Generations of Meaning:The Direction of Literary Theory

by

Steven Earnshaw

PhD Thesis Submitted to Leicester University

1994

UMI Number: U064634

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Contents

A cknow ledgem ents 1C hapter O utlines 2

1. Introduction 5

Section I2. M aking the A uthor Function: 23

The W ives of Thomas Pynchon and P aul de M an3. "M urder Case M an's 'Threat' to Shoot Teddy Bears": 38

Intention in Literary Theory4. Well and Truly Fact: Postm odernism and H istory 605. A bout Value 83

Section II6. Thanks for the Theory 1077. Alterity: M artin Buber's 'I-Thou' in L iterature 118

and the Arts8. Im possibility Fiction? IF Only . . . 1339. D espair, Enchantm ent, Prayer: A Conclusion 146

A ppendices1. Interview w ith Jerome J. M cCann 1562a. S tudent Q uestionnaire 1702b. Results 1713. 'Im possibility Fiction' Conference Blurb 174

Bibliography 175

J4clQiozo[ed£[ements

I w ou ld like to thank m y superv iso r D eborah M adsen for her supervision of the doctorate and careful guidance th rough som e very difficult terrain.

M any thanks are due to the follow ing for their w illingness to debate the issues and for their continued in terest in the project: Jon Begley, C atherine Burgass, M ark Rawlinson, C lare H anson, K atharine Cockin, Philip Shaw, D anny Cordle, Peter Smith, N ick Everett.

T hanks go to Ray O sborne and Jim Parkin for the ir constan t rem inders of 'the reading experience'.

P ersonal thanks to Laurence R edm ond and Geoff Tait for an ongoing no-nonsense approach to the whole affair.

Chapter Outlines

1. IntroductioruA n initial p roposition is m ade th a t literary theory div ides in to tw o b road , antithetical camps. The one cam p com prises theories w ith a basic assum ption th a t the text itself generates m eaning and significance; the other assum es tha t m ean ing and significance are a function of context. Section I is devoted to exam ining the possibility of finding a resolution to this central dichotom y.

The section uses issues of 'the au thor', 'in tention ', 'h isto ry ', 'postm odern ism ', and 'value ' — areas tha t rem ain highly contentious w ith in literary theory — to give d ifferent views and possible m ediations to the problem s outlined in the introduction.

2. Making tf-e Jlutfior function: ‘Tfie Wwes of^ftomas (Pynckon and TauC de Man,The chapter exam ines 'the au thor function' — both in its ow n righ t and as an exam ple of the sociohistorical approach — in the w ake of posts truc tu ralist assau lts on th is aspect of L itera ture, and exam ines w hether a so lu tion is available th rough this so-called 'function'.

3. 'Murder Case Man's '‘Tfireat' to Shoot ‘Teddy ‘Bears": Intention in Literary ‘Theory,Closely related to our understand ing of the author, b u t also bring ing into the theoretical arena a w hole new batch of difficulties, this chap ter traces the h isto ry of 'in ten tio n ' from W im satt and Beardsley, th ro u g h H irsch an d de M an, to the antifoundational argum ents of Fish, K napp and Michaels.

4. ‘W edand‘TmCy ‘Tact: Postmodernism andMistory,The chap ter situates the difficulties already encountered fully w ith in the postm odern environm ent, and exam ines how it is a sense of h istory tha t is postm odern ism 's fault-line. This know ledge alters our perspective in th a t it dem ands an ethical im perative to such theoretical projects.

Chapter Outlines 2

5. J45out ‘Ualue.A nother approach to the d ivide identified in the in troduction is p rov ided by analysis of w hat was, until recently, regarded as exiled. The initial dichotom y resurfaces here as 'the dialectic of absolute value and relative value'.

The section argues that any reso lu tion of textual and contextual theoretical g round ings, in the light of the w ork of the previous chapters, can only be achieved through restricted perspectives and is show n to be untenable at any theoretical 'm eta ' level. Section II critiques theory as a w hole w ith in the A rts and discusses the necessity of view ing literary theory and literary stud ies as operating w ith in a non-rational environm ent.

6. Tfianks for the Theory.The in troduction to the second section com pares d ifferent notions of w h at constitu tes theory and sets up the rem ainder of the thesis by asserting the im possib ility of accepting theory purely on its ow n term s. There are other considerations w hich circum scribe w hat we can ask of theory and w h at we can expect it to achieve.

7. Mterity: Martin (BuSer's T-Thou ’ in Literature and the J4rts.Thanks to the popularisation of B akhtin 's w ork and the rise of fem inist and postcolonial discourses, no tions of 'the O ther' have becom e a p rom inen t feature of literary theory. U sing M artin Buber's book I and Thou as a non- theoretical starting-poin t, this chapter reappraises our overall approach to Literature.

8. ImpossiSUity TictionF I p onCy . . .The desire for a certain s trand of w riting know n as 'im possibility fiction' is u sed to illustrate and further the insights and possibilities of the prev ious chapter.

9. Despair; Lnehantment; Prayer: H Conclusion.The co n c lu d in g ch ap te r reco n tex tu a lises theo ry , lite ra ry s tu d ie s an d pedagogy in the light of a non-rational project. It articulates three possible responses to the conclusions of the previous chapters: 1. A hopelessness in the face of antifoundational argum ents — characterised by absolute relativism at

Chapter Outlines 3

a theoretical level and (neo)pragm atism at a practical level. 2. A retreat from any attem pt to m atch literary theory and the w ider sphere of w hich it is a part — leading to irrelevant discourse on the one side and irrational discourse on the o ther. 3. A n attachm ent to o u r in terest in 'the O ther' and its various m anifestations, particu larly Buber's 'I-Thou', as the basis for fu tu re stud ies and education.

Chapter Outlines 4

Introduction

This thesis em erges in the context of w h at is com m only seen as a crisis for English and L iterary Studies. The idea of a crisis is som ew hat m isleading, how ever, in th a t the subject rem ains as p o pu la r as ever w ith studen ts in schools, colleges and h igher education. The crisis thus only relates, for the p resen t a t least, to a critical debate am ongst academics. The debate focuses u p o n issues such as the n a tu re of L itera ture and w h at p a rt gender, race, ethics, value, politics, aesthetics, psychology, etc. p lay in its constitution. H ere it m igh t also be sa id th a t such fervent d iscussion is yet another sign of h e a lth y in te re s t ra th e r th a n im p e n d in g co llapse. This th esis is concerned w ith w hat is at the heart of the crisis — literary theory. D ealing w ith theory , it w ill also in the la tter chapters a ttem p t to rela te the w ork back to w h a t continues to keep the subject as buoyan t as it is — stu d en t in te rest.

L ite ra ry th e o ry h as m u sh ro o m e d since th e 1970s, a lth o u g h tw entieth-century precursors can be found m uch earlier in the w ork of the R ussian Form alists in the 1910s and 1920s. The first gu ide book for literary th e o ry is, claim s P atrick P a rrin d e r , W ellek an d W a rre n 's Theory of L itera tu re of 1949. In th a t book the tw o m ain sections are sp lit in to 'in trinsic ' and 'extrinsic' criticism. The division is indicative of the history of theo ry to date — its m om entum has been generated by the d ing-dong battle p layed o u t by advocates of one system or the other. W e m igh t say th a t th e dialectic began earlier than even W ellek and W arren 's book, in th a t Saussure 's s tructu ra l (intrinsic) approach to language w as challenged by the w ork of Voloshinov in the 1920s and his insistence upon the sign as a social fact (the extrinsic approach).

To deal w ith lite ra ry th eo ry a t its m ost crucial level it w o u ld therefo re seem ap p ro p ria te to tackle this opposition head on. To begin w ith , the tw o antithetical cam ps can be described as follows. The one cam p com prises app roaches, m ethodo log ies and theories b ro ad ly classed as sociohistorical (extrinsic), w hereas the o ther cam p consists of approaches, m eth o d o lo g ies an d theo ries w hich I sha ll te rm 'im m a n en t-b a sed ' or 'im m anen t-o rien ta ted ', by w hich I m ean activities th a t take 'the text itself'

1 Patrick Parrinder, "Having Your A ssum ptions Questioned: A G uide to the 'Theory Guides'" in Bradford, ed.. The State of Theory (London and N ew York: Routledge, 1993), p .l35 .

Introduction 5

as th e object to be w o rk ed u p o n , irre sp ec tiv e of contex ts such as backgrounds of au thors and reception histories. This second m ode often a ttrac ts such ep ithe ts as 'tra n sc en d en ta l' and 'ah istoricaT . The form er (extrinsic) g roup consists of critical and theoretical processes w hich regard know ledge as contextually based, such as certain types of fem inist critical ac tiv ity , those in the line of m a rx is t/m a te ria lis t en te rp rises , an d any theories or approaches w hich regard literature in a historical context. The la tte r ca teg o ry of 'im m a n e n t-b a se d ' ro u g h ly covers the fo rm a lis t/ s tru c tu ra lis t/p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t axis. The thesis, in its first section, assesses th e possib ility of m ed ia tin g be tw een the tw o cam ps. This is deem ed necessary since the h isto ry of literary theory has been u nderw ritten by the m u tu a l in co m p atib ility of these tw o o p p o sin g cam ps. A theo re tica l solu tion , or a t least clarification, is therefore desirable.

At the ou tset it is clear tha t in approaching the subject m atter of this thesis, the form of the PhD has becom e p a r t of the problem . The usual fo rm a t for th is ty p e of thesis w o u ld req u ire the d ev e lo p m en t of an a rg u m e n t from an in itial idea or hypo thesis (as g iven above), h ead ing to w ard s a conclusion, even if only to acknow ledge th a t a sa tisfac to ry ou tcom e h ad p ro v ed u n av a ilab le o r unach ievab le . W h ils t m ed ia tio n b etw een these ostensible oppositions is the sta rting po in t, along w ith an a ttem p t to m ain ta in the requisite linear argum entative th read w hich can give a ra tional, reasoned arg u m en t th a t bu ilds cum ulatively chap ter by chap te r, there are tensions invo lved th a t requ ire the thesis to m ake a m ajor m ove aw ay from such a s tra igh tfo rw ard progression. The received idea of a com m itm ent to a ra tional a rgum entation in keep ing w ith the p resu p p o sitio n s of theoretical en d eav o u r has to be scru tin ised . C ertain issues can be resolved, or at best elucidated , using the tools and reasoning p ro v id ed by theoretical d iscourse, ye t at certain po in ts th eo ry sim ply becom es in ad eq u a te to the task. A lthough the orig ina l p ro p o sitio n is fra m ed as a th eo re tica l p ro b lem , so lu tio n s , it tra n sp ire s , are b o th theoretical and non-theoretical. N on-rational theory can feed back into the dictates of rational theory, or we m ight sim ply describe it as non-rational th e o ris in g (th a t is, th eo ry th a t can n o t exclude the im ag in a tiv e , the em otional, the existential). To accom m odate this difficulty the project is th e re fo re sp lit in to tw o sections. The firs t section w orks w ith in the p u ta tive bounds of literary and critical theory and takes the th ink ing there as far as it can reasonably go. The second section shifts perspective in th a t i t is ph ilosoph ica l in a non -ra tiona l m anner. It d isp u tes th e o ry 's self-

introduction 6

v a lid a tio n from an (acknow ledged) u n th eo risab le p o sitio n o u ts id e of th eo ry 's circum scrip tion , tak ing up som e of the sam e p roblem s already expounded , b u t in a new environm ent.

The 's tru c tu re ' of the thesis in Section I can be best und ersto o d as the collection of a num ber of d ifferen t w ays of looking a t the sam e object. T hat object w e receive designated as 'L iteratu re '. The section looks a t it according to the concerns of w h at have often p roved the m ost in transigen t of prob lem s for literary theory cu rren t and past: 'the au th o r', 'in ten tion ', 'p o s tm o d e rn ism ', and 'v a lu e '. The fo llow ing quo ta tion from N ietzsche illustrates the potential advantages of such a m ethod:

All seeing is essen tially perspective , and so is all know ing . The m ore em otions w e allow to speak in a given m atte r, the m ore different eyes we can p u t on in o rder to view a given spectacle, the m ore com plete w ill be o u r concep tion of it, the g rea te r o u r "objectiv ity".2

O f course, there are theoretical objections to the m ethodology of Section I. The first w o u ld be tha t there is an assum ption th a t L itera ture is a fixed, concrete object th a t w e can take in o u r hands and tu rn a ro u n d as w e p lease , g iv in g ou rse lv es the com plete v iew w hich can lead to full com prehension. As such the m etaphor of different gazes on a single object m ig h t seem a hopelessly in ad eq u a te analogue, since w e canno t 'see ' 'L iterature ' as we can 'see ', say, a statue. L iterature sim ply does no t exist in a like m an n er in the phenom ena l w orld . Yet say for instance th a t w e choose to s tu d y an abstract concept like 'pow er'. We observe tha t a paren t slaps a child and note th a t the pun ishm ent is accepted by bo th parties. We dec ide th a t th is is an exam ple of 'p o w e r ' even if w e have no fu lly satisfactory definition of it. We m ight say that 'pow er' is a necessary fiction w hich allow s us to get a g rip on events in the phenom enal w orld . A nd because of sim ilar difficulties th a t have to be faced w hen w e begin to talk abou t L iterature, the difficulties associated w ith its ontological sta tus and the lack of any com plete o r even ha lf-ad eq u ate defin ition , w e m ig h t approach the concept of L iterature in a like m anner and regard it too as a necessary fiction, consisting of observable phenom ena w hich exist in som e rela tion to the necessary fiction; just as 'the slap ' exists in som e relation to 'pow er', so 'a novel' exists in som e relation to 'L iterature '.

2 Friedrich N ietzsche, Genealogy of Morals in 'The Birth of Tragedy' and ‘The Genealogy of Morals'. Translated by Francis Golffing. (N ew York: Anchor Press, 1956), p.255.

Introduction 7

A rela ted objection is th a t in cap italising the term itself I have in som e w ay accepted its s ta tu s as a special object, w hen , in the ligh t of p o sts tru c tu ra lis t criticism , the bou n d aries th a t separate one type of text from ano ther, m ost specifically L ite ra tu re ( 'the b es t', th a t is, the m ost 'go o d ' or m ost 'beau tifu l' novels, plays, poetry) from any type of w ritten m aterial w hich m ight be called 'lite ra tu re ' (pam phlets advertising car-boot sales or relig ious m eetings, for exam ple), have been 'p ro b lem atised ' or eroded . A p resum ed sim ilar erosion is p rov ided by the challenge to 'the h igh cu ltu ral canon ' w hereby L itera ture, once reg ard ed as separate from p o p u la r cu ltu re, is now reg a rd ed in the sam e w ay as any th ing else th a t m ig h t form p a rt of th a t sem iotic system — films or adverts, for exam ple — and n o t as som e special practice.^ H ow ever, as the thesis p roceeds, it w ill becom e ev ident tha t the use of a capital 'L' is justified, no t only by the above analogy w ith 'p o w er', b u t also on a num ber of o ther grounds. To p re -em p t such objections even a t this early stage, it is usefu l to look at Jam es K ir w a n 's excellen t Literature, Rhetoric, M etaphysics: Literary Theory and Literary Aesthetics in som e detail since it so cogently tackles the sam e ridd les as this thesis w ith respect to the issue of L iterature. This is how K irw an 's book opens up the problem :

The question th is w ork sets o u t to answ er is, s im ply , 'W h at is litera tu re? ' and, perh ap s m ore pertinen tly , 'W hat can litera tu re be for criticism ?'W hat I include un d er the head ing of this 'lite ra tu re ' to be defined, w ill em erge as I go on .4

H is in tro d u c to ry w ish is to position his argum ent. H e does th is by answ ering objections to his project in o rder to p reven t it 'being dam ned even before its p r o s e c u t io n 'H e d iv ides the objections in to tw o cam ps, 'th a t there is no such th ing as literature to define ', or that, for the sake of lite ra tu re , 'lite ra tu re shou ld no t be defined '. K irw an goes on to analyse an d re fu te the fo llow ing possib le concep tions of L ite ra tu re: 'fam ily resem blance ' (W ittgenstein); the a rgum ent for 'the institu tional concept of litera tu re ', w hich K irw an m ockingly sees as m aking a claim for itself to be

3 See A ntony Easthope's "Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Regained" in Bradford, op. cit.. p.92.

James K irwan, L iterature, Rhetoric, M etaphysics: Literary Theory and L iterary Aesthetics (London: Routledge, 1990), p .l.

loc. cit.

Introduction 8

'irre fu tab le — or a t least w ill be, as soon as everyone has ag reed to its tru th '6 ; p lacing lite ra tu re 'sous ra tu re '; H irsch 's in tu itio n ism , th a t is, everyone know s w h at it is anyw ay (the second type of objection). R ather th an sim ply repea t the w ork ing-th rough of the d ism issals here, solely to endorse them , I urge the reader to seek ou t K irw an's book.

A fter he has trea ted the problem of 'w h a t is literature? ' negatively, K irw an proceeds to lay his ow n cards on the table. F irst he states: 'It is the very lack of ag reem ent abou t w h a t is to be called lite ra tu re th a t m akes lite ra tu re a stable object w ith in the critical trad ition '.^ This app roach , u n fo rtu n a te ly , can h ard ly help the thesis, since it is p rop o sin g th a t the concept 'lite ra tu re ' has only m anaged to survive by being all th ings to all p eo p le , an d th u s so u n d s ra th e r like an ex trem e version of H irsch 's intu itionism . H ow ever, K irw an usefully goes on to say:

All the objections to the a ttem p t to define 'lite ra tu re ' th a t I have here considered (includ ing H irsch 's) arise, paradox ica lly enough , from the belief th a t no such defin ition has yet been found. I w ould assert on the contrary, tha t w hat literature is has been im plicit in all the w ritin g th a t has su rro u n d e d the w ord , th a t all w rite rs on lite ra tu re have been r ig h t, even w hen they c o n tra d ic ted one another. This, on reflection, is inevitable; for to assert otherw ise one w o u ld have to beg in from the tru ly m etaphysica l ques tion 'Is " lite ra tu re" literature?'^

I am gratefu l to K irw an for this clarity and repeat his line of argum en t to foresta ll sim ilar objections, a lthough one w ould w an t to ask K irw an: if 'w h a t literature is has been im plicit in all the w riting th a t has su rrounded the w o rd ' then is there n o t som e com m on den o m in ato r, som e deep s tru c tu re or a lg o rith m , th a t w o u ld acco u n t for such a s ta tem en t? H ow ever, K irw an and this thesis p a r t com pany w hen he describes on w h a t basis Literature, Rhetoric, Metaphysics is to proceed: 'I have begun w ith m etaphor because, as w ill em erge, m etaphor prov ides the best m odel of lite ra tu re from an aesthetic point of view' This thesis canno t reso rt to th a t luxury , since the very category 'aesthetic ' has been challenged by v arious parties, especially by post-m arx ists such as Tony Bennett. (The

ibid., p.2.

ibid.. p.5.

ibid., p.6.

9 loc. cit.

Introduction 9

thesis does broach the issue of m etaphor, b u t in a different context, in the chap ter 'Im possib ility F iction'. M etaphor, as is show n in th is chapter, is ju st as in tractable as the o ther concerns of Section I). N or can it p rejudge the issue by rejigging the question 'W hat is lite ra tu re? ' as 'W hat can lite ra tu re be for criticism ?', a lthough I take K irw an 's point. The derived ques tion is neither a necessary cond ition of all responses to 'W hat is litera tu re? ', as m igh t be supposed , especially by such a w ork as this, nor can it be the d o m in a n t g u id e lin e for a possib le so lu tion . Section II im plicitly show s tha t this leap from 'lite ra tu re ' to the study of literature (as criticism or theory) is a t best in b ad faith, and at w orst incom m ensurate w ith 'th e n a tu re o f L itera ture, ju s t as is the leap to 'm e tap h o r '. R ather th a n ask the question 'W hat can lite ra tu re be for criticism ?' I am m ore inc lined to ask 'W hat can lite ra tu re be for p ed agogy? ' an d sub su m e criticism u n d er tha t rubric , and this indeed does inform m uch of SectionII. But neither of these tw o transform ations of the original question 'w h a t is litera tu re? ' suffices for the purposes of this thesis, and Section I strives to avoid any such starting-poin t as 'm etaphor' by m ain ta in ing its no tion of d ifferent perspectives w ithou t a p re-defined object, just a necessary fiction.

A second objection to the m ethodology of Section I m igh t be raised ag a in s t the creation of the su b je c t/o b jec t d istinction , w ith L ite ra tu re positioned as the object abou t w hich we can ask questions and know it. P ushed far enough it becom es a question of the nature of know ledge itself. 'In the c u rre n t p o s tm o d ern c lim ate ' w o u ld serve as an a p p ro p ria te in tro d u c to ry p h rase for all the ep istem ological h az ard s invo lved here. W hat k ind of know ledge can I have, and in w hat k ind of fram ew ork? If I co n s tru c t m y object in a p a rtic u la r w ay , am I n o t d es tin e d to ask co rresp o n d in g q uestions and receive co rresp o n d in g answ ers th a t are already im plicit in the very construction? In other w ords, so the argum ent goes, any objective know ledge is alw ays p rec luded because there is no p o in t 'o u ts id e ' the object from w hich to s tu d y it. But th is is only an objection if I claim th a t I can have absolute know ledge — an ideal th a t itself has increasing ly com e u n d e r attack. The a rg u m en t is fam iliar to posts truc tu ralism and its critics in the dom ain of textual decidability: if a tex t's m eaning is no t com pletely (absolutely, objectively) decidable, due to th e in tr in s ic n a tu re of la n g u a g e an d w ritin g , th e n , it fo llow s, poststruc tu ralists et al. w ould argue, that m eaning is subject to the play of infinite slippage. This is an argum ent that has becom e untenable , as such

Introduction 10

books as R aym ond T allis 's N ot Saussure^'^ and C h ris to p h e r N o rr is 's W hat's Wrong with PostmodernismF'^ persuasive ly show , an d has begun to veer tow ards som e k ind of com prom ise w hich agrees to a sliding-scale o f o b je c tiv ity th a t ra n g e s fro m th e p o s s ib le /p r o b a b le to th e im p o ssib le /im p ro b ab le . This is the app roach the thesis takes, and once again I refer the reader to the notion of looking at an object — 'lite ra tu re ' — from a num ber of d ifferent perspectives w ith the in ten tion of gain ing a g rea te r objectiv ity (there is an ana logous a rg u m en t w ith the uses of m u ltip le n arra tiv es to u n d e rs ta n d historical events — see the chap te r 'W ell and T ruly Fact: P ostm odern ism and H istory '). A corollary of this a p p ro a c h w o u ld be one th a t p ro c e e d e d a long 'p ra g m a tis t ' lines. P ragm atism is charged w ith a particu lar in terest because its solution(s) are alw ays already there in the sense th a t its definition of 'tru th ' is a question of w h a t som ething does in the w orld , no t w hat is intrinsic to it. H ow ever, 'p ragm atism ' can also be charged w ith being part of, or at least im plicated in, the 'c u rre n t p o s tm o d ern c lim ate ', w ith its s tro n g an tifo u n d a tio n a l rationale , and is d ea lt w ith in th a t chapter. The m ove from Section I to Section II how ever, as already suggested , initiates a d ifferent approach to know ledge w hich redefines w h at m ight be accepted as know ledge w ith in the discourse of L iterature (and the A rts in general). It takes th a t p a rt of the quotation from N ietzsche w hich is m ost likely in the cu rren t clim ate to be overlooked —• 'the m ore em otions w e allow to speak ' — very m uch into account.

A th ird objection to Section I m ight take the m etaphor of d ifferent gazes on the sam e object and argue that, a lthough the object is v iew ed from a n u m b er of perspectives, the v iew er still v iew s w ith one se t of assum ptions, th a t is, sees in one p articu la r w ay, no m a tte r how m any d ifferen t angles are used or considered available. Furtherm ore, it m ight be objected, to claim th a t there is no single sustained line of argum en t to the thesis is to be e ither d is in g en u o u s or critically vacuous. But is it no t possible tha t a critic or theoretician has the pow er to take on and use view s n o t necessarily conducive to h is or her ow n? O ne positive legacy of p o s ts tru c tu ra lism has su re ly been th is recogn ition th a t the no tio n of

R aym ond Tallis, N ot Saussure: A Critique o f Post-Saussurean Literary Theory (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988).

11 Christopher Norris, W hat's Wrong With Postmodernism: Critical Theory and the Ends of Philosophy (Hemel Hem pstead: Harvester W heatsheaf, 1990).

Introduction 11

critic ism an d th eo ry as p a ra s itic u p o n , and se co n d a ry to, p rim a ry im ag ina tive w ritin g has been, if n o t o verth row n , severely questioned . A lthough I do n o t ho ld w ith th is su p p o sed b reakdow n of d isc ip linary boundaries (again see the chapter on postm odernism ) 'im ag ination ' is no t the exclusive dom ain of 'p rim ary ' m aterial. It is possible to 'im agine' — to w h a t extent is debatable, b u t nevertheless it is feasible — seeing th rough o th e r eyes. P erh ap s w e sh o u ld ta lk of the 'c ritica l ' o r 'th eo re tica l im ag in a tio n ' -—■ especially if the response to a qu es tio n n a ire g iven to English stu d en ts asking 'w h a t is the value of study ing English literature?' has any valid ity (A ppendix 2). The general im pression w as th a t L iterature can help readers to b roaden the ir horizons by v irtue of seeing th ro u g h o thers' eyes.

The philosophical rider to 'seeing ' L iterature w ould be Sartre 's w ork u p o n 'im a g in g ' an d 'p e rce p tio n ' as su m m arised by W illiam Ray in Literary Meaning: From Phenomenology to Deconstruction:

the p erce iv ed object a lw ays exceeds the consciousness of the perceiver: no m atter how m any aspects of that object w e perceive in any given instan t, w e know it possesses an infinite reserve of o ther possib le re la tio n s , b o th to o th e r objects an d b e tw een its ow ne lem en ts .12

Yet th is is p u re specu la tion on S artre 's p a rt since there is no w ay of k n o w in g if an object can a lw ays an d end lessly escape the gaze or in teraction of the view er or in terpellator. Is it no t nearer the m ark in any case th a t som eth ing th a t is no t capable of being circum scribed , th a t is infinite, can no t be an object? Even if L iterature is to be described as event ra th e r than object, it still rem ains circum scribable, a lthough once again it dep en d s u p o n the d iscursive field in itially prescribed. It is tru e th a t one p e rso n can never see all six sides of a cube a t the sam e tim e, b u t nevertheless it is possible to form a com plete picture and to know it as a cube, and this is how the thesis in Section I m ay be p resum ed to proceed as the logical attem pt to find this m ediation . Section II, because it finds no a p rio r i rea so n to p ro ceed in such a logical m an n er, takes S a rtre 's descrip tion m ore on its ow n term s and discusses this notion of 'the always

12 W illiam Ray, Literary Meaning: From Phenomenology to Deconstruction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), p.20. There is an analogy between this notion and 'chaos theory' which posits that there can never be enough information known or taken into account to fully describe a system.

Introduction 12

o u t o f rea ch ' n a tu re of L ite ra tu re , p a rticu la rly in th e ch a p te r on 'Im possib ility Fiction'.

Sim ply using the concept 'tex t' is positionally charged and can be sa id to p red e te rm in e the argum en t. D av id L ehm an m akes th is p o in t w hen d iscussing deconstructionists:

T ext . . . seem s strateg ically chosen. It is, for one th ing , a g rea t leveler, since it serves equally well to describe the label on a soup can and an ode by John Keats — and reinforces the notion tha t these various "texts" are equal in im portance.

Equally, if I describe a piece of w riting as 'a poem ' or 'a novel' I seem to have p re-judged the issue. Is this m ere pedantry? (it feels like it) or is it a m atte r of the h ighest im portance (it seem s like tha t too, as w hen Barthes claims; 'The language w e decide to use to define the text is no t a m atte r of ind ifference, for it is a p a r t of the theo ry of the tex t to p lu n g e any enuncia tion , includ ing its ow n, into crisis'i'^). The problem again lies w ith w hatever I choose to define as 'L iterature '. To say tha t 'a novel' exists in som e rela tion to 'L itera tu re ', w hereas a soup-can label does not, begs the question of w hat m y definition of 'L iterature ' is. This problem is addressed by exam in ing the p ro p o sed and des ired (by som e critics) 'co llapse ' of literary stud ies into cultural stud ies a t the end of the chapter on value.

A n objection re la ted to the p rob lem of 'tex t' cou ld be m ade by arguing th a t I have played-off 'text' against 'context' in m y use of the term s 'im m anen t' and 'sociohistorical', and have therefore situated 'tex t' in the m an n er th a t L ehm an claim s deconstruction ists and o ther s tru c tu ra lis ts / p o s ts tru c tu ra lis ts have. H o w ev er, I do n o t reg a rd the o p p o sitio n a l re la tionsh ips betw een 'tex tual' and 'con tex tual' theories and approaches, o r 'im m an en t-b ased ' an d 'socioh isto rica l' theories and app roaches , as necessarily sym m etrical. There is scope, as suggested above and as show n in the chap te r on 'v a lu e ', to re-define 'tex t ' in a w ay th a t does n o t au tom atica lly o rien ta te w ritten m ateria l in to this p a rticu la r d iscursive field of b inary logic.

A nother objection tha t could be raised is that I have p ro m o ted a s traw ta rg e t to attack in tha t neither pole of the oppositions is ever as

D avid Lehman, Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de M an (London: André Deutsch, 1991), pp.84-85.

I'l Roland Barthes, "The Theory of the Text" in Robert Young, ed.. Untying the Text: A Post- Structuralist Reader (London and N ew York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), p.35.

