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Catherine Belsey
“This is a valiant attempt to explain the principles and some of the intricacies of structuralist
criticism. It throws a good deal of light on some of the terms, which can baffle the
uninitiated…. This is… a helpful introduction to a subject which has loomed large in recent
years”
Terence Hawkes
“Common sense approaches literature not as a self conscious and deliberate practice, a
method based on a reasoned theoretical position, but as the 'obvious' mode of reading, the
'natural' way of approaching literary works. Critical theory accordingly appears as a
perfectly respectable but to some degree peripheral area, almost a distinct discipline, a
suitable activity for graduate students or perhaps as a special option for undergraduates,
having no necessary connection with the practice of reading itself. At best it is seen as a
way of explaining in theoretical terms what we already - and on the whole without
encountering any difficulties - do when we read; at worst it is held to be misleading,
interfering with the natural way of reading, perplexing the minds of readers with nice
speculations of philosophy and so leading to overingenuity, jargon and a loss of direct and
spontaneous contact with the immediately perceptible reality of the text”. Over against the
self-evident assumption of the common sense view, she will urge the view of Saussure, that
"common sense itself is ideologically and discursively constructed, rooted in a specific
historical situation and operating in conjunction with a particular social formation." Her
critique, we note, is squarely logical and philosophical: "In reality, common sense betrays
its own inadequacy by its incoherencies, its contradictions and its silences." Indeed, she
makes the essential philosophical point: over against the anti-theoretical pretensions of the
common sense approach, she states "But there is no practice without theory, however much
that theory is suppressed, unformulated or perceived as 'obvious'." She uses ideology in a
specific way: My use of the term, derived from Althusser's, assumes that ideology is not an
optional extra, deliberately adopted by self-conscious individuals ('Conservative ideology',
for instance), but the very condition of our experience of the world, unconscious precisely
in that it is unquestioned, taken for granted. Ideology, in Althusser's use of the term, works
in conjunction with political practice and economic practice to constitute the social
formation, a formulation which promotes a more complex and radical analysis of social
relations than the familiar term, 'society', which often evokes either a single homogenous
mass, or alternatively a loosely connected group of autonomous individuals, and thus offers
no challenge to the assumptions of common sense. Her comment on the strategy of common
sense in response to the new terms of her (ostensibly more radical) critical theory is worth
reproducing: ...the last resort of common sense is to dismiss as 'unnecessary jargon' any
discourse which conflicts with its own. This is an easy way of evading conceptual
challenges, of course (and of eliciting reassuring sneers), but it negates the repeated liberal
humanist claim to open-mindedness and pluralism.... To resist all linguistic innovation is by
implication to claim that we already know all we need to know.
“The form of the classical realist text acts in conjunction with the expressive theory and
with ideology by interpreting the reader as subject. In this way a classical realist constitutes
an ideological practice in addressing itself to readers as subjects, interpreting them in order
that they freely accept their subjectivity and their subjection.” Belsey further elaborates that
apart from illusionism, which is already evident from above discussion, from a paradoxical
development of a subject within ideology and which is normally present in classical realist
texts, there are certain other questions within the narrative techniques which ensure this
subjectivity and subjection. These are closures and literacy of discourses, which combine to
establish a “truth” of the story. In Barthes view, closure is something which tends to form a
very regular order or pattern in classical realist literature. Techniques like murder, love
triangles etc. provide the destructive element in the text. But it eventually leads to an
ideologically accepted closure, where a subject feels a certain relief and the order of things
is re-established. According to Belsey, “The moment of closure is the point, at which the
events of the story become fully intelligible to the reader” it means that the closure is such
point in a story when the fog starts to clear away and the real picture or the situation
becomes clear to the reader.
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Q: Q:
Q: Ans:
“Initially constructed in discourse, the subject finds in the discourse of the classic realist
text a confirmation of the position of autonomous subjectivity represented in ideology as
‘obvious’. It is possible to refuse that position, but to do so at least at present, is to make a
deliberate and ideological choice.” PROVIDE A DETAILED BACKGROUND TO
LINGUISTIC CRITICISM. WHAT IS POSTSAUSSUREIAN LINGUISTICS? GIVE A
DETAILED DEPICTION OF EVOLUTION OF THE LINGUISTICS BEFORE AND
AFTER SAUSSURE. WHAT IS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND
IDEAOLOGY? GIVE AN EXAUSTIVE OVERVIEW.
