Introduction to Literary Theory: Authorship and Hermeneutics
The Individual Snared in Language: Yepihodov and Strether
Yepihodov as a Language-Determined Character: - Yepihodov (from Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard) is depicted as a character caught in the ‘snare of language.’ - He is defined by ‘commonplaces of language’ and is ‘book- and language-determined.’ - He cites the Victorian historian Henry Thomas Buckle, who was once as famous as Oswald Spengler (author of The Decline of the West). - Buckle was preoccupied with the ‘dissolution of Western civilization,’ representing the nineteenth-century notion that ‘everything was going to hell in a handbasket.’ - Yepihodov’s saturation with words about words and books reflects his dilemma: he is obscurely aware that his reliance on books is both a source of pride and his central problem.
Lambert Strether and the Illusion of Freedom: - Lambert Strether (from Henry James’s The Ambassadors) is a middle-aged character who travels to Paris to retrieve Chad Newsome for the family business in Woollett, Massachusetts (manufacturing a household article, possibly toilet paper). - Strether experiences the wonder of urbane culture and advises the character Little Bilham: ‘Don’t do what I have done. Don’t miss out on life. Live all you can. It is a mistake not to.’ - The Metaphor of the Tin Mould: Strether describes the affair of life as a ‘tin mould, either fluted and embossed… or else smooth and dreadfully plain, into which, a helpless jelly, one’s consciousness is poured.’ One ‘takes’ the form and lives as one can. - The Memory of Illusion: Strether notes that while freedom is an illusion, one should not be without the memory of that illusion. He speculates whether he was ‘too stupid’ (liberated into action as Nietzsche's ‘historical man’) or ‘too intelligent’ (a prototype for the literary theorist preoccupied with the crippling thought of the twentieth century) to maintain the illusion.
The Loss of Authority: Barthes, Foucault, and the Death of the Author
Historical Context (Paris 1968–1969): - The intellectual climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s was marked by student uprisings in Paris, Berkeley, Columbia, and Berlin. - These protests were directed against the Vietnam War and ‘authoritarian resistance to protest.’ - The movement's slogan was ‘Question authority,’ leading to Foucault’s essay ‘What Is an Author?’ and Barthes’s ‘The Death of the Author.’
The Critique of Human Agency: - In literary theory, the first sacrifice to the denial of human agency is the ‘idea of the author.’ - The author is no longer viewed as an autonomous originator but as a ‘function’ or a set of structural operations discovered within the text.
The Anecdote of Georges Poulet: - Georges Poulet, a ‘phenomenological critic’ at Johns Hopkins, treated author names as domains of discourse. - During lectures, students would shout names like ‘Mallarm e’ or ‘Proust,’ to which Poulet would respond ‘Mais oui! Exactement!’ - However, when a student shouted ‘Voltaire,’ Poulet was bewildered, as Voltaire was not considered a relevant field of ‘discourse’ for that theoretical context. - This illustrates that names like ‘Proust’ stand for fields of discursivity or isolated textual effects (‘signatures’) rather than intending consciousnesses.
Defining the Author Function and Discursivity
Discourse vs. Literature: - Theorists favor terms like ‘discourse,’ ‘textual field,’ or ‘discursivity’ over ‘literature.’ - ‘Discourse’ implies porous boundaries between authors and types of speech (e.g., political vs. anthropological discourse). - Names like Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, or Michel Foucault are viewed as ‘open fields,’ not ‘enclosed fiefdoms.’
Foucault’s "Author Function": - Foucault argues that while documents are written by people, we do not necessarily appeal to their authority to determine meaning. - The author is a ‘function,’ a virtual presence distinguished from the speaker, narrator, or character. - We no longer ask how a ‘free subject’ penetrates things and gives them meaning; instead, we ask under what conditions a subject can appear in the ‘order of discourse’ and what rules it obeys.
Founders of Discursivity: - Foucault creates a special category for figures like Marx and Freud. - Unlike Anne Radcliffe (who established tropes for the gothic genre) or scientists like Galileo and Newton (who are author-neutral in their mechanics), Marx and Freud are ‘founders of discursivity.’ - They establish a sphere of debate where ideas can be developed constructively without being strictly attributable to their origins.
The Death of the Author (Barthes): - Barthes cites Balzac’s ‘Sarrasine’ (a story about a castrato disguised as a woman) to argue that writing is the destruction of every voice and point of origin. - Writing is a ‘neutral, composite, oblique space’ where the identity of the body writing is lost. - Giving a text an Author is viewed as ‘policing’ or imposing a limit and a ‘final signified’ to close the writing.