Introduction 13

extrem e as the thesis m akes out. To answ er this I w ou ld po in t to W illiam R ay 's book already m entioned w hich surveys literary theory and finds no t rad ical d iscon tinu ity b u t sees the w hole field u n d erw ritten by a shared 'com m on g ro u n d , w hich is to be found in a pervasive no tion of literary m e a n in g u n d e r ly in g th e o re t ic a l a n d c r it ic a l p ro g ra m s fro m phenom eno logy to the p r e s e n t ' . A t the h ea rt of this no tion of m eaning there alw ays seem s to have been 'a t least tw o m eanings ' w ith respect to literature , a

h is to rica lly b o u n d act, g o verned by a p a rticu la r in ten tio n a t a particu lar m om ent, and perm anen t textual fact, em bodied in a w ord or series of w ords w hose m ean ing transcends p articu la r vo lition and can be apprehended in its structure by any ind iv idual possessed of the language.

Thus, far from being a straw target, the polar opposites of im m anence and transcendence (along w ith their m any correlates) are at the very h ea rt of the project of literary theo ry to date. Ray w ou ld see the w ork of Fish, B arthes and de M an, as a ttem p tin g to ou tm an o eu v re the p roblem atic , th ro u g h belief and transcendence (Fish), jouissance (Barthes) and irony (d e M an), b u t illu stra te s how they do so at the cost of e ith er self- con trad ic tion (which is a re-enactm en t of the in itial d ialectic), or w h at am oun ts to a fo regoing of ep istem ology in favour of en joym ent of the tex t, o r a k ind of acceptance of the infin ite regress such a w av erin g betw een the tw o extrem es involves. But I w ould argue th a t these are no t m e d ia tio n s so m uch as a ttitu d e s to be a d o p ted b ased on p erso n a l responses, and as such do no t w ork th rough the po larisation b u t leave it very m uch intact.

Ian H u n te r, like Ray, iden tifies a version of the tw o cam ps as h av in g been central to generations of theorists and critics. H e gives a genealogical (Foucauldian) account of the em ergence of literary education to dem onstrate th a t English d id no t develop to address som e pre-existing p rob lem of m an 's n a tu re — a p rob lem fram ed as how to reconcile an in n a te aesth e tic (tran scen d en t) sen sib ility w ith th e c ircum stances of everyday social reality (contingency). Instead , he argues th a t the system developed 'p iecem eal'.

op. cit.. p .l.

1^ ibid.. p.2.

Introduction 14

em erg ing in the au tonom ous sphere of 'social w elfare '; a sphere fo rm e d w h en tra d i tio n a l te c h n iq u e s of in d iv id u a l p a s to ra l surveillance w ere redep loyed in a new m achinery of governm en t aim ed at the 'm oral and physical' w ell-being of w hole populations. It w as in this dom ain th a t popu la r education could take shape as an a p p a ra tu s of m oral su p e rv is io n . A nd it w as as the p riv ileg ed inherito r of this ap p a ra tu s — no t as the m ed iato r of cu ltu re and society — th a t m o d ern lite rary education firs t cam e in to being tow ards the end of the n ineteen th cen tu ry .12

H u n te r 's is an excellent account th a t avoids the reductive a rgum ents of literary education as a crude ideological tool, w hilst show ing just how it does fit in to the netw ork of state pow er and the peculiar position English stud ies has grow n into. To accept H u n te r 's argum ent as a full explanation for the central d ichotom y w ould , how ever, m ean confining the issues to pedagogical ones. H u n te r 's avow ed project is to reconsider 'the rela tion betw een the idea of cultu re and the m achinery of g o v e r n m e n t '.T o this en d literary education provides h im w ith a m ost salient exam ple. As such H un ter skew s w hat m ight be said abou t our relation to L iterature. I w ould counter th a t just as L iterature (the Arts) does not exist or is no t p roduced (created) so tha t theory can be w ritten, nor is its raison d'être to be taught. W hilst I am perfectly happy to concede H u n ter 's genealogy as it relates to literary education in the form of 'English ' and the particu la r (no d o u b t 'pecu liar') w ay L iterature w ith in that field has been determ ined , I do no t believe th a t it resolves or even diffuses the antithetical d iv ide. H u n te r 's ach ievem ent is to m ake us aw are of ju s t how our d iscourse is and has been shaped w ith respect to English and the theory th a t attends to it. Yet, to use an analogy, the etym ology of a w ord can only go p a rt w ay to telling you abou t cu rren t usage and cu rren t m eaning. To describe English as a tool of social m achinery does no t elim inate: (1) the cu rren t apprehension of th e 'tw o cam p s ' d iv id e ; (2) the fact th a t 'c o n tin g e n c y ' an d 'transcendence ' has a h isto ry and significance far w id er th an H u n te r 's exem plary history; (3) ou r prob lem atic rela tionsh ip to L itera tu re (Art) is n o t restric ted to the pedagogic sphere. H ow th is b roader significance of L ite ra tu re b eyond the lim ita tions of bo th 'th eo ry ' and 'p ed a g o g y ' is m anifest is dealt w ith in the later chapters, particularly those in Section II.

17 Ian Hunter, Culture and Covernment: The Emergence of Literary Education (Basingstoke: M acmillan, 1988), pp.viii-ix.

^9 ib id .. p.viii.

Introduction 15

F ault can be found in th a t I have, to a large extent, pre-defined the d iscursive field of L iterature by confining it to difficulties w ith 'm eaning '. O ther initial positions m igh t have been 'p leasu re ' or 'va lue '. This is quite true, b u t I th ink for ease of approach ing the w hole topic this question of sta rting poin t is not of such great consequence, since, as w ill becom e clear, a look a t any p a rtic u la r one of these categories w o u ld invo lve the discussion of the o th e r s .T h i s is indeed the case w ith the thesis — 'value ' is taken up as a separate chapter, and the question of 'p leasu re ' occurs repea ted ly in Section II. It w ill also be no ted th a t the question of 'v alue ' sp lits in to another version of these tw o antithetical cam ps, absolute value o n th e one h a n d (im m anence) a n d re la tiv e v a lu e on th e o th e r (contingency).

There is an objection to the very existence of such a thesis as this in th a t in try ing to conceptualise the process of m eaning it tu rn s th a t very 'process' in to w hat can be seen as its antithesis, 'structure '.

Even v iew ed dialectically, [the p ro cess/s tru c tu re of m eaning] cannot be con tro lled by a concep t because it canno t be red u c ed to a s tru c tu re , and because the even t of concep tualization assum es a fu rthe r g round ing structu re — and thus pu ts into question its ow n "conclusion". 20

This can be taken as an objection to the g round ing of the thesis, since if I am dea ling w ith a process — w hich the w ord 'm ed ia tio n ' I am using unden iab ly suggests — b u t using structu re (the structu re of this thesis) to define it (to define its m eanings or im plications), any conclusion m u st needs be com prom ised. So w ould m y concluding m ediation be process or s tru c tu re ? In the sense th a t a PhD is a fin ish ed item , even if it acknow ledges itself as p a r t of an ongoing d eb a te /d ia le c tic /d ia lo g u e , it m ust be v iew ed as structure. It could be argued that it is process in that it is only in existence, or has its m ode of existence, in the process of m eaning

If readers are unhappy with this, I w ould refer them again to W illiam Ray's critique already m entioned. Likewise, Steven Knapp and Walter Benn M ichaels identify 'theory' as 'a special project in literary criticism: the attempt to govern interpretations of particular texts by appealing to an account of interpretation in general'. H ow ever, they also argue that prosody, stylistics and narratology are 'empirical' and thus do not fall into this category ("Against Theory" Critical Inquiry 8 (1982), p .723). I w ould say that these too, despite their aspirations to a transcendent poetics, come under interpretation. This might be observed in the discussion of de Man's notion of intention in Chapter 3. De Man begins by d iscu ssin g aesthetic structuring but is draw n inexorably to subordinating this to hermeneutics.

20 Ray, op. cit.. p .l41.

Introduction 16

production (by you, the reader). This is tru ly a vicious circle, in w hich the thesis is doom ed to tackle the problem — let us say a m ediation betw een poetics and herm eneutics, a m ediation betw een process and struc tu re — w ith the problem itself as the only tool, an a ttem pt to solve the problem with the problem .21 The thesis is structural and calls for the descrip tion of a process it can only define in structural term s. To extrapolate from Ray, to believe in the possib ility of describ ing the m echanism or engine of the process w ou ld be to assum e 'a fu rther g round ing s tructu re '. A w ay o u t of this m ight be to regard the thesis in som e w ay as 'h isto ry '. A t this po in t I w o u ld m erely speculate on the na tu re of a thesis going from in troduction th ro u g h to conclusion as re-enacting an historical analogue of cause-and- effect, of go ing from the orig in to the telos (both stru c tu re and the re­en ac tm en t of the event, the process of the thesis com ing in to being). S hould the PhD bear the traces of its ow n history, tha t is, and for exam ple, shou ld it give a narra tive of its ow n d eve lopm en t/change? O r sh o u ld it m a in ta in the analytic chronological sequence of propositional know ledge, w h ich in effect creates the illusion of a synchronic ges tu re w hich can organise all the m aterial into a hom ogenous field of un d erstan d in g , seen from the final p o in t of view ? E ither choice w ou ld have the effect of p riv ileg ing one term over another by the very fo rm /p ro cess of the thesis. The reader can skip to the In troduc tion 's concluding rem arks to see how th is is confronted.

N o d o u b t there are other queries to the m ethod and its theoretical u n d erp in n in g (just ano ther visual m etaphor?). But is no t all theory in any case a necessary fiction tha t can only be d isproved and never in any final sense proved? 'In the curren t postm odern clim ate' (itself an assum ption to be qualified in the chapter on postm odern ism and history) it seem ed and still seem s the best w ay forw ard. Section II challenges the fram ew ork tha t theo ry p ropaga tes for itself and as such serves to contextualise no t ju st theory b u t also the m aterial and argum ents of Section I.

The initial starting-poin t, as already stated , is the desire to m ediate be tw een sociohistorical m eth o d o lo g ie s /th eo ries and those theories and

21 An analogous difficulty occurs in linguistics in that the search to understand 'language' can only be m ade with the use of language; in philosophy an analogous problem is the attem pt to solve the notion of Becoming (process) through positing Being (structure); in psychology w e can only solve the issue of consciousness through the workings of our ow n consciousness. It is even tem pting to say that I am seeking to resolve the problem of Literature, which 1 have to posit, with Literature.

Introduction 17

m ethodologies based u pon a priori assum ptions of tex tual au tonom y and im m an en ce . In itse lf, th e id e a is n o t new . As it s ta n d s a n d is u n d e rs ta n d ab le today it p ro b ab ly goes back to the in itia l tensions in F orm alism , tensions betw een herm eneu tics and poetics, synchrony and diachrony. A m ediation has been suggested by, m ost im portan tly , Jerom e J. M cC ann in Social Values and Poetic Acts: The Historical Judgment of Literary WorkP- and H ans Robert Jauss, the latter going so far as to suggest th a t it w ou ld involve a parad igm shift after the natu re of K uhn 's scientific revolutions. This shift w ou ld require the following:

1. The m ed ia tio n of a e s th e tic /fo rm a l an d h is to ric a l/re c e p tio n - related analysis, as well as art, history, and social reality;2. The link ing of s tru c tu ra l and herm eneu tica l m e th o d s (w hich hard ly take note of their respective procedures and results);3. The p ro b in g of an aesthe tics (no longer re la ted so le ly to descrip tion ) of effect [W irkung] and a new rhe to ric w hich can equally w ell account for "high-class" literature as w ell as po p u la r literature and phenom ena of the m ass m edia.23

This is indeed how an a ttem p t a t m ediation m ight have proceeded. But it is certainly easier to sta te the p rogram m e than to carry it o u t in this w ay since it takes too m uch on tru st the natu re of L iterature, even as it realises som e of the a tten d an t problem s. The tangential approach ad op ted by the PhD is an a ttem p t to deal w ith this. H ow ever, it m ay still seem like a foolish hope to reconcile theories tha t on the one hand claim th a t texts are self-sufficient (even in their au to-deconstruction) and on the o ther han d theories th a t begin w ith the prem ise th a t text and context are inseparable. The a rg u m e n t th u s d e lin ea ted can be red u c ed to the con fro n ta tio n b e tw een tw o d iam etrica lly o p p o sed b e lie fs /th e o r ie s (the d is tin c tio n betw een belief and theory dependen t upon w hether one can argue from a priori g rounds or not). W hat is the answer? Is there an answ er? Is the task unrealistic? H ave I constructed the problem in such a w ay th a t p recludes n o t o n ly an answ er b u t the q u es tio n itself? But th is re tu rn s us to objections already considered.

The perspectives taken are from the po in t of view of 'the au th o r', 'in te n tio n ', 'p o s tm o d e rn ism an d h is to ry ', and 'v a lu e '. O v erlap , or

22 Jerome J. McCann, Social Values and Poetic Acts: The Historical Judgment of Literary Work (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1988), pp.112-3.

29 Quoted in Robert C. Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction (London: M ethuen, 1984), p.4.

Introduction 18

'im brication ', is inevitable since w e are looking in each chapter a t the sam e object, and the m ediation is a w ay of tackling the co-habitative existence in the s tu d y of L iterature of m utua lly incom patible theories. It could be said th a t th is co -h ab ita tio n illu s tra te s th a t in one sense the p ro b lem atic starting-poin t of the thesis is already in a state of liberal resolution. But the so lu tion of allow ing b o th im m anence-based and socioh istorically -based theories to exist side-by-side in their various self-validating , functionally au tonom ous form s is fundam entally a 'liberal' so lu tion , and p resupposes a theoretical base of 'liberalism ' or 'p lu ra lism ', tha t is, it is no t an innocent solution. The liberal a rgum ent w ould have it tha t bo th sociohistorical and im m anen t approaches / theories are capable of yielding w o rth w h ile /v a lid / r ich /in te re s tin g in terpretations and are no t necessarily m u tua lly exclusive at the practical level of reading, although they rem ain incom patible a t the th e o re tic a l level. In th is so lu tio n , th e re fo re , p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t and sociohistorical m ethods are being used as specific tools w ith in the broader (practical) fram ew ork of 'read in g ' and 'in te rp re ta tio n ' w ith o u t regard to the ideological theories suppo rting those tools. This is perhaps the state of affairs a t p resen t in h igher education w here a range of literary theories is ta u g h t w ith o u t the expectation th a t studen ts should discrim inate betw een th em in term s of value, or even necessarily to app ly any theo ry w ith rigour. O r, as Steven C onnor pu ts it in Postmodernist Culture:

Far from being the theoretical m onolith that it has been represen ted as since the 1970s, the un iverse of E nglish s tu d ies has actively fo ste red su b u n iv e rses of d iffe ren t app roaches and prac tices, in frictionless rapp rochem en t.24

T heories have (theory has) been ap p ro p ria ted (or never escaped) the b roader fram ew ork of a liberal-hum anist education system . In this state of affairs theory is, u ltim ately , irre levan t, and we are left, in term s of the b ro ad s tru c tu re , w ith the pre-N ew Critical approach . This p lu ra lity of approaches m igh t also be called the 'po stm o d ern ' so lu tion — th a t is, if p ostm odern ism can be said to 'p rescribe ' as well as to describe — since (neo)p ragm atism and p lu ra lism ap p ear to be in teg ral to defin itions of p ostm o d ern ism . Yet it can h ard ly be an acceptable so lu tion for those engaged in theoretical endeavour.

24 Steven Connor, Postmodernist Culture: A n Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p .l5 .

Introduction 19

O ne of the m ost clear-sigh ted app ra isa ls of the s itu a tio n is Ian S m all's and Josephine G uy 's essay 'English in Crisis? (2)'. It is w o rth q u o tin g the ir conclusion in full since it p roposes a w ell-de fined w ay forw ard:

A precondition for resolving these d ispu tes has to be an agreem ent about w hat theory is to explain, for theories can only be tested (and then rejected or accepted) w hen there is a p rio r ag reem ent abou t w hat they are to be tested for — agreem ent, that is, about w hat w ork they are to do. It is only w hen the issue of defin ing the object of s tu d y in English is resolved th rough the establishm ent of a general agreem ent as to w h at it is, th a t questions about the adequacy of the theories used — their coherence, their u tility , and their relationship to practice — m ay be addressed .25

Yet th e p ro b lem rem a in s th a t th e ir p ro g ra m m e is g ro u n d e d by pragm atism , no doubt pedagogical, and utilitarianism . In fact, it w ould be qu ite easy to resolve the situation on these grounds, and for pedagogical pu rposes this m ay even be the w ay forw ard. But the thesis takes the stand th a t L iterature, as p rev iously sta ted , is m ore than its relation to pedagogy and criticism , and rather than take Sm all's and G uy's suggestion suspends in Section I a defin ition of L ite ra tu re and a ttem pts to w ork inductively th rough a variety of categories, (although it does briefly address the issue in term s of L iterature as an 'object' again at the end of C hap ter Two). It looks at 'the au th o r', 'in ten tion ', 'h isto ry ' and 'va lue ', and show s th a t the attacks u pon these trad itional areas by m ost (if no t all) theory since the N ew Critics has failed to d isplace them , bo th logically and em pirically . Section II is m ore categorical in how it defines and view s L itera ture, and claim s to have consequences for pedagogy, b u t p robably no t in the w ay Small and G uy perceived a solution.

Besides the liberal co-habitation solu tion , there is ano ther so lu tion w hich m igh t also be claim ed to be in existence, either as a resu lt of practical exigencies, or because L itera ture is farther than ever from a defin ition of w h a t constitu tes it. This so lu tion m igh t be classed as th a t w here the ap p ro a ch is of a specific po litica l n a tu re , M arxism or fem in ism for exam ple. H ere, theory and practice rem ain subord inate to the overrid ing po litica l ends , they are su b su m ed w ith in the 'ac tio n ' of M arxism or fem inism and need only conform to these political agendas; the particu lar

25 Ian Small and Josephine Guy, "English in Crisis (2)" Essays in English 40 (1990), p.l96.

Introduction 20

political agenda rem ains the final arbiter. It could be argued th a t liberal- h u m an ism is also of a specific po litica l n a tu re w ith its ow n agenda. H o w ev er, it is as w ell to d is tin g u ish b e tw een w h a t is d o m in a n t (hegem onical), an d w h a t is o p e ra tin g w ith in (or to le ra te d th o u g h in opposition to) tha t ideology. The problem of co-habiting incom m ensurate system s rem ains as above, a lthough it m ay be the case th a t because M arxism and fem inism opera te w ith in the sphere of liberal-hum anism different criticisms and analyses should be applied.

Section II, as it has been h in te d a t th ro u g h o u t the p reced in g rem arks, is in sta rk con trast to Section I. The them e th a t ru n s th ro u g h Section I of the thesis, b u t w hich w as certainly no t envisaged at the outset, is th e q u es tio n th a t has a lre ad y o ccu rred tim e an d aga in in th is in troduction : W hat is L iterature? N o do u b t this w as short-sigh tedness on m y part, b u t hav ing sta rted w ith a desire to m ediate betw een im m anence- based theories and sociohistorically-based theories, the best w ay forw ard appeared to be to look at this specific proposition from a num ber of angles th a t suggested possible resolutions or m ediations — a p rocedure w hich at each tu rn necessita ted a confron ta tion w ith the p rob lem of ju s t w h a t constitu ted L iterature. It has occurred, either th rough theoretical rigour or th ro u g h som e p rocedura l flaw on m y part, th a t to a ttem p t m ed iation is inextricably bound up w ith how L iterature is construed in the first place. I h av e a lre ad y su g g e sted th a t w h a te v er the case is, w e can observe som eth ing tha t is designated as L iterature. Each angle at w hich the object is approached brings its ow n set of p resum ptions abou t w hat constitu tes th e ob ject u n d e r in v e stig a tio n . If, for exam ple , I be lieve a tex t is au tonom ous, in trinsically literary , w h at constitu tes L itera ture for m e w ill be a consequence of that (and vice versa). If I tend to see 'literary w orks ' as a k ind of w riting that has no in trinsic 'literariness ', the consequence m ay w ell be th a t I view L iterature as an elitist construction th a t is p a rt of the ideological sta te apparatus. N o am oun t of d ifferent angles can alter this prob lem , since, as already sta ted , I do no t have a sta tue before me. But ra the r than explicate the shift here, the reader can either regard the thesis as 'p rocess ' and w ait till Section II to discover ju st exactly w h a t the shift involves, o r m ay reg ard the thesis as 's tru c tu re ' an d sim ply read the in troduction to th a t section as a continuation of this one.

Introduction 21

9/[a(^ng tfie J^utdor function: *r/te Wives o f ftotnas (Pyncfion and (Baut de Man

H ow is it possible to defeat no t the au thors b u t the functions of the au th o r, the id ea th a t b eh in d each book there is som eone w ho guaran tees a tru th in th a t w orld of ghosts and inven tions by the m ere fact of h a v in g in v e s te d in it h is ow n tru th , of h av in g identified him self w ith th a t construction of w ords?!

The aim of this chapter is to explore the possibility of m ed iation betw een the tw o cam ps by exam ining the no tion of the author. The prem ise and prom ise here is th a t a m ediation m igh t be achieved if som e concept of the au tho r can be b ro u g h t back into those areas of literary theory w hich base them selves solely on notions of The text' a n d /o r the prim acy of language, areas w hich I term im m anence-o rien ted or im m anence-based theories, since m ean ing (and deferral of m eaning) are believed to be im m anen t in the text. Since N ew C riticism , and perh ap s especially since the Barthes essay "The D eath of the A u th o r" ,2 the au tho r and every th ing associated w ith th a t term has been d ism issed in m ost theory (the d ea th of the au thor is no s tra n g e r to p o s tm o d ern fiction e ither, as the q u o ta tio n from C a lv in o 's novel h ea d in g th is ch ap te r illu stra tes). The au th o r in all capacities has been m ostly d isreg a rd ed as a source of m ean ing an d au thority , and w ith it the Rom antic legacy of the ind iv idual w riter w ho is in sp iring and inspired . Even for som eone like E. D. H irsch w ho proposes th e n ecessity of au th o r in ten tio n s , the au th o r is s im p ly the site of in te rp re ta tive decidability and no more.^ Paul de M an pu ts it as b lun tly as this: 'C onsiderations of the actual and historical existence of w riters are a w aste of tim e from a critical v iew po in t'.4 Barthes closes his essay by saying th a t the d ea th of the A u th o r is a t the cost of the b irth of the reader. A n tag o n ism to the n o tion of the au th o r rem ains very stro n g . Even

! Italo Calvino, I f on a winter's night a traveller . . . (London: Picador, 1982), pp .126-127.

2 Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author" in Im agejM usiclText. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath. (London: Fontana Press, 1977). 1st published as "La Mort de l'Auteur", M anteia V, 1968.

3 See E. D. Hirsch Jr., Validity in Interpretation (N ew Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967).

Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. 2nd Edition, revised. Introduction by Wlad Godzich. (London: Methuen, 1983), p.35.

The Author Function 23

extrinsic criticism s seem re lu c tan t to look at the au tho r, and are m ore likely to concentrate on the social and historical contexts. This is no t to say th a t in te re s t in the au th o r has d isap p ea red ; b io g rap h ies rem a in very p o p u la r, as Barthes no ted in his essay, and b iograph ical detail is often casually in tro d u ced in to d iscussion of texts, even if ju st for anecdotal in te rest, it being u n d ersto o d th a t the in form ation carries no theoretical w eight. In the p resen t theoretical dom ain, it is as if Barthes and de M an have been taken at their w ord.

B ecause the f irs t a im of th e th esis is to m e d ia te b e tw e en im m a n e n c e -o r ie n ta te d th e o r ie s /m e th o d o lo g ie s a n d so c io h is to r ic a l theo ries/ m ethodologies, the approach in this chapter is to concentrate on text-based theory , since this is w here the argum ent is m ost hostile to the concept of the au thor and needs to be at its m ost persuasive. It therefore ignores argum en ts from the o ther cam p w hich already incorporate 'the au th o r', such as H irsch and som e fem inist theories. I shall begin w ith the Barthes essay "The D eath of the A uthor", at the forefront of struc tu ra list an d p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t attacks on the au th o r, and exem pla ry in th a t it contains the m ajor objections to the no tion of the author. A lso, the essay itself p rov ides us w ith the possib ility th a t if w e can re-incorporate the au tho r in som e w ay into F o rm alis t/s tru c tu ra lis t/p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t theories, m ediation becomes, w ith in the logic of the essay, autom atic betw een these an d sociohistorical theories and m ethodologies. This is because B arthes's essay suggests th a t the concept of the au tho r is in ter-rela ted to 'society, h isto ry , psyche and liberty '. For Barthes, to rem ove the au thor, w hich is w h a t he strives for, is to rem ove these o ther elem ents. So if w e can recu p era te the au tho r, w h ils t tak ing in to account those argum en ts th a t rem oved the au thor in the first place, then perhaps society and history can be re-in troduced on a form al level, and not just the m ethodological. There is also som e sense of u rgency to this project due to w h a t has becom e know n as the case of Paul de Man. W hat has been p u t at stake, according to som e critics, is the w hole field of poststructuralism , a d iscursive regim e w hich has eschew ed notions of au thors and origins in favour of texts and tex tua lity , a doctrine w hich n ow ap p ears to som e to have eno rm ous im plications in the ligh t of the revelations tha t du rin g the Second W orld W ar P aul de M an w rote for a collaborationist journal in Belgium, and tha t he never chose to disclose tha t fact du ring his academ ic career in America. It sha rp ly illustrates the problem s im m anent-based theories have, no t ju st

The Author Function 24

in the theoretical realm , b u t in the relationship betw een theory and ethics. The issue has forced critics to d raw up battle-lines. O n the one side n u m e ro u s allies of d eco n stru c tio n have leaped to de M an 's defence, theorists and critics such as G eoffrey H artm ann , Jonathan C uller, J. H illis M iller and Jacques D errida. O n the o ther side one critic has extrapolated from the revelation of de M an 's early collaborationist w ritings to declare th a t there w ere 'g rounds for view ing the w hole of de construction as a vast am nesty project for the politics of collaboration du rin g W orld W ar IT .5 There is clearly m uch rid ing on the stand ing of 'the au tho r' w ith in theory. The de M an case illustrates tha t the question of an au th o r's im pingem ent u p o n the text is very m uch alive.^ The obvious em barrassm en t caused to the defenders of deconstruction and de M an is surely evidence th a t all is no t w ell in im m anent-based theory — th a t authors and texts are linked in w ays w hich affect our readings, our understand ing , in te rp re tation and the possible generation of m eaning. If it w ere no t the case, there w ould be no p rob lem — the texts bearing the nam e 'de M an' w ould rem ain unaffected by any know ledge of his b iograph ical details, or, to app ly w h a t P aul de M an h im self w ro te, any considerations of the actual and h isto rical existence of the w rite r P aul de M an w o u ld be a w aste of tim e w hen d iscussing the theore tical v en tu re w ith w hich his nam e is associa ted (s truc tu ra lism and p osts truc tu ra lism ). Are these questions eth ical ones th a t have no place in im m anen t-o rien ta ted literary theories, or theory of any k ind , or do we need once again to re-incorporate the au thor in som e way?

Looking closely at the Barthes essay it soon becom es clear th a t the a rg u m e n t is b ased u p o n a n u m b er of u n su b s tan tia te d p rem ises and in ternal contradictions. H e begins the essay w ith a sentence from a Balzac sh o rt sto ry and then asks the question 'W ho is speaking thus? '. H e goes th rough a series of related questions, all of w hich suggest answ ers to the o v e rr id in g question , and all of w hich he dism isses. 'W e sha ll never k now ', he concludes, 'for the good reason that w riting is the destruction of

5 Herman, Luc, Kris Humbeeck and Geert Lernout, eds., (Dis)continuities: Essays on Paul de M an (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989), Introduction, p .11, quoting Jeffrey Mehlman.

It is also worth noting the more recent controversy surrounding the discovery of racist and sexist material in Philip Larkin's legacy. It serves further to illustrate that 'theory' has failed to remove our desire for information about authors, that, in fact, theory in this area has had no consequences, although obviously this is in no w ay meant to stand as a theoretical refutation. The lack of consequences for theory is a point the thesis returns to.

The Author Function 25

every voice, of every po in t of o rig in '7 H e naturalises an u n substan tia ted prem iss (w riting is the destruction of every voice, of every po in t of origin) w ith the in tro d u c tio n of the p h rase 'fo r the good reason th a t'. The rheto rical gestu re gives the im pression of an a priori g ro u n d in g for the dea th of the author. Yet it is apparen t tha t at this po in t in his essay Barthes p resen ts us w ith a question of faith, no m ore, no less. Barthes m akes an equa lly d u b io u s a priori s ta tem en t u p o n w hich to b u ild h is arg u m en t w hen he asserts th a t w riting is a neu tra l space w ithou t a voice. But it later tran sp ire s th a t this voicelessness is n o t at all in trinsic to w riting . 'The rem oval o f the A uthor . . . is no t m erely an historical fact or an act of w riting; it u tterly transform s the m odern text . . . '.8 This is w here Barthes v isib ly falters. The first p a r t of the sentence incorporates tw o m u tua lly exclusive ideas: th a t the rem oval of the A uthor is on the one h an d in trinsic to the act of w riting , yet, on the other, con tingent u pon m odern forces and know ledge. N ow , if the rem oval of the au tho r is an historical event, it is con tingent and there is no th ing to stop its re-in troduction at som e stage in the fu ture (for instance, now , righ t this m inute). But if it is in trinsic to the act of w riting then it is ahistorical, no t con tingen t a t all, w ritin g is alw ays tha t neu tra l space w ithou t a voice, no th ing to do w ith h isto ry , the au th o r's dem ise alw ays is (alw ays was) coincidental w ith the w ritte n w ord . Yet B arthes here uses w h a t am oun ts to an h isto rical argum ent, since it is only recently , according to him , th a t linguistics has sh o w n h ow th is d es tru c tio n of the au th o r can be ach ieved . W hat lin g u is tic s has show n , then and now , m u st be a m oo t p o in t, since linguistics itself, just like literary stud ies, rem ains d iv ided as to w h at its object of s tu d y is — is it language as an au tonom ous s tru c tu re , or is it language as it functions in society and from w hich it cannot be regarded separate ly? The paradox of the first half of B arthes's p ro p o sa l creates p rob lem s for the second. To w hich elem ent does the second p a r t of the Barthes sentence, 'it u tterly transform s the m odern text', relate to? Does it rela te to an historical fact, or does it relate to a function of language as p ro p o sed by a certain g ro u p of linguists, itself h igh ly debatab le? The second half of the sta tem en t is p roposing the notion tha t m odern w riters and m odern linguistics do no t believe in the au thor, and this leads to the existence of ou r m odern texts. It is no t that there is som e unassailable logic

^ "The Death of the Author", op. cit.. p .142.

ibid.. p .l45.