Linguistics has had a major impact on 20th century literary theory, and criticism, primarily
through the influence of the Swiss Linguist Ferdinand De Saussure (Died 1913). Saussure
argued that linguistics should move from a diachronic study of language i.e. how language
develops historically to a synchronic study i.e. treating language as a system within one
temporal plane. He divided language into Langue, the underlying system that governs
linguistic usage and Parole, how language is actually used in practice. The basis of Langue
is that words are arbitrary signs, in that the relation between a word and what it signifies to
arbitrary, i.e. almost entirely determined by conventions. What determines the meaning is
not that the word refers to the word or to the ideas or concepts that exist outside the
language. It is the difference between linguistic signs and themselves that create meaning.
Saussuries shift of linguistic emphasis to language as a signifying system paralleled
development in formalists. Criticism and his work have been most influential on those who
follow a formalist approach. According to C. Belsey, Post Saussuries linguists challenge the
expressive realism. Imprecise idealist’s stances in critical practice regarding the relationship
between language and the world and also in the development of this linguistic approach.
Saussure’s concept plays very important role in the trial practice. In fact, he builds a basis
for a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between language and the
word.
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“Language can be compared with a sheet of paper; thought is the front and sound the back;
one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time; like wise in language,
one can neither divide sounds from thought nor thought from sounds.” She wants to say that
language gives individual identity to the thought or the concept, thought or idea exists first
and then comes language that makes this concept clear to the viewer or the listener. When
someone says the word “eglantine“ or “rose”, the very utterance of the word the signifier;
sound image, brings forward the concept related to that sound. Saussure believes that
language precedes the identity of individual. Man is the part of social fact and through the
use of language as a signifying system; we make this concept clear by giving it a specific
sound that relates us to the concept whenever we utter that very sound. The signifier, sound
image makes the difference clear between things. The concept “Rabit” is signified by the
word “Rabit”. Saussure was an atheist, a man who believed that man lives in a Godless
world. So he can give the idea that language makes clear the concept and language gives
existence to concept, whereas in reality concept is not bound to language. Concept stands
first or the thought comes first and then comes language. Saussure is of the view that since
the signifier and signified are inseparable for example the sound image ‘Rose’ belongs to
the concept ‘Rose’, leads to an illusive paradox and nature of language is overlooked due to
this illusion. Saussure says, “If words stood for pre-existing concepts, they would all have
exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next, but this is not true” Saussure
means to say that pre-existing concepts are not responsible for meaning. The belief, that a
concept would have the same meaning or the same concept in every language, is not true,
because different languages perceive the word in different ways.
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“From this post Saussurean perspective, it is clear that the theory of literature as expressive
realism is no longer tangible, because, since realism reflects the word constructed in
language.” But in fact, language precedes the individual. Language in ideology has a very
strong connection, likewise language and thought has a very strong connection. Therefore,
“the subjectivity of a specific perspective authority is no guarantee of the authority of a
specific perception of the word”.
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In her article “Criticism and Meaning” Catherine Belsey basically deals with the concept of
plurality of meaning or with the quality of language as having numerous or infinite
possibilities of interpretations. Belsey does not simply elaborate this point but brings
forward the different conceptions of Expressive Realism, New criticism and Northrop Frye
etc. and their attempt to find a device or method of interpretation of meaning aided by
certain methodologies. Catherine Belsey elaborates the importance of post saussurean
Linguistics for its questioning of different critical practices regarding their attempt to locate
a guarantee of the meaning of a text, especially without historical and ideological
influences. For example Expressive Realist finds the guarantee of the particular meaning in
author’s mind. Thus he understands the quality of language as having a varied potential for
interpretation and critical appreciation. Likewise, Belsey elaborates that New Criticism is
also unable to locate this guarantee of meaning due to its incomplete understanding and
vision regarding language and human experience. Negating ideology and history in
particular, it undermines the evaluation of a text and gives an incomplete account of the
linguistic possibility. Language being a social fact is subject to a variety of major and minor
changes even within a single social system. Belsey gives an excellent example of a sentence
i.e.
