Literary Theory Sunday/May16/002010 7:24 PM

Dec. 7, 2006
S. Chell

Literary Theory: A Short Take

Literary theory is nothing more than the attempt to formalize, or put into words, the
process by which readers make sense out of a text. We all make judgments and
interpretations about texts or text-like situations each day of our lives, and thinking
about the way we arrive at meanings can only help us come closer to getting our
meanings "right."

Rather than "What is the meaning?" literary theory is actually more concerned with the
question, "Where is meaning?" Where can the reader turn to find the most
"authoritative" source of meaning? Imagine the most likely places according to the
following diagram, which we'll use to illustrate the main lines of literary theory:

I. The World of Nature

II. The Author IV. The Reader

II. The Text

I. Classical-Christian Theory (500 B. C. to close to the end of the 18th century).

A. Where is meaning? In the World of "Nature," viewed as an orderly

cosmos or divinely created plan, an abstract idea rather than a concrete
material world.
B. What is the role of a literary text? To imitate, or reflect (the mirror
metaphor), this World of Nature in a way that delights while it
teaches readers their place in the scheme of things (thus a view of
literature that is mimetic and didactic).
C. Methodology: The highest faculty for a writer like Plato, Milton, or Dante
is "Reason," a Divine gift which distinguishes humans from animals. The
critic who uses reason will, in turn, be able to separate illusion from
reality in the text, in turn seeing how the text reveals a Creation
characterized by order, balance, and moderation.

II. Romantic Theory: (Beginning at the end of the 19th century, with Blake's poetry or
Wordsworth-Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads of 1798, and extending to the
World War I in the second decade of the 20th Century.)

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A. Where is the meaning? In the author, who expresses his or her

personal experiences in nature and society. "Nature" is no longer an
abstract idea but a concrete, sensuous, even personally felt experience.
B. The role of the text is to record the experiences, confessions,
remembrances, personal insights, and autobiographical materials of the
author. Sometimes called "expressive theory"; hence, the "lamp"
metaphor.
C. Methodology: The highest faculty for Blake, Coleridge, and Shelley is
the "Imagination," whereas the Reason valued by the classicists is
viewed as the source of evil and most social woes. The imagination sees
beyond the physical surfaces of reality to the spiritual basis of all living
things. The critic, in turn, attempts to understand the "character," however
complex, of the author or his persona, always being aware of the creative
gift he or she shares with the Supreme Creator as well as the heroic
sacrifices demanded of the artist.

III. New Critical (Formalist) Theory: (1920-1970):

A. Where is meaning? In the text itself, which is viewed as self-standing

(autonomous), complete and self-sufficient (hermetically sealed), a living
organism, a microcosm of life, with all of life's contradictions and
ambiguities yet whole and unified.
B. The role of the text isn't imitative or didactic (classical theory) or
expressive (romantic). It's an object of aesthetic beauty, capable of
exciting the imagination and giving deep pleasure. The critic who calls
all art "perfectly useless" is not necessarily speaking negatively about art
if she's a "new critic." Aesthetic beauty has its own rewards.
C. Methodology: First, look for signs of "life" in the text, which for the new
critic is found, above all, in the "tensions" (oppositions, ironies,
ambiguities) of the text. The next step is to see the text as characterized
by a unity of all its parts, above all a fusion of "content" and "form" ("new
critics" are fond of saying "meaning is a function (product) of form as
much as of content"). Finally, the new critic will focus almost exclusively
on the "primary source" of the literary text itself, being very suspicious of
the value of any information that comes from outside the text.

IV. Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Theory (1970 to present):

A. Where is meaning? In language, or in the literary text as representative

of the way language actually works. Literary texts, like all texts, make
their meanings through a system of "signifiers" (word=symbol, or sign;
sign=signifier + signified). Meaning, or the words assigned to things, is
understood as purely "arbitrary" and not as inherent in the thing itself. (A
cat is not a cat because of some natural essence or inherited quality of
catness. It's a cat because it's not a "hat" or a "dog"--in other words, only