The Author Function 26

a t w ork here, w ith the ap p reh en sio n th a t w riting is a process th a t of necessity p recludes no tions of the au thor; Barthes's argum en t is entirely historical, saying tha t we have en tered a new era. This po in t is em phasised a little fu rthe r on w here he continues to prom ote w ith b ro ad historical generalisations w hat he considers to be a priori. 'The fact is ', he w rites, and then in paren theses, '(or, it follows) th a t writing can no longer designate an opera tion of recording, no ta tion , represen tation , "depiction"'.^ Exactly w h a t is being said here? Is it tha t w riting has lost its p revious function due to historical circum stances? Or is he saying that it logically follows tha t it cannot have that function, in w hich case it never has? The essay seem s to strugg le for a logical argum ent derived from first principles, w h ilst its real base is a historical one. As such, its a rgum ent depends u p o n w hichever h is to ry of w riting and linguistics is chosen from a varie ty of possib le narra tives of w riting. This w ill decide w hether we are to believe th a t the au th o r is dead or not. There is no a priori reason for choosing one p a th over another, unless the critic is p repared to accept at face value B arthes's po tted h istory of w riting from time im m em orial to the 1960s.

If w e stop at this po in t in the Barthes essay to view it w ith in its ow n te rm s of reference th e re are a n u m b er of th ings th a t can be sa id . H isto rically speak ing the necessity for the au th o r has never been as consistently im portan t as the essay m akes out. The rem oval of the au thor by the au th o r from the tex t is n o t a phen o m en o n of m o d e rn tim es. N either D aniel D efoe's Roxana or Sam uel R ichardson 's Pamela ap p eared in the first instance as being 'au th o red ' in the B arthesian sense, w hich I w o u ld h az ard can be u n d ers to o d as a version of the 'a u te u r ' in film theory . In Shakespearean tim es copyrigh t was w ith the com pany p u ttin g the p lay on and n o t w ith the ostensib le au tho r (auteur). W orks have a p p e a re d and been p ro m o ted as 'vo ice less ', to use B arthes 's no tion . H istorically speaking , B arthes's argum en t is a non-starter. Sim ilarly, we m ig h t choose a d iffe ren t lin g u istic m odel as h av in g the h is to rica l a scen d an cy , a so c io -lin g u is tic m o d e l for in stan ce th a t p re se n ts a co m m unica tion p a ra d ig m of sender-m essage-rece iver. In th is case it w ou ld be necessary to take the au thor into account.

A nother sta rting po in t in the Barthes essay m ight be derived from answ ering the question 'W ho speaks thus?'. Barthes's suggestions are that it could be the hero of the story, Balzac the ind iv idual, Balzac the au thor, un iversal w isdom . Rom antic psychology. Barthes's reasoning is th a t if it is

loc. cit.

The Author Function 27

n o t one of these voices, it canno t be decided , for w ritin g is w here all iden tity is lost. Yet could we not say tha t it is all of these voices? After all, th ree pages la ter Barthes is asserting tha t the text is w here 'a varie ty of w ritings, none of them original, b lend and c l a s h '.W h e n p u t like this the text is being conceptualised in Bakhtinian term s, 'heteroglossia ', a clashing of various languages. W hen p u t like this Barthes is also im ply ing tha t the tex t is a site of contexts w hose m any in teractions create m eanings th a t canno t be contro lled in any w ay except by the un ification each reader p ro d u ces or creates, an idea th a t has obvious para lle ls w ith de M an 's herm eneu tic circles (see next chapter). 'W ho is speak ing thus? ' Barthes asks. The q u es tio n m ay be p e r tin e n t, b u t the an sw er he g ives is inapplicab le . O ne reason for th a t m u st be that he poses it in term s of speech and replies in term s of w riting. His initial question shou ld really be 'W ho is w riting thus? '. A nd to follow his(w hose?) argum en t, there are m any w riters, th a t is, m any contexts. H ow ever, taken like th is , the text begins to dissolve or d isappear into those various contextual au thorings Barthes has already dism issed (society, h istory, psyche), a criticism often levelled a t extrinsic approaches. H ow is it possible to take note of the fact th a t contexts are inscribed w ith in texts and get no m ore o u t of the text than the contexts the reader is w illing to appropriate? In fact, this is w h at the B arthes essay proposes, th a t it is only possible to d isen tang le texts, th e re can be no dec iphering and hence no discovery of som e u ltim ate secret m eaning. Yet B arthes's description is based on an assum ption th a t a text is the sum of these discrete parts, and no m ore. This is no t the case. C riticising the Barthes essay at this junc tu re m igh t p roceed along the follow ing lines. The only pow er the au thor has, according to his(?) essay, is the ability to mix w ritings. Barthes w rites here in such a w ay as to dem ean this ability, and the reason this pow er is dem eaned is because of w h at has already been said — nam ely, tha t texts, according to Barthes, are no m ore than a clash of various w ritings, none of which are original. If we relate it back to the Balzac excerpt, the Barthesian answ er to the question 'W ho speaks thus? ' shou ld really be th a t it is an ad m ix tu re of all the possible voices suggested. (This is a contradiction in the essay, for Barthes says w e shall never know w ho speaks thus, and yet he 'd isen tang les ' the text to p rov ide precisely those voices — or clashes of w riting). If we take th is one step fu rth e r, and ad d ress the issue of one voice, th a t is, the au th o r, it follow s th a t the au th o r is the person w ho has the p o w er to

ib id., p .l46.

The Author Function 28

crea te th is ju x ta p o s it io n /a d m ix tu re /e n ta n g le m e n t of w ritin g s. This specific concatenation of the different w ritings tha t go to m ake np a text is unique. There is no sense of inevitability in w hat Barthes w rites here, that the particu lar en tanglem ent of w ritings constitu ting the Balzac sho rt story w ere destined to shuffle together in the w ay they do. W hat the essay is in fact p resen ting us w ith , a lthough it tries to deride it, is the very au tho r function it is seeking to eradicate.

This w ould am ount to very little, perhaps, if it w ere no t for the fact th a t th is ad m ix tu re of w ritin g is b o th un iq u e and canno t be a m ere sum m ation of discrete parts. It is arguable in the first instance w hether the text is an adm ix tu re ra the r than som eth ing m ore hopelessly enm eshed beyond recognition and susceptib le to d isentanglem ent. The w ritings do n o t fu n ctio n d isc re te ly b u t im p inge u p o n one an o th e r to g en e ra te som eth ing o ther than a sim ple sum m ation of the elem ents. This is the p o w er of the au th o r function in B arthesian term s, elide it th o u g h the essay tries. C ertain ly B arthes's spatia l m etaphor w ou ld be correct if each w ritin g w ere d iscrete , d istinct, and open to d isen tan g lem en t from the o ther w ritings w ith w hich it inhabits and shares the text. But this is no t certain (and perhaps w here 'w ritings' are easily d isen tangled it is though t of as 'p o o r' L iterature). Even if w e w ere to adhere to B arthes's spatia l m etaphor it w ould still fail because 'the secret m eaning ' tha t Barthes says does n o t exist under the w ritings exists a t the po in t w here the w ritings clash, in the in terstices of the w ritings. This ability to generate these un ique juxtapositions is the originality of the author, and it is at the sam e tim e h ow w e recogn ise the a u th o r 's voice, n o t b en ea th , b u t a t the b oundaries or in tersections of the various en tanglem ents. The notion of au tho r as an original creator w ith a un ique voice cannot be d iscarded, it is a fact of the text tha t has its direct correlative w ith the actual and historical existence of the author.

N ow it m igh t be argued th a t sim ply to reclaim the un iqueness of th e c rea ting au th o r does n o t answ er the objection th a t the a u th o r 's re la tion to the text has no th ing to do w ith the in terp re ta tion of the text. This objection can be categorised in to th ree m ain areas. F irstly is the no tion of the au thor as god, the place w here all m eaning is sa id finally to reside. Objections here often take the form that it im plies a phallogocentric w ay of looking at the w orld, or tha t in a postm odern age the very concept of final and irrefutable tru ths is untenable. Secondly there is the objection of in ten tion , w hich b road ly speak ing argues th a t it can never be know n

The Author Function 29

w h at au thors have in m ind w hen they w rite, and so it is useless for critics to a ttem p t to w ork their w ay back from the text to an au th o r's intentions, or vice versa, in an a ttem pt to fix m eaning or m eanings. The th ird type of objection is related to Form alist approaches and posts truc tu ralist views on language w hich will only consider to be theoretically valid w ork done on the tex t itself, an d w ill therefo re d isa llow ex trinsic com m en tary and k n o w led g e , un less p e rh a p s it is p e rce iv ed as te x tu a lly based . The recuperation of the au thor, and any a ttem pt to m ake the au tho r function again, has to take into account all three objections. I w ill discuss only the first objection here. The argum en t rela ted to intention is exam ined in the n ex t chap ter. The th ird objection is the im m an en t-b ased theore tical a rg u m e n t a lread y u n d e r general d iscussion as p a r t of the tw o cam p scenario.

The objection to the au thor as god — the source and final arb iter of all m eaning (and any th ing else we care to m ention) — is a m ix ture of a num ber of dism issals tha t we can disentangle to reveal tha t none of them has any theoretical valid ity . W e have a lready seen and d isco u n ted as theoretically inep t the objection deriv ing from a distaste for the Rom antic concept of the au tho r as insp ired genius. A further dism issal is founded u p o n a belief th a t it is reprehensib le to place m eaning in a fram ew ork that aligns itself w ith a no tion of m ale au thority . This is also essen tially a m oral arg u m en t and no t a theoretical objection. C laim s to a theoretical ra tionale do n o t ho ld up , as a rgued m ost persuasively by P atrick Colm H ogan in his chapter on fem inist theory in The Politics of Interpretation: Ideology, Professionalism, and the S tudy of Literatured'^ It can also be a rg u e d on m oral g ro u n d s from the o ther side, th a t to den y any link b e tw e en the w ritin g and the au th o r is to deny re sp o n sib ility and culpability , a stance that has obvious consequences in the instance of Paul de M an 's w ritings for Le Soir. The w hole concept of phallogocentrism , as H ogan p u ts it, rests on the dub ious m etapho r of a pen is hav ing som e equivalence w ith a quest for un ity , to ta lity and m onologism , and hence to ta litarian ism and repression.

The th ird and final d ism issal w e can d isentangle is the D erridean a rg u m en t th a t attacks the W estern m etaphysical trad itional p resum ption th a t m eaning is fully p resen t (in itself, to itself, for us). The argum ent here is th a t to look to the au tho r as the au tho rity for m ean ing rests on the

H Patrick Colm Hogan, The Politics of Interpretation: Ideology, Professionalism, and the Study of Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

The Author Function 30

desire and belief tha t presence guaran tees tru th in som e w ay, as in speech- situations w here the presence of the speaker is taken as a guaran tee for w h a t is being said. To seek 'the au thor' is to seek this presence. It is also to subscribe to a belief th a t w ords and m eaning can be fully p resen t to one ano ther. H ow ever, this is the ab so lu tis t line of p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t and deconstruc tion ist th ink ing th a t really sets up a straw target: th a t som e people (critics, theoreticians, readers, au thors) ho ld an absolute belief in the transparency of language and its ability to give unm ed ia ted access to reality , and concom itantly com plete access th rough w riting to the au thor and h is /h e r m eaning. Once again I refer the reader to the com m ents in the in tro d u c tio n th a t su b scrip tio n to abso lu tes is no t p a r t of the cu rren t theoretical agenda. The reader m igh t also refer to R aym ond Tallis's Not Saussure^'^ and C hapter 2 of H ogan 's The Politics of Interpretation

A t abou t the sam e tim e as Barthes, M ichel Foucault too addressed the sta tus of the au tho r in "W hat Is an A uthor?" ( 1 9 6 9 ) . In this he notes four characteristics of w h at he term s 'the au thor function '. If w e now look a t th ese in ad d itio n to the B arthes ana lysis w e w ill have a fairly com prehensive critique of 'the au thor'.

F irstly Foucault claims that 'd iscourses are objects of appropria tion ' and tha t 'Texts, books, and discourses really began to have au thors . . . to the extent th a t authors becam e subject to p u n is h m e n t '.T h u s , 'the au thor fu n c tio n is lin k e d to the ju r id ic ia l an d in s t itu tio n a l sy stem th a t encom passes, determ ines, and articu la tes the un iverse of d iscourses'.!^ This rem ains the case of course, b u t how m uch attention shou ld w e pay to it in the realm of theory and criticism? The juridicial system (presum ably F oucault m eans in term s of copyright) does appear to have som e bearing u p o n the issue, bu t the cases of Larkin and de M an surely indicate that the au th o r's im pingem ent has no th ing to do w ith their legal sta tus, b u t ra ther w ith the ir social lives. W hat of the institu tional system ? It is no t clear w h a t F oucau lt m eans in this instance. This firs t characteristic of the

Raymond Tallis, op. cit..

!3 Patrick Colm Hogan, op. cit..

!'! In Rabinow, The Foitcaiilt Reader (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986).

!5 ibid.. p .l08.

! 6 ib id . ,p . l l 3 .

The Author Function 31

au tho r function is probably the least im portan t in the form th a t Foucault traces it, since it is p laced p u re ly in h isto rical term s an d n o t in any theoretical nexus. We m igh t note th a t a th ird link besides the ju rid ic ial an d in s titu tio n a l ones is p erh ap s an eth ical one, as a lready h in ted a t above, w here the au tho r becom es subject to m oral censure. (H ow ever, in th e fo u rth ch a rac teris tic of the au th o r function , F o u cau lt m akes a d is tin c tio n betw een 'the w rite r ' and 'the au th o r'. In the case of P aul de M an this w ould m ean tha t ou r m oral judgem ent, w hichever w ay th a t w ent, w ou ld be u pon 'the w riter' w ith an 'actual and historical existence' and no t upon 'the au tho r', w hich is a construct in reading. This distinction is dea lt w ith a little later on.)

The second characteristic, like the first, is a historical com m ent: 'The au tho r function does no t affect all d iscourses in a un iversal and constant w ay '.!7 For exam ple. M iddle Age scientific discourse had 'au tho rs ' w hich g u aran teed the 'tru e ' by v irtue of their nam e, w hereas anonym ous texts such as epics and tragedies gained their s ta tu s from the ir ancientness.!^ W e m igh t take this as a w ord of caution on Foucault's part, and align it w ith B arthes in the sense tha t it show s th a t the no tion of the au th o r function is h istorically contingent, since for Barthes the m o d ern period has w itnessed the au thor's (necessary) dem ise. Characteristics one and two as described by Foucault illu strate that the au thor function is a construct and no t a theoretical given.

This is a p o in t m ade m ost forcefully in the th ird characteristic , w hich is th a t the au thor function 'does no t develop spon taneously as the a ttr ib u tio n of a d iscourse to an ind iv idual. It is, ra the r, the resu lt of a com plex operation w hich constructs a certain rational being th a t w e call "au tho r" '. Foucault claim s that:

these aspects of an ind iv idual w hich we designate as m aking him an au th o r are only a projection , in m ore or less psychologizing te rm s, of the o p e ra tio n th a t we force texts to u n d e rg o , the connections that we m ake, the traits tha t we establish as pertinen t, the co n tin u ities th a t w e recognise, or the exc lusions th a t w e practice.!^

! ^ ibid.. p .l09.

!^ loc. cit.

!9 ibid.. p.llO .

The Author Function 32

H ere w e have the crux of the au tho r function, and the reason, no doubt, w h y it is called a 'func tion ' ra the r than sim ply 'th e a u th o r ' (although F oucault ra ther loosely in terchanges the two). A ccording to Foucault, we do no t link a text to the au thor (m ore correctly 'the w riter' in Foucauldian term s), w hich is p resum ably w hat we im agine we are do ing w hen w e talk abou t the au thor, b u t w ork on the text in a specific m ode, p lacing it (or them ) in a d iscursive m ode called 'th e au tho r function '. W e could say from this th a t 'the au tho r function ', w hen w e choose to operate a text in th is m an n er, is co term inous w ith the text itself. In o the r w o rd s , 'th e au th o r function ' is no t a 'con tex t', a 'b ackg round ' against w hich w e can p lace a p a rticu la r text or texts, it is a w ay of rea d in g and m ak ing connections and explain ing and in terpreting . F oucault's objection to this runs along ethical lines, m uch as we found Barthes's real objections came d o w n to m oral p references ra th e r than objections along any a priori theoretical grounds. Foucault sees the au tho r's ideological function no t as the trad itional place w here 'm ean ing begins to pro liferate , to pro liferate indefin itely ', as a source of genius etc., bu t as allow ing 'a lim itation ' of the p ro liferation of m ean ing .20 We can sense Foucault's dislike for the au thor function w hen he states:

the au tho r does no t p recede the w orks; he is a certain functional p rin c ip le by w hich , in o u r cu ltu re , one lim its, exc ludes, and chooses; in short, by w hich one im pedes the free circulation , the free m a n ip u la tio n , the free com position , d eco m p o sitio n , an d recom position of fiction.

Yet Foucault realises th a t to im agine or claim the possib ility th a t fiction could 'operate in an absolutely free sta te ' w ithou t any such constra in t is 'p u re rom anticism ', b u t still looks forw ard to a tim e w hen w e do n o t ask th e q u es tio n s 'w h o sp o k e? ', 'h o w d e e p ly /a u th e n tic a lly /o r ig in a lly ? '. F oucault's express desire is to m ake us indifferent to the au tho r function, so th a t w e can claim , like Beckett, 'W hat difference does it m ake w ho is sp e ak in g ? ' . 22 Instead Foucault w ants to shift the em phasis of in terest onto questions of pow er and discourse and their m odes of existence. But in all th is , as w ith B arthes, it sh o u ld be no ted th a t there are no theoretical

20 ibid.. p .ii8 .

21 ib lA / pp.118-9.

22 ibid.. p .l20.

The Author Function 33

objections to the no tion of an au th o r. Instead , they are fo u n d ed on ideological and ethical g rounds. A nd just as it w as possible to tu rn the Barthes essay back on itself in arguing for the possibility of an 'o rig inal' 'vo ice ' after all — w hether w e choose to accept it o r n o t (an ethical or political choice, no t a theoretical one) — we can likewise tu rn the Foucault article back on itself and state tha t the au tho r function can be retrieved if w e so desire since there is no th ing theoretically anathem a to it. The m ost useful aspects of Foucault's (whose? his?) essay are the distinction betw een 'the w rite r ' and 'the au tho r function ', and the notion tha t (if w e go on to ex tra p o la te from F o u cau lt's a rg u m en t) th a t the au th o r fu n c tio n is co term inous w ith the text, th a t the au tho r function is an o pera tion the text undergoes.

It m igh t seem in all this tha t I have avoided tw o central issues in dea ling w ith 'the au th o r', h id ing in effect beh ind Barthes and Foucault. One w ou ld be the com m on-sense notion of 'the au thor' being 'the w riter ', a p o in t th a t F oucault gets ro u n d by claim ing this no tion is as m uch a fallacy as iden tify ing the 'T of a piece of fiction w ith 'the w rite r ' of the fiction. B ut can 'the a u th o r fu nction ' really be som eth ing com pletely d is tinc t from 'the w rite r '? A re n o t the tw o linked in som e inextricable w ay? To pose it as Foucault has is to posit that 'the au tho r function ' is construc ted from the texts bearing the nam e of the au th o r and has no connection w ith the 'real w riter'. But can this be true? W hilst read ing texts u n d e r 'the au thor function ' m ight be an activity that regards bo th function an d tex t as co term inous, the construc tion of tha t au th o r function has involved 'the w riter'. A concept such as 'the au thor function ', as po rtrayed by Foucault, even w ith o u t the re -in troduction of the 'o rig in a tin g ' and 'o rig inal' au thor tha t w as retrieved from Barthes, w ould seem to hold o u t a possib ility of the m ediation the thesis seeks, since 'the au tho r function ' w ou ld include m aterial norm ally considered extraneous to the text w hilst itself being generated by those sam e texts. 'The au thor function ' could, for exam ple , qu ite easily con tain all those elem ents B arthes co n sid ered an terio r — 'society, h isto ry , psyche and liberty ' — and yet still be an im m an en ce -b ased theory . The p ro b lem is th a t 'th e w r i te r '/ 'a u th o r (function)' d istinction is no t com plete. We can look a t the possib ility of d istingu ish ing betw een 'the w rite r ' and the 'au th o r function ', and at the no tion of 'the originating au thor,' th rough w hat I consider boundary cases, th a t is, cases that w ill stretch all of these ideas. For an analysis of 'the

The Author Function 34

au th o r function ' there are the instances of Paul de M an and T hom as Pynchon .

'Thom as Pynchon is fam ous for no t being "Thom as P ynchon '": the w riter refuses to p lay the role of the author. We know a few 'facts' abou t the h is to rica l existence of T hom as P ynchon, date-o f-b irth , ed ucation , em ploym ent, ancestry. H is conspicuous absence has generated its ow n ap o cry p h a , such as Jules S iegel's artic le in Playboy en title d 'W ho Is Thom as Pynchon . . . and W hy Did He Take Off W ith M y W ife?' in w hich Siegel claims to have been a friend of Pynchon 's, as well as claim ing tha t Pynchon h ad an affair w ith his w ife, Chrissie.23 A m ongst o the r th ings, Jules p rov ides us w ith C hriss ie 's assessm en t of T hom as P ynchon as a lover. A t the o ther end of the scale, W eisenberger's in tro d u c tio n to A 'Gravity 's Rainbow' Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel goes ou t of its w ay to respect Thom as Pynchon's privacy, and prin ts ju st the basic publicly-know n facts.24

As to P aul de M an, a critic often considered one of the m ain instigato rs and p roponen ts of deconstruction in A m erican academ ia, his 'fa ll' is n o t just a resu lt of the silence he m ain ta ined abou t his past, b u t th a t

[t]he scandal h ad to do w ith w ords and w ith silence, w ith w h at de M an w ro te in Belgium and w h a t he d id n 't say in A m erica. P erhaps it w a sn 't coincidental th a t de M an's practice d ea lt on an abstract p lane w ith w ords and w ith silence — and th a t there had long been those w ho felt tha t de M an 's theory had the effect of silencing language.25

L ehm an goes on to say 'The belated discovery of his w artim e journalism h ad the effect of requ iring his s tu d en ts to reconsider his en tire m atu re oeuvre in the light of the belated revelations'.26

W ith Thom as Pynchon and de M an it is clear th a t we have facts abou t the w r i te r /a u th o r tha t can im pinge upon their w orks ' m eanings.

23 Jules Siegel, "Who Is Thomas Pynchon . . . and Why Did He Take Off With My Wife?" Playboy 34 (March, 1977), pp.97, 122, 168-170,172, 174.

24 Steven W eisenberger, A 'G ravity 's Rninhoiu' Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988).

23 Lehman, op. cit., p .l58.

26 loc. cit.

The Author Function 35

T hom as P ynchon 's w orks are renow ned for their cham pioning of people on the m argins, 'hum an w aste ', people w ho have slipped th rough 'official' society. P ynchon 's act of reclusiveness appears as a re-enactm ent of this m arg in a lisa tio n . It m ig h t also be taken as an act of su b v e rs io n , a counterforce, even a counter-conspiracy, actions tha t have affinities w ith Gravity's Rainbow and o ther of h is w orks. W ith Paul de M an, it is no t on ly n o ted th a t h is personal silence correla tes w ith his ph ilosoph ica l stan d p o in t, b u t tha t his style of w riting and his personality com m anded 'th e rh e to ric of a u th o ri ty ', w hich is at od d s w ith the d en ia l of an a u th o ris in g a u th o r .27 P aul de M an w as also a b igam ist, a lthough , like P ynchon 's 'ru n n in g -o ff w ith Jules Siegel's w ife, this does no t loom large in the herm eneutic stakes. It is easy to see how in both cases these au thors ' texts are p laced in a d iscursive m ode called the 'au th o r function ' w ith reg a rd s to som e in fo rm ation (co llaboration and silence; rec lusiveness, 'ou tside-the-system '), b u t no t w ith regards to o ther item s of in form ation th a t are know n (the re la tionsh ip of w ives to Paul de M an an d Thom as P ynchon, for instance). W e m ight separate ou t these tw o areas in to tw o d isc u rs iv e fields, one called 'b io g ra p h y ' and the o th e r 'th e au th o r function '. From this it is feasible to say tha t 'the au thor function ' is a text­genera ted d iscursive field since it is w holly d ep en d en t u p o n perceived textual m eanings. The fact that Pynchon had an affair w ith som eone's wife does no t enter this 'au thor function ' field because it is no t p a rt of the text's m eaning(s).

To conclude this chapter, it is clear tha t the tw o m ain attacks of B arthes and Foucault on the sociohistorical notion of 'the au th o r', along w ith the ir p o sts tru c tu ra lis t successors, are fundam entally flaw ed w ith in the ir ow n delim itations (and if we take Barthes's po in t that all the o ther sociohistorical m aterial com es along w ith this term , then it is basically the w hole attack on the contextualist theoretical cam p tha t is flaw ed). From the p o in t of view of 'the au tho r function ', it appears fair to say th a t the m ed ia tion betw een the tw o cam ps is alw ays already there. The au tho r function as described by Barthes and Foucault is, desp ite their w ishes to the contrary , there in the form of 'un iqueness ' and 'the w rite r ', concerns th a t are extrinsic w ith respect to their ow n form ulations of herm eneu tic tex tu a l im m anence yet necessary to the au tho r function. W hether w e regard these factors as in som e w ay generated by the texts them selves, as w ith the argum en t p roposed above th a t only certain b iograph ical details

27 Frank Lentricchia, quoted in Lehman, ibid., p .149.

The Author Function 36

are critically pertinen t to the text (wives, evidently, are not, a t least in the cases of Paul de M an and Thom as Pynchon) and therefore in concordance w ith 'im m anen t' m ethodologies, theories and approaches, or w hether we call those factors sociohistorical from the start, p rov id ing a nexus w herein the text can be fitted, is apparen tly beside the point. 'The au thor function ' exists a t all levels here d iscussed and is therefore a m ediation. W e can say th a t it is a necessary cond ition for our u n d e rs ta n d in g of L ite ra tu re . H ow ever, it is not a sufficient condition, and problem s for m ediation like those of 'in ten tion ', the sta tus of know ledge (and m eaning) in postm odern th e o ry o r the p o s tm o d e rn age, an d e v a lu a tio n , rem a in (a lth o u g h follow ing the logic th rough of our assessm ent of the im m anen t cam p of th ink ing the problem s p resum ably have already d isappeared). These are the concerns of the rem aining chapters of Section I.

The Author Function 37

"Murder Case Man s 'Tffireat ’ to Sftoot ‘Teddy ‘Bears Intention in Literary ‘Tfieory

A m an accused of m urd er in a petro l station robbery once lined up teddy bears in his bedroom and th reatened them w ith a gun , a ju ry at W inchester crow n court w as to ld yesterday.M arlene T hom as, aged 18, sa id she and her fo rm er b o y frien d M o h a m m e d N a z ir w ere liv in g w ith h is co -accu sed , Jam il C how dhary , in a squat in Oxford.Miss Thom as said she saw M r N azir, aged 21, w ith a 2-ft long gun in the bedroom . "There w ere som e teddy bears, w hich he p u t on the floor. He just s ta rted fooling around , runn ing around w ith the gun, po in ting it at the teddy bears and saying: 'which one's first?"'!

It seem s to m e th a t th is article is a good exam ple of the p roblem s and p o ss ib ilitie s of in te n tio n , a long w ith its accom plices, m ean in g and evidence. The first in ten tion , the th rea t to shoot teddy-bears, appears to vouchsafe for a second in ten tion yet to be decided: the in ten t to m urder. The fact th a t the accused th rea tened to kill teddy bears also suggests an unbalanced m ind — the m ind of a m urderer (or the k ind of m ind tha t can contain the desire to m urder). But w hy are there protective m arks around the w o rd 'th re a t '? Does th is indicate the article 's ow n doub ts as to the valid ity of either in te rp re ta tion of the facts? Does the article, by inferring th a t a th rea t to shoot teddy-bears is no t a real threat, in tend to underm ine the connection th a t the p rosecu tion m akes betw een the tw o in ten tions? A nd w h a t abou t m e, the reader of the text? I find the article hum orous, b u t am troub led because it appears on page 2 of a so-called respectable new spaper, trad itionally a serious new s page dealing w ith serious events, a lthough no t averse to w h at it considers to be am using item s. I im agine o ther people w ill no t find it funny at all, and m ight even find m y use of it ta s te le s s .2 Is the in ten tion to m ake m e laugh? To m ake m e laugh and think? A nd could th a t issue be decided if I asked the w riter? A nd if he or she to ld m e th a t it w as in tended to be a serious piece of journalism , w hat then happens to m y response of laughter? Should I change it in the light of this evidence, or does it not m atter? A nd then, w hat of the suspect? D id he really in tend to kill the teddy bears? W ould I be able to rem ove the pro tec tive m arks from around the w ord 'th rea t' if the defendan t, ra ther

! "Murder Case Man's 'Threat' To Shoot Teddy Bears" The Guardian, 11 March 1992, p.2.

2 In fact I find it both funny and tasteless.

Intention in Literary Theory 38

than the journalist, said it w as the real intention? W hy d id he ask w hich ted d y -b ear w as first? W as that, of any significance? W as it a rhetorical gesture, or d id he really believe he was going to shoot the teddy-bears and w an ted to give them a choice? A nd w as the intention beh ind selecting this piece of in form ation from the court p roceedings for the article to show th a t the defendan t w as always, or at least potentially alw ays, unstable? In all these areas, is the in ten tion fundam en tally rela ted to the m ean ing in th a t if I find the in ten tion I au tom atica lly have the m eaning? A nd are these no tions of in ten tion and m ean ing the sam e w hen w e talk abou t literature , criticism and literary theory?

