traces the development in ecological approaches to literature.
Glotfelty begins the essay with the observation that
contemporary literary studies are in a state of flux because litera ry
scholarship responds to the contemporary pressures such as
Marxism, Feminism and Gender Studies. However, she reminds
the readers that though there are adequate representations of
many social and theoretical developments in literary studies, there
are n ot enough reflections on environmental crisis. She argues that
even in the 1970s and 1980s race, class, gender have been the
favourite topics in literary criticism and no major writings on earth
and earth's life support system under stress have been adequa tely
represented. To illustrate this point, she analyses a nanthology of
literary criticism published in 1980s to show how the writers have
conspicuously omitted environmental perspective in literary studies.
Glotfelty also reminds the readers that such an omission would only
create a contradiction in sensibility as the newspaper headlines of
the same period abound in issues like oil spills, lead poisoning,
waste dumping and global warming. Glotfelty's point is that till the
1990s American Studies had not t aken the environmental angle to
literature very seriously. According to her, this neglect is largely due
to the fact that there were not enough jobs, societies and
discussions on ‘literature and the environment. ’She also observes
that it was only in the 1 990s that ecological literary studies had
emerged as a recognizable critical school in the American
academic world y studies. However, Glotfelty does not believe that
ecologically informed criticism is something absolutely new. She
says that it is possible to trace the legacy of Ecocriticism under
various branches of scholarship such as American Studies,
Regionalism, Pastoralism, and Human Ecology. However, she is of
the opinion that all these efforts failed to gain unity as there were
not enough universitie so f f e r i n gt h ec o u r s e so nE n v i r o n m e n t a l
Literature. Glotfelty credits critics such as Frederick Waage and
Alicia N itecki for working on environmental literary studies in the
1980s and writers such as Harold Fromm, Glen Love and Scott
Slovic for doing the s ame in 1990s. She also acknowledges the
impact of declaring 1990s as the decade of the environment on
Ecocriticism.
Perhaps ,the most significant part of this essay is Glotfelty's
effort to define and explicate Ecocriticism. As mentioned earlier,
Glotfel ty defines Ecocriticism as a study of relationship betweenmunotes.in
Page 59
59literature and the physical environment. She also adds to the scope
of this t erm with a series of questions –"Do men write about nature
differently than women do? How has the concept of wildernes s
changed over a period of time? In what ways and to what effect is
the environmental crisis seeping into contemporary literature and
popular culture?... How is science itself open to literary analysis?"
With these questions ,Glotfelty tries to connect lit erary studies,
Gender Studies, environmental imagination and the
ecoconsciousness of the writers.
After defining Ecocriticism, Glotfelty discusses in detail the
characteristic features of Ecocriticism as a critical practice. She is
of the opinion that the cross -fertilization between literary studies
and environmental activism is essentially dependent on disciplines
such as history, philosophy, psychology, ethics and science.
According to her, ecological criticism is built upon the premise that
human cultur e is connected to the physical world and Ecocriticism
explores the interconnection between nature and culture. She says
that Ecocriticism has one foot on literature and the other on land ,
negotiating between human and nonhuman. Another feature that
Glotfel ty points out is how Ecocriticism is different from other critical
approaches by expanding the scope of the word, "world" in the
context of the writer’s texts and the world. Glotfelty argues that the
"world" in Ecocriticism is not merely the social sphere in which the
writer lives but rather the entire ecosphere. Glotfelty also explores
the basic belief in Ecocriticism, the first law of ecology proposed by
Barry Commoner –"everything is connected to everything else".
Another feature of Ecocriticism, Glotfe lty believes, is that there is a
global system in which energy, matter and ideas interact. Glotfelty
also reviews the contribution of Joseph Meeker while explaining
another feature of Ecocriticism –"the study of biological themes
and relationships in lite rary works". Glotfelty also considers the
desire to contribute to environmental restoration as another
significant feature of Ecocriticism. She also considers the multiple
names used for this study as another characteristic feature. She
indicates that the terms such as Eco -poetics, Environmental
Literary Criticism and Green Cultu ral Studies not only stand for
different name s of Ecocriticism , but also itsinterdiscipli nary nature .
Glotfelty is of the opinion that the impact o fe n v i r o n m e n t a l
crisis on humani ties has beenreflected inliterary studies. She
make s a survey of the recent developments in anthropology,
psychology, philosophy, theology and literary criticism to show how
humanities have drawn upon environmental studies. In
anthropology, she reminds t hat culture and geography are studied
together to illustrate the impact of geography on human culture.