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because somewhat has arbitrarily decided to apply that word

and sound to the animal referred to by that name. Thus, meaning is not
in the thing itself but in the word, or sign, that the thing has been
assigned by humans. Moreover, the role of humans in naming "reality"
leads to two important conclusions: 1. Reality is largely a construction
of language; 2. Language is systematic. It's not simply a question of how
many different animals are in Noah's ark but of the way language has
distinguished them from one another.
B. The role of the text is to demonstrate how authors produce meanings
through a language system that adheres to modern discoveries about the
nature of grammar, syntax, and semantics and how it is influenced by
changes in the world we live in. The text tells us how humans are using
language to make meanings. Useful definitions: A text is a "system of
signs"; a sign is a "signifier + signified."
C. Methodology: Notice the prominent signifiers as well as their collective,
accumulative effect on meaning. Structuralists, also called "semiologists"
or "semioticians," see reading a text as "decoding" a text's meanings by
examining its signifiers and their relationships. It works not just for
literary texts but for all systems (eg. rock concerts, shopping malls)
created for human use. The French semiotician Roland Barthes is as
likely to read, or decode, a boxing match or strip tease as a literary text.
The most famous novel by a semiotician is Italian novelist-theorist
Umberto Eco's, The Name of the Rose (made into a movie with Sean
Connery and Christian Slater).

Barthes, in a famous short essay, writes "The death of the author is the
birth of the reader." Structuralism makes language and its meanings the
entire focus. The "author" is no longer viewed as "authority" of "his" text;
even the text is no longer authoritative or "sacred." Language is simply
everybody's business. Compared to the "self-contained aesthetic object"
that the New Critics insist upon, we now have a literary text where
there are no longer any boundaries between the text and its reader. Out
of this new view of the text, or of language and meaning, comes the
"reader response" theorists, chief among them the American critic,
Stanley Fish, along with the "implied reader" (you). It's no longer
accurate to say the reader of the text: you are the reader in the text.

Principle #1 of current literary theory: You cannot escape the text.

Structuralism vs. Post-structuralism: Do not confuse structuralism as the "structure"

frequently discussed by the new critic (structure=form); instead, the meaning is closer
to "system," or "construction." This is important because some people new to literary
theory assume that post-structuralism is the opposite of structuralism. Actually, post-
structuralism is simply a later development of structuralism, one that is currently more
influential. What's the difference?

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Both theories locate meaning in the text, but structuralism sees the text as being
"stable." "Decode" the puzzle (or system) that is the text and you have its meaning,
Sherlock. "Not so fast, Sherlock," says the post-structuralist. "You never 'have' its
meaning. Because of the nature of language, it's changed. You've simply created a
new puzzle."

Principle #2 of current literary theory: Every signified is also a signifier.

The most influential philosopher of the last half of the 20th century is Jacques Derrida,
the "father of deconstruction" who, through the closest and most rigorous readings of
famous texts (by Plato, Rousseau, Kierkegaard), demonstrates that the text, like
language itself, is never "stable." Meaning is constantly changing, even in the most
apparently single-minded, "fixed" texts. To describe how language works, Derrida
coined the word differance, to express the following qualities of language: a. with each
new word the meaning is "different from" the preceding instance; b. with each new
word an even "newer," or "future," meaning is implied--its "deferred" meaning.

Because of their current status, most of the different theories and methodologies being
taught are "post-structuralist" in nature. Here's why:

Structuralism and Post-Structuralism both view the basis of human reality as language.
And what is language? Pure and simple--a system of symbols, or signs. Human
consciousness itself is made up of symbols, mostly words (the language of scientists,
artists, musicians will include numbers, images, or musical notes which, like words,
are symbols, or signs).

So what's the significance of the preceding point? Answer: It suggests that all
meaning, all that we as humans regard as "reality," is a product of language. We can
talk, write, think about anything we wish--call it divine, spiritual, eternal, heavenly,
transcendent--we are still the ones who are calling the shots, making those meanings
out of our own constructions, our own words. (Now we're on the edge of the
controversy: the reason that structuralists and post-structuralists are often viewed as
heretics, "anti-Christs," "relativists," and even worse in some conservative and even
"moderately" conservative circles. Modern philosophical and literary theory, like
evolutionary theory, seems to them to threaten the very existence of an "absolute" God!