I can know w h at you r u tte ran ce m eans "in itself"; w h a t you in ten d ed your u tte rance to m ean; w hat you m ean by u tte rin g it; w hat it "really m eans"; w h a t its w ords mean; and so on. A nd I can have a sense of know ing only a p art of your m eaning — w h at your w ords m ean b u t no t w hat you m ean by them; w hat you m ean to say b u t no t w h at your w ords m ean; the w ords b u t no t (as w e say) the tu n e .3

It is easy to u n d ers tan d from all these questions and problem s w hy the idea of in ten tion seem s like the po t of gold at the end of the herm eneutic rainbow . P u t sim ply, we w ould say that the m eaning of a text is dependen t u p o n w h at has been in tended by the author. All in terpretative difficulties, in c lu d in g questions of aesthetics, w o u ld be reso lved by an appeal to w hichever m ean ing or aesthetic stra tegy had been in tended . We w ould th en alw ays be su re w h a t a p a rticu la r w ork of L ite ra tu re m ean t by determ in ing w h at the in ten tions had been. For all those concerned w ith the in te rp re ta tion of L iterature, w hich m ust surely form the m ajority (to say th a t L ite ra tu re shou ld ju st 'be ' ra the r than 'm ean ' is really ano ther in te rp re ta tio n ) , th is m eth o d o lo g ica l p ro ce d u re m ig h t have th e o d d problem in practice, b u t at least the theory beh ind it w ou ld be clear and precise. A n in te rp re ta tio n th a t p ro p o sed a m ean ing th a t could no t be su p p o rted by evidence tha t show ed the m eaning was in tended w ould be in teresting , b u t could be rendered invalid. L iterature m ight then approach som e k ind of scientific s ta tus, using inform ation tha t could be b ro u g h t fo rw ard as evidence to be judged in the court of literary criticism , m uch as

3 Colom b, Gregory G. and Mark Turner, "Computers, Literary Theory, and Theory of M eaning" in Ralph Cohen, ed.. The Future of Literary Theory (N ew York and London: Routledge, 1989), p.407.

Intention in Literary Theory 39

the m an w ho threatened the teddy bears w as judged. M y in itial in ten tion is to try to find the po t of gold.

A t p resen t, the w eigh t of evidence aga inst in ten tio n in literary th eo ry v irtu a lly am oun ts to a m athem atical p roo f as to w hy , exactly, 'in te n tio n ' is no th in g m ore than 'foo l's go ld '. Just to be asked to even th ink abou t in ten tion seem s to be a request to trund le o u t argum ents tha t have the air of redundancy . The very lack of cu rren t debate abou t it in literary academ ia w ou ld suggest th a t it has becom e an obsolete concept, desp ite the w ork of the od d hardened 'in ten tionalist' such as E. D. H irsch, the k ind of person w ho w ill ju st no t listen to reason and revise his views. So w h atev er did h ap p en to 'in ten tio n '? A review of its h is to ry shou ld allow us to shed som e light on the problem s and possibilities.

In S um m er 1946 The Sewanee Review p u b lish ed an article by W im satt and Beardsley called "The In ten tional Fallacy". It com es to us these days as the first essay in th a t N ew Critical classic The Verbal Icond W im sa tt an d B eardsley place them selves and the ir article ag a in s t a h isto rical b ackg round w here the n o tion tha t the a u th o r 's in ten tio n is p rim ary is already taken for granted. They are referring to tha t age we, like them , regard as prehistoric, a tim e w hen literary theory and criticism w ere p o p u la ted by beliefs in, as W im satt and Beardsley p u t it: 'in sp ira tio n , au then ticity , b iography , literary h istory and scho larsh ip '.5 They succinctly describe the 'in ten tional fallacy' in another article as 'a confusion betw een the poem and its origins . . . . It begins by trying to derive the stan d ard of criticism from the psychological causes of the poem and ends in b iography an d re la tiv ism '.6

There are tw o m ajor issues w ith w hich the essay "The In ten tional Fallacy" is concerned. The first is to find a m eans of assessing the worth of a piece of literature, an idea that appears to have little valid ity in cu rren t literary theory. N evertheless, it is w orth noting tha t this is the context in w hich in ten tion first appears since it dem onstrates ju st how em bedded and in terlinked each of the issues in Section I have been in the past, and, so this Section show s, still are. W im satt and Beardsley's a rgum ent is 'th a t

4 W imsatt, W. K. R., Jr., and M. Beardsley, The Verbal Icon: Studies in the M eaning of Poetry (Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 1954).

3 ibid., p.3.

6 In "The Affective Fallacy", ibid., p.21.

Intention in Literary Theory 40

the design or in tention of the au thor is neither available nor desirable as a s tan d ard for judging the success of a w ork of literary art . . . '7 H ere they are reacting against the belief that, as they say, Tn order to judge the poet's p erfo rm an ce , w e m u st know what he in tended '! The second issue is concerned w ith how we are to u nderstand w hat a poem is about, a lthough w e take their argum ents to hold good for L iterature as a w hole and no t just poetry.

Their objections to in ten tion are three-fold. Firstly, they argue th a t ju s t because som e design ing intellect has caused the poem to com e into existence this does no t in any w ay g ran t a s tandard from w hich the w ork can be judged. The second and th ird reasons for d ism issing in tention are a m ixture of N ew Critical dogm a and psychology. I quote this in full because it underlies m uch of the subsequent thinking in the history of intention:

O ne m ust ask how a critic expects to get an answ er to the question about intention. H ow is he to find ou t w hat the poet tried to do? If the poet succeeded in do ing it, then the poem itself show s w h at he w as try ing to do. A nd if the poet d id no t succeed, then the poem is n o t adequate evidence, and the critic m ust go ou tside the poem — for evidence of an in ten tion that d id no t becom e effective in the poem .^

This first issue, that of eva lua tion , has no direct bearing on the second issue they tackle: the m ean ing of a w ork. It is n evertheless cu riously linked , as the above com m ents w ould logically suggest, to the h istory of in ten tion in tha t it becom es en tangled in the question of in terpretation , as w e shall see la ter w hen we com e to F. D. H irsch. This second issue of m eaning is ascribed m uch less em phasis in the essay. As w ith the "M urder Case M an 's 'Threat' to Shoot Teddy Bears" text, it is a question of evidence. W im sa tt and B eardsley see 'a d ifference betw een in te rna l and ex ternal evidence for the m eaning of a poem '.io Today we w ould und erstan d it as the d ifference betw een m eaning as determ ined by considerations of the tex t itself, and m ean ing as d e te rm in ed by in fo rm ation g leaned from sources o ther than the text, in o ther w ords, the very antithetical cam ps w e

2 ibid.. p.3.

3 ibid.. p.4.

9 loc. cit.

ibid.. p.lO.

Intention in Literary Theory 41

are a tte m p tin g to m ed ia te betw een . It seem s th a t u n d e r ly in g th e ir m anoeuvre is the follow ing problem : they first of all deny th a t w h at the au thor had in tended to w rite can be any gu ide for judging the stan d ard of a literary w ork 's success. But hav ing th row n au th o r's in ten tions ou t for one reason they then use this very jettisoning as the basis for som ething essen tia lly u n co n n ec ted , the den ia l of the p o ssib ility th a t a u th o r 's in ten tions can be used for au thorising and determ ining m eaning, w hich is entirely a separate issue. The problem is fu rther com pounded because they refuse to state categorically tha t once the au thor is rem oved m eaning thus becom es im m anen t in the text, th a t is, they do no t p rom ote the no tion th a t the m ean ing of a text is im m anen t in the text. This m u st beg the question 'W here does m eaning reside?'.

W im satt and Beardsley do, in fact, prov ide answ ers to the issues of literary w orth and m eaning, and it is exactly the answ er tha t the h istory of in ten tion constantly provides us w ith in one form or another. They show us how w e can judge a piece of w ork and how we can locate its m eaning. For b o th judgem en t and m eaning lie no t w ith the au tho r and his or her ephem era, and not, as we m ight have expected, w ith the autonom ous text, b u t w ith w hat they call the public, w hat m ight be term ed in today 's jargon the social sphere. H aving got rid of the au thor and the au th o r's intention , they m ove on to concentrate on w hat k ind of evidence can be used in the court of literary theory to su p p o rt the sem antic autonom y of the text. They d iv id e th is ev id en ce in to th ree types: ex tern a l, in te rn a l an d the in term ediate . In ternal evidence, w hich is the text itself and is superficially regarded as private, is, they argue, already public, because language is in all in stances social. Fx ternal ev idence, such as le tters, jou rnals, rep o rted conversations, w hat is usually regarded as public, is really private, for, as they claim , it is 'n o t a p a rt of the w ork as a lingu istic fa c t '.ü T heir in te rm ed ia te th ird type is 'ab o u t the character of the au th o r or abou t p rivate or sem iprivate m eanings attached to w ords or topics by an au thor or by a coterie of w hich he is a m e m b e r ' . ! 2 'The difficulty for criticism ', accord ing to W im satt and Beardsley, is that all th ree types of evidence shade in to each other. We could therefore sum m arise their a rgum ent and the difficulties en tailed in the fo llow ing m anner: w e cannot know w h at the au tho r in tended w ith regards to his or her w ork of art, for a m ixture of

! ! loc. cit.

!2 loc. cit.

Intention in Literary Theory 42

psychological and ep istem ological reasons, as w ell as the N ew Critical s ta tu s of the arte fact, th a t is, as an au to n o m o u s an d se lf-su ffic ien t generato r of m eaning. Judgem ent of its success or failure as a w ork of art lies pu rely in the public dom ain. The m eaning of the w ork also cannot be determ ined th rough recourse to au th o r's in tentions, since, as p rev iously a rg u ed , these in ten tions are unknow able and irre levant. M eanings, like e v a lu a tio n s , are social. W e cou ld describe W im satt an d B eardsley 's p ro b lem as a des ire to re g a rd the a rte fac t as au to n o m o u s w h ils t s im u lta n eo u sly m ain ta in in g th a t the eva lua tions of it an d m ean ings perta in ing to it are in fact a function of social determ inations. R ight a t the beg inn ing of the h isto ry of in ten tion w e have the m ain characters and fau lt lines th a t can generate the rest of the narrative: the pu ll betw een language as self-sufficient and language as social, betw een our desire to find our evidence in the text and our desire to find it socially determ ined. I u se the w o rd desire . I cou ld also use the w ord belief, since none of W im satt and B eardsley 's argum ents have a priori grounds. I w an t to ho ld to this tension betw een the social and the textual as the narra tive th read th a t helps generate the h istory of intention.

W e now m ove from 1942 to 1967, the first of tw o fifteen-year cycles in th is h istory, w hen two notable events take place. The first event is the pub lication of E. D. H irsch 's Validity in Interpretation, w hich p rov ides a d efen ce fo r the p rim a cy of the a u th o r 's in te n tio n s in d e c id in g m eaning(s).!3 That the second event occurs in 1967 is no t so certain. If it does, it is a lecture given by Paul de M an entitled "Form and In ten t in the A m erican N ew C riticism ". We have no h ard evidence for its existence u n til the publication in 1971 of Blindness and InsightM The Preface to this book suggests the paper was given in either 1966 or 1967. H ow ever, for the sake of h isto ry and the sake of neatness, let us assum e tha t bo th H irsch and de M an en tered the narrative of in tention in the sam e year.

B eginning w ith H irsch, w h at his book has to say abou t in ten tion can m ost easily be u n d ersto o d by w hat his aim is, cap tu red in the title Validity in Interpretation. A ccording to H irsch, the only tim e it is possible to have a valid in te rp re ta tion is w hen there is a determ inab le m eaning open to rational d ispu te, and this m eaning has to be located in the author.

!3 E. D. Hirsch Jr., op. c

!4 Paul de Man, op. cit.,

Intention in Literary Theory 43

'For if the m eaning of a text is no t the au tho r's , then no in terp re ta tion can possib ly correspond to the m eaning of the text, since the text can have no d eterm ina te or determ inable m e a n i n g ' . ! 5 go, to 'save the ideal of valid ity [the theorist] has to save the au thor as well'.^^ H irsch actually agrees w ith W im sa tt an d B eardsley 's 'in ten tio n al fallacy ' in so far as it app lies to eva lua tion and judgem ent. T hat is, to judge the artistic success of, for exam ple , H a rd y 's Tess of the D ’Urbevilles and H ard y 's effectiveness in com m unicating w hatever it w as he w an ted to com m unicate, a distinction has to be m ade betw een the a u th o r 's in ten tions and the w ork itself, o therw ise there w ould be no th ing to evaluate. But for H irsch this activity sh o u ld be classified as criticism , an d n o t in te rp re ta tio n , a lth o u g h in p rac tice ju d g em en t and the search for m ean ing are often in te rtw ined . U nlike evaluation and criticism , w hich are subjective, for H irsch m eaning can be determ ined and ad judicated objectively. He is careful to state tha t he does no t believe in certain know ledge, bu t in probabilities — in other w ords, given all the evidence, w hat is probably true. Hence, he is talking of va lid ity and n o t of verification . To argum ents th a t a w o rk 's m ean ing changes over tim e, he d istingu ishes betw een m eaning and significance. The m ean in g , w h ich is recoverab le from the a u th o r 's in ten tio n s , is consisten t and unchangeable. W hat in fact changes is the significance of the w ork, how it com pares to o ther w orks, for instance, or w hat relevance it has, or w hether it is now considered beautiful. For H irsch, significance also belo n g s in the d o m ain of critic ism and su b jec tiv ity , w h ereas in te rp re ta tion is no t open to those vagaries. For H irsch, in te rp re ta tion can objectively decide upon the m ost probable m eaning of a text, th a t is, the m eaning in tended by the author.

Like W im sa tt and B eardsley , H irsch p roves to be a m ess of co n trad ic tio n s. For instance, he claim s th a t we n eed to d is tin g u ish betw een w h at a text m eans, and w h at it m eans for s o m e o n e .!7 H irsch is obviously only in terested in the form er, w hat the text m eans in itself, an a rgum en t w hich clearly tends tow ards N ew Criticism and text-autonom y. H is a rgum ent goes on to show how we can determ ine this m eaning. From w h at he has said previously we w ould be forgiven for expecting this to be conditional upon the author. But it is really no th ing of the k ind. Verbal

!3 op. cit., p.5.

!6 ib id ., p.6.

!7 ib id ., p.39.

Intention in Literary Theory 44

m ean ing dep en d s u pon being able to determ ine w h at im plications of a te x t sh o u ld be in c lu d e d or ex c lu d ed , for m ean in g d e p e n d s u p o n im plications, and these can be determ ined by narrow ing dow n the class of the tex t as far as possib le, som eth ing d ep en d en t upon trad itio n , date, genre, and in p a rt the au thor, by v irtue of the fact of w hatever else he or she has w ritten . A q u o ta tio n from H irsch 's book sh o w s ju s t how superfic ially he appears to be m utua lly incom patib le w ith W im satt and Beardsley, b u t in fact re-iterates those very tensions, desires and beliefs we prev iously found:

au tho ria l w ill is a form al requ irem en t for determ inacy . Of equalim portance is the sharab ility of verbal m eaning , and for this thenecessary re q u irem en t is the ex istence of sh a re d conven tions.Verbal m eaning is both a w illed type and a shared type.!^

Im m ed ia te ly noticeable is the con trast betw een 'sh a rab ility of verbal m eaning ' and 'w illed type'. The w illed type takes us back to the text itself, w hich p resu p p o ses a consciousness beh ind the text, b u t is of no m ore consequence than that. N ow 'shared type ' is a confusion of tw o d ifferent th ings. It m eans bo th th a t verbal m eaning is by its very n a tu re sharable, social, and tha t the text fits into shared , that is, conventional, categories, a referra l back to trad ition , date and genre. All this am ounts to the sam e problem atic w e found in W im satt and Beardsley: the issues of w here the m eaning resides; w hat evidence can be used to decide it; w h at sta tus tha t ev id en c e is g iven . W im sa tt an d B eardsley try to m ake the tex t sem antically au tonom ous, try to m ake m eaning reside in the text, or if w e use the w ord 'belief' instead of desire, believe that the text is sem antically au tonom ous. But they are unable to m ake it self-sufficient, nor do they believe it. H irsch likew ise tries to m ake m eaning determ inab le , and in d irec t con trast to W im satt and Beardsley, w ith recourse to the au th o r's intentions. He fares no better and has to resort to the 'sharability ' of verbal m eaning. In o ther w ords, and like W im satt and Beardsley, he resorts to m ean ing as socially determ ined. By the way, w hat then happens to in ten t and the au tho r's intentions is unclear. A final blast from H irsch will show how confused his argum en t against his predecessors is, for he says th a t beneath 'the in tentional fallacy' and the no tion of 'sem antic au tonom y' is an assum ption of 'public consensus' w hich if true w ould render W im satt

13 ib id ., p.67.

Intention in Literary Theory 45

and B eardsley 's a rgum ents p lausible. But for H irsch no such consensus ever exists, 'The pub lic m ean ing of a text is no th ing m ore or less than those m eanings w hich the public happens to construe from the tex t', and in any case, there never is such a consensus.!^ But if no consensus exists for public m eaning, just how is his notion of sharability to be taken? H ow is a sharable verbal m eaning different from a public m eaning? The history of in ten tion once again throw s us into the social realm.

P au l de M an 's essay, "Form an d In ten t in the A m erican N ew C riticism ", is an a ttem pt to m ediate betw een form and intent, and as such, in the h isto ry of intention, m ight be regarded as one of the first deliberate a ttem p ts to overcom e the d ifficulties of th a t tension I ou tlin ed a t the beg inn ing betw een the N ew Critical au tonom ous text and w h at appears for them to be the u n fo rtu n a te in trinsic social n a tu re of language and L ite ra tu re , u n fo rtuna te because it negates all N ew Critical a rg u m en ts .20

D e M an believes he is w o rk in g a t a tim e w hen the n o tio n of the au tonom ous aesthetic object is under threat, from structu ralism in France, a n d in A m erica fro m 'so c io lo g ica l, p o lit ica l, an d p sy c h o lo g ic a l c o n s id e ra tio n s '.2! P resum ably de M an w as unaw are of the 'th re a t ' from Hirsch! De M an says 'The kind of autonom y to be found in literary w orks is certainly far from self-evident; it has to be redefined . . . '.22

"Form and Intent" is an essay tha t packs in a large num ber of ideas on the question of in ten tion in a w ay tha t suggests logical p rogression from one to the next. Yet at each stage it can be seen that there is no logical follow -on. De M an uses tw o sets of im ages w ith w hich to p o rtray his n o tio n of in ten tio n . The firs t set e s tab lish es a d is tin c tio n b e tw e en 'in ten tional objects', such as chairs, and 'n a tu ra l objects', such as stones. 'N a tu ra l objects' can be described w ith o u t any reference to in tention . Of the in ten tional object de M an says, 'the m ost rigorous descrip tion of the percep tions of the object "chair" w ou ld rem ain m eaningless if one does n o t o rganise them in function of the potential act that defines the object;

ibid.. p .13.

20 I w ould actually cite the work of The Prague School as first treading this path.

21 op. cit., p.21.

22 ibid.. p.22.

Intention in Literary Theory 46

nam ely , th a t it is destined to be sa t on'.^s An 'allusion to the use to w hich it is p u t ' is thus in tegral to the conception of the significance of the chair. H av ing delineated w hat constitutes an 'in tentional object' de M an goes on to argue for the re-in troduction of a concept of 'in ten tio n ', believing its su p p re ss io n by W in isa tt an d B eardsley in the ir fo rm u la tio n of 'th e in ten tional fallacy' renders the 'status of literary language . . . sim ilar to th a t of a na tu ra l object'. De M an argues tha t their d ism issal of in tention , and the subsequen t dism issal of in tention by others, has been based on a false no tion of in ten tion . 1 quo te it in som e detail to illu stra te w h a t p e rh a p s still p ers is ts to th is day as the com m on u n d e rs ta n d in g of in ten tion (a 'rem arkably tenacious' understand ing de M an calls it), as well as illustra ting de M an 's ow n conception of structural in ten tionality w hich con tinues to use the im age of a chair. In itially he is tak ing issue w ith W im satt and B eardsley 's characterisation of intention in The Verbal Icon:

'In ten t' is seen, by analogy w ith a physical m odel, as a transfer of a psychic or m ental content that exists in the m ind of the poet to the m ind of a reader, som ew hat as one w ould pour w ine from a jar into a glass. A certain conten t has to be transferred elsew here, and the energy necessary to effect the transfer has to come from an ou tside sou rce called in ten tion . This is to ignore th a t the concep t of in tentionality is neither physical nor psychological in its natu re , b u t s tru c tu ra l, invo lv ing the ac tiv ity of a subject reg a rd le ss of its em pirical concerns, except as far as they relate to the in ten tionality of the s tru c tu re . The s tru c tu ra l in te n tio n a lity d e te rm in es the rela tionsh ip betw een the com ponents of the resu lting object in all its parts, b u t the rela tionsh ip of the particular state of m ind of the person engaged in the act of structurization to the struc tu red object is altogether contingent. The structu re of the chair is determ ined in all its com ponents by the fact that it is destined to be sa t on, b u t the structu re in no w ay depends on the state of m ind of the carpenter w ho is in the process of assem bling its parts. The case of the w ork of l i te ra tu re is of co u rse m o re com plex , y e t h e re a lso , the in tentionality of the act, far from threatening the un ity of the poetic entity , m ore definitely establishes this un ity .24

In contrast to the chair im age, w hich also represents the hypostasis of the 'poetic act', de M an tu rns to N o rth ro p F rye 's no tion of in ten tion , w hich for de M an is closer to W im satt and B eardsley 's 'poetic act' before they

23 ibid.. p.24.

24 ibid.. p.25.

Intention in Literary Theory 47

have suppressed 'in tention '. H ere de Man introduces his second im age set, th a t of a h u n te r taking aim (it appears im possible to d iscuss in ten tion w ith o u t hav ing to shoo t som ething). De M an says a d istinction m u st be m ade betw een the h un te r w ho takes aim at a rabbit, and the hu n te r w ho takes aim at an artificial target. In the form er, the 'in ten tion ' lies ou tside the act itself, tha t is, the in ten tion to ea t or sell the rabbit. The la tter, according to de M an, is the true im age for 'the aesthetic en tity ', since w hen the h u n te r

takes aim at an artificial target, his act has no o ther in ten tion than a im -taking for its ow n sake and constitu tes a perfectly closed and autonom ous structure. The act reflects back upon itself and rem ains circum scribed w ith in the range of its ow n in tent.25

Taking together the two im age sets de M an uses (the chair, a h un te r taking aim ) it can be seen tha t he is p resen ting two illu stra tions of the sam e th ing, the 'aesthetic en tity ', the first as it stands in relation to the notion of it as an intentional object (chair), and the second as it s tands in relation to a particu la r type of in ten tion (a hu n te r taking aim at an artificial target). But are they com patible? The chair's in tentionality is a function of its use. It is its in tended use that organises its parts, that gives it its structure. But how are w e to relate this to the h un te r taking aim? If it is 'u se ' tha t is the sign ifican t elem ent then the chair is su rely akin to the h u n te r w ho kills the rabb it rather than the hun ter w ho aim s at an artificial target, since the 'u se ' is outside the act itself, just as the use of the chair is not circum scribed w ith in its ow n lim its. The 'in ten tionality ' of the chair's s truc tu re can only be defined and described by resorting to w hat is outside. To p u t it another w ay, the chair is not 'a im ed ' at itself, autonom ous, it requires a sitter. The im age of in ten tion as rep resen ted by the chair is therefore inva lida ted w hen it comes to its applicability in relation to de M an 's discussion of the 'aesthetic object'.

But perhaps this read ing is in bad faith. It is possible that 'the chair' is only used by de M an w hen he w ants to p resen t the idea of hypostasis in W im satt and Beardsley, and that the 'h u n ter ' image is not a refinem ent of the prev ious ( 'founding ') im age, b u t used to rep resen t the 'poetic act'. In w hich case we m u st now take the im age of the h u n te r aim ing a t an artificial ta rge t as in som e sense also rep resen ting an in ten tional object.

25 ibid.. p.26. If we followed the logic of de Man's argument then the threat to shoot teddy bears w ould be the act of som eone interested only in aesthetics.

Intention in Literary Theory 48

w ith the sta tus of a founding (grounding) image. But if we are to take this im age seriously — and how can we not since it now forms the basis for the essay 's und erstan d in g of intention? — the idea of in tention as s tructu ring all parts becom es problem atic. W e are no longer able to allude to 'u se ', in the w ay w e could w ith the chair, as constitu ting any d escrip tio n of in ten tion . There is no 'u se ', since de M an classes the aesthetic object as being of the sam e ontological sta tus as th a t of a toy (although even here there w ou ld be problem s since no t all toys are ends in them selves, som e are designed w ith educational purposes specifically in m ind). If the hun ter aim ing at an artificial target 'has no other intention than aim -taking for its ow n sake ', then an aesthetic object can su rely have no o ther in ten tion th an the constitu tion of an aesthetic object for its ow n sake.26 This is the conclusion tha t m ust be d raw n if the analogy is to be follow ed th rough. U nity w ill be achieved since all parts w ill be organised according to the in ten tion of the aesthetic object to be an aesthetic object. O bviously this is sim ply a variation of the 'art-for-art's-sake' argum ent, and as such a dead ­end. H ow ever, the essay shifts its g round again in w hat is yet another non sequitur. It now begins to talk of 'm eaning '.

F or de M an, th e 'd e lib e ra te re jec tio n of the p r in c ip le of in ten tionality ' has led to a foregoing of a perception of " 'th e struggle w ith m ean ing" of w hich all criticism , includ ing the criticism of form s, shou ld g ive an a c c o u n t '.27 But w hich im age are we m ean t to take to help u n d e rs ta n d the strugg le w ith 'm ean ing '? If the essay w ishes to reclaim 'in ten t', how is 'm eaning ' m eant to correlate w ith it? Is 'm eaning ' separate from 'in ten t'? De M an's im plication is that if 'in ten t' can be re-in troduced as a basic p rem ise for any descrip tion of an aesthetic object, 'the struggle w ith m eaning ' autom atically returns. U nfortunately , the essay leaves this possib ility up in the air and m oves from the theoretical realm to the p rac tica l ou tcom e of N ew C riticism and F orm alist criticism . De M an claim s th a t the w ork of the N ew C ritics, based on the ir belief in the 'organic ' unity of the poetic text, was shattered by the very results of their analyses, nam ely, the discovery that th rough such features as irony and am biguity texts have a p lu rality of m eanings. It is tem pting to ask th a t if this is the case then w ere they not engaged in 'the struggle w ith m eaning '

26 We might also query if there can be such a thing as aim-taking for its own sake — must it not always fulfil som e desire, need or use on the part of the person taking aim?

22 ibid.. p.27.

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all the tim e? H ow ever, the essay argues th a t the un ity alw ays found in texts is no t a feature of the texts them selves b u t of the reader involved in the herm eneutic process or circle. This m u st surely negate his a ttem p t to redefine, th rough the concept of in tentional structu re , the aesthetic object as au tonom ous, since de M an's appeal to the reader now throw s the object once m ore into the social realm , as w e have seen so often th ro u g h o u t the h isto ry of intention. The explanation given is:

because such patien t and delicate attention was paid to the read ing of form s, the critics p ragm atically en tered in to the h erm eneu tic circle of in te rp re ta tion , m istak ing it for the organic circu larity of natu ra l processes.28

This reads as a very sim ilar conclusion to B arthes's p roclam ation of the b irth of the reader. De M an is asserting tha t the totality or un ity w hich has constantly been achieved by critics resided in the read ing process ('the act of in te rp re ting the text'2^) and not in the texts them selves. This view takes the aesthetic object aw ay from the idea of im m anence tha t the chair im age proffers. It begs the question of precisely how the chair im age is to be u n d e rs to o d .50 D epending upon how the essay is now evaluated , de M an's arg u m en t is confused, confusing, elusive or illogical (or all). It takes tw o aspects from H eidegger's theory of herm eneutic circularity:

The first [aspect] has to do w ith the epistem ological n a tu re of all in te rp re ta tion . C on trary to w h a t happens in the physical sciences, the in te rp re ta tio n of an in ten tio n a l act or an in ten tio n a l object alw ays im plies an understanding of the in.tent.5i

28ibid^p.29.

29 loc. cit.

30 The work of Jan M ukafovsky and his notion of 'structure' might have provided a w ay out of this for the argument that de Man is proposing, especially when MukaKovskÿ suggests that structural analysis is of a semantic nature, in Structure, Sign, and Function: Selected Essays by Jan MukaYovsky, translated and edited by John Burbank and Peter Steiner (N ew H aven and London: Yale University Press, 1978), p .128. There is usually an assumption that although the meaning of a work is variable, a description of its basic structure or pattern is not, yet surely what we take to be 'the skeleton' of a work (the 'plot' of a novel; the 'dramatic' developm ent of a play) is itself, as M ukafbvsky points out, a question of interpretation.

3f op. cit., p.29.