Perspectives on Authorial Authority
Samuel Johnson’s Defense: - In his ‘Preface to Shakespeare,’ Johnson defends authorship as ‘human accomplishment.’ - We survey ‘workmanship’ to know how much to ascribe to ‘original powers’ versus ‘adventitious help.’ - This perspective views the author with homage rather than cringing fear of authority.
The Policing of Meaning: - Foucault asserts that the author is the ‘ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning.’ - Critics ‘win’ when an author is found because the text is then ‘explained’ and limited.
Identity Politics and Agency: - A counter-argument to the ‘author function’ arises from marginalized voices (e.g., a ‘lesbian Latina’ author). - For those who have been ‘instruments’ of larger systems, claiming authorship is an act of achieving freedom and articulating a voice, not policing others. - This creates a split in Cultural Studies between those affirming ‘autonomous integrity’/identity and those viewing identities as ‘subject positions’ or functions within social practices.
The Science of Hermeneutics
Definition: Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation.
Historical Roots: - Protestant Reformation: Interpretation became critical when individuals—rather than a central authority like the Pope—had to navigate difficult sacred scriptures personally. Concerns about interpretation arise when: (a) meaning is terribly important and (b) its ascertainment is difficult. - Rise of Law: Hermeneutics expanded into the legal field as constitutional democracies emerged. The meaning of foundational documents (e.g., the Constitution) became vital for citizens with rights. - Romanticism: In the 18th century, interpretation was often seen as unnecessary for ‘good’ (transparent) writing. With Romanticism came the ‘cult of genius’ and ‘secular scripture’ (e.g., Blake and Shelley). The literary creator replaced the divine creator, and literary hermeneutics became necessary.
Key Figures in Hermeneutic Tradition: - Friedrich Schleiermacher: Applied hermeneutics to both scripture and literature. - Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger (Being and Time, 1927), and Hans-Georg Gadamer (Truth and Method). - Rival tradition: Kant, Husserl, Emilio Betti, and E. D. Hirsch.
The Hermeneutic Circle
The Problem of Circularity: - Interpretation involves a relationship between the part and the whole. - A reader starts with a fragment (part), projects an imagined ‘whole,’ and then uses that sense of the whole to interpret successive parts. - This ‘fore-project’ is constantly revised as one penetrates the meaning.
Horizontverschmelzung (Horizon Merger): - Gadamer describes the circle as an interchange between historical horizons (present and past) or cultural/social horizons. - ‘What is there’ refers to die Sache (the subject matter).
The Role of Prejudice (Vorurteil): - Heidegger and Gadamer argue that interpretation is impossible without ‘fore-structure’ or ‘prejudices.’ - ‘Prejudice’ originally meant ‘prejudgment’ or ‘prior judgment.’ - The ‘As-Structure’: Heidegger notes that we never ‘just see’ an object (e.g., an ‘exit’ sign); we always see it ‘as’ something. Grasping anything free of the ‘as’ is a cognitive privation. - Good vs. Bad Prejudice: Using the example of the word ‘plastic’ in Mark Akenside’s The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744): - Bad prejudice: Interpreting ‘plastic’ as a modern ‘polymer’ (making the line nonsense). - Good prejudice: The prior awareness that words change meaning, allowing the 18th-century meaning (‘sinuous’ or ‘flexible’) to clarify the text.
Gadamer vs. Hirsch: Truth and Method
Historicism vs. Effective History: - Gadamer attacks ‘historicism,’ the belief that one can completely ‘bracket’ one’s own subjectivity to enter the mindset of another time. - He proposes ‘effective history’: history that is useful and teaches us, rather than just an archival objectification of the past.
The Incommensurable Choice: - Gadamer on Truth: Understanding historically means opening oneself to the possibility that the other ‘speaks true.’ Historicism ‘brackets’ the truth claim of the past, treating it merely as a ‘factoid.’ - Hirsch on Meaning: Borrowing from Kant’s moral imperative (viewing men as ends in themselves), Hirsch argues we must seek the author’s actual ‘intention.’ Meaning is an ‘affair of consciousness,’ not just words on a page. - Gadamer emphasizes the truth of the meaning; Hirsch emphasizes securing the correct meaning.
Configurative Reading (Wolfgang Iser)
Critique of Gadamer’s Conservatism: - Gadamer favors a ‘traditional canon’ or ‘classicism’ because he doubts readers can span enormous historical gaps. He believes understanding requires a basis of agreement. - The professor argues this is false: we understand the irony of political opponents without agreeing with them.
The Concept of Gaps: - Wolfgang Iser (Gadamer’s disciple) attaches positive value to ‘gaps’ (semantic distance). - For Iser, a large gap between the reader and the text is necessary for the ‘reading act’ to swing into high gear. - While Gadamer emphasizes being ‘pulled up short’ by small anomalies, Iser focuses on the constructive potential of distance in literature.