Psychology, she observes has evolved to a point, wherein mental
health is studied in the backdrop of environmental conditions.
Similarly, Glotfelty point s out that philosophy, specifically inits submunotes.in
Page 60
60fields like Environmental Ethics, Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism
has generated new understandings on identity, self, gender and
ethics. Theology too, Glotfelty observes, has changed to consider
environment as a religious issue and in re -evaluating how various
religions treat earth as something sacred. Literary criticism, she
says, has imported values and approaches from all these
disciplines of humanities to raise a few earth -centered questions on
value, meaning, tradition and language that contribute to
environmental thinking.
One of the most insightful observations in Glotfelty's essay is
a way in which she draws parallels between the development of
feminist literary studies and Ecocriticism. She observes that
Feminism as a literary practice developed in three stages –the
study of how woman is represented in literature, the study of the
tradition of women's writing, and the theoretical phase. Glotfelty
explains the development of Ecocriticism with similar stage s. In the
first phase, she says, the critics were engaged in the study of how
nature is represented in literature by scrutinizing the images of
cities, animals, rivers and mountains –various environmental
images. In the second phase, critics were trying t o locate the
tradition of nature writing in the works reflecting ecological
awareness. In this context she s ays that American writers like Willa
Cather, Adrienne Rich and Alice Walker received much attention.
While explaining the third stage, the theoretic al phase, Glotfelty
observes that recent theories on Ecocriticism characterize this
phase .
In the final part of the essay, Glotfelty explains the design
and classification of articles which follow. She also provides
prefatory notes on the three sections u nder which the articles in the
book are organized –“Ecotheory: Reflections on Nature and
Culture”, “Ecocritical Considerations of Fiction and Drama” and
“Critical Studies of Environmental Literature”. Glotfelty also
indicates that the articles in these th ree sections contribute actively
in making a source book on Ecocriticism. According to her, the first
segment has articles which deal with technology and nature, the
aesthetic impact of nature and environmental post -structuralism
which are based on the the ories of Michel Foucault and Edward
Said. The second segment of the book, she says, is largely an
expansion of Joseph Meeker's work The Comedy of Survival .S h e
observes that the articles, in this segment, analyze in an ecocentric
way forms like tragedy, co medy and fiction. The final segment, she
argues, is the real refreshing tonic of the book which reconsiders
the value of nature -oriented literature. The articles included, in this
section, indicate a shift from ego -consciousness to
ecoconsciousness and the awareness of women's nature writing.
Glotfelty concludes the introductory note by stating that her book,
besides giving a comprehensive reading list, is also affordablymunotes.in
Page 61
61priced to help the growing community of scholars engaged in
ecological literary studie s. This path-breaking introduction by
Glotfelty brings to the readers a pressing point that writing and
reading literature in an era of environmental crisis and resource
crunch should be considered as extensions of conservation and
environmental activism.
8.5 CONCLUSION
Glotfelty considers Ecocriticism as a field of enquiry that
examines and upholds works of art which raise moral questions
about human interactions with nature, while also motivating
audiences to live within a limit that will be binding ove rg e n e r a t i o n s .
Her essay underlines the importance of bio -regionalism,
ecoconsciousness and earth -centered approach in writing and
thinking.
8.6 KEY TERMS
Ecocriticism, eco -centric, environmental activism,
ecoconsciousness, environmental imagination, Reg ionalism,
human ecology, wilderness, Environmental ethics, Deep Ecology
8. 7 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q.ISay if the following statements are true or false
1.Glotfelty roots for the link between literature and environmental
activism.
2. Glotfelty compares t he development Ecocriticism with that of
Feminism.
3. Glotfelty proposes a study human culture in the context of
physical world.
Q.II Define the following:
1.Ecocriticism
2.Ecoconsciousness
3.Regionalism
QIII. Answer the following:
1.Explain how Ecocriticism t akes an earth -centered perspective to
literary studies.
2.“Ecocriticism is the study of relationship between literature and
the physical environment”. Discuss with reference to Glotfelty’s
essay.
3.Discuss in detail the characteristic features of Ecocriticism as a
critical practice.
munotes.in
Page 62
62Question Paper
Time : 3 hours Maximum Marks: 100
Instructions
Answer five questions, selecting a minimum of two questions from
each section
All questions carry equal marks
Section !
Q.1
(a) Discuss Aristotle’s v iews on mimesis as revealed in Poetics .