Intention in Literary Theory 50

A little fu rther on he refines this:

To in te rp re t an in ten t, how ever, can only m ean to u n d e rs ta n d it.N o new set of re la tionsh ip s is ad d ed to an ex isting reality , b u tre la tionsh ips that were already there are being disclosed, not only inthem selves (like the events of nature) b u t as they exist for us?'^

D e M an d e lim its the h e rm e n eu tic circle to one th a t d isco v ers the in te n tio n of the in te n tio n a l/a e s th e tic object. There is no m en tio n of 'm ean ing ' now . If w h at I have said to th is po in t ho lds true then de M an can on ly be saying tha t the in te rp re ta tive (reading) process discovers the fact th a t the aesthetic object in tends (aim s tow ard) being an aesthetic object. W hat has h appened to the 'strugg le w ith m eaning '? The problem rem ains th a t de M an does n o t m ake explicit the connection be tw een 'in te n t' and 'm ean ing '. W hilst ap p earin g to talk ab o u t the form er, he suggests the la tter, a suggestion th a t im plies read in g of the form (the aesthetic, au tonom ous structuring) can discover the structu ra l in ten t and th a t this autom atically leads to (or is) m eaning. It is in effect a m ediation b e tw een the tw o cam ps — b u t is ach ieved th ro u g h a p rocess of non sequ itu rs and is therefore no t logically sustainable. He says th a t the N ew Critics, in p ush ing their in te rp re ta tive processes to the lim it, d iscovered n o t one m ean ing b u t a p lu ra lity of significances (do sign ificances = m eanings at this juncture?). Is it the sam e th ing w hen he says, 'Far from being som eth ing ad d ed to the text, the elucida ting com m entary sim ply tries to reach the text itself, w hose full richness is there at the s ta rt '.53 But 'fu ll richness' in w hat sense? At this po in t in the essay the reader w ould logically conclude that it w as the 'full richness' of intentions. Taking stock of de M an 's essay this far we m igh t say that a text could 1) only have a single in ten tion w hich w ould organise all constituent parts (the in ten tion of an aesthetic object, p resum ably im m anent), a n d /o r 2) be d iscovered to have u n ity as a re su lt of en te rin g the herm eneu tic circle. To follow de M an 's argum ent, we will have a p lu ra lity of herm eneutic circles, each d iscovering an in ten tion ('m eaning '?). We w ill have, in o ther w ords, a tex t th a t is p lu ra lly au to n o m o u s, in the sense th a t in s tea d of one observab le s tru c tu risa tio n it has a num ber. The read er thus has the opportun ity to catch hold of a different structure or aesthetic in tentionality

32 loc. cit.

33 ibid.. p.30. 'Richness' is an interesting word to use. Is this the spectre of liberal-humanist criticism haunting the house of structuralism?

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each tim e the herm eneutic circle is entered. These intentions m u st alw ays be im m an en t in the text, o th e rw ise it cou ld only be u n d e rs to o d as som eth ing com pletely foisted onto the text by the reader. P resum ably , how ever, w e m ust m ake the leap for ourselves that de M an never m akes, and assum e th a t it is 'm ean ing ' tha t is equ ivalen t to 'in te n tio n ', since there is only one u n d e rstan d in g of in ten tion in the essay w ith respect to th is . D e M a n 's c o n fu s io n lies in h is c o n fla tio n of p o e tic s a n d herm en eu tics , if w e take poetics to be how the tex t functions, and herm eneutics to be a question of w h at the text m eans. The conflation is de M an 's a ttem p t at m ed iation I spoke about, b u t fails because of the h istory we are looking at, w hen it has been assum ed tha t the w ay a text is arranged is also its m eaning (rather than entertain ing notions of 'content' [another concept fallen by the w ayside in literary theory] the em phasis is on structure). W e can give a tem porary conclusion and say once again tha t m ean ing has gone over into the realm of the social, th a t it resides in the reader, or m ore precisely, in the interaction betw een reader and text in the h e rm e n e u tic circle. W h ils t d e a lin g w ith a rg u m e n ts th a t a s se r t im m anence, we have no ted that, con trary to their ow n assertions, the w hole m ovem ent thus far in the h istory of in ten tion has been tow ards th is social realm , w hether regarded in som e w ay as hom ogenous, as in such ph rases as 'the sharab ility of m ean ing '; or as heterogeneous and possib ly discrete, as in de M an 's herm eneutic circles, w hich m ay or m ay no t (de M an is unclear) be sharable.

If we now m ove from 1967 to 1982, the second fifteen-year cycle, we find intention once again raising its head w hen an article by Steven K napp and W alter Berm M ichaels in Critical Inquiry rekindles the flam es of the a r g u m e n t .54 The argum ents are collected in the book Against Theory: Literary Studies and the New P r a g m a t i s m This thesis po in ted o u t th a t de M an never m akes clear the relation betw een in tention and m eaning. In K napp and M ichaels' argum ent, the relation is very clear: for them it is nonsensical to conceive of m eaning w ith o u t intention. W. J. T. M itchell's in troduction to Against Theory places K napp and M ichaels neatly into the h istory of in tention this chapter has so far narrated:

34 Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels, "Against Theory", op. cit..

35 w . J. T. M itchell, ed.. A gainst Theory: Literary Studies and the N ew Pragmatism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

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H istoricists like H irsch think th a t we find m eaning by ascertain ing in te n tio n ; fo rm alis ts like W im sa tt and B eardsley (and , m ore recently , Paul de M an) think that m eaning will take care of itself if w e 'su b trac t' ex trinsic in ten tion and let the language of the text w ork on us,56

M itchell claim s tha t unlike W im satt and Beardsley, K napp and M ichaels are qu ite ind ifferen t to w here in ten tion is found. Q uoting from M itchell's in troduction again: 'Their only claim is that, in terpretation , the find ing of m eaning , just is the finding of intention. To look for one is to look for the o ther, because they are ju st the sam e th in g '.5? They illustrate it by using w h a t has becom e know n as 'the w ave poem '. They im agine som eone w alk ing along a beach. The stro ller notices som e squiggles in the sand w hich tu rn ou t to be the following:

A slum ber d id m y sp irit seal;I h ad no hum an fears:She seem ed a th ing that could not feel The touch of earthly years.

A ccording to K napp and M ichaels the person m ay 'u n d e rs ta n d w h at the w ords m ean ', recognise it as w riting and even as a poem , w ithou t needing to th ink abou t the author. N ow a w ave com es along and leaves beneath these lines the following:

N o m otion has she now , no force;She neither hears nor sees;Rolled around in ea rth 's d iurnal course W ith rocks, and stones, and trees.58

T here are now tw o possib ilities. E ither it is p u re ly accidenta l, or the p edestrian ascribes 'these m arks to som e agent capable of in ten tions (the liv ing sea, the haun ting W ordsw orth , etc.)'.59 If it is accidental, although it

36 ibid.. p.5. Although from what w e have seen, in de Man it is not clear whether the text works on the reader or vice versa.

32 loc. cit.

38 Cnficaf iM wzry 8 (1982), p.727.

39 ibid.. p.728.

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m ight seem like poetry , it clearly is not, because it is no t language, for to d ep riv e the w o rd s of an a u th o r 'is to convert them in to acciden ta l likenesses of language. They are not, after all, an exam ple of intentionless m eaning; as soon as they becom e in tentionless they becom e m eaningless as w ell'.40

So for K napp an d M ichaels m ean in g w ith o u t in te n tio n is a nonsense, som e au th o r is a lw ays involved , though no t necessarily the sign ing au thor. A nd for them it is no t a question of looking for in ten tion in o rd e r to find the m eaning , if you look for one you are necessarily seeking the other. By the w ay, the b roader argum ent of their article is tha t the w hole m istake of theory to date has been a belief th a t they can be separated.

In the fram ew ork I have constructed for the history of in tention we have apparen tly gone from one extrem e to the other, from W im satt and B eardsley 's claim that an appeal to in ten tion is fallacious, to K napp and M ichael's claim that any notion of m eaning without in ten tion is illogical. But this does not appear to help us. I in tim ated at the s ta rt th a t the p o t of go ld w ou ld consist of finding a m eans of tracking dow n in tention , w hich w ou ld then enable us to fix m eaning. W e have found both in K napp and M ichaels, b u t they tell us here and in "A Reply to O ur Critics" that it is 'fool's go ld ', as the follow ing quotation illustrates:

In our view, the object of all read ing is always the historical au thor's in ten tio n , even if the h isto rical au th o r is the u n iv e rsa l m use. T h a t's w hy w e d o n 't th ink it m akes sense to choose h is to rica l in tention — and w hy we d o n 't think it's possible to choose any kind of in ten tion .41

A nd to crow n the uselessness of this expedition to find the po t of gold at the end of the rainbow and the w hole of this chapter's historical project:

To insist, as we do, tha t the object of in te rp re ta tion is alw ays a h is to ric a l in te n tio n is, once aga in , n o t to ju stify or even to recom m end the p u rsu it of h isto rical scholarship . Textual ed ito rs, h istorical scholars. N ew Critical explicators, and everyone else — from the s ta n d p o in t of in ten tion — are all do ing the sam e thing.

40 loc. cit.

44 "A Reply to Our Critics" Critical Inquiri/ 9 (1983), p.798.

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Since it p rov ides no help in choosing am ong critical procedures, the idea of in tention is m ethodologically u s e l e s s .42

So in ten tion is fundam entally rela ted to m eaning, b u t so fundam entally it does no t help. Or does it? My in terest in K napp and M ichaels is their claim th a t we cannot escape the idea of intention , nor can we escape the idea of an au th o r, and note, it is 'an a u th o r ', no t the au thor. For them it is theoretically and practically useless. It has no consequences because it cannot help us decide w hich m ethodology to use. That is fair enough; b u t it does have consequences in th a t w e can a ttem p t to re -in troduce the no tion of an au thor and in tention into our studies of m eaning.

Before I do th a t how ever, let us im agine th a t everybody in the h isto ry of in ten tion has been right, righ t in their descrip tions b u t no t in the claim s for consequences. These positions could be form ulated thus:

1) It is no t possible to know w hat the au thor had in m ind, w hat his or her in ten tions w ere (W im satt and Beardsley, de Man)2) M eaning, language and literature are all socially determ ined and lie in the social realm (W im satt and Beardsley, de M an, H irsch , K napp and M ichaels)3) Texts are sem antically autonom ous (W im satt and Beardsley, de Man)4) There is no m eaning w ithou t in tention (Hirsch, K napp and Michaels)5) Texts are unified only in the herm eneutic circle (de Man)6) M ean ing and sign ificance ( th a t is, in te rp re ta tio n an d ev a lu a tio n [criticism]) are separate and separable (Hirsch)7) To know th a t in ten tion = m ean ing is m ethodo log ically useless in choosing am ongst critical procedures (Knapp and Michaels).

F irst of all, there is no m eaning w ithou t some kind of intention, the tw o are fundam entally related. It is also correct for K napp and M ichaels to say tha t in ten tion can be found in m any areas, the au thor, textual history, im plied speakers, the au tonom ous text as in ten tional object (as de M an envisages it), and here w e can in troduce o ther term s th a t function as 'a u th o r s ': the F re u d ia n /L a c a n ia n /K r is te v a n su b c o n sc io u s ; g en d e r; deconstruction; and ideology. All the term s au thorise the m eanings they generate in som e w ay (for exam ple the w orkings of 'the psyche ' explain and generate the psychological a n d /o r psychoanalytic m eanings) and thus

42 ib id .. p.799.

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becom e the au tho rs of those in te rp re ta tions. In all these areas the text means som eth ing , and tha t m ean ing is linked to the in ten tion to m ean, w h ichever arena is chosen. If I w an t to in te rp re t the text, and believe m ean ing resides w ith the au tho r, I w ill try to find o u t w h a t he or she in te n d ed using a range of possib le m aterial. I w ill seek o ther evidence beside the text, as W im satt and Beardsley know , as H irsch know s, as K napp and M ichaels know. I will have to accept that I will only ever know w h at it probably m eans, as H irsch points out, because, just like any theory, it can never be p roved b u t only d isproved . H ow ever, you m igh t d isagree w ith m y approach and argue that to believe in an au tho r's intentions is to subscribe to an ou tm oded hum anist ideology and that the text is the resu lt of social forces, or social m odes of p roduction . W hatever the in ten tion found here in the social arena becom es the au thor of the text's m eaning. A nd so on. W e m igh t say th a t som e approaches w ork negatively . For exam ple , d ec o n stru c tio n , som e psy ch o an a ly tica l and som e M arx is t ap p ro a ch es seek to find m ean in g in the lacunae, in w h a t w as n o t in tended , or p u t another way, in w hat w as in tended to be repressed. H ere w e have the in ten tions of the conscious/ subconscious, the in ten tions of p a tria rch y , the in ten tions of the class m atrix . A nd I th ink K napp and M ichaels are right, there is no th ing in trinsically and logically here to say th a t one m ethodo logy is better than another. All of these approaches theoretic ians, s tu d en ts and critics have found perfectly valid and useful w ays into texts at one time or another.

This brings m e on to a m uch larger issue in w hich I th ink in tention is inextricably bound . The reason w hy we cannot adjudicate betw een the n u m ero u s theories, criticism s and m ethodologies is sim ple: the re is no theoretical or practical consensus as to w hat the object of study is or how to constitu te it, nor how to constitu te the discipline know n as L iterature. It w ould be enough for som e to take the p lu ralist line and say it is a m ixture of all of these approaches and theories. For som e, like Tony Bennett in Outside Literature, English L itera ture is pu rely an ideological construc t tha t shou ld be reconstructed as a subject that can set exercises w hich can be objectively exam ined, instead of d epend ing upon hu m an ist assum ptions and using the subject of English L itera ture as a m oral tool to instil the 'correct' societal values in stu d en ts .43 For A ntony Easthope, in his Literary

43 Tony Bennett, Outside Literature (London: Routledge, 1990). One of Bennett's faults is to see the problem in terms of English Literature, which carries with it all the connotations that Bennett would like to rid it of. Surely this would not be the case if the subject were just called 'Literature'?

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Studies into Cultural Studies, literary stud ies is anyw ay dissolving in to the s tu d y of s ign ify ing prac tices, since the Leavisite legacy of the h igh c u ltu re /p o p u la r culture divide, upon w hich literary stud ies is p red icated , is no longer tenable.44 For literary stud ies he w ould substitu te a cu ltural stu d ies w hich w ou ld analyse Joseph C onrad 's Heart of Darkness, E dgar Rice B urroughs' Tarzan, a Benson and H edges advertisem ent, and an 1812 kn itter 's song side-by-side. In this larger argum ent m eaning and in tention are either real gold or fool's gold , since they w ill alw ays enable you to d isp lay your fram ew ork of in terpre tation , b u t refuse you any g rounds for ad jud ica ting betw een yours and anyone else's. It w ill all d ep en d u p o n w h at econom y of L iterature we w an t to set up.

W hat does D. H. L aw rence's The Rainbow m ean? A nd w h at is the difference betw een s tudy ing the m eaning of that novel and the new s item a t the beg inn ing of this paper? I can subject either to the sam e critical m ethodologies; gender, ideology, psychoanalysis, reader-response, M arxist, fo rm alis t. N ew H istoricist. So w h at is the difference? My theo ry and practice a t that juncture w ould not help m e differentiate. Or do they m ean in different ways? This m ay be nearer the m ark, and I w ould say this: that w hen w e s tu d y L itera ture we assum e there is an in ten tion beh ind w h at w e choose to study , and that intention w ould have to be described as an a ttem p t to engage life in an artistic m ode, we assum e tha t there is an artistic in ten tion -— even if we are unable to define w hat th a t m eans to everyone 's satisfaction. However, we understand this 'artistic in ten tion ' as d iffe ren t from the newspaper article. N or shou ld 'a rtis tic in ten tio n ' be taken as synonym ous w ith the aesthetic, since artistic in ten tion does no t in itself indicate how a particu lar artist or g roup of artist in te rp re ted w hat it m eans to be art. It is sim ply enough to say that we are under the sign of artistic in ten tion — and this, like o ther 'in ten tions ' can be located in a n u m b e r of p laces (the psyche — a d es ire to exp ress, be c reative , com m unicate, catharsis; society — the aesthetic o rdering of ideology, the rep roduction and naturalisation of societal dynam ics), b u t can be separated ou t from o ther m odes (soup-can labels, new spaper articles). This is to take the K napp an d M ichaels a rg u m e n t one stage fu rthe r; if there is no m ean ing w ith o u t in ten tion , there is no artistic m eaning w ith o u t artistic in ten tion . T hat is the only w ay we can begin to say tha t L aw rence's The Rainbow is different from the new s item , its in tention is different. It begs

4'4 A ntony Easthope, Literary Studies into Cultural Studies (London and N ew York: Routledge, 1991).

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the question of how art and L itera ture are to be view ed, and w h at w e believe the in tention is beh ind the p roduction of them , b u t ju st to be able to p u t it in these term s is to claim that the study of L iterature is d ifferent from the s tu d y of 's ign ify ing p rac tices ' or 'cu ltu ra l s tu d ie s ', since it p resum es a literary intention. A nd as H irsch says, we can never ascertain to the po in t of verification w h at an in ten tion is, b u t we can ascertain to vary ing degrees of probability . W e also proceed as if there is an artistic in ten tion , w hatever we perceive the case to be, otherw ise there is no art, it w ou ld be as nonsensical as 'in tentionless m eaning '. If we see it as desirable th a t w e shou ld be able to m ark ou t the boundaries of L iterature, then tha t is w here w e m u st start.45 A nd w hilst it is perfectly feasible th a t sem iotics, deconstruction , m arxism s, posts truc tu ra lism s, fem inism s, linguistics etc. can be accom m odated in such a conception of L ite ra tu re or L ite rary S tudies, they are neither necessary nor sufficient to delim it the subject area, th o u g h there m ay be a desire to inco rpo rate them . The use of in ten tion bo th to fix m eanings and the natu re of the object m ust surely be the only w ay we can do this.

I can see that this is no t likely to please a good m any people. In effect I am saying that a M arxist will only obtain M arxist m eanings; a fem inist, fem inist m eanings, and so on. In other w ords, the m eaning found w ill be the m eaning for w hichever m ethodology is used. I w ou ld like to m ake a te n ta tiv e s ta rt as to how w e m ig h t p roceed o u t of these tau to log ical theoretical approaches (rem iniscent of de M an 's herm eneutic circularity), a lthough it risks seem ing old-fashioned and even recidivist.

Let us use the follow ing analogy. Im agine a glass. W hat is it? We can describe it in m any different ways, w ays which can be subd iv ided into various disciplines — chem istry, physics, fine arts. The natu re of the object re c ip ro c a lly d e lim its a lo n g w ith the d isc ip lin e w h ich d esc r ip tiv e m ethodologies or theories are applicable. M eteorology w ould be of little use here, a consequence bo th of the natu re of the glass and the natu re of the d iscipline. It is obvious tha t there is no one single true defin ition of the glass, and no one true single approach w hich could approach such a state of affairs. N ow im agine we w an t to set up a discipline called 'Glass S tudies ', or 'G lassology'. How are we going to define Glassology? The study of glass? Yet we can say that there is nothing intrinsic to the natu re of glass w hich could define the s tu d y of it, ju st as we m igh t acknow ledge the

45 It also represents a different w ay of experiencing. See the interview with McCann, A ppendix 1, where he m aintains the difference between literary studies and cultural studies, pp.161-163.

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artificiality of the discipline English Literature. The problem for glassology is that, as already pointed out, we have no single definition of 'g lass ', since it can be described in a varie ty of w ays, a situ a tio n w e can take as ana logous to the various theoretical approaches in L ite ra tu re . A nd at som e po in t som eone is bound to argue that we cannot theoretically justify ta lk ing abou t glass as a receptacle w hen the m aterial exists in the w orld as say a bow l, w hich has certain sim ilarities to a glass, and then an ashtray , an d p erh ap s even a w indow , ju st as the s tu d y of L ite ra tu re canno t at p re se n t theoretically separate the s tu d y of a novel from the s tu d y of a new spaper article — they are both species of w riting, just as a w indow and an ashtray m ay both be species of glass.

This points up a couple of things. On the m ost basic level w h at has h ap p en ed is th a t s tu d en ts of L itera ture, w hich includes critics, lecturers and theorists, assum e the s tudy of L iterature to be L iterature, to constitute it. Yet L ite ra tu re does no t dep en d , in the sense of a one-on-one causal re la tionsh ip , upon the sf-udy of it, just as a glass cannot be said to depend u p o n 'G lassology ' for its existence. Yet we can deduce th a t L itera ture is 'm ean ing ' dependen t, and that tha t m eans 'in ten tion ' is involved (w here w e choose to locate it is up to us, b u t we cannot conceive of it w ithou t m eaning). Inextricably linked w ith this m eaning is the assum ption of an au th o r, and once again, w here w e choose to locate the au th o r — in the historical being, in society, gender, a psyche, textual unity — is arb itrary in the sense tha t none of the related theories or approaches can ground itself to the extent that it can necessarily p reclude other theories or approaches. Even the m ost abstract theories, such as a Form alist approach tha t w ould reduce poetry to rhym e schem atics, are positing som e relation to m eaning as the over-rid ing factor ( 'defam iliarisation ' — how to 'see' or app rehend som eth ing th a t has becom e fam iliar is to g ran t m eaning). N or does it seem , a t this stage, that m ediation is actually the problem as conceived at the beg inn ing of the d issertation . The problem exists because theories of L iterature (and art) cannot logically posit objects that are both transcendent an d contingent. As w e have seen, theories rela ting to 'th e au th o r ' and 'in te n tio n ', no m atte r w hich side of the d iv ide of the so c io h is to rica l/ im m an en t theoretical axis they place them selves, have been unab le to avo id p rec isely the m ed ia tio n th a t u n d erm in es the ir ow n theoretical p rem isses. It seem s then that desp ite the continual theoretical d iv ision in to opposing forces this separation betw een the two cam ps is theoretically untenable. This is fu rther explored in the next chapter.

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TrÿeCC and IfmCy fact: (Postmodernism andPdistory^

I specu la ted in the in troduction w hether the thesis shou ld bear the traces of its ow n history, or erase them in favour of organising all of the m aterial a ro u n d w h at is already know n by the au tho r to be the conclusion. This is an arg u m en t th a t can be aligned w ith the structu re versus even t debate w hich w as also sketched in the in troduc tion . R ather than set o u t the problem in these term s, how ever, I w ould like to look at the issue as it has been tran sm u ted w ith in the d iscourse on postm odern ism , since it is here th a t explorations of h istory and know ledge have been at their m ost acute. It can also be claim ed th a t the postm odern ism versus h isto ry debate is ac tua lly ano ther form of the im m anen t versus con tingen t d iv ide so far described.

A fundam ental problem for the thesis as it acknow ledges the force of the argum ents of postm odern ist theory is self-consciousness, w here the self m ay here be understood as either the au thor's know ledge of him self or the re ification of the thesis in to a 'self ', To p u t it in te rm s of the p o stm o d ern debate , the issue is w hether there is a critical space from w hich to know som eth ing tha t is no t already com prom ised. Because the thesis has a ttem p ted to place itself a t the cu tting -edge , as the la tes t in te rven tion into the debate , there is an obvious need to know w here it stands in rela tion to (literary) 'th eo ry ' in general and the cu rren t debate su rro u n d in g it. Yet the w hole project of achieving som e k ind of closure th ro u g h the m ed iation of im m anen t-based and socioh istorical theories suggests that the thesis actually w ants to place itself at the end of theory. P erhaps this is w hat de M an m eans w hen he claims that 'the resistance to theory is theory itself', for if the thesis w ere to be successful, theoretically, it w ou ld resu lt in the rem oval of the need for any further theory. To believe or state tha t the required m ediation w as the one to end all theory w ould be hubris on m y part. But if it is no t to be hubris, that is, if I am no t to hold o u t the belief th a t I am engaged in a rational argum ent that can be carried on regard less of circum stance and that can carry its correctness beyond contingency, I am left w ith the problem tha t 1 am situated in a m ode of F ish-style p ragm atism , of do ing w hat I do, of saying w h a t I say, sim ply because of the com m unity I find m yself in. The thesis thus becom es, no m a tte r h ow w ell or b ad ly a rg u e d , a ques tion of belief ra th e r th a n

4 A version of this chapter appears in Earnshaw, ed.. P ostm odern S u rro u n d in g s (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994).

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v a lid a tio n .2 Just w hat is it possible to do w ith theory? P u t ano ther w ay, how is the thesis to know itself?

U n fo rtu n a te ly , the s ta tu s of 'p o s tm o d e rn ism ' itse lf p rese n ts a problem . If I take it tha t 'postm odern ism ' is everyw here, tha t in fact I am (we are) all living in the postm odern age and thoroughly im bued w ith its ép istèm e, w hich w e m ay or m ay no t be able to describe d epend ing upon ou r theory of 'self-consciousness', then there is not even the space for an a rg u m en t. For the m o m en t I w ill assum e th a t p o s tm o d ern ism is a d iscourse and as such a very useful conceptual tool, b u t th a t the p re ­em inence it often claim s for itself cannot be taken as a given. R ather than leave this assertion as a sta tem ent of belief, I will discuss the problem as I see it w ith 'postm odern ism ', and I th ink tha t the m ajor fault-line here is 'h isto ry '. It seem s to m e th a t one place w here postm odern ism has gained very little g round is in this very discipline. N ot surprising , perhaps, since p o stm o d ern ism is o ften taken to h e ra ld the end of h isto ry . W hilst postm odern theory in its rush to claim the dem ise of m etanarra tives and linear tim e disp lays an obvious an tagonism to no tions of h isto ry , there m ay be a very good reason for the antagonism which does no t necessarily depend upon the resistance of historians.

The fate of h isto ry in postm odern ism is w ell-described by Steven C onnor w hen he sum m arises F redric Jam eson 's essay "P ostm odern ism and C onsum er Society";

The key that connects the leading features of postm odern society . . . to the schizoid pastiche of postm odern ist culture is the fading of a sense of history. O ur contem porary social system has lost its capacity to know its ow n past, has begun to live in 'a p e rp e tu a l p resen t' w ithou t depth , definition, or secure identity .5

It is the case that postm odern ism w ould rather no t be in h istory. It is thus no w onder that critics and adheren ts of postm odern ism w ho depend upon it in som e way, have a vested in terested in declaring, as they so often have, 'the end of h istory '. Once they allow the notion of 'h isto ry ' in as a still v iab le d iscourse , p o stm o d ern ism itself becom es a co n tin g en t concept w hich w ill inevitably be superseded . W ithout the end of h isto ry w e can no t have the beg inning of postm odern ism as it likes to p resen t itself. It is

2 'Troth' rather than 'truth' as McCann neatly puts it in the interview. Appendix 1, p .l69. In this scenario, I am not doing theory as it is generally understood, I am hold ing a conversation, even if I might inflate it by calling it 'the dialogic scene'.

3 Steven Connor, Postmodernist Culture, op. cit., p.45.

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therefore ironic that a phenom enon that has often proclaim ed 'the end of h is to ry ', th ro u g h critics such as A ndreas H uyssen, F redric Jam eson and H al Foster,4 should have such a tem poral landm ark as 'post' in its rubric. Yet if h isto ry is narra tive , and this is how I shall po rtray it at its m ost desirab le , then the very w o rd 'p o stm o d ern ism ' canno t avo id being in h istory , and histo ry in a teleological sense w ith postm odern ism acting as the telos. A lthough postm odern ism is com m only seen as a con tinuous opening-up leading to a vista of endless possibilities, it does so at the cost of positing itself as the m aste r narra tive , able to see itself as the fated closure of culture, society, and, of course, history. This can hard ly be said to be an opening up on its ow n part. M y d istru st of this line of discourse of postm odern ism , w hich I w ould suggest is fairly m ainstream , is tha t it sets up the concept 'h istory ' in a specific discursive field w hich it believes it can exem pt itself from. The paradox is that postm odern ism can claim to be ou tside history, because, historically speaking, it is at the end of history.

A t the 'L ite ra tu re and the C o n tem p o rary ' conference a t H u ll U niversity , 23-24 M arch 1994, Thom as D ocherty d ism issed the com m on u n d e r s ta n d in g 1 am p o r tra y in g h e re (the 'm a in s tre a m ') as an app rop ria tion of the least likely form of postm odernism , tha t is, the Rorty s tran d of antifoundationalism . He w ent on to prom ote a postm odern ism th a t gave a tten tion to the 'th ing iness ' of events, m ost likely unknow able in the ir 'th isness '. Yet such an argum ent can hard ly be sa id to avoid the p itfalls of postm odern ism as described in this chapter since it refuses to m ake links betw een events.^ D ocherty (on evidence at the conference) also rep resen ts a trend to define postm odern ism not in term s of a tim e period b u t ra th e r as a m ood , a m ove w hich allow s us to d e tec t ac tive po stm o d ern is ts liv ing at any tim e since the year dot. It is an approach w h ich , I believe , does aw ay w ith the u se fu ln ess of th e co n cep t 'p o s tm o d e rn ism ' w h ilst co llud ing w ith th a t aspect of p o s tm o d ern ism Jam eson identifies as leading to a flattening of historical perspective — for it p resen ts a levelling term to be applied consistently th roughou t the ages.

4 Huyssen: 'The problem with postm odernism is that it relegates history to the dustbin of an obsolete épistèm e, arguing gleefully that history does not exist except as text, i.e., as historiography' N ew German Critique 22 (1981), p.35; Foster: 'To put it crudely, this Postmodern Style of History may in fact signal the disintegration of style and the collapse of history' Neio German Critique 33 (1984), p .72; Jameson talks of postm odernism as pastiche and the 'loss of depth' as indicative of a loss of a sense of history. U niversal Abandon, ed. Andrew Ross, p.4.

5 Docherty's line of reasoning can also be found in his essay "Theory and Difficulty" in Bradford, ed., op. cit..

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In th is w ay it ac tually w orks aga in st D ocherty 's desire to respec t the 'o therness '6 of past events.

O ur m ost everyday no tion of h isto ry is as a narra tive of the past. Je an -F ran ç o is L y o ta rd — one of the m o st w id e ly d ra w n -u p o n com m en ta to rs of p o stm o d ern ism — has claim ed tha t, a t the sim p lest le v e l, th e p o s tm o d e rn can be d e f in e d as 'in c r e d u l i ty to w a rd m e ta n a r r a t iv e s '.7 If this is the case, there are certain im plications for h istory. If w e cannot g rasp our past in the form of a narrative tha t w ould explain it all, we cannot have history w ith a capital 'h '. Yes, there could be, follow ing on from Lyotard, a w hole spectrum of 'h isto ries ', perhaps called 'm ic ro n a rra tiv es ', b u t w e could lay no claim to fitting it in to a la rger n arra tiv e . A ccord ing to this theory and m ethodo logy , w e are able to achieve a narra tive of a m iners' strike at a local level, as it w ere, perhaps after the m anner of Foucault, b u t we are no t perm itted to say tha t it is p art of the ongoing struggle of the w orking-class or a sym ptom of capitalism in crisis, as a vu lgar M arxist narra tive w ou ld have it. Such a m iners ' strike w ould be a discrete, d iscontinuous event. This approach to h isto ry is very ev iden t in the ahistorical m ethodology of the N ew H istoricism , w hich has been the fashionable fate of any notion of history. N ew H istoricism can be described as R enaissance stud ies m eets an th ropo logy m eets Foucault.® It typ ically explicates cu ltu re, society and events from m inu te particu lars. O ne fam ous exam ple is the descrip tion of a society w hich takes as its s ta rtin g p o in t a no te left by N ietzsche to the effect 'I have left m y u m b re lla ', (for w hich defin ition see the back-page b lu rb of H. A ram V eeser's collection of critic's essays in The Neiv Historicism^). This notion of particu larity is perfectly at ease w ith postm odernism . It m igh t even be a defin ing condition. In the N ew H istoricism this archaeological, h istoricist outlook leads to a type of w riting w hich provides cross-sections of societies

6 Here 'otherness' is 'thinginess'. Docherty uses the Greek word haecceitas, wlrich Steven Connor defines as what is an 'unassimilable and untranslatable "thisness"' in Bradford, op. cit.. p.40.

