Amos

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Pound, Joyce and Eco: modernism and the "ideal genetic reader."
(Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Umberto Eco)(International Symposium on Genetic Criticism)

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In my opinion all Romantic literature begs to be subjected to the "genetic reader." I did an explication of Brownings "Porphoria's Lover" once and that was totally different (more like opposite) from that of estabilished ivory tower critics who remained drenched with contradicions that they attributed to writing style and irony.

Here is some lines on Joyces "Portrait."

Last line: "Old Father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." These words echo the words of Jesus "Father into thy hands I commit my spirit."

These words were Stephen's on April 27 which is just 3 days before May 1 (when new life begins) to indicate that Stephen spend 3 days in the netherworld of his subconscious mind before new life began. The countdown began March 20 to end at May 1 which is 40 days exactly.

This in itself does not mean that much but if you combine this with all the foreshadows that lead up to this event it is clear that this is what Joyce had in mind. Just before this, on page 171, Stephen (Joyce) had his Beatific Vision:

The seaweed was the defeated serpent (Mary of Grace). The gentle stirring lead to "awakening" etc.

Luiseach

Hello, folks:

Sure, no problem, although I must point out that my formulation of deconstruction is not in itself definitive. There are so many interpretations and modifications available that it actually gets harder to pin the term down rather than easier as more and more is written about it! (not that this is necessarily a bad thing)

I think I could begin with the common definition of deconstruction, which is to view it as a method of literary criticism that is based on the idea that language is a closed, self-referential system. The famous (or infamous, according to some!) quotation from Derrida ‘Il n’y a hors du texte’ sums it up nicely I think…nothing outside the text. Another quality of deconstruction is its emphasis on extracting many textual interpretations, some of them inconsistent with one another, rather than aiming for a single monolithic 'Reading' (with a capital 'R'). I like this aspect of deconstruction. I am wary of any interpretation claiming absolute authority, usually because behind authoritative interpretations there is a person claiming authority on the issue of interpretation.

Perhaps I’ve been so thoroughly brainwashed in postmodernism that I find claims to authoritativeness highly suspect…indeed it’s anathema to me as a reader to think that my own readings of a text are the ‘right’ ones. I’m far more comfortable with flexibility in meaning, plurality, and undecidability. The eternal dialectic. Also of interest to me is deconstruction’s emphasis on the philosophical, political, or social connotations of language-use rather than on authorial motive. In other words, how a text interacts with other texts. A novel about a simple love story, for instance, is never just about a simple love story…the text interacts with other texts (the Bible, Northanger Abbey, Hallmark commercials, conservative government policies, etc.). This intertextual ‘play’ is of great interest to me, and is one of the reasons why I think deconstruction has helped to move us beyond simplistic readings which can artificially limit meaning. When Derrida brought the term deconstruction into play in the 1960s, he launched a debate which is still raging today. I think this is the heart of his value…to fuel a debate/dialectic which apparently will continue for a long time. Of course, like other thinkers, he stands on the shoulders of giants, and his strategies spring-boarded from de Saussure’s arguments about ‘signs’ and linguistic arbitrariness. Keeping this in mind, then, Derrida’s contribution – though considered controversial – can be seen as taking structuralism to its logical limits.

So that's one attempt at defining deconstruction. I would say that the deconstruction of a given text requires the critic to see the associativeness of signs, both within the work and beyond it, backwards into time, and sideways into contemporary context. Highly intertextual. This is definitely too vague to be graced with the label 'definition,' but I'm trying to put it into my own words, to describe how I approach a text when looking to 'deconstruct' it.

I wonder if it would be a better idea for us to 'do' some deconstruction on an agreed-upon excerpt from literature? And contributions to the definition would be helpful, as well. My take on it is definitely not intended to be the only one.

I remember one of the best answers I got to the question 'What is postmodernism, then?' was from a 2nd-year undergraduate who replied, 'Christ, what isn't postmodernism?!'

lmao :-D

Critique for the sake of critique….why not. I agree with you on one level…it’s fun to be a devil’s advocate sometimes just for the hell of it. Although his caustic criticisms of the many sacred cows in American culture always struck me as being motivated by iconoclasm (which is not necessarily a bad thing). Or, to keep to the deconstruction theme of the thread…the effects of his mordant wit appear to be iconoclastic. In other words, a desire to undermine pretension (amongst other things)…a spur to social reform. Satire often has behaviour modification as one of its goals, which may indicate an underlying agenda. Would you agree?