“Democracy will ensure that we extend the boundary of civilization.” It’s an excellent
example to bring out the potential for meaning and the ideological and historical impacts on
its interpretation. For example a person of a developing country like Pakistan would
interpret, “Democracy” in a different manner, owing to the historical and ideological
influences. Whereas a person in one of the African tribes does not even know about
Democracy and if he is told, would appreciate it according to the verdict given by the local
witch-doctor. Democracy and civilisation carry totally different concepts in a developed
country. For examples the Scandinavian States (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland)
have a freedom level of individuality to an extent that would be unthinkable in the states
like Iran. This example of the word “Democracy” makes evident the fact that language is a
social fact and a meaning of a sentence in a discourse will be directly influenced by
different influences which could be of an ideological or a historical or a purely linguistic
nature. Thus, this is evident again that the meaning in a particular sentence is plural.
Therefore, to pose an individual subject as an authority for a single meaning is to ignore a
degree to which subjectivity itself is a discursive construct. To find a guarantee of meaning
in the world or in experience is to ignore the fact that our experience of the world is itself
articulated in language. Thus Catherine Belsey elaborates the plurality of meaning and its
crucial significance in “Critical Practice”. Q: WHAT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A
SUBJECT AND IDEALOGY IS EXPRESSED IN “ADDRESSING THE SUBJECT” BY
CATHERINE BELSEY? Ans: “Addressing The Subject” by Catherine Belsey, deals with
the relationship of a subject to an ideology that is given forth in a particular fact and how
text promotes a particular set of mode or ideology. Catherine Belsey makes it clear that,
how by the use
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“The sum of what was said is that the poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by the
greater promptness to think and feel without immediate external excitement. And the
greater power in expressing such thought and feelings as are produced in that manner. But
these passions and thoughts and feelings are the general questions and thoughts and feelings
of men.” By the mid-nineteenth century, the Expressive Realism became widely established
theory not only in literature but also in painting and especially in landscape painting,
through the works of the major post Romantic theorist like Ruskin. According to Ruskin the
artist must both represent faithfully the objects portrayed and express the thoughts and
feelings that evoke in him or her. The beginning of the concept of Expressive Realism can
be found in Ruskin’s book “Modern Painters” in 1840 where he is treating poetry
(imaginative synonymous literature) and painting as similar Ruskin actually combined both
Aristotelian idea and Romantic concept together, because both poetry and painting represent
reality. Catherine Belsey critical examines both concepts of Expressive Realism, she is of
the view, “Whereas truth to nature is universally pleasing the representational aspects of art
will delight everyone. The expressive aspects are apparent only to the few” So, in the
imitation of reality, although reality will be portrayed by the artist but every reader will not
be able to appreciate the powerful overflow of emotions on a similar level as expressed by
the author. Expressive Realism falls short on the level of perception of reader as the
depicted reality in the form of imitation . “Ruskin’s criticism will concentrate first on the
question of truth to nature, since although it is possible to reach what I have stated to be the
first end of art, the representation of facts, without reacting the second, the representation of
thoughts, yet it is altogether impossible to reach the 2nd without having previously reached
the first. Mimetic accuracy is the foundation of all arts ‘nothing can atone for the want of
truth.”
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“The novelist, whoever he is and whenever he is writing, is giving form to a story, giving
form to his moral and metaphysical views and giving form to his particular experience of
sensations, people, places and society.” In Hardy’s view a novelist is giving form of words
to his experiences, his feelings and his emotions and the experience which he got from his
society, he evolved it in his mind in the form of words and words and feelings were finally
presented in the form of text is the reader and experience made an image in the mind of the
writer it was imitation of reality, he, then combined it with the emotions and feelings and
formed Expressive Realism.
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“The statement I have quoted, however, apparently innocent, depends on certain quite
specific assumptions. It assumes the existence of a story, views and experiences in the mind
of the novelist prior to and independent of the formation of them. These pre-exist the
narrative and are “expressed” in it.” Hardy’s statement is structure based and she takes
ideology of the author and reader inferior to the form and in sum case of the text. Here,
ideology makes the form of the text not its ideology. Barbra Hardy is of the view that if
truth is imitated just like the objective imitation of reality, combined with experience and
emotions, the truth will be the same for all. We find a similar stance in Hardy as we find in
Ruskin, i.e. the imitation of experience takes an important position and is culminated
through expressions. The 2nd expression realist critic in 20th century is F. R. Leavis.