2 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated by G eoff Bennington and Brian M assum i. Foreword by Fredric Jameson. (Manchester: M anchester U niversity Press, 1984), p.xxiv. The phrase has becom e axiom atic w ithin discussions of postmodernism.

8 Brook Thomas identifies a second strand of N ew Historicism, that associated with Jerome McCann, in The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

9 H. Aram Veeser, ed.. The Neiu Historicism (London: Routledge, 1989).

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and cultures frozen in time, thick descriptions of them at any one m om ent w ith no sense of before and after and no w ay of linking them , no w ay of p rov id ing a narrative thread. It is easy to see how this N ew H istoricism , as a m ethodology , fits into the postm odern parad igm of a perpe tua l p resen t, since these glances backw ards to the pas t sim ply recover o ther presen ts, an d in the process elide the dialectic betw een the p as t and the p resen t (although even the idea of a dialectic is challenged by Elizabeth E rm arth in Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational T/me.49 I d iscuss this book later on in the chapter). The N ew H istorical m eth o d o lo g y is an ti-n arra tiv e , and in m any w ays correla tes w ith the p red o m in an tly em pirical w ay of do ing histo ry w hich seem s to dom inate academ ia today as it strives to be a social science. But does it have to be this way? Do I really need a m etanarra tive of some kind just to be able to see a m in ers ' strike in a w ider fram ew ork , changing over tim e b u t linked to o th e r fac to rs? A m I c o n s tra in e d by m y in c re d u li ty to w a rd s m e tan a rra tiv es? S hould I no t even consider k now ledge in te rm s of 'events ' such as 'm iners ' strikes'?

Before I discuss how this m ight affect our idea of h istory , I w ou ld like to s ta te th a t I believe w e s h o u ld be in c re d u lo u s to w a rd s m e tan a rra tiv es (again, an ethical in junction). But it is n o t the case, as L yotard posits, tha t such incredulity can be w idely observed, le t alone be the com m on denom inator for our postm odern age. All we need do is look a t the rise of fu n d am en ta lism to scu p p er the idea. O r there are the p rob lem s in w h at u sed to be the Soviet U nion, and w h a t used to be Yugoslavia. The m odel m etanarra tive here is 'nationhood '. This particu lar m e tan a rra tiv e could be observed in the ready appeal to p a trio tism in Britain a t the tim e of the E alk lands/M alv inas conflict. The 'nation ' is one of today 's p re-em inent w orld-historical constructs. It m ight be objected tha t m y idea of m e tan a rra tiv e is confused here, tha t the m e tan a rra tiv es of M arxism and^C hristianity relate every aspect of life to the ir descrip tions and prescrip tions, the econom ic base, God's design, and that 'n a tionhood ' hard ly fits into that sam e order. 1 w ould argue how ever that it does, since w ho believes that a life can be lived outside the state? Is there anything we can do tha t is no t circum scribed (su rrounded) by the state? It defines us, positions us, and subjects us — in the sense that it m akes us its subjects as w ell as 'subjecting us to ' its dem ands. We m ight argue abou t the details.

40 E lizabeth D eed s Ermarth, Sequel to H istory: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

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m anifest in activities such as voting in a new governm ent, the forcible rem oval of governm ent, the m obilisation of one race against ano ther, yet few ever propose hitching their destiny to anything other than the fate of a nation — its econom y, its foreign policy, its cultural heritage and all the o ther constructs w hich p resuppose a nation-state cannot be circum vented. The nation-sta te has its ow n su p p o sed telos: g rea ter happ iness, g rea ter w ea lth , g rea te r justice. This is n o t to say th a t 'n a tio n h o o d ' is the m e tan a rra tiv e everyone subscribes to — only fanatics subscribe to a m e tan a rra tiv e a t every single level — yet we cannot not believe in the state. This is in exactly the sam e w ay tha t som e people proclaim tha t we cannot not believe in God. W hich leads me to w onder tha t if incredulity cannot be w idely observed, ju st w here is it that L yotard has m anaged to locate it? This su re ly rem a in s one of the p rob lem s in d isc u ss in g postm odern ism . W e appear su rro u n d ed by it, yet so m any of its defin ing characteristics an d theore tical in junctions are given as s ta tem en ts of cu rren t fact: w e live in a w orld of simulacra;^'* we live in a w orld of an eternal present; we are incredulous tow ards m etanarratives; w e have lost our concept of linear (neu tral, natural) time; we have lost all sense of a n e u tra l, re p re se n ta tio n a l space. In theory these p ro c la m atio n s have reach ed the s ta tu s of dogm a; in p rac tice con firm ing exam ples are m em orable because so rare (are w e really to take B audrillard 's assessm ent of the G ulf W ar as evidence of sim ulacra in the postm odern age?).

B ut th is does n o t help . As I have a lread y s ta te d , I too am disbelieving in the face of g rand historical schem es, schem es that try to fix m e in th e ir n a rra tiv e s w ith o u t m y co n sen t — M arxism , re lig io n , na tionhood . Yet 1 reta in the desire to u n d erstan d m iners ' strikes, how science has changed, 'the rise of the novel', even the phenom enon w e call p o stm o d ern ism , b u t no t as d iscre te , au tonom ous, herm etica lly -sea led events bearing no relation to any th ing ou tside of their ow n w ell-defined boundaries. The problem here does no t lie w ith L yotard 's m etanarra tives, it lies w ith w h a t has m uch m ore persuasive force in the d iscourse of p ostm odern ism , the issue of leg itim ation , (but also ethics, w hich I w ill broach later).

H ow can I legitim ate or give au thority to one version of h istory, of say, a m iners ' strike, over another? Let m e go back to w hat I ou tlined as the possib le consequence of do ing aw ay w ith m etanarra tive parad igm s, th a t is, 'h istories ', w ith sm all 'h 's ' and no w ay to choose betw een them . In

44 McCann gives one such statement in his interview. See Appendix 1, p.l67.

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postm odern ism , every fact, all know ledge, is a function of the discourse th a t allow s it, w ith in w hich it is im bedded. Crudely pu t, I w ould have no w ay of judg ing betw een a Tory and a Labour version of a m iners ' strike. Each history w ould be correct w ith in the lim its of its ow n discourse. There is no p lace from w hich I could stan d and pronounce ju d g em en t since I, to o , w o u ld h av e to rea lise th a t m y ow n p ro n o u n c e m e n t w as a consequence of tha t particu la r d iscourse, th a t particu lar language gam e. L y o ta rd 's a rgum en t is th a t this is because I can no longer appeal to, or ra th e r, no longer believe in, a m etanarra tive . This is p a rt of the larger p o s tm o d e rn p h ilo so p h ica l p ic tu re , w h ich , in a n u tsh e ll, p oses the fo llow ing ridd le : W hat hap p en s if there is no objective tru th? A re we consigned to a crippling, enervating relativism ? 1 w ould like to tu rn to the novel Gravity's Rainbow by Thom as Pynchon, and a com m entary upon it, in o rder to illustrate just how all these forces come into play.42

Gravity's Rainbow, first published 1973, has often been taken as the exem plary postm odern text, if no t the text. It is set in the Second W orld W ar an d in te rm in g les fact and fiction — if I can be a llow ed those distinctions for the p resen t — in a slapstick m anner. It gives a num ber of d ifferen t explanations for the causes and continuation of W orld W ar Two, H itle r no t being one of them . These explanations include the parano iac v ision of 'a conspiracy ' by 'Them ' 'to defrau d ' and h ide the truth;!® the u n fo ld in g of a d iv ine p lan of p red estin a tio n in w hich w e m ay be the p re te rite (the passed over) or the elect;!^ a system of know ledge w here w h a t w e can actually see is only a very sm all fraction of the w hole of h is to ry th a t has been la id down;!® a race b e tw e en m u ltin a tio n a l technologies and business interests; the action of angels. The novel show s th a t the difficulty w ith h istory is not just a question of w hich version of the p as t is true, or how we can decide w hich is 'tru e r ', b u t also of w hat parad igm s for historical u nderstand ing w e can possibly use w hen w aiting in the w ings is a postm odern discourse w hich threatens the very ideas of narra tive , rep resen ta tion and tim e tha t a sense of h isto ry relies upon . It also raises the crisis som e thinkers on h isto ry have taken on board , the

42 Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainboiu (London; Picador, 1975).

43 ib id .. p .l64 .

44 ib id .. p.328.

45 ib id .. p.612.

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p rob lem of textual!ty. The novel gives the reader no clues as to w hich version of h istory, w hich m etanarra tive, is the correct one. Thus the novel is p lu ralist, or relativ ist, in its approach to history, and as such perfectly p o s tm o d ern . It m ig h t be possib le to a rgue th a t G ra v i ty 's Rainbow rep resen ts a folk m em ory, a collection of narratives th a t do no t have to a d d up or stan d the test of any ru les of validation. In th is sense it is the counter to official (academic) history. A t this po in t in the chapter Gravity's Rainbow p rov ides a possib le app roach for h istorical u n d e rs ta n d in g , as 'h isto ry from the bottom u p ', a parad igm that answ ers som e postm odern objections to h isto ry perceived as a discourse that does no th ing m ore than allow 'th e w in n ers ' to p ro jec t a self-leg itim ating n arra tive . The m ain p rob lem here, bo th for cham pions and detractors of postm odern ism , is how to go som e w ay to saying that som e versions m ust needs be w rong, for exam ple, how to say that W orld W ar Two w as n o t due solely to technological advancem ent or to the actions of angels.!®

The difficulty w ith respect to the problem of ad jud icating betw een a lternative narra tives is well illu stra ted w hen Brian M cHale talks abou t P y n c h o n 's n o v e l .!7 A fter M cHale has p ro m o ted p o stm o d ern fiction, including Pynchon 's w ork, he says of Gravity's Rainbow that: 'it is lying to b lam e technologies or angels for the Second W orld W ar', and goes on to say, 'h istory is the record of real hum an action and suffering, and is no t to be tam pered w ith lightly'.!® From now here M cHale in troduces ideas into the d iscourse of postm odern ism that seem positively alien to it: h u m an action; suffering ; a resp o n sib ility to the past. M cH ale 's co n trad ic to ry reaction to Gravity's Rainboiv's u n d ers ta n d in g and narra tiv isa tion of the pas t is a p rim e instance of history em erging as postm odern ism 's fault-line. H is valorisation of the postm odern sensibility — the coexistence of self- co n ta ined and incom patib le w orlds; a d isreg a rd for linear tim e and cau sa lity -— u n d e rm in e s the e th ica l d riv e to u n d e rs ta n d the p a s t historically. The pressing problem here is that historical discourse retains an ethical responsibility tow ards facts, w hereas in the d iscursive field of

46 An equivalent problem m ight be David Irving's version of World War Two and the consequences of having no ground upon which to judge his views as incorrect. He has argued that Hitler did not know about the holocaust. Perhaps even more pressing is the need to counter neo-Nazis who insist that the holocaust never happened. I address this issue later in the chapter.

47 Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (London: Methuen, 1987), p.91.

48 ibid.. p.96.

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postm o d ern ism 'facts ' have v irtua lly no status. R ealising this difficulty m any p roponen ts of postm odern theory will claim that of course there are facts, b u t they are p rob lem atical. H ow ever, they tend to rem a in so problem atical th a t it is difficult to com prehend how they can be called 'fac ts ' a t a l l .49 M cH ale sta tes th a t 'one of the th ru s ts of p o s tm o d ern rev is io n is t h is to ry is to call in to qu es tio n the re liab ility of official h is to ry '.20 M cHale, like so m any others, is precisely caught by the double- edged fictional transgression of official history. He understands tha t official h is to ry is (or m ay be) fictional, b u t nonetheless has to describe as 'lies' certain o ther, for him , im possible in terpretations. In o ther w ords, he has to appeal to 'facts', and in doing so covertly appeals to som e idea and ideal of w h a t W orld W ar Tw o rea lly w as, or to som e c u rre n t 't ru e ' rep resen ta tio n of it. A t the sam e tim e is the realisa tion tha t all he can appeal to is the 'official' record, and that appeal itself is quite possibly an appeal to an alternative fiction. It is su rely d ishonest of p ro p o n en ts of postm odern ism to assert an tifoundational argum ents, b u t w hen cornered by their ow n logic into confronting the lack of ethical responsib ility this entails, sneak in th rough the back door som e com m itm ent to h istory and ethics, item s w hich are in effect already so com prom ised by the m ake-up of p o stm o d ern ism they are beyond red em p tio n w ith in the param ete rs of postm odern ism . Yet surely Pynchon is righ t to challenge official versions of history.

P art of the problem lies in the proposed and supposed postm odern collapse of discip lines, in this case, the collapse of litera tu re and h istory in to one an o th er, a consequence of the p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t critique of textuality w hich results in an equating of the discourse of h istory w ith that of literature. A gainst this collapsing we can say that we cannot expect the discip line history , or at a m ore general and less technical level, h istorical u n d e rs ta n d in g , to conform to the sam e rules, codes, conven tions and regulations in w hich L iterature (and here it is p redom inantly novels, since it is the pervasiveness of narrative tha t is at the heart of the m atter) as a discip line engages. Sim ply because h isto ry and fiction are both narra tive form s, th is does no t entail identical discourses. F ictional narra tives and

49 I am thinking in particular here of Linda Hutcheon's attempt to define postm odernism as 'm etafictional h istoriography' in A Poetics of Postmodernism, a definition which, like M cHale's, w ould like the ethics of history alongside an irreverence towards totalising establishm ent paradigms. Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism (London and N ew York: Routledge, 1988).

20 op. cit., p.96.

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historical narratives have points of contact, b u t we shou ld no m ore expect the collapse of one into ano ther sim ply because they are bo th textually b ased , on one level, or narra tive-based , on another, any m ore than we could collapse football and basketball into each other because they both use a pitch, a spherical object, and tw o opposing teams. If w e are looking for a ready-m ade cursor, we could say tha t h istory is accountable in a w ay tha t fiction is not. This is M cH ale's w eak-spot — he believes in the postm odern collapse of literary and historical w riting , yet still dem ands of a novel the sam e k ind of accountability that any history of W orld W ar Tw o w ould be subjected to. It is difficult to see, how ever, w hy once the tw o discursive m odes are no longer separate anyone w ould expect any of the old criteria to be applicable. As Lionel Gossm an points out, there are other distinctions to be m ade w hen literature and history are viewed as cultural practices. To quote a review of his book Literature and History, these are differences

w hich can be located at the level of p roduction (a historical text is expected to be b ased on m ethod ical research), a t the level of reception (a historical text is open to criticism), and a t the level of cu ltu ral function (a historical text is expected to have a p rim arily cognitive, no t aesthetic, function).2!

I touched u pon the fact that in the p ostm odern d iscu rsive field lan g u ag e itself, in the form of tex tuality , in the form of w riting , has beco m e p ro b le m a tic a l. W e see th is e sp ec ia lly fo cu se d u p o n by p osts truc tu ra lism , and in particu lar, deconstruction .22 This has taken the form of creating an object of no torious indeterm inacy — the Text, capital T. All w ritings, all texts, are, w e now know , in the p o stm o d ern era, rad ically unstable. The repercussions for a discipline like h is to ry w hich depends for its m aterial upon texts of all k inds are potentially horrendous.

21 Ann Rigney, "Review of Lionel Gossman's Literature and History", History and Theory 31 (1992), p.216.

22 Michael Burns' review of current trends in history states that:

m ore recently, critics interested in poststructuralism and deconstruction have maintained that historical "narrativity" is not only ideologically bound but a way of writing that is itself "imaginary" and fundamentally no different than fiction. N o m ode of discourse is purely objective, goes this argument, and least of all narrative history, that artificial reconstruction of events connected only in the fertile imagination of the architect.

M ichael Burns in Geoffrey Barraclough, Main Trends in History. Expanded Edition. (N ew York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1991), p.228.

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Its sta tus w ould be that of w riting about w riting, w hich no do u b t m akes it doub ly treacherous and m eaningless. The facts of the pas t are non-existent — since if they com e to us in the form of texts, we are once again on s lippery g round . But how do texts and w riting in general ever get to be such a thorny, intractable issue?

A typical m anoeuvre to dem onstrate how m eaning cannot be fixed is to take a single sentence and subject it to a rigorous analysis w hich illu strates tha t it can be variously in terpreted . The th ink ing beh ind th is is th a t if w e do no t have the capacity to u nderstand a sim ple sentence in a clear and an unam biguous m anner, how can we expect to und erstan d texts m ade u p of larger units, parag raphs, chapters, books? O r the Text of the past. Yet, as critics p o in t ou t m ore and m ore, this m ode of th ink ing is faulty. The trick (don 't blink) depends upon the denial of context. Remove an y th in g from its con tex t and it becom es the p la y th in g of in fin ite signification. But allow back context and the possibility of less am biguous explanation becom es increasingly available. We should recognise th a t it is the rem ova l of contex t th a t is the jum p in to illu sion an d con trived am biguity , no t ou r sense of reference and context w hen faced w ith texts a n d th e pas t. S u re ly to h av e g re a te r con tex t is to h av e g re a te r understand ing . Seen in this light, it is clear how postm odern ism as I have described it w orks against ou r notion of history as a contextualisation of pasts and p resen ts, and against our notion of history w hen it w orks w ith docum ents, w hat postm odern ism w ould call a 'scene of w riting ' subject to all the vagaries of the text I have been talking about. We can reverse all this, and allow the m ore feasible scenario — that contexts are available and have the function of stabilising. There are now a num ber of consequences th a t do m uch to undercu t the claims of postm odernism for itself.

O ne consequence relates directly to history. If context is taken into account, postm odern ism im m ediate ly becom es circum scribed, 'w ell and tru ly fact', we m ight say. Postm odernism can no longer proclaim itself the text, un stab le , experienc ing jouissance and an endless p ro life ra tion of m e a n in g w ith o u t an y c o n tex tu a l g ro u n d in g . In th is v e rs io n of postm odern ism there is a constant sp iralling aw ay in w h at Steven C onnor has identified as the sublim e. Postm odernism asks us to do aw ay w ith facts as so m e th in g w e can g rasp and use, except of course the fact of p o s tm o d ern ism itself. But how does p o stm o d ern ism know itse lf as p o s tm o d e rn ism u n le ss it has a lre a d y co n te x tu a lise d itse lf , b o th ch rono log ically (D ocherty et al. n o tw ith s tan d in g ), as 1 have a lread y

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po in ted out, and as a fact tha t has a potentially fixable m eaning? The latter po in t is perhaps contestable in tha t the discourse of postm odern ism often tr ie s to m y s tify its o w n p o ss ib le m e an in g . C o m m e n ta to rs on postm odern ism can be very keen to say tha t it cannot be defined, claim ing th a t it is a cong lom eration of characteristics th a t have no u n d erly in g com m on factor, or that discourse is alw ays im bedded in w hat it describes, resu lting in a k ind of infinite regress. U nless, of course, as I am suggesting, w e tu rn to h isto ry and context to arrest this bottom less, topless, sideless d iscourse u pon d iscourse -— and p erhaps this m ost em inen t varie ty of postm o d ern ism should be charged for loitering w ithou t intent.

The p rob lem s w ith p o stm o d ern ism and the avow ed crises in epistem ology and ontology are no t really new , even if we have deigned to give them a new nam e. It is instead m ost likely the old chestnu t of how w e are to know ourselves. R ather than saying that this involves us in a d iscou rse th a t gives up the ghost of ra tional a rg u m en t and objective know ledge and autom atically p lunges us into the irrational, the subjective and all those o ther catchw ords of R om anticism — itself seen as a d rive tow ards transcending the tem poral, the fixed, Tacticity', notions tha t have been opposed to the E nlightenm ent — instead of giving up that ghost, we could be saying tha t the past offers us the chance to know ourselves better than w e do, or postm odern ism w ould have us believe we can. Let us look m ore closely at two central features in our discussion of the n a tu re of h istory and postm odernism .

Time and Narrative

A com m on u n d erstan d in g of tim e is as a stra igh t line over w hich events occur or unfo ld , a lthough it w ou ld p robably be s tre tch ing the p o in t to claim th a t people regard this as strictly uniform , and therefore neu tra l. C oncom itan t w ith this u n d e rs ta n d in g of tim e as linear is the belief in causality. A num ber of factors, scientific, cultural, political, have com bined to p u t th is u n d e rs ta n d in g of tim e in to question; the theory of Special Relativity; som e fem inist theory ( 'W om an 's T im e'); the fad ing-aw ay of industria l (factory) tim e for m ore flexible practices (David H arvey 's post- Ford ism ); subjective experiences of tim e given va lid ity (a m in u te can seem like an hour; the coextensive existence of m em ory of the p as t in p re se n t consciousness); m yth ical tim e. O ne of the m ajor th rea ts to a

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concept of h isto ry is the loss of 'cause-and-effect' that is p red icated upon linear tim e. The p articu la r p rob lem is am ply illu s tra te d in G ravity 's Rainbow w here an opposition is set up betw een tw o characters w ho have d iffering view s on tim e and its relation to history. P o in tsm an represen ts th e tra d itio n a l v iew th a t one ev e n t h a p p e n s a fte r an o th e r in a chronological, causal sequence (point-by-point). This is how P oin tsm an the trad itio n a lis t describes the o ther character, M exico, w ho rep resen ts w h at m ight be considered the post-w ar, and postm odern , view. Pointsm an pleads;

H ow can M exico p lay , so a t h is ease, w ith these sym bols of random ness and fright? Innocent as a child, p erh ap s u naw are -—- perhaps — tha t in his play he w recks the elegant room s of history , threatens the idea of cause and effect itself. W hat if M exico's w hole generation have tu rned o u t like this? Will Postw ar be no th ing b u t "events," new ly created one m om ent to the next? N o links? Is it the end of history?23

If o u r com m onsense u n d erstan d in g of events th rough tim e as cause and effect goes, there can be no historical understanding . If we cannot explain events in term s of o ther events in a tem poral fashion we have no thing, or ra the r, w e w ould have w hat we get in the N ew H istoricism , 'no th ing b u t "events", new ly created one m om ent to the next'.

We m igh t turn M exico's and the postm odern ist's th ink ing back on itself by considering the im plications of no t looking for links. Is it no t a failure of nerve to refuse the search for links, for causes? In fact. Gravity's Rainbow, as m entioned, gives us m any possible links. It is possible to see an analogy w ith the problem of text and context I ou tlined at the s ta rt of the paper. Technology appears as one of the m ost likely explanations in Gravity's Rainbow for W orld W ar Two. It has its ow n in ternal logic and drive. But it cannot explain everything. It requires other narratives. But I w ou ld suggest that this does not perforce entail that it be em braced by a m e tan a rra tiv e (a h ig h e r ex p lan a to ry o rder) if its ow n n a rra tiv e has in su ff ic ien t e x p lan a to ry pow er. O th er n a rra tiv es can conjoin since d iffe ren t narra tives are obviously no t necessarily m u tua lly exclusive — they can be used to confirm . N or need they be reconciled by som e higher, va lida ting narrative, ju st as the translation of one language in to another does n o t requ ire som e un iversa l m etalanguage in o rd er to validate the

23 op. cit., p.56. This reads as a prefiguring of Docherty's argument.

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translation . In the light of a g row ing extrem e-right aggression in E urope tow ards im m igrant groups, in w hose in terest is it to declare that w e cannot exp lain in any fashion a p rev io u s rise of fascism and its m o st likely causes?

O ne objection to m y account of narrative contex tualisa tion is this: w h a t if the m ajority of people agree tha t the m ost likely cause of W orld W ar Two was the action of angels? W hat if the m ajority of people accepted as true that the ho locaust never happened and that it has all been a Jewish conspiracy? O ur response is already there in the above, in that it w ould not be com m ensurable w ith the m ajority of o ther narra tives available. The objection to this w ould be that we w ould not necessarily be operating on a logical level, so this response of ad jud ication betw een various narratives w o u ld n o t hold . A n arra tiv e canno t be objectively, sc ientifica lly tru e (although this is the old concept of scientific tru th) the a rgum en t w ould go, and so if enough people regard it as factual that the holocaust d id no t hap p en there is no h igher appeal than this consensual tru th . But then the m ajority of people w ould be operating in a way that is no t com prehensible to cu rren t m odes of thought. It w ould be to operate ou t of context. Choose any particu lar text (cause) and isolate it from its context and it w ill appear unstab le . C ontextualise and the m aterial (possible causes) becom e m ore p la u s ib le o r im p lau sib le . T hus, taken in iso la tio n , 'a n g e ls ' as an explanation has an inner logic as a cause of W orld W ar 2, b u t alongside o ther narratives and possible causes cannot be sustained.

A nother w ay of looking at time in the postm odern m atrix also does aw ay w ith the idea of linearity and 'historical tim e'. A ccording to Erm arth:

p o s tm o d ern n arra tiv e language u n d erm in es h isto rical tim e and su b stitu te s for it a new construc tion of tem p o ra lity th a t I call rh y th m ic tim e. This rh y th m ic tim e either rad ica lly m odifies or abandons altogether the dialectics, the teleology, the transcendence, and the p u ta tiv e neu tra lity of historical time; and it replaces the C artesian cogito w ith a d ifferent subjectivity w hose m anifesto m ight be C ortazar's "I sw ing, therefore 1 am ".24

E urther on E rm arth claims: 'In postm o d ern n arra tives tem pora lity has little to do w ith historical conventions; instead it is m ultivalen t and non-

24 op. cit., p .14.

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l i n e a r ' . 2 5 there is a p roblem w ith the w hole concept of E rm arth 's p o s tm o d ern v en tu re as it takes in p ostm odern tex tuality , p o stm o d ern tim e and postm odern subjectivity. She talks as if people experience tim e in the w ay she suggests ('I sw ing , therefore I am '), yet acknow ledges th a t p o p u la r n a rra tiv es and n arra tiv e stra teg ies con tinue to v iew tim e as n in e tee n th -ce n tu ry novelists d id .26 H er argum ent therefore is th a t in a certain type of narrative called 'postm odern ' there is a tendency to do aw ay w ith linear, historical thinking. For this to have consequences for culture, 'th e subject', h istory , tim e, events, as she suggests, it w ou ld requ ire tha t people actually experience tim e in relation to historical u n d e rstan d in g in this way. But as she and so m any others po in t out, h isto ry is a particu lar d iscourse and a particu lar construct, it is a w ay of understand ing . E rm arth e t al. on the one h a n d p erfo rm the p o s tm o d e rn / p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t m anoeuvre of exposing the lin g u is tic /tro p ic /d isc u rs iv e n a tu re of an o ld p a ra d ig m as if the fact th a t so m eth in g is 'd isco u rse ' au to m atica lly inva lida tes it. There are o ther notions of time, and som e of these can be explored in relation to history (as this chapter briefly sketches later on), b u t to argue tha t w e (should) experience tim e in one w ay w hich is believed to be the natu ra l (real! true!) w ay (the 'I sw ing ' etc. m ode) is to relapse into the dogm a that has been exposed.

O ne of the problem s w ith E rm arth 's analysis is th a t it assum es a type of th ink ing tha t cannot com prehend histo ry as an ongoing process (n eg o tia tio n , c ircu la tion ) b e tw een p as t, p re se n t an d fu tu re . Like a P o in tsm an or a Mexico, she sets up a singu lar parad igm of h isto ry th a t does no t do justice to the diverse notions of time and history tha t m ight be used. Eor exam ple, people can feel them selves 'in side h is to ry ', a notion th a t does not conform to P ointsm an 's , M exico's or E rm arth 's paradigm s. A recent event p rovides us w ith an example.

W ednesday , Septem ber 16, 1992, w as an ex trao rd inary day in the g lobal fo re ign exchange m a rk e t w hen the Bank of E ng land sp e n t som ew here around £15 billion in a futile attem pt to m ain ta in the value of sterling. Barclays Bank estim ates a £30 billion tu rnover in its ow n foreign exchange (forex) dep artm en t — 'm ore than the Bank of England holds in

23 ibid., p.21.

26 A disjunction between theoretical claims and historical claims for the death of 'classical time', not unlike Barthes's claim for the death of the author already discussed.

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foreign r e s e r v e s ' . 27 The com m ents of Doug Bate on that day, chief trader at B arclays, L o n d o n 's b ig g est forex d ep a rtm en t, illu s tra te how peop le experience 'the sw ing ' (as E rm arth pu ts it), w hilst also illustrating tha t this is n o t necessarily an abandonm en t of historical tim e (as E rm arth sets it up). "O n W ednesday, I felt as though we w ere all a p a rt of h istory, and it w as g rea t to be a p a r t of it. We have ju s t had a w eek of h isto rical im p o rtan ce , and it w as w o n d erfu l to be in vo lved in m ak ing it all happen".28 W ho d id not feel tha t they w ere w itnessing 'h istorical events ', 'h istorical tim e' even, w hen the Berlin W all fell, or w hen C eaucescu w as o usted? This certain ly m ay be a phenom enon of the p o stm o d ern age, m ade possible by a technology tha t allow s the w orld to w itness events as they happen , b u t does this d im inish or increase our 'sense of h isto ry '? Is n o t the cu rren t angu ish at the rise of an ti-im m ig ran t an d anti-Sem itic sen tim en t caused by our very sense of history, by our very know ledge tha t it bears com parison w ith past events? If I und erstan d E rm arth correctly, the 'sw ing ' she talks about is precisely this conjunction of past, p resen t and fu tu re th a t is one parad igm of historical understanding.