OR
(b) Explain how Dr. Johnson analyses both the merits and demerits
of Shakespeare like a true critic, in “The Preface to Shakespeare.”
Q.2
(a) How does Coleridge establish the argument in “Biographia
Literaria” t hat the language of the rustics cannot possibly
accommodate all the themes in poetry?
OR
(b) What are Shelley’s views on harmony in language, metre,
imagination, wisdom and pleasure as the elements of poetry?
Q.3
(a) What are S.N.Dasguta’s views on the c lassical Sanskrit critics
who have commented on Rasa theory? Explain.
OR
(b) How does S.K.De establish the argument that Alankaras (Poetic
figures) are merely different aspects of vakrokti ? Discuss.
Q.4
(a) Explain, how Cleanth Brooks proves that Paradox was the basis
of Romantic poetry, Metaphysical poetry and Neo -classical poetry ,
in “The Language of Paradox”?
OR
(b) Explain, with the help of illustrations, Victor Shklovsky’s theory
of defamiliarisation as explained in his essay, “Art as Technique”
Section II
Q.5
(a) How does Roland Barthes remove author from the center of a
literary text? How does he explain a post structuralist semantic free
play in his essay, “The Death of the Author”?
ORmunotes.in
Page 63
63(b) Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulations” holds for th the
argument that the new age experiences are conditioned by
nostalgia, simulation and the hyperreal. Elucidate.
Q.6
(a) What, according to Fredric Jameson, are the problems and
paradoxes of post modernism? How does Jameson make a Marxist
evaluation of postmodernism in “The Politics of Theory: Ideological
positions in the post modernism debate”?
OR
(b) How does Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak examine the various
schools and practices of feminism in “Feminism and the Crititcal
Theory”?
Q.7
(a) Explain how Wo lfgang Iser combines Phenemenology and
Reading Response Theory in “Reading Process: A
Phenemenological Approach”?
OR
(b) How does Stephen Greenblatt define ‘Resonance’, ‘Wonder’,
and ‘New Historicism’ Explain the major argument of the essay
“Resonance and Wonder”.
Q.8
(a) Explain how Stuart Hall brings together the concerns of Post
colonial Criticism, Culture studies and Diaspora studies in “Cultural
Identity and Diaspora.”
OR
(b) Cheryll Clotfelty’s “Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental
Crisis” exp lain the legacy and concerns of environmentally informed
literary criticism. Discuss.
munotes.in
Page 64
64Sources of the prescribed texts
Braziel, Jana Evans and Anita Mannur (Ed.) Theorizing Diaspora.
London: Blackwell, 2003.
Enright, D.J. and Chickera, Ernst de. (Ed.) English Critical Texts .
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1962.
Glotfe lty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm (Ed.) The Ecocriticism Reader:
Landmarks in Literary Ecology . Athens: The University of Georgia
Press, 1996.
Lodge, David and Nigel Wood (Ed.) Modern Criticism and Theory:
AR e a d e r (Second edition). New Delhi: Pearson, 1988.
Raghavan V. and Nagendra (Ed.) An Introduction to Indian Poetics.
Madras: MacMillan, 1970.
References :
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms .( 8 t hE d i t i o n )N e w
Delhi: Akash Press, 2007.
Adams, Hazard. Critical Theory Since Plato . New York, Harcou rt
Brace Jovanovich, 1971.
Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays . Trans.
Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.
Andermahr, Sonya. Terry Lovell and Carol Wolkowitz. A Glossary
of Feminist Theory. London: Arnold, 1997.
Appel Bauon, Stanley ed. Aristotle: Poetics New York: Dover
Publications, 1997.
Ashcroft, Bill; Gareth Griffiths; and Helen Tiffin (ed). The
Postcolonial Studies Reader .O x f o r d :R o u t l e d g e ,1 9 9 5 .
Ashcroft, Bill; Gareth Griffiths; and Helen Tiffin. The Empire W rites
Back .L o n d o n :R o u t l e d g e ,1 9 8 9 .
Baldick, Chris (Ed) The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms .
London: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and
Cultural Theory . New Delhi: Viva Books, 2008.
Bhabha ,H o m iK . Nation and Narration .L o n d o n :R o u t l e d g e ,2 0 0 8 .munotes.in
Page 65
65Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture .L o n d o n :R o u t l e d g e ,
1994.
Bowlt, John. Introduction to Special issue of Russian Formalism .
20thCentury Studies ,7 / 8 ,D e c e m b e r ,1 9 7 2 .
Bretens, Hans. Literar y Theory: The Basics. London: Routledge,
2004.