Leavis’ approach is important in this regard that it is not formulated in a specific theory or
in organised structure. In this evaluation of Henry James’ works he adopts an approach
which is expressive realists approach. For example he writes about the novels of James as
having the quantity for “the vivid concreteness of the rendering of this world of individuals
centres of consciousness we live in”, i.e. in felt life are present both the concepts of
imitation and representation, when applied in literature. The word ‘rendering’ here carries
the direct concept of Expressive Realists’ representation i.e. Henry James consciousness as
represented in his novels rests or in derived from his “most vital experience” (for Leavis the
felt life or felt experience is important as it is important for B. Hardy). Catherine Belsey
further elaborates that “the text is seen as a way of arriving at something” interior to it: the
convictions of the author or his or her experience as part of that society at that particular
time. To understand the text is to explain it in terms of the author’s ideas, psychological
state or social background. Thus, the felt experience of author becomes crucial in his
imitations of reality and in its representation, which is a result of his felt experience. So
Ruskin, Hardy and F. R. Leavis, are one of the same views that the author is presenting to
the reader a particular idea with a belief that the reader will perceive it in the same way as
author has tried to convey. That is why the autobiographical note is given for the readers
before the text so that the reader can easily relate to the idea, which the author has tried to
project in his text. Catherine Belsey concludes that the expressive realist portion has been
subject to a series of challenges and in some cases by theories which have since become
authorities in their own right. In this way, it has become apparent that expressive realism
presents a number of problems not easily resolved within the framework of common sense.
Difficulties, which have emerged, include the problem of access to the idea or experience,
which is held to precede the expression of it, what form does not take. Does idea exist
outside its course? Is the idea formulated in one discourse the same as an idea of formulated
in different words in another discourse? Further, what do we mean by ‘realism’? In what
sense is fiction ‘true’, and what constitutes evidence of that truth? What is the relationship
between a text and the word? To what extent is it possible to perceive the word
independently of the conventional ways in which it is represented? To what extent is
experience contained by language, society, history? Q: WHAT ARE NORTHROP FRYE’S
DICTUMS OF LITERARY CRITICISM? Q: WHAT ARE FRYE’S VIEWS REGARDING
REALISM IN LITERATURE? Ans:
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“criticism should become a coherent and systematic study, and the elementary principles of
which could be explained in any intelligent nineteen years old.”
Frye tried to classify literary criticism. Thus he endeavours in the “Anatomy of Criticism”
to classify the different modes, symbols, mythic symbol and genre for a classification
between comparative study of authors and periods. Another important point raised by
Northrop Frye is, his insistence on the depiction of realism in literature as being undesirable
and distasteful. He is of the view that a literature based on realistic appreciation, i.e. a
literature which is not primarily about the world is simply not a literature underlying his
formalism is the concept of immature and culture, which sees let as imitating not the world
but rather the total deem of man it should be based on imagination not the reality. Frye also
puts an end to realist’s stance by his insistence that the writer’s aim is to produce the
structure of the words for its own sake. And there-by, he discards the authorial power as
celebrated in Expressive Realism. Frye himself describes his own procedure as “Archetypal
criticism”. He defines these archetypes as recurring images or symbols, which connect one
text with author and constitute a source of the intelligibility of the text, thus developing a
very strong concept
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“The critic is assumed to have no conceptual framework. It is simply his job to take a poem
which a poet has diligently stuffed a specific number of beauties or efforts and
complacently extract them one by one.” So, in the quest of meanings, a critic or reader
should not look up to the intentions of the author. The rejection of the authorial power in the
quest of the meanings of the text focuses our attention upon the plurality of the meanings of
a text. “Text is inevitably plural, open to a number of readings” and “to opt for a single
pattern is to narrow the possibilities arbitrarily and unnecessarily”. Frye’s view is that the
meaning of a text is subject to a change because in different times with the development of
a number of schools of critical theory, they keep on emphasizing different aspects of a text.
A text keeps in it plurality of meaning as every reader finds a specific meaning present and
intelligible to him at a certain time period. To Frye the plurality of meaning is a healthy
stance in criticism as the plural meaning of the text and not in conflict with one another but
complementary each contributing to our understanding of the work as a (single) who can.