The events on W ednesday , 16 Septem ber 1992 are exem plary in another way. They show the difficulty of constructing histo ry based upon n a tio n -sta tes . If there is a change in h isto rical sensib ility due to the questions of m etanarra tives that postm odern ism raises, then this is surely one arena w here it can operate to good effect. O ur sense of the im portance of nation-states as the referents of historical understand ing are ou tm oded w h en a Bank has a g rea ter tu rn o v er than the foreign reserves of the country w ith in which it operates and goes a great w ay to altering economic policy of that country to suit its ow n needs. If we are to understand 'events' w e need to reth ink event-spaces, and not, as postm odern theory tries to do, create a tim e-space com pression that flattens events in to a single tim e- space experience of the present. Of course, the concept of nation-states is far from dead , as already sta ted . But in o rd er to u n d e rs ta n d changes it is perhaps the w rong category w ith w hich to m ap out the past, p resen t and fu ture . Eor exam ple, although the sp lin tering of nation-states into sm aller n a tion -sta tes (U.S.S.R., Y ugoslavia) is often done u n d er the guise and appeal of som e notion of nationhood, to trace the causes of these changes

27 Frank Kane, "Dealers Couldn't Give a Forex for Politics", The Guardian, 19 September 1992, p.36.

28 loc. cit.

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the event-space of the nation-sta te w ould seem the in ap p ro p ria te place w ith w hich to do it.

H av ing delivered a polem ic against postm odern ism , it is now m y tu rn to rescue it in som e way. Firstly I feel m yself to be a product, for better o r w orse, of som e of the traits that go to m ake up postm odern ism . M ost obv iously , I find m yself p ro n o u n c in g u pon the d isc ip line of 'H isto ry ' w hen I have very little g round ing in it, ho ld ing it up , it m ust seem , as the refu tation of postm odern ism as the curren t period descriptor. M ore subtly, perhaps, I have approached the w hole issue in a m anner w hich suggests the eclectic particu larity I have already com m ented upon. I have attacked each perceived assault by postm odern ism on history at a local level. Thus n arra tiv e , rep resen ta tion , tim e and the s ta tu s of know ledge have been add ressed w ith in term s w hich rescue them for h istory , w ith o u t resorting to any single concept of h isto ry I m igh t have th a t w ou ld em brace and in tegrate all these areas. I will now sw itch to some broad strokes th a t leave the n itty-gritty particularity of details behind.

O ne question 1 raised b u t never fully answ ered w as the issue of legitim ation. This m igh t be reph rased as 'W ho has the au tho rity for the historical stories we are asked to believe are true?'. The answ er is the state, o r the state in the form of the intellectual state apparatuses. But does no t th a t im ply tha t all h istory w ill be official history? Fynchon 's book show s th a t an official h isto ry w ill alw ays p resuppose counter h isto ries, secret h istories. It is alw ays a fight for the righ t to tell stories, to invest those sto ries w ith the necessary au th o rity , som etim es th ro u g h n eg o tia tio n , som etim es th rough o u trigh t confrontation. Does that m ean giv ing up the ideal of rationality , of being able to choose on reasonable g rounds betw een conflicting narratives of the past? No. Once again, such a y ie ld ing w ould only be on g round that desired som e absolute m eta-know ledge and could no t find it. The problem of 'the absolute ' is dealt w ith in the next chapter.

If w e do w an t our h isto ry to be narra tive and yet avoid the old chestnu t of reprehensib le subjectivity, an objection m igh t be raised in the form of the question: 'C an n arra tives be rational? '. P robab ly not. The possib ility of cause-and-effect covering law s, the type of law that says if there is a certain factor a in existence it w ill alw ays be a necessary and su ffic ien t cond ition for b to occur, is unlikely. N or is it likely th a t less rigorous 'law s' can be operable w here narratives are concerned. Should we

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therefore d itch narra tive and stick to the analytic-style of do ing h istory w hich aims to be a science and provides such details as the am ount of steel exported from Sweden betw een 1920 and 1930 and little else? That seem s, as such, a narrow ing and a defeat. It can be useful, b u t surely only if we p u t it in to a larger fram ew ork of narrativisation.

Again: can historical narrative be rational? No, b u t it can be a form of understand ing , and there can be a com m ensurability betw een narratives th a t allow s for accountability.

This all seem s a long w ay from postm odern ism , a lthough of course the discussion of h istory here is alw ays circum scribed by postm odern ism , or so postm odern ism w ould have us believe. But w hat if postm odern ism has go t it all w rong and it is history , no t postm odern ism , tha t is in the ascendan t and further that, rather than the death of the épistèm e 'h istory ' w ith th e o n s la u g h t of p o s tm o d ern ism , p o stm o d ern ism is alive as a discourse b u t itself circum scribed by the épistèm e it w ould do aw ay w ith? To answ er tha t I w ould like to m ove back on to the m ore fam iliar g round of fiction and a couple of ideas taken from M artin A m is's novel London f ie ld s .29 My first quo ta tion from the book suggests an ascendancy for historical sensibility in the postm odern w orld rather than a demise:

W e used to live and die w ith o u t any sense of the p lan e t getting o lder, of m other earth getting older, living and dying. We used to live ou tside h istory. But now w e 're all coterm inous. W e 're inside history now all right, on its leading edge, w ith the w ind ripp ing past our ears.80

In o ther w ords, the postm odern sensibility that attem pts to define w here we are a t now is no t a sublim e existence of groundless, tim eless, endless p lay and signification, it is the exact opposite , a real sense of our ow n closure, the sense of an ending (a very looking into the face of dea th tha t E rm arth claim s 'h is to ry ' avo ids and postm odern ism em braces). R ather than look to an incredulity tow ards m etanarratives, is no t the d iscourse of ecology and responsibility to the p lanet m ore the order of the postm odern day, fram ed by a sense of the w hole p lanet's tem porality, contingency and m ateria l existence?

The second quotation from London Fields:

29 Martin Amis, London Fields (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989).

30 ib id ..p .l97.

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Perhaps because of their addiction to form, w riters alw ays lag behind the contem porary form lessness. They w rite about an old reality, in a language th a t's even older. It's no t the w ords: it 's the rhy thm s of thought. In this sense all novels are historical n o v e ls .^ ^

It is in te resting th a t A m is, like E rm arth , po in ts to 'rh y th m ' as a key to u nderstand ing , b u t that this rhy thm is precisely the key tow ard historical u n d ers tan d in g . It seem s to m e th a t the d iscourse of postm o d ern ism is exactly this attem pt to grasp the contem porary, as C onnor points ou t in his in troduc tion to Postmodernist Culture. B audrilla rd 's idea of sim ulacra is the exem plary m ove in this case: of course he and o ther critics of his ilk w ill find tha t things appear as copies w ithou t originals if their m ain desire is to describe th ings as they are now , w ith an ap p ro ach th a t uses a synchronic parad igm rather than allow ing a historical context. The double- e d g e d n e s s of w ri tin g a n d of s ig n s th a t p o s tm o d e rn is m (a n d p o s ts tru c tu ra lism in p a rticu la r) has id e n tif ied does n o t m ake the possib ility of historical d iscourse doubly treacherous, it sim ply enables us to realise that the pas t is being re-p resen ted through specific d iscursive strategies.

I have discussed h istory m ainly in relation to the past. M uch of the use-value of h isto ry how ever, as w ell as p rov id ing a possible s tan d p o in t from w hich w e can gain a greater self-know ledge, is often taken to be b o u n d u p w ith a future. If postm odern ism seeks to proclaim the end of h istory, or use it for its ow n ends in a w ay w hich denies any ground ing for h isto rical u n d e rs ta n d in g ou tside of postm odern ism , it does so by also d e n y in g us any n o tio n of the fu tu re . We m ig h t ask: 'W h a t w ill p o s tm o d e rn is m look like from a fu tu re s ta n d p o in t? '. Ju s t as postm odern ism has difficulty w ith that aspect of h istory we denote as the past, it is a condition of the possibility of d iscourse upon postm odern ism th a t it has no space for this question either, of w hether there is a life after postm odern ism . From the po in t of view of the thesis, it can be seen tha t p o stm o d ern ism has p osited and positioned itself as a synchron ic and au to n o m o u s d iscourse, th a t is, one tha t believes in im m anence ra th e r than context (in this case history). It w ould certainly not be p u sh ing the p o in t too far to claim that at the theoretical level postm odern ist theory, as w ith those theories d iscussed in the prev ious two chapters, cannot sustain

31 ib id .. pp.238-239.

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itself. O nly by falsely circum scrib ing its ow n claim s can it avo id the m ediation th a t this thesis seeks.

Ethics

If one them e ru n n in g th ro u g h this chap ter has been p o stm o d ern ism 's unw illingness to accept its ow n h istorical s ta tus, ano ther has been the ethical d im ension. In w hose in terest is it to forego a sense of h istory and h istorical u n derstand ing? This can be p u t into the postm odern nexus as illustrated below.

1994 began w ith a m ost enjoyable farce entitled 'Back to Basics'. Its au th o r w as the British Prim e M inister John Major and it g rew o u t of an orig inal idea p u t to him by Barbara C artland, quite appropriately , since, as m ost people know , she is a w riter of im probable Rom antic fiction. D uring the m ost entertain ing period of the furore, w hen C onservative MPs D avid 'G astronom e' Ashby and Tim 'S tud ' Yeo successfully played their parts, an unnam ed Tory colleague pred ic ted the following; "The dam age m ay not be insuperab le if things s ta rt to go right. It's astonishing how in the pas t we w ere able to w in elections really quite soon after being in difficulties w ith W estland and the poll tax. M em ories are qu ite sh o rt."82 Such casual cynicism is depressing . It is perfectly in accord w ith the assessm en t of p o litic s p ro v id e d by M ilan K u n d e ra 's The Book of Laughter and F o rg e t t in g . The novel show s how po litics is a co n s tan t, se lec tive forgetfulness, or, as the character M irek in the book says, "the struggle of m an against pow er is the strugg le of m em ory against fo rge tting" .83 The novel itself has enough characteristics to be called postm odern , and if we are to believe the b lurb on the back of the book, our experience of read ing the novel w ill m irro r the book 's ow n hedon ism and lack of po litica l concern. This m arketing assessm ent is perfectly in keep ing w ith the p re ­p o litica l co rrec tness school of p o stm o d ern ism , le s t w e fo rge t, the p o stm o d ern ism th a t took p a r t in the heady six ties of 'h a p p e n in g s '.

32 Stephen Bates, "Bewildered MPs Return in Mood of C ollective Depression" The Guardian 12 January 1994, p.2.

33 Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), p.3.

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'h ip p ie s ', subversion and p ro m iscu o u s sex, the k ind of ou tlook th a t u n d e rw rite s the d esire for p o s tm o d ern texts to be su b v e rs iv e an d irreveren t. But discussion of postm odern ism has undergone a change in m ore recen t years as it tries to attach itself to political correctness and responsib ility . It is n o t ju s t po liticians w ho rely u pon sh o rt m em ories, academ ics are also guilty. But given the force of postm odern objections to assertions of fact, the apparen t groundlessness of concepts such as 'h isto ry ', how w ou ld it be possible to p rom ote an ethics th a t avo ided a paralysing relativ ism and prov ided som e kind of g round ing for a notion of 'h isto ry '? I w ou ld like to tentatively suggest the following.

O n the m arch to w ork, lim ping in our large w ooden shoes on the icy snow , we exchanged a few w ords, and I found ou t that Resnyk is Polish; he lived tw enty years at P aris b u t speaks an incred ib le French. He is thirty, b u t like all of us, could be taken for seventeen or fifty. He told me his story, and today I have forgotten it, b u t it was certainly a sorrow ful, cruel and m oving story; because so are all our stories, hund reds of thousands of stories, all d ifferent and all full of a tragic, d is tu rb in g necessity . W e tell them to each o ther in the evening, and they take place in N orw ay, Italy, A lgeria, the U kraine, and are sim ple and incom prehensib le like the stories in the Bible. But are they not them selves stories of a new Bible?84

Levi's book on his tim e in A uschw itz is another rem inder of our need for history , to recount these stories, as Levi him self does, to bear w itness. It is an ethical injunction. The recurring dream Levi has in the exterm ination cam p is of telling his family and friends of his experience only to find that no-one is listening. W hen he shares his dream w ith others in the cam p he discovers tha t everyone has the sam e fear: that people are ind ifferen t to their stories. 1 w ould suggest that it is the holocaust that provides us w ith our g ro u n d in g for history , dem ands that we retain our sense of h isto ry , th a t w e a tte m p t to u n d e rs ta n d o u r p as t because of the h o lo cau st. M oreover, the holocaust p resents us, albeit negatively, w ith a telos — tha t it m u st never happen again. If the holocaust narratives do indeed provide a new beg inn ing , the fu tu re is sh ap ed by our ow n fear th a t ano ther ho locaust m ight reoccur and that our ethical responsibility is at all costs to p reven t it.

34 Primo Levi, Tf This is a M an and 'The Truce'. Translated by Stuart W oolf. With an Introduction by Paul Bailey and an Afterword by the author. (London: Abacus, 1987), pp.71- 72.

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I realise the problem s w ith such an ethical base: the holocaust, as Thom as K eneally has suggested , is a E uropean problem ; the ho locaust belongs to Jewish history; the m eaning or significance or im portance of the h o lo cau st is far from clear. There are no logical responses to these objections. If the difficulty is tha t a sense of w orld h isto ry ra the r than a E uro-centric h isto ry is requ ired , we m igh t po in t to system atic genocide e lsew here in the tw en tie th century. I am sure that from a postm o d ern v iew p o in t it w ou ld be possib le to argue that none of this counts as a reb u tta l to g round lessness. But it seem s to m e clear th a t the logic or rationality or reasoning or perform ance of postm odern d iscourse is no t the correct beginning. These events dem and a historical aw areness, dem and th a t stories be heard. That is the ethical context from w hich to begin, in the fu ture , any discussion of postm odern ism and history. We m igh t take the follow ing eloquent testim ony from Levi as a warning:

For liv ing m en, the un its of tim e alw ays have a value, w hich increases in ratio to the streng th of the in te rnal resources of the person living th rough them; b u t for us, hours, days, m onths spilled ou t sluggishly from the fu tu re into the past, alw ays too slow ly, a valueless and su p e rflu o u s m ateria l, of w hich we so u g h t to rid ourselves as soon as possible. W ith the end of the season w hen the days chased each other, vivacious, precious and irrecoverable, the fu tu re stood in front of us, grey and inarticulate, like an invincible barrier. For us, history had stopped .85

W hat can be concluded is that in the curren t drive of postm odern thought, geared tow ards an ahistorical belief in the im m anence and sub lim ity of cu rren t existence (the 'n o w ', the 'con tem porary ', radical o therness), the p as t, and therefore the un k n o w ab ility and u n rep resen tab ility of p as t even ts, the view from this side of the d iv ide is cha llenged n o t on theoretical g rounds (as in the pas t two chapters) b u t according to ethical dem ands. Such an assessm ent looks forw ard to Section II and illustrates th a t m ediation m ight have to incorporate non-theoretical understand ings.

A no ther failu re of p o stm o d ern ism has been th a t in the face of re la tiv ism and p lu ra lism — its defin ing characteristics ■—• it has been unable to tackle the question of value, (like the question of ethics above), o th e r th a n to say it is, like e v e ry th in g else in the p o s tm o d e rn environm ent, contingent and relative. As w ith textually-based know ledge.

85 ibid.. p .l23.

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as m uch of h is to ry is, the n o tio n of value has been p laced u n d e r considerable stress by postm odern theory, yet, as the next chapter show s, ju st as w ith 'in ten tion ', 'the au tho r', and '(con)text', the curren t attacks are them selves fundam entally flaw ed.

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^Sout VaCue

It m igh t be conceded that, desp ite the supporting convictions p rov ided in the In troduction and elsew here in the thesis, 'm eaning ' is no t so central to literary theory as has been suggested . So ra ther than look a t aspects of in te rp re ta tio n , w hich, as Steven C onnor confirm s in Theory and Cultural Value , has been the m ajor p reo ccu p atio n of v irtu a lly all th eo ry and criticism over the p as t tw en ty -o d d years, w e m ig h t tu rn from issues in teg ral to herm eneu tics such as 'au th o r ' and 'in ten tio n ' and app roach L iterature from the perspective of 'value '.

H ow m igh t this chap ter p roceed? It m igh t sp lit value in to three areas: use-va lue, exchange-value and p leasure-value. This w ou ld be a reasonab le w ay to begin a chap ter on L iterature, value and evaluation , system atically placing Literature in each of the categories. It m ight go on to claim th a t L iterature w as a m ixture of all three value-categorisations, and then go on to exam ine them in the context of culture. Yet there is a certain inev itab ility abou t do ing this, ju st as w ith the chapters on 'au th o r ' and 'in ten tion ' there was a predictability about which essays, books, critics and theorists w ould enter the discourse. Is there a w ay to begin talking about value th a t does not au tom atically slot the d iscussion in to tha t w ell-w orn groove 'shaped by British and A ustrian em piricists, G erm an K antians and neo-K antians, A m erican p ragm atists and realists, and logical em piricists a round the world'?^ Can I talk about it w ithout having to re-enact or w ork th ro u g h the dialectic of absolute value and relative value as C onnor does w hen he recom m ends 'the acceptance of the radical self-contradiction and u nabatab le paradox of value'?2 If I can start at som e place that refuses to accep t the b in a ry o p p o sitio n of eth ics and aesthetics and the m any allo tropes for these term s that C onnor provides, then perhaps I w ill not have to a ttem p t to ou tflank it at all, as C onnor tries to. A nd to do this m igh t feed back into the thesis in the sense that perhaps there is another beginn ing tha t does not depend upon a 'dancing ' between^ struc tu re and process, m etaphysics and contingency.

1 John Fekete, "Introductory N otes for a Postmodern Value Agenda" in Fekete, ed.. Life After Postmodernism: Essays on Value and Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), p.iii.

2 Steven Connor, Theory and Cultural Value (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), p.2.

8 McCann's term. Appendix 1, p.164.

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One w ay w ould be to sim ply ask people w hat they think L iterature, and the value of L iterature, is. It is logical to assum e that L iterature exists in p eo p le 's percep tion of it. H ence the questionnaires given to stu d en ts an d sta ff (A ppendix 2. The ques tio n n a ires are d iscussed la te r in the chapter.) In theory, this could then be taken as the s ta rtin g p o in t of all evaluation and value for and w ith in L iterature and literary studies. They do p rov ide an answ er or answ ers of sorts to w hat the value of L iterature is o r m ight be, as w ill be seen later. But then, w hat is the value of that? A nd then, w h a t is value?

W ell, w e m ight begin by sp litting value into three areas: use-value, exchange value and p leasu re value: I cannot proceed w ith o u t defin ing value. This circularity of argum en t is w holly indicative of the na tu re of the d iscussion on value. It is a very tough n u t to crack, un less one concedes tha t there does indeed exist an absolute stan d ard against w hich o ther values can be m easured . In the arenas of 'life ', 'econom ics ' and 'hum an ity ' these absolutes could be, respectively, 'G od ', 'go ld ' and 'good '. But the thesis accepts the basic prem ise of postm odern theorising th a t no such s tandards are available in any of these w ays as com m only understood (as positive and essential forces), since any one w ould requ ire a leap of faith, (but, as will be seen, a leap at som e poin t is unavoidable).

Instead of ap p ro ach in g value head on, let us beg in the chap ter again , b u t tangentially , by w ay of the follow ing question: Is there such a th ing as a value-free fact? Are all facts im plicated (or com prom ised) by the no tion of value?

The first possible refutation m ight be a fact such as E=mc2. Can there be any possible value inheren t in such an equation w hich so sim ply states the rela tionsh ip betw een m ass and energy? Well, yes. Such an equation is one w ay of seeing the w orld that has value for one culture or cultures b u t n o t others, or m ight even have value for one person w ith in a culture and no t others. Does this m ean that the 'fact' (or 'in terpreta tion ' — after all, we m igh t define m athem atical equations as m etaphors, and w hy describe the w orld in term s of m ass and energy anyw ay?) has value a t all tim es? To som eone w ho does no t see the w orld in this w ay, either by v irtue of the fact th a t they do no t use equations (perhaps they believe in magic) or tha t they rely on a w holly d iffe ren t set of equations, it is of no value, or deem ed to be of no value. But then, is it a fact? It m ight be. 1 could answ er th a t in your w orld it is a fact w hich I am quite p repared to accept as true b u t w hich is of no value in the general schem e of things, for exam ple.

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every th ing for m e m ight be related to w hat I believe abou t G od, in w hich case E inste in 's equation is irrelevant. In o ther w ords, to be an im portan t fact, the fact m ust have value. To be a valueless fact is to be irre levant, un im portan t. Let us say that facts are value-free (neutral) therefore only to the extent tha t they are trivial. If the sta tem ent is im portan t to m e then it m u st needs be a value judgem ent. O nly w hen the fact is of no im portance to m e can it be a value-free fact.

This is all very well (or m aybe not), b u t w here does it get me? The n u t seem s far from being cracked and I rem ain in the position of w aiting for G od to come dow n and adjudicate, or of accepting (and then celebrating or despairing) a t the infinite regress of value.

Let m e sta rt again. Can 1 say that L iterature is a fact? I could say that 'L iteratu re ' is a m etaphor for a set of relations and that, like E=mc2, it has an ap tness of fit, and also like E instein 's equation and any other m etaphor, it is no t the th ing itself. Processes and structures behave and seem 'as if' they w ere L iterature.

So im agine th a t w e begin by sta ting that there exists som eth ing called L iterature, and that we study this object. According to the reasoning above the fact comes to us value-laden (it is im portan t enough to study). Before go ing any fu rthe r there is an objection to this. For exam ple, it m igh t be argued that Literature as a concept is im portan t b u t nevertheless L itera ture does no t exist (sim ilarly — God is im portan t as a concept b u t does n o t exist). This is no t sustainable as an objection since the L iterature versus no-L iterature argum en t (which is p red icated u pon the possib ility th a t L iterature exists, w hether it does or does not) is im portant. So, for the present, we can state tha t the concept 'L itera tu re ' is im p o rtan t (for those w ho participate in it, use it, debate it, etc.), or as A nthony A ppiah m ight p u t it, 'ho lds our in terest'.4 That L iterature exists as a m ode of discourse is therefore a fact. But this all seem s like a very large ham m er to crack a sm all n u t, and it still rem ains the case that w hat constitu tes L itera ture rem ains open to debate. N othing has been cracked.

Let us m ake an o th er tangen tia l m ove and look a t the value of L ite ra tu re negative ly th ro u g h Tony B ennett's book Outside Literature, w h ich m akes a fu ll-sca le a t te m p t to re th in k the w ho le n o tio n of

4 Anthony Appiah, "Tolerable Falsehoods: Agency and the Interests of Theory" in Jonathon Arac and Barbara Johnson, eds.. Consequences of Theory (Baltimore: The John H opkins University Press, 1991). Appiah's version of the divide is between 'structure' and 'agency'. He argues that they are not com peting for 'causal space' and 'truth' (what w e m ight call 'logical explanation') but for 'narrative space', p .74.

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L itera ture, approach ing it from a sociohistorical perspective.5 H e looks at th e q u es tio n of aesth e tic s an d arg u es in som e d e ta il a g a in s t the construc tion of any theory based u pon the no tion of the aesthetic , or, in d e ed , any no tion th a t L ite ra tu re is in trin sica lly a specia l m ode of w riting , an a rgum ent in effect against giving L iterature any special value of this order. As such, B ennett's book, as well as a m eans w ith w hich to ap p ro ach value, also p ro v id es a very usefu l p la tfo rm from w hich to exam ine the problem s of attem pting to m ediate betw een im m anent-based theories of L iterature and sociohistorical theories of L iterature.

B ennett positions h im self in a post-M arxist space. This en tails a rejection of m any of the central M arxist tenets: reality p rio r to ideology; being prio r to consciousness; a unifying cause (class struggle); a teleological n a r r a t iv e (co m m u n ism ). M uch of th is is c o n s is te n t w ith an ack n o w led g em en t and acceptance of the force of a rg u m e n ts w ith in posts truc tu ralism and postm odernism . For exam ple, Bennett argues in the postm o d ern vein w hen he claim s that m etanarra tives can no longer be g ran ted any genu ine force. H e therefore rejects the possib ility tha t there m ig h t be one a ll-encom passing theory . The p a rticu la r m e tan a rra tiv e B ennett eschews is obviously M arxism. H ow ever, to counter the slide into relativ ism th a t this line of reasoning often tends, Bennett argues (m uch as C h ris to p h er N o rris does in What's Wrong With Postmodernism^) th a t the free-p lay arg u m en t u su a lly associa ted w ith deco n stru c tio n is the w eaker of its argum ents. This arg u m en t rests on the no tion th a t tru th shou ld alw ays be absolute, a tenet that is unsustainab le according to this version of deconstruction . The natu ra l consequence is that if tru th is not abso lu te then the alternative m u st be that 'any th ing goes'. The stronger a rgum en t w hich deconstruction m akes available, and w hich bo th Bennett an d N o rris favour, u ndoes the very po larisa tion tha t m akes tru th an absolute concept. A lthough the thesis has been proceeding according to the 's tronger' version of deconstructive thinking, as stated in the In troduction (w hat is p lausible ra ther than w hat is absolute), it rem ains the case that if w e accept this 'stronger' cultural conceptualisation it enables us little m ore than the 'w eaker' argum ent does, in that 'm eaning ' and 'tru th ' are arrested ('fixed') by the discourse ('cu ltu re ') w ith in w hich they operate. Rather than abstract (theoretical) relativism , the so-called stronger a rgum ent does little

3 op. cit.

Christopher Norris, op. cit..

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m ore than tran sfe r its re la tiv ism in to the practical w orld w here it is t ra n sm u te d in to p lu ra lism — in o th e r w ords, a t a theo re tica l level d ec o n stru c tiv e th in k in g (p o s tm o d e rn theory) log ically re su lts in an absolute relativism , b u t in the day-to-day w orld contingent forces alw ays place limits.

To re tu rn to Bennett, his positioning at all points is one tha t views all elem ents involved in this k ind of d iscourse (tru th , text, h istory) as o p era tin g w ith in socially determ ined constructs, or ra the r, a system of social regu la to ry practices. This is his m ediation betw een old to ta lising th eo ries an d new re la tiv is t trends. It also m eans he can m a in ta in a socialist stance w hilst at the sam e time jettisoning the old M arxist baggage. W hat is also necessary for B ennett is tha t the idea of 'L ite ra tu re ' as a special practice be abandoned, and that it be regarded sim ply as a particular practice, alongside, say, the h isto ry of law .7 For Bennett, L itera tu re has been taken as 'special' because of its supposed aesthetic nature. Connected w ith the no tion of the aesthetic are the corollaries of the transcenden ta l an d the id ea lis t, term s w hich accord ing to B ennett sh o u ld also be abandoned . As Bennett argues, it w as inim ical to M arxist ep istem ology th a t M arxist critical theory shou ld w ork w ith in the bourgeois concept of th e 'a e s th e t ic '. H en ce B en n ett b e liev e s th a t a lo n g w ith th o se a e s th e tic /id e a lis t/tra n s c e n d e n ta l te rm s, the w hole ep is tem o lo g y th a t su p p o rted them shou ld be rejected, som eth ing tha t can be achieved by concentra ting on h istory and social practices. D raw ing upon the w ork of Foucault and John Frow, the im plication of the la tter's contentions

is tha t literary texts should be exam ined not to reveal w hat they say abou t past social relations but, through w hat they say, w hat they do w ith in them w here th a t do ing is cond itioned by the p articu la r organisation and social p lacem ent of the literary form ations w hich re g u la te the concrete fo rm s of the social d e p lo y m e n t an d functioning of literary texts.®

To take B ennett's a rgum ent on its ow n term s, it seem s contradictory that w h ils t in s is tin g on the social n e tw o rk of re la tio n s an d the te x t's dep loym ent w ith in that, he can discard 'the aesthetic ' so categorically. O n h is ow n term s he w o u ld have to accept the concept 'aesthe tic ' as an

7 W hy this should be controversial is hard to fathom, especially if my earlier point is taken that w e study (are studying) 'Literature' as opposed to 'English'.

op. cit.. pp.74-75.

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essential p art of the nexus he sets forth for the analysis of texts. Even if he rem oves the aesthetic from the theoretical sphere he m u st acknow ledge th a t it functions in a very real sense in 'th e social d ep lo y m en t and fun ctio n in g of lite rary texts'. B ennett's e rro r is tw ofold. F irstly is his n o tio n of ae s th e tic p h ilo so p h y . T his is co lo u red by its u se and app rop ria tion by M arxist critical theory, w hich leads to his p resum ption th a t d iscussion of the aesthe tic at all levels, from in d iv id u a l texts to L iterature, seeks the transcendental in som e idealistic way. Yet surely it is feasible to say that the category of 'the aesthetic ' is 'transh isto rical' in the sense tha t as a concept it goes beyond the local level of texts and operates at th e m acro level of o u r u n d e rs ta n d in g , an d th a t the a e s th e tic is constitu tive of art in general and no t ju st L iterature (in the sense th a t it in fo rm s o u r u n d e rs ta n d in g of the a rtis tic in te n tio n as p rev io u s ly ou tlined ), b u t that w e do no t necessarily need to argue tha t ind iv idual w orks of a rt em body a transcendental aesthetic quality. A nd at this po in t there is no need to decide w hether this aesthetic is considered as being im m an en t in the w ork or a m ode of u n d e rs ta n d in g in re la tion to the read er-resp o n se approach . The im p o rtan t po in t is th a t the aesthe tic is p resen t in som e form at all tim es w hen talking about L iterature, since the aesthetic function is recognised as constitu tive of the artistic in ten tion (necessary b u t no t sufficient). B ennett's argum en t against this is th a t all L ite ra tu re is in s titu tio n a lly defined . But this is n o t n ecessarily an argum en t against the aesthetic, since surely Bennett can accom m odate the 'aesthetic function ' as a m ode that is likew ise socially and h isto rically determ ined . It is his ow n descrip tion of the aesthetic, in term s tha t rely solely upon the M arxist in te rp re ta tion and inheritance of the term , th a t p re v e n t h im from p u ttin g it in to the social and h isto rica l nexus he dem ands. Bennett, by 'severing the aesthetic ', is abandon ing one of the m o st im p o rta n t elem ents ■— in the social and histo rical sense -—- th a t inform an u nderstand ing of Literature. According to Bennett, the rem oval of the aesthetic connection does not necessarily entail the abandonm ent of the category 'L iteratu re '.9 Yet it is hard to see w hy he should insist that the 'connection ' sh o u ld be 'sev e red '. It is his use of m e tap h o r, 'lin k in g ' 'sp h e re s ', w h ich allow s this ra th e r specious m an o eu v re , ra th e r than reg ard in g the aesthetic function — either as im m anent or as p a rt of the social and h istorical dep loym en t of texts — as in som e w ay in tegral to L iterature. If L iterature is a specific m ode of a practice of w riting , integral

9 ibid.. p .l20.