Do you mean that a given text can ‘unravel’ in different ways? Yes, I agree. That’s actually a very sharp question. And a good point. I think the possibilities of interpretation are limited by the combined ability of the reader to detect meaning(s) and the text itself (which could also involve other texts). But a sentence that says ‘Jim dyed his hair purple’ doesn’t say ‘Jim dyed his hair green’, so unless the reader thought purple was green, then the words in the text limit meanings, and Jim’s hair is dyed purple, not green (or any other colour). The text contains its own potential interpretations in this sense, since no matter how much I would want the text to say that Jim dyed his hair green, the text doesn’t say that. I can’t bully the text to make it mean what it doesn’t mean. I would be mis-reading the text that way.

Another good question. The reader is involved in the deconstruction process, as the critical eye. Of course, no two sets of critical eyes are identical, so each reading is neither more or less authoritative than any other, unless it is a mis-reading (such as my ‘Jim dyed his hair green’ one). Some readings are more sensitive to the nuances of signification in a text, I think, and it helps to know your texts well, and to have patience in the reading process.

Further, I think that the reader influences which part of the unravelling becomes visible in his/her interpretation. The unravelling is there to be witnessed, and by focusing on one bit or another, a 'moment' in the narrative event surfaces. The critic, for instance, may see the political implications of a given text, if he/she is conscious of the existence of politics in literature, whereas a casual reader (or one looking for something else in the text) may not see this at all. I’m not sure if this answers your question adequately or not…. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this issue.

lol! Well, I must say it's the first time I've seen someone who is actually pleased by a person's familiarity with de Saussure; the usual reaction is much more muted! (understatement: the usual reaction is usually glazed eyes and a segue to another topic) :-D

I don’t think it is necessarily elitist for a writer to demand a high level of understanding from his reader. When Eliot published Waste Land, he was often criticised for being too difficult; even with the added footnotes, many readers were still none the wiser for them, complaining in effect that it was unfair of Eliot to expect his readership to be so well-read. I disagree. When I first read the poem as an adolescent, sure I found it difficult; many of his references and allusions were to texts I had never heard of. At the same time, I still understood the poem in other ways, with my limited reading experience. As an undergraduate, I read the poem along with material relating to the Grail Legend and Sophocles, which changed what I saw in the text, which in turn led to a more sensitive reading. Now I read the poem with a different eye – an eye trained in literary criticism, influenced by other works (both fiction and non-fiction), and 'tainted' by deconstruction – so that the text that I see is even more complex than I ever realised. The reading will probably change again, in view of the light of reading other texts, and so enlarging my awareness of the intertextuality at work in the poem.

So when you ask how far into the text do we want to go – that depends on the reader, and the reader’s willingness to play along with the textual play, the traces of other texts…the hard work required to acquire a broad knowledge to obtain a deeper, more multi-layered, interpretation of literature.

Well, I wasn’t thinking of Calvino when I wrote that; I was trying to be pithy about my own methodology, and just ended up by sounding vague! :-D

Even in the endless chain of signifiers, however, we are limited to the signifiers that we have, or that we are aware of. I think there is a multiplicity of readings of any given text (such as the Rose’s layers of meaning), but not all readers are ideal or even close to it, and some readers are looking for one reading and others for different readings. I agree that meaning should be lower-case, though, since without the ultimate authority of the author, reader or the Signified, closure cannot happen (logically). But we still can’t say that ‘purple’ is ‘green’, no matter how extreme our deconstruction is. As for Rorty, his definition of truth being what our peers let us get away with (though perhaps meant humorously, I think he’s kind of right nonetheless) indicates the involvement of consensus in truth-making, knowledge-building. We agree that words mean some things and not others, otherwise meaningful communication would be impossible, but that doesn’t mean that our words don’t unravel into allusiveness and even contradiction (if we turn our deconstructive eye on them).

???

I would imagine that philosophers on both sides of the academic curtain are trying to keep their intellectual investments buoyant…for one side to grant the other a point or two might, after all, undermine that side’s position on the field. Not just obstinacy for the sake of obstinacy…a pragmatic stubbornness, perhaps? It’s fun to watch from the sidelines, though! (although I think there's more overlap between the two 'camps' than there are divergences). Also, I think it's a healthy intellectual tension to have - opposition, debate, thesis/antithesis/synthesis, progress of thought. What do you think?

I think I'll try to respond to this question in a separate post.

Goodness, Hugo, you ask some brutal questions! :-D (that's a good thing, btw)

;-)

Luiseach

Amos, I would be very interested in discussing your interpretation of Joyce's Portrait (it's one of my all-time favourite novels), but I've just finished a mega-post, and I'm exhausted! If you don't mind, I would enjoy discussing your interpretation of the scenes you mention at another time?