Post-structuralism is perceived by many as being an even greater threat than

structuralism because no meaning--whether we think of it as humanly or divinely
created--can be counted on to stay in place, to "stick." Derrida proves through his
close readings and demonstrations that Plato is wrong, or at least self-contradictory, in
his attempts to prove that there is a single, absolute, transcendent reality knowable
through reason. On the contrary, Derrida finally asserts, Plato shows that reason is not
in control but that rhetoric (words) is.

Deconstruction can be a useful tool in challenglng just about any assumption that
people hold about the nature of reality. But remember that Derrida never used it in a

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"destructive" way. To deconstruct something doesn't mean to "destroy" it: rather it

means to expose the "constructs" (humanly created words, or signs) that the
assumption is based on. Derrida simply takes Socrates' and Plato's "examined life" to
the extreme:

How to deconstruct a literary text:

1. Don't. There's no way to deconstruct a "good" literary text such as one written
by Shakespeare. Even in his shortest works, the sonnets, Shakespeare never
takes a single, fixed position. Even some "deconstructionists" don't seem to get
this point when they make haughty statements about "deconstructing William
Faulkner," etc. If you really want to deconstruct a text, select one that has an
obvious "message" or that is clearly propagandist. OR--

2. Deconstruct someone else's "interpretation" of a text. The "stronger" the

interpretation (i.e. the more the interpreter is convinced of it, insisting upon his
interpretation as "the absolute truth), the "riper" it is for deconstruction.

3. Deconstruction Methodology: Two major techniques

a. Point out the binary, dual meanings that the position contains. As
human beings, our minds and language always insist on making meanings
through binary oppositions: conservative and liberal, Democrat and
Republican, love and hate, heterosexual and homosexual, man and woman,
terrorist and anti-terrorist, marriage and bachelor-hood, educated and
uneducated, teaching and learning. Moreover, we frequently "favor" one of the
two extremes. But to any "thinking" individual, all such oppositions point to a
very narrow and limited view of reality, which we know is various, multi-hued,
multi-dimensional, and exceptionally complex, with countless variations
between the two opposite extremes. Deconstruction removes the artificial
boundaries, opening up many more possibilities of interpreting reality
(admittedly, sometimes "too" many).

b. Read the language of the text carefully enough to mark the flow and
flux of the language and its changing meanings. A really good deconstructionist
insists "she doesn't deconstruct a text"; rather, she allows the text to deconstruct
itself. This occurs virtually any time I begin reading any part of Shakespeare or
Faulkner. Maintain a fixed, set and stubborn position about either writer (e.g.
that he was sexist or anti-Semitic) and be prepared to have your head handed
back to you by any good deconstructionist.

Derrida's most famous deconstruction is of Rousseau's distinction between speech

and writing, in which the latter claims that, historically, speech came before writing and
"ontologically" speech is more "present" than writing. Derrida turned Rousseau
completely upside-down, reading him more closely than anyone else has in order to

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demonstrate that Derrida proves at least equally convincingly that writing came before
speech and that writing is more "present" than speaking. Most traditional linguists
haven't even caught up to Derrida as yet, still privileging "spoken" words in terms of
historical sequence and immediacy. And conservative theologians feel nervous,
threatened, even outraged by the implication of what Derrida has done, because in the
Bible the "Word" of God is not "mere" words written by human beings on paper but the
"spoken" Word of a Supreme Being recorded by "chosen" writers who in turn were
"inspired" to translate that Word into the words that make up the Bible. Derrida refers
to this kind of traditional, more conservative way of thinking about God as
"logocentricism" to distinguish it from a more "anthropocentric" approach, which
recognizes multiple and diverse meanings made by human beings of every stripe and
color. For example, most of us speak of "Logic" as if the word had only one, abstract
and absolute meaning. Mention the word to a deconstructionist, and he's likely to
respond: Whose logic? (i.e. There are many "logics.")