Butler, Christopher. Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction .
Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Butler, Judith. “Introduction” in Dianafuss Ed Inside / Outside:
Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories. London. Rautledge, 1992.
Daiches, David. Critical Approaches to Literature. Bombay: Orient
Longman 1993.
Davis, Michael. The Poetry of Philosophy: on Aristotle’s Poetics ,
Indiana: St Augustine’s Press 1999.
Drabble, Margaret and Stringer, Jenny. The Concise Oxford
Companion to Eng lish Literature . Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007.
Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism .L o n d o n :
Routledge, 2002.
Erlich, Victor. ‘Russian Formalism: In Perspective”. The Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism .1 3 : 2 ,1 9 5 4 :2 1 5 -25.
Fanon ,F r a n t z . The Wretched of the Earth .L o n d o n :P e n g u i n ,2 0 0 1 .
Fowler, Roger. Ed. A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms. Rev. ed.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the
Present .L o n d o n :B l a c kwell, 2005.
Hall, Donald E. Literary and Cultural Theory: From Basic Principles
to Advanced Application .B o s t o n :H o u g h t o n ,2 0 0 1 .
Harmon, William; Holman, C. Hugh. AH a n d b o o kt oL i t e r a t u r e . 7th
ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice -Hall, 1996.
Hernd l, Diane Prince; Robyn R Warhol. Feminisms: An Anthology
of Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism . New Jersey: Rutgers
University Press, 1999.munotes.in
Page 66
66Hudson, William Henry. An Introduction to the Study of Literature .
New Delhi: Atlantic, 2007.
Jefferson, Anne. and D. Robey, eds. Modern Literary Theory: A
Comparative Introduction .L o n d o n :B a t s f o r d ,1 9 8 6 .
Keesey, Donald. Contexts for Criticism . 4th Ed. Boston: McGraw
Hill, 2003.
Latimer, Dan. Contemporary Critical Theory . San Diego: Harcourt,
1989.
Lee, Joe; Joe Powell. Postmodernism for Beginners .N e wY o r ka n d
London: Writers and Readers Publishing, 1998.
Lentriccia, Frank. After the New Criticism . Chicago: Chicago UP,
1980.
Lodge, David (Ed). Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader .N e w
Delhi: Pearson Educ ation, 2007.
Lodge, David (Ed.) Twentieth Century Literary Criticism .L o n d o n :
Longman, 1972.
Matz, Jesse. The Modern Novel . Oxford, MA and Victoria:
Blackwell, 2004
McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism . Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2007.
Morris, Pam. Realism .L o n d o n :R o u t l e d g e ,2 0 0 3 .
Murfin, Ross and Ray, Supryia M. The Bedford Glossary of Critical
and Literary Terms . Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2003.
Nagarajan, M.S. English Literary Criticism and Theory .H y d e r a b a d :
Orient Black Swan ,2 0 0 6 .
Natoli, Joseph, ed. Tracing Literary Theory . Chicago: U of Illinois P,
1987.
Ramamurthi, Lalitha. An Introduction to Literary Theory. Chennai:
University of Madras, 2006.
Read, Herbert. Coleridge: A Collection of Critical Essays ,e d
Kathleen Co burn, Eagle Word Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc, 1967.
Rooney, Ellen. The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary
Theory . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.munotes.in
Page 67
67Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson. AR e a d e r ' sG u i d et o
Contemporary Literary Theory . 3rd Ed. Lexington: U of Kentucky P,
1993.
Steiner, Peter. “Russian Formalism”. The Cambridge History of
Literary Criticism .E dR a m a nS e l d e nV o l . 8 .C a m b r i d g e :C a m b r i d g e
University Press. 1995, 11 -29.
Tompkins, Jane P (ed). Reader -Response Criticism .L ondon: JHU,
1980.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User -Friendly Guide .N e w
York: Garland Publishing, 1999.
Warner, Nicholas O. “In Search of Literary Science: the Russian
Formalist Tradition.” Pacific Coast Philology 17, 1982, 69 -81.
Waugh, Patric ia (Ed.) Literary Theory and Criticism . New York:
OUP, 2006.
Wolfreys, Julian. ed. Introducing Literary Theories: A Guide and
Glossary . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003.
Woods, Tim. Beginning Postmodernism . Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1999.
Wordsworth, William. “The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” from D.J.
Enright and Ernst De Chickera. English Critical Texts .N e wD e l h i :
Oxford University Press. 1962, pp.161 -189.
munotes.in