Hugo Holbling

Thanks for giving your take on deconstruction, Luiseach. I think this is an excellent suggestion; perhaps we could take a few differing pieces and set to work on them? For example, some political bunkum, some philosophy (preferably foundationalist hocus-pocus... ) and something from literature. What think you on it? Skeptics can see what this murky business involves and decide if there's anything to it...

I was discussing this very question with a philosophy professor only the other day, as it happens. I do agree, and i like your use of the word "often". I'd probably go for a stronger "usually", but i don't think it's always the case.

Isn't it amazing just how deep some texts are?

To what extent does the author influence or retain control of these possible interpretations?

I thought it was interesting to think of the process in much the same way as the old question of a tree falling in a wood, etc (as is going on in another thread right now). It seems to me, in this case, that the unravelling is entirely dependent on the reader; not only can it not "happen" without a reader who wishes to set the thing off, but an impartial unravelling would appear to presuppose some kind of objective reader, disinterested in the possible outcomes and uses thereof. This, of course, brings me to another question: is an impartial unravelling achievable? Can this tool be employed without regard to either use subsequently or the opinion of the text held by the reader beforehand?

*sigh* I just wish folk would try reading him before holding forth...

It's interesting to think of this from the author's side, i think. How obvious do you need to make your clues? What if no-one but you can follow the tale as you intended it? Does that mean you write ultimately for yourself? How can you guard against interpretations you don't want, for whatever reasons? Should you do so?

Methinks i ask too many questions.

So we're left with play. What would you say to the suggestion that opposition to this lack (and apparent impossibility) of closure is psychologically motivated?

This is something others here have had difficulty with before; see the relativism thread, for example. Criticism of Rorty from this angle is not the way to get him, imho, if he can be "got".

Please excuse me - i was just putting myself down again.

Sure - that's why i try to take minority positions here.

I look forward to it. I'll have to try to disagree with you more, but you aren't making it easy...

You are too kind. All this talk will go to my head.

Amos

It will be a pleasure. He one of my favorites and I also liked his "Portrait" best. To do it all would take me hundreds of pages because the foreshadows already begin at page one . . . with the innocence of a carefree childhood (cf. Intimations of Immortality).

If you are interested in doing a divine comedy from beginning to end I recommend Zamjatin's WE or The Spire. Once you have these two under your belt you can do them all.

phaedrus

Care to elaborate? Maybe we throw in stanley fish's reader-response theory also into this ?

fusion of Horizons, hermeneutics, Gadamer...

Hugo Holbling

It's like i told you, jp - Critchley tried to show that RR's reading of Derrida was a lousy one and that his public/private ironist dichotomy is pretty lame, and i agree on both counts - Rorty's response was kinda lack-lustre too.

As for Fish, i'd be glad to bring him in on the venture. Care to begin by commenting on his work on rhetoric and the justification of belief? How about some words from Olsen on this aspect:

phaedrus

Which works are you referring to?

Hugo Holbling

Well, there's an interesting discussion in Olsen's Justifying Belief, from which i quoted the passages above. Fish himself has said alot about rhetoric and makes some approving noises about Olsen's study, as well as addressing the matter pertinently in his The Trouble With Principle.

I'm hot for talking about rhetoric in any case, this being the next thing i wanted to ask Luiseach about (sorry...).

phaedrus

If you would be so kind to outline what fish says about rhetoric and justification of belief in that book of his, moi would be much obliged. Since a book/text can be interpreted differently, would like to proceed on your interpretation, that way we both are discussing each other's views on a particular book/views of an individual.

Lets deconstruct "principles" or "shared beliefs", and what are we left holding? The belief that there cant/shouldnt be any shared belief since they are contingent, historically situated and trapped in a cultural/linguistic cage? Where does this "particular belief" come from? Out of vaccum or based on our own interpretation of the existing beliefs and so on and so forth. A never ending loop.....We all have beliefs and certain convictions, what pomo or deconstruction do is to help us or prod us to stand in other's shoes and see whether our convictions still hold good in light of the new information/knowledge we face.

As i said earlier in the thread......

My problem with people like these is - One cant say from a “God’s Eye View” that there is no “God’s Eye View”

Edited to add .....

Socrates The rhetorician and his rhetoric will have the same relation to all the other arts: there is no need for rhetoric to know the facts at all, for it has hit upon a means of persuasion that enables it to appear, in the eyes of the ignorant, to know more than those who really know.

Gorgias: Well, Socrates, isn’t that a delightfully easy way of doing things: to make oneself a match for the experts in the other arts, though one has learned none of them, only this one?

(Plato, Gorgias, 459)