Some final conclusions about deconstruction and related methodologies:

1. Deconstruction does not have to be equated with "destructiveness" or "atheism."

We always encourage, even define "education" as, "critical inquiry," which is exactly
what deconstruction does more effectively than any other theory or approach. Usually
the "new critics" and the "deconstructionists" are considered totally opposite from one
another, and there are new critics who literarily despise any deconstructionist. It's
easy to understand why: the new critic has shown us this stable, self-sufficient, stand-
alone text, a harmonious and unified aesthetic world unto itself; the deconstructionist
seems to demolish it, or watch it wash away like another sand castle. But here's the
connection that's frequently missed. Both the new critic and deconstructionist
emphasize and practice, above all, close reading of a text, with hawk-like attention to
each and every word and meaning. Moreover, neither approach, if practiced
"responsibly," has an agenda: the goal of both is simply to see the text as it actually is.

And this brings us to some dangers, or warning flags, about post-structuralism and the
approaches that it has led to. Structuralism and post-structuralism both emphasize the
"constructed nature" of all reality (because of the importance of language). Therefore,
readers can begin to notice that meanings that they once took for granted were made
by men and women who may have been biased--by class, gender, race, ethnicity,
nationality. So now literary theory and methodology of necessity take on a very
"political" rather than purely aesthetic (new critic) or philosophical (Derrida and
deconstruction) nature. The danger is that criticism that becomes political also risks
taking on a bias and "agenda" of its own. Consequently, in many subdivisions of post-
structuralist thought--Marxism, feminism, multiculturalism, gender theory, new
historicism--it's not unusual to find 1. "group-think," or "group-identity politics" (you'd
better belong to the right club or be ostracized from academia)--the "political
correctness" phenomenon that is sometimes blamed on "liberal" universities; 2. a
hardened "mindset"--for example, an absolute insistence on seeing all problems in
terms of the "patriarchy" or a "decadent capitalistic system" or an "aggressively
imperialistic government" or a "Puritanical WASP worldview."

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When employing Marxist, feminist, multiculturalist approaches, remember that they're

all basically about the political game of "power" and who has it. The proof is always in
the language of the dominant voice. So first look for that dominant voice and the
stereotypes that it creates out of words. Second, look for the "marginalized" voice,
frequently existing in the "margins," between the lines, in the "gaps" of the text. But try
to stay in "inquiry mode" rather than "judgmental mode," or you may end up becoming
the stereotypical academic post-structuralist who "polices" language rather than
studies it, using various litmus tests to determine what's "correct" and "incorrect."
So the irony, even paradox, is that a theory challenging the claims of so-called
"Absolutist" thinking becomes equally (in some cases, more) absolutist and single-
minded in its own thinking! You start out to undermine some oppressive authority and
wind up being a tyrant yourself! (Not exactly "progress.")

To sum up: To be true to the letter and spirit of Deconstruction (and the methodologies
it has given rise to), the reader seeks to remove boundaries and fences, not construct
more of them. The ultimate value of deconstruction--especially in our current state of
holy wars between and within countries--is that it invites us to use our reason (not
simply good will, which frequently isn't enough) to see beyond narrow, self-interested
attachments to a particular social class, color and race, religious affiliation (my god is
better than your god), ethnicity and even tradition (I would never marry someone who
wasn't Albanian). If we see how poorly our language "constructions" of meaning often
serve us, perhaps we can "all get along" a bit better as members of a human
community in which all individuals are equally favored by the same God (however that
God is named).

Coda: The giveaway of someone who is abusing post-structuralist thought is: lack of a
sense of humor. Barthes always talks about the "play" of language and the jouissance
(joy) that it provides the reader. Derrida reminds us that the life of language can never
be exhausted ("every signified is also a signifier"). It's always taking us to new, fresh,
hopeful possibilities and meanings. Rather than see "deconstruction" as a denial of
God's existence, theologians might do better to see the infinite possibilities in words as
proof of God's existence!

Recommended reading: Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
It's a "cult" novel from the seventies that means different things to different readers.
The story is a modern-day father and son searching for meaning (and each other) as
they bike from Minneapolis to the West Coast. (Some readers have made the same
literal trip, stopping at the towns identified in the narrative.) But the important trip is
purely intellectual. The main character takes us through the history of Western
philosophy, from the pre-Socratics through the modern Age of Reason. His goal: to
deconstruct Plato and the history of Western thought and replace both with one of the
"enemies" that Socrates, according to Plato, demolished. The narrator restores him.
Deconstructing a text is the first step toward reconstructing it, leading us to a meaning
that might strike us as a more faithful representation of reality.

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