Catherine Belsey finally analyses Frye’s stance as having appreciative qualities but also
having certain major drawbacks, such as Frye’s lack of appreciation of the important
concept of ideology and history and their influence on the meaning of a text over a passage
of time. This in brief, is the account of Frye’s concepts about criticism as discussed by C.B.
Major points of Frye’s critical dictums are: 1. Criticism is considered as systematic and
organised study of literature. 2. Literature based on imagination and ideal factory ‘the total
dream of man is not the realistic depiction of life and world (Not good option as man cannot
transcend from his social and historical values, he has to live in reality, let not escape from
reality)
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“Criticism is the attempt to define and enjoy the aesthetic or characteristic value of
literature” Ransom has developed a distinction between texture and structure, the structure
is the story, the object or situation or whatever, which gives us the argument of the poem,
the texture is the thingness of the thing by which it is particularized. For example, Ransom
allows for “studies are technique of art which in the case of poetry would concentrate on
those devices which distinguish it from prose; structure, scene, description, basic setting of
the text or poem: texture the emotions combined with the structure is texture, it carries the
creative element that makes the poem superior. The basic idea of thought based on emotions
and feelings is texture and the way of conveying that certain idea is structure. Wimsatt and
Beardsley have also played an important role on this regard. Both of them published their
book the “Verbal Icon Studies in the Meaning of Poetry” (1954). Wimsatt and Beardsley
insist that no poem can be judged by reference to the poet’s intention (authorial power
denies). The meaning of the text is something internal which can be discovered from the
text of the poem, (shift from another is text in quest of meaning) that is public, which
everything that is “external” and not the part of a work as a linguistic fact is private and
idiosyncratic. For example for critical purposes it is better to study Coleridge’s “Kubla
Khan” with a dictionary in your hands, rather than with the elaborate investigation into
Coleridge’s reading made by professor Lowes in “Road to Xanadu”. Cleanth Brooks says
that literature is a description and evaluation of the object. It concerns itself as a work itself.
In reply to those who argue that this isolation of the work cuts it loose from its author and
his life and from its reader and their response, Brooks insists that what belongs to biography
and psychology may be interesting but it is not to be confused with an account of the work.
In short we can put New Critics in these points that: 1. They denied the authorial power. 2.
Focus on text as meaning of text can be found “on the page” and text as a “public property”.
3. Meaning of the text is timeless universal and Trance historical”. Although New Critics
focused on a scientific approach for critical studies by denying the authorial power and
Belsey agrees with them at that point. But she does not agree that text is a public property
and the meaning of the text lies on the page. In her view, due to historical changes the
words of the text as presented on the page will change, because every reader will analyse
and understand the text or the words of text in the light of his own age and ideology. She
also rejected that meaning of the text are
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“As its best interest in the reader is entirely liberating a rejection of authorial tyranny in
favour of the participation of the reader in the production of plurality of meanings and its
these effects as supporting and developing a raw authority figure which she describes as,
Reader theory mainly constructs a new authority figure as guarantee of a single meaning, as
unless transcendent highly trained model reader who cannot be wronged.” In the article
Reader Power, Catherine Belsey analysis briefly the development of this theory starting
with W.J. Slatoff and concluding with Iszer. According to Belsey, Slatoff‘s most important
contribution is his propounding of the idea that text cannot be read in a similar manner, by
all the readers because they cannot determine across history where is no possibility of
identical interpretation of texts by various readers. What Slatoff, here, is giving the idea of
individual reader and his perception misses on this very important component where as and
believes that critic has an undivided power based on liking or disliking etc. to evaluate the
text, there is no mention as such of an analysis of ideological and discussive difference.
Slatoff, like Wayne Booth’s concept of the implied author does not make any difference
from the empirical author. Slatoff identifies readings which do not produce a required level
of understanding between the reader and the writer as male adjustments indirectly and
involuntarily justifying, once again author interventions. Slatoff does not point at the
ideology, sometimes; there can be no compatibility between reader and author. Catherine
critically scrutinizes this point remarking that the production meaning by the reader is this
essential movement by the reader is his thread towards the position of the author. What is
lacking from Slatoff’s analysis is any concept of the role of assumptions and expectations in
the productions of meaning. Stanley Fish is a famous critic of modern age, he is a strong
supporter of reader’s response theory and he has given several important dimensions. His
important dictum is about the development and appreciation of reader powers. His first
major idea regarding their power is the emphasis on the experience of the reader and
connected with the
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