About Value

to th a t is the p ro d u c tio n of the aesthe tic (or a w ork ing w ith in the aesthetic), it is constitu tive of that practice w ithou t hav ing to exhibit the transcendence (in term s of being outside history and society) that Bennett clearly finds the m ost d istressing p a rt of it. He w ould only need to look at the w ork of Jan M ukaïovsky and the P rague Linguistic School to see tha t no t all those theoreticians w ho w ork w ith the category of the aesthetic take it as read tha t this involves transcendence. M ukafovsky 's insistence tha t at all tim es the w ork of art is a sign, and therefore socially determ ined , a rg u e s th a t the ae sth e tic fu n ctio n m u s t also th e re fo re be soc ially determ ined and subject to the passage of tim e, as w ell as the difference betw een cultures.

There are o ther objections to B ennett's a rgum entative fram ew ork. A t exactly w hich points are we to view 'w ha t they [literary texts] say ' (see q u o ta tio n above)? G iven the absence of any possib ility of 'fix ing ' (a rep resen ta tion of) society, since there is now (Bennett d raw s upon Lacow and Mouffe) no object of study that can be called 'society', how can there be an y th in g o th e r than ju s t an in definab le am o rp h o u s m ass of in te r­re la tions th a t are changing not ju s t from century to cen tu ry b u t from m inu te to m inute? To say any th ing about the use of texts Bennett w ou ld h ave to fix at som e p o in t a set of regu la to ry relations to determ ine (or determ ine at that time) the text's 'existence', 'set of m eanings ', w hatever it is th a t Bennett is actually looking for. In the absence of concrete exam ples, it is im possible to know exactly w hat it is Bennett hopes to achieve w hen faced w ith a literary text, o ther than an arb itrary descrip tion of societal re la tions w hich coincide w ith w hat the text has to say. A lte rna tive ly perh ap s B ennett's a rgum en t is tha t it is the dep loym ent of the text tha t 'says' som ething, b u t it all seem s hopelessly contradictory.

This leads to ano ther objection. W hat exactly is being recorded? M eanings of texts th roughou t their reception history? In w hich case is this n o t Jauss 's Rezeptionaesthetik (w ith o u t the aesthetic!), looking a t texts aga inst 'the horizon of u n d erstan d in g '? O r how a particu la r text m oved w ith in a particular 'society ' at a particu lar time according to its 'use '? A nd how is this to be determ ined? An am algam ation of review s, letters, critical articles? (And how w ould the aesthetic be regarded here?) But w ou ld this tell us any th ing of its 'u se ' by people not involved in these p a rticu la r 'lite ra ry ' form ations? A nd co u ld n 't 'u se ' ( 'dep loym ent') in any case be a function p rim arily of 'th e aesth e tic ', th a t lite rary texts are dep loyed

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according to their aesthetic value, a value that is not transcendental, to be sure, b u t that is socially d e tenn ined and prioritised?

Tony Bennett takes it for g ran ted , or the im plication is there, th a t literary criticism can only be literary history, that it can only be understood as such. W hat w ou ld h ap p e n , I w onder, if Tony B ennett w ere to be p resen ted w ith a new ly pub lished novel? W ould he need to w ait for a b it of h istory to overtake it before he could pass com m ent? W hat could he say th a t w as no t just his version of societal dynam ics of that day? N o t that this is necessarily irrelevant, b u t just how significant w ould it be? O r is he only in te re s te d in L ite ra tu re as a m acro-concep t tha t canno t ad d re ss any in d iv id u a l item w ith in th a t h istorical overview ? N or is there any room in Tony B ennett's schem a for ind iv idual response — the p resupposition m u st be tha t the self does no t exist, bu t is a site of societal forces th a t p re ­condition possible responses. A nd in this case w ould he be saying tha t 'the aesthetic ' category did not exist anyw here at all?

Outside Literature also tackles the issue of pedagogy, treating it very m uch as the po in t of arrival for his argum ents on 'aesthetics' in p a rt three and 'the role of the literary intellectual' in part four. G iven the criticism he m akes of 'L ite ra tu re ', as he u n d e rs ta n d s it — th a t is, as a m ode of d ep lo y m en t of texts w ith in in s titu tio n s , in s titu tio n s w h ich se rve to inscribe values of elitism , especially in their use of 'd e p th ' m e taphors w h e re o n ly th o se r e a d e rs w ith th e c o rrec t in s t i tu t io n a l a n d institu tionalised know ledge w ill 'u n d ers tan d ' L iterature — he dem ands a dem ystification of these practices which have elevated the aesthetic. For as B ennett sees it: 'R ead ing aesthe tically , therefo re, is no t a m a tte r of recogn ising the tex t's objective literary and aesthetic p ro p ertie s b u t a m a tte r of behav ing correctly w ith in a p articu la r no rm ative reg im e of r e a d i n g ' . 1 9 prom this s tandpo in t he goes on to state just how L iterature in education m igh t continue. H e suggests th a t ra ther than subscrib ing to a way of reading, (that is, that appears to be eth ically /politically oriented and in w hich there are no correct readings — the m odern critical approach), he argues for

the em ergence of a m ore p ro g ressiv e lite ra ry p ed ag o g y and critic ism . O ne p o ssib ility , for exam ple , m ig h t consist in the developm en t of exercises, tests, and form s of assessm ent th rough w hich read in g s can be assessed as defin itely correct or n o t in

IQ ibid., p .l84, a similar account to Hunter's already mentioned.

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rela tion to sta ted (and hence debatable) criteria, thus constitu ting the teacher/critic as a technical rather than, say, an ethical exem plar and involv ing the s tu d e n t/re a d e r in the acquisition of particu la r technical com petencies ra th e r than in an u n en d in g p rocess of ethical self-correction .n

This to m e begs the question of just w h at level in the education system B ennett is criticising. Does he take this 'unend ing process of ethical self­co rrec tio n ' to be rife all the w ay th ro u g h from p rim a ry to h ig h e r education? He seem s to have conflated w hat are in essence tw o separate criticisms. The first m ight be applied to pre-higher education (GCSE and A Level in Britain) and refers to the question of aesthetics and its ethical constitu tion , w here perhaps it could be argued that 'a norm ative read ing p ro cess ' takes place, (a lth o u g h 1 w o u ld reg a rd even th is as h igh ly debatable). The second relates to a num ber of different w ays of read ing or ap p roach ing texts, w ith no single 'correct' read ing to be expected. This latter is surely applicable to teaching at degree level, w here there is a range of critical approaches available that exist w ithout the necessity for ethical correction or concern w ith aesthetics. In my experience assessm ent of a s tu d en t's w ork is usually dependen t upon criteria of persuasive argum ent, and it w ould be churlish to say that 'persuasive' was only applicable w hen the s tu d en t confirm ed the ethical stance of the assessor.

H ow ever, to give B ennett's a rgum ent its due, let us im agine w hat his recipe for change m ight look like in practice. Im m ediate ly there is a d oub le -b ind . W hat text(s) am I to choose? Texts th a t have n o t been d ep lo y ed w ith in the in s titu tio n s th a t constitu te 'L ite ra tu re ' can n o t logically be used because they are not yet Literature. This leaves m e w ith one of tw o choices. 1 e ither accept a 'lite ra ry ' text — w hich w ill by defin ition be canonical and 'L itera tu re ' — or I re-define w h a t counts as 'L iteratu re '. Yet this is a problem only if we take B ennett's assessm ent at face value. H is a rg u m en t is tha t 'L ite ra tu re ' is really an in s titu tio n a l process and structure that deploys texts for its ow n self-perpetuating ends, in o ther w ords, an ideological state apparatus. Presum ably these necessary texts could or w ould be any texts that were available or open to the process and s tru c tu re Bennett delineates. A cursory glance at L itera ture courses w ould surely be enough to convince that virtually anything can be s tud ied u n d er the rubric of 'L iterature ' that has a p rin ted format. The onus is then on Bennett to define w hat texts should be used. This w ould no doub t be a

11 ibid,, p .l90.

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consequence of w hat 'exercises, tests and form s of assessm ent' are selected. W hat k ind of teaching could this possibly be that did not fall into either a s tu d y of g ram m ar, w ith all its a tten d a n t prob lem s of w h a t lingu istic theories and categories to use, or discourse analysis, b u t tha t w ould no t erad icate problem s of in te rp re tation , w hich is really w hat Bennett strives to rem ove. W hat k ind of exercises and tests could possibly be app lied tha t d id n o t involve in te rp re ta tio n and ideological p resu p p o sitio n s a t som e level? W ould it not also depend on how this teaching described w hat 'the text', at the conceptual level, consisted of — structures? issues? language? id eo lo g y ? a u th o r 's m essages? — before it could even begin to ask questions of the text itself? B ennett's call to arm s dem ands criteria tha t allow for logical, rational and 'reasonable ' discourse. The m eaning of none of these term s is se lf-ev iden t b u t ra the r open to nego tiation , especially 'reasonab le ', and vu lnerab le in w ays tha t w ould com pletely underm ine the w hole th ru s t of B ennett's book. In short, B ennett argues th a t the w hole value of L iterature as it curren tly stands and has stood for a long tim e is one of transcendence, ethics and aesthetics. Yet Bennett's argum ent is in itself based on a m oral objection (w hether righ t or w rong) along the lin es o f h ig h / lo w L ite ra tu re . H ow is this to be g ro u n d e d in the p ostm o d ern env ironm en t that B ennett accepts? It can be no th ing m ore than his ow n leap of faith into the post-M arxist (Karl who?) socialist space he believes has been cleared. N or is it necessary to believe that aesthetics alone constitutes the special natu re of L iterature or is w here its value lies (see Section II). Once again, the value of Literature, like the 'object' itself (if in d eed it is an object) p roves elusive, desp ite the concerted and qu ite persuasive attack p rovided by Bennett.

A no ther attack u pon the special n a tu re of L itera ture, th a t is, its perceived special value, and its pedagogical status, is p rov ided by A ntony E asthope. H e attem pts to dissolve literary studies into cultural stud ies, as the title Literary into Cultural Studies suggests . 2 E asthope, like Bennett, m u st obviously define his object of attack in a w ay w hich w ill no t only suggest th a t the s tudy of L iterature is ripe for transform ation b u t w ill also allow for its transform ation. This is easily done by stating that L iterature is a cu ltural p roduct. R ather than sim ply doing away w ith it he argues for a d iffe ren t w ay of th ink ing , one w hich favours a read in g of all cu ltu re (which for Easthope consists of films and adverts as well as books). 1 w ould here m ake the p o in t 1 m ade w ith respect to L iterature and h istory , th a t

12 Antony Easthope, op. cit..

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because there are sim ilarities — w ith h isto ry it is narra tive , here it is a belief th a t any cultural production is open to a sociohistorical read ing —- it does n o t en ta il an equivalence. As w ith Bennett, the m ain desire to com pletely overhaul L iterature springs from the dislike for the position it appears to m aintain as a discipline that reinstates h ig h /lo w L iterature and concom itant elitist values. We either do aw ay w ith any notion of literary un d e rs ta n d in g o ther than th a t w hich can be scientifically or objectively assessed (Bennett) or we say that novels, poetry and dram a are no different from soup-can labels (Easthope).

Let us take the soup-can label argum ent. It m ight be said that, and this is bo th B ennett's and Easthope's argum ent in essence, no doub t part- derived from poststructuralist thinking, that a text is a text is a text, and to argue differently is to accord a status to Literature (or to invent the w hole n o tion of L itera ture) w hose foundation is one of a d etestab le (elitist) ethics. For them L ite ra tu re is no d iffe ren t from any o th e r w riting ; it consists of texts. Well, yes, to study a soup-can label can tell the observer m any th ings — if looked at in certain ways. If the observer asks w h at it m ay say about advertising processes, food consum ption, social m ake-up, it m ay be usefu l (or w hatever eva lua tive criteria they feel is a t issue ■—- pleasure, exchange, etc.). If the questions are of the order of w hat it can tell u s abou t the existence of charm ed quarks or the shoe-industry its value is negligible. To s tudy or to view L iterature in the sam e w ay as a soup-can label is to perm it certain questions only because of the p resuppositions, it is to a ttend to certain factors. But w hy no t regard the soup-can label as L iterature too? To take the argum ent on its ow n term s, we can, b u t we are e ith e r go ing to say th a t it is u n in te re s tin g , say , lin g u is tic a lly or aesthetically, or not very good. We will not be able to say very m uch about it a t all if looked at th rough the lens of L iterature. In o ther w ords, to ask questions about L iterature th rough the lens of, say, sociological theory, is to regard L itera ture as a sociological phenom enon. This w ould , of course, lead to the sam e problem s experienced by this thesis so far — W hat is society? W hat constitutes it? A nd sim ilarly 'C ultural S tudies ' p resupposes an en tity called 'cu ltu re '. W hy shou ld this be considered to exist and L iterature not, or exist as a preferable (hypothetical) entity? Certain objects requ ire certain lenses, or are better seen th rough certain lenses; 1 cannot see an am oeba w ith the u naided naked eye. The discourses of aesthetics and ethics allow us to say m any things about certain objects, and as we

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look th rough w ith these lenses m ust p a rt constitute the subject and object. The value inheres to the relationship betw een lens and object.

But once again 1 appear to be using a very large ham m er to crack or defend w hat seem s self-evident, the s tudy of L iterature and the s tudy of soup-can labels (cultural sem iotics, let us say) are not coterm inous at all points. Let us m ake the nu t bigger.

There is som eth ing called L ite ra tu re w hich involves som eth ing called literary u n d erstan d in g . L iterary u n d ers ta n d in g is no t a separa te en tity or process, it is a necessary condition of the existence of L iterature. The tw o things im ply each other. But w hat is this literary understand ing if n o t som e e litis t co n s tru c t u tilised to cow er the m asses in to m oral subm ission, to accept the m ores of the bourgeoisie (which is w hat Bennett and Easthope are really objecting to)? The argum ent against L iterature as it is perceived to stand by Bennett and Easthope is that it is a function of its h is to ry (w hich is taken to be its m ateria l foundation). In o the r w ords, being m ateria lists par excellence, (although in the post-M arxist space they in h ab it a 'm ateria lis t' p rog ram m e can have no a priori ra tionale), they define L iterature etym ologically. Of course, the problem w ith th a t is the sam e as trying to define a w ord as it is used now by referring to its history. A w ord is no t defined by an earlier usage (from, say, tw o m illennia ago), b u t by its place w ith in the cu rren t schem e of language, (obviously the s truc tu ra lism argum ent). In o ther w ords, to know w hat L itera ture once w as (if it w as this m oral tool) — and presum ably E asthope and Bennett have in m ind solely English s tud ies , a fact w hich also dam ages the ir a rg u m en t — does no t m ean we have a descrip tion of how it functions n ow . S econd ly , th e ir d e sc r ip tio n s p re su p p o se s in g u la r h is to ric a l in te rp re ta tions w here their telos (the final point-of-view) determ ines their n a rra tiv e . The final po in t-o f-v iew , to w hich they n a rra te and w hich perforce m u st struc tu re their narrative, is their synchronic assessm ent of h ow (the s tu d y of) English L iterature now stands w ith in institu tions, and all th is is to be done using a non-M arxist socialist parad igm of h istory (if th a t is possible — will 'class' be a tool of analysis, or does this too fly ou t the w indow along w ith M arxism ?). This m eans in effect th a t they use a d iachronic m ethodology to explain a synchronic phenom enon. It m ay be the case th a t the value of L ite ra tu re , lite ra ry s tu d ie s an d lite ra ry u n d ers ta n d in g m igh t be determ ined historically, b u t once again there is no defin itive w ay of proceeding , since there are a num ber of teloses to choose from and no w ay of deciding from first principles w hich w ould be

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the correct one, or even w hich w ou ld be a better p rincip le: the class s tru g g le ? a class stru g g le? the exclusion of w om en? the va lu es of h u m a n ism ? the v a lu e g iv en to E n g lish L ite ra tu re by 1st y ea r und erg rad u a tes?

O ne m ajor prob lem w ith the a rgum en t thus far in the chapter is th a t it has m ain ta ined the fact-value d ichotom y at som e level, ano ther version of the two cam p scenario. Theorists as philosophically far ap a rt as B arbara H errn s te in Smithes and A lasdair M aclntyre^^ challenge such a duality , as does John Fekete in his essay "V am pire Value, Infinitive A rt, an d L ite rary Theory: A T opograph ic M edita tion". 5 The last suggests a program m e that holds ou t the hope of reconceiving the problem of value. He describes the old way of thinking in this m anner:

R epresentational m odels have accustom ed us to taking for g ran ted a p ic ture of value as a derivative or m etonym ic p roperty , w ith the resu lt that we speak rou tinely of the sem antic value of a w ord , the tim e value of a note in m usic, the quantity of an algebraical term , or the equivalent that m ay be substitu ted for a com m odity. Evaluation, accordingly, comes to be understood as a p rocedure to p rov ide the com parative m easure of such rep resen ta tions.*6

A gainst this Fekete recom m ends a p rogram m e that could develop value 'as a m ove to displace the com m odity conception of value and to advance a p ic ture of value as the regulative m edium of preference'. It is clear tha t such a m anoeuvre w ould crack the fact-value problem because it is sim ply saying tha t w hatever we do, say, or think, is always un d er the sw ay of the process of evaluation , that is, we prefer som e things to others. We m ight see it as a change from a classical system w here item s have an innate, positive value, to a system described in a s tru c tu ra lis t vein w here the value of an item is relative to other item s w ithin the sam e system . In this new system value becom es purely a process (economy) of differentiation and n o t the m etonym ic sign for som eth ing else. In the o ld system , the

13 Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).

14 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd., 1981).

13 In Fekete, ed., op. cit..

16 ibid.. p.65.

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m etonym ic chain w as arrested only at som e absolute such as God, good or go ld . H o w ev er, this am o u n ts to little m ore than a ch an g eo v e r in nom encla tu re , as can be seen if we try to p u t F ekete 's a rg u m en t in to L iterature.

In the old w ay of looking at things, value w as p reo rd a in ed and absolute, for exam ple, we m ight have said 'Hamlet is one of the best plays in the w o rld '. In the new p rogram m e, value is pu re ly the nam e of the regu la ting process of the econom y, it is the m echanism of the econom y of L ite ra tu re w here we hap p en to prefer Hamlet to lots of o ther p lays, no t because there is som eth ing essen tially g rea t abou t it, b u t accord ing to w h atev er criteria the econom y prov ides a t that particu la r tim e. At this p o in t L ite ra tu re is therefore being defined by Fekete as a system of d istribu tion , reception, exchange and negotiation which does, or does not, keep H am let in circulation. F ekete 's agenda suggests tha t the value of

is now deem ed to be contingent upon the econom y it finds itself in, a lthough presum ably this is not necessarily a m arket econom y, since H amlet m igh t be kep t in circulation for 'cu ltu ra l' reasons, it is ju st th a t th e re is an 'econom y' in opera tion . H am let thus is now described as ex isting pu re ly w ith in the process of evaluation , w hereas p rev iously it fitted into som e G reat Chain of Value. Fekete has in effect re-enacted the a b so lu te /re la tiv e value d ialectic to com e dow n firm ly on the second , p ra g m a tis t term , w here value is alw ays there w ith o u t reg a rd to a foundational epistem ology or ontology, w here value does no th ing m ore than exist by virtue of the functioning of a system , an econom y, know n as 'eva luation '. There is certainly a w hiff of tautological reasoning in all this. Later in the chapter we will see how Fekete sw itches back over to the other side, to the side of absolute value.

Still, none of this autom atically invalidates the possible advantages of seeing L ite ra tu re in term s of an econom y and striv ing to crack the value-nu t in that way. N or does it im m ediately invalidate the possibilities of Fekete's p rogram m e. He does, how ever, run into problem s as soon as he applies his schem e of econom ic process in m ore detail, illustrating tha t he is far from breaking the abso lu te /re la tive nut:

47 Although of course the concept of a 'value' appertaining to an item in a metonymical chain — either Hamlet is the measure of great literature or Hamlet is an exam ple of great Literature — is no longer available.

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the reg u la tio n of the d is trib u tio n and recep tion of lite ra tu re is arguably far m ore pow erfully institu ted than w ould seem to be the regulation of literary creation. As a general consequence, a theory of lite ra tu re and literary value cannot be narrow ly iden tified w ith a theo ry of eva lua tion from the perspective of reception; tha t is, a theory of literature m ust be m ore and other than a theory of literary criticism, if it w ants to take in the entire circuit of literary value.

'R egulation of literary creation '? On the m ost general level this poses, or shou ld pose, no problem s —- an econom y involves p ro d u c tio n /c rea tio n as well as recep tion / consum ption. It is difficult to understand w hy in fact the reg u la tio n of literary c re a tio n /p ro d u c tio n shou ld p ro v id e a s tum b ling block since in an econom y p roduction is linked to consum ption , usually qu ite in tim ately . The degree of influence will obviously dep en d upon w hich econom ic m odel u n d erw rites the m etaphor, and as an aside, it m ig h t be th a t the prevalence of 'exchange' and o ther econom ic term s in literary theory and criticism, notably New Historicism , is a consequence of the obsession w ith 'the m arke t' w hich w as so noticeable in the 1980s, ep itom ised in M artin A m is's M oney and the film Wall Street. The reason literary creation does provide a difficulty is because, w hen it comes to the crunch , Fekete h im self w an ts to claim a positive , e ssen tia l, inna te , transcenden ta l value for art, in effect a reversion to the Classical system . For Fekete the value of art turns ou t to be a claim on his p art that there is an au to n o m o u s d iscourse w ith in a rt w hich can be described as the q u e s tio n in g of the value of v a l u e , s o m e t h i n g w hich in tu rn can u n d e rw rite literary creation independently of its reception. This clearly u n d erm in es Fekete's arg u m en t since the 'q u estio n in g of the value of v a lu e ' is an abso lu te term and no t itself subject to the ques tion of evaluation — that is, it does not suffer the fate of the question 'w ha t is the value of question ing the value of value? ' etc. — the spectre of infinite regress is therefore exorcised by this absolute defin ition of the aesthetic. O therw ise , unw itting ly , in Fekete's schem e, once the concept 'a rt ' com es u n d e r any process of evaluation , it (art) is m ade valueless because it is rendered non-autonom ous, that is, it becom es dependen t for its 'value ' on criteria th a t are extrinsic to it. Fekete cannot p rov ide a m eta-evaluative p ro c e ss . S uch a p ro c e ss m ig h t h a v e to be p r e - d e te rm in e d an thropologically , that is, art along w ith its creation and apprecia tion .

18 ibid.. p.77.

19 ibid., pp.80-81.

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w o u ld have to be taken as an an th ro p o lo g ica l u n iv e rsa l g iven , a fundam ental fact of existence (Ur-value) w hich w ould avoid the necessity to evaluate since it w ould be, indubitably , a fact of (pragm atic) existence. G iven F ekete's ou tline of the new system of evaluation , how ever, such a so lu tion is not possible.

P art of the problem for Fekete here, I w ould suggest, is th a t the econom y know n as 'L ite ra tu re ' rem ains undefined . Yet this in itself shou ld be a sim ple case of determ in ing the rules of regulation w ith regard to evaluation , w hich w ould then tell us w hat exactly it w as that was being regu la ted (that is. Literature). But even here there w ould be a p roblem in th a t regulatory param eters have shifted over the past six or seven decades so as to m ake the econom y of L iterature unrecognisable, tha t is, is it the sam e econom y? how did evaluation , the system regu la ting L itera ture, as value does all econom ies accord ing to Fekete, transfo rm itself in to a d ifferen t evaluative system ? W hat regulates the regulator? The difficulty is th a t value as conceived of by Fekete is a dynam ic system in equilibrium, self-enclosed, self-regulating. It cannot, by itself, give the value, in the old sense, of its value (in bo th senses). So Fekete, as no ted , has to tu rn to aesthe tics in o rd er to circum ven t the consequences of the 'econom y ' m e tap h o r, a m e tap h o r w hich reduces the value (in the o ld sense) of literary creation. Instead he m u st give 'a r t ' and the activ ity of a rt an absolute value. For Fekete, art is too valuable to be left to an econom y that does no th ing b u t regulate taste. This is how Fekete w ields the ham m er of aesthetic value:

. . . I am arguing that aesthetic value is not a consequence of som e particular everyday in terest, nor even a u tility sui generis w ith in the sam e continuum as the particu lar everyday sources of in terest and value. Instead, aesthetic value m ay be intelligible as the nam e for a s ig n ifican t reflex iv ity of value: aesthe tic value m ay be described as a force-field of value m ost p ro m in en tly po la rised around a special type of objectification (art) w hose dynam ics perm it and dem and the recoiling of value upon itself. A rt m ay therefore be regarded as a site of a reflexive organisation of percep tual, rational, affective, and im aginary elem ents, all in terms of v a l u e . 20

A esthetic value is the re fo re the p lace w here the v a lue of va lue is questioned . This assertion on Fekete's p a rt evades the issue of value by se ttin g it a t one fu rth e r rem ove, and art is thus deem ed a varie ty of

loc. cit.

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reflexive exercises on the value of value. W hat began as the n u t of value now becom es the nu t of art. N othing has been elucidated.

Let us look at value from the p o in t of view p ro v id ed by Steven C onnor.

Value . . . is the irreducib le o rien ta tion tow ards the better, and re v u ls io n from the w orse . . . the irre d u c ib le p r in c ip le of g enera lized positiv ity , the inescapab le p ressu re to iden tify and id e n tify w ith w h a te v e r is v a lu ab le ra th e r th an w h a t is n o t valuab le .^ '

W hilst this descrip tion of the un iversa lity of value m igh t be true w hen couched in such term s, it is difficult to see how this conception of value and evaluation as being irreducib ly and un iversally operab le is in itself u se fu l (or do I m ean valuable?). There are sim ila rities w ith B arbara H e r rn s te in S m ith 's m u s in g s o v er S h a k e s p e a re 's S o n n e t s in her Contingencies of Value, w hich , a lthough illu stra ting perfectly w ell one person 's (her own) changing taste or evaluation of a particu lar set of texts, an oscillation w hich in itself m irrors the changing fortunes of esteem tha t the texts them selves have a ttracted th ro u g h o u t their h isto ry , w e are left w ith little m ore than the fact that all value is contingent. The lim it to both such approaches se tting off w ith these axioms is p rov ided by one of the (uncategorised) responses to one of the questions on the questionnaire:

Q. 'W hat is the value of studying English Literature?'A. 'W hat is the value of study ing anything?'22

To any question involving value it is clear, as illustrated at the s ta rt and in our assessm ent of Fekete, that we can come back and ask 'A nd w hat is the value of that? '. The u p p er lim it of this is 'W hat is the value of living?'. A n sw er th a t and w e can an sw er all the o ther q u es tio n s th a t lead inexorably to it, and here again the answ er will be of the G od-G ood-G old variety . If the exploration of value cannot begin w ith p ro v id ing the, or even 'a ', un iversal that w ould anchor any such project, it is doom ed to failure. C onnor's project is underw ritten , like m any o thers since the 1960s (and especially in these politically correct times), by the absolute s tandard of 'freedom ': 'The desirab ility of un iversa l freedom m ay seem h a rd to d isp u te , b u t un iversa l freedom (like un iversa l anyth ing) m u st include

Steven Connor, Theory and Cultural Value , op. cit., p.2.

Appendix 2.

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w ith in it the freedom to question and criticize its ow n n a tu re '.23 W hilst few will query the sentim ent, this raises a couple of questions. Is the k ind o f ex is te n tia l , N ie tz sc h ea n fre ed o m in C a m u s 's The Outsider or D ostoevsky 's Crime and Punishment un iversally desirable? A nd if we are to be theoretically consistent we m ust also force ourselves to ask w hy we sh o u ld choose 'freedom ' as an U r-value, as our anthropological un iversal given? C onnor's m ove is to argue for a 'th ink ing together' of relative and abso lu te value,24 w hich certainly suggests a resolution for ou r tw o cam p scenario , a lthough it is also h a rd to see how this is n o t som e k ind of 'd o u b le th in k '. It m ay be tha t such an escalation, from the question of value to the issue of to ta litarian ism and its rela ted activities, is off the m ark — yet such ethical questions are precisely at the back of both Sm ith 's an d C o n n o r 's tussles w ith eva lua tion . C onnor p icks u p on S m ith 's d iscussion of 'how w ould you (as the relativist) answ er the N azi? '. Sm ith rep lies 'it depends' C o n n o r argues tha t this narrow s the force of the q uestion , 'w hich su rely m eans not only "how w ould you be likely to answ er the N azi?" bu t how should you answ er the N azi? '.26 The cases of bo th de M an and H eidegger are no do u b t lurking. The un iversa l d rive tow ard the better is here being understood as an ethical drive, it valorises the ethical, and so the w edge betw een aesthetic value and ethical value rem ains firm ly in place and problem atical.

For the m o m en t, then , n e ith e r the n a tu re of facts n o r 'th e im perative tow ard w hat is better ' can afford us any leverage, since any a ttem p t to app ly th ink ing on evaluation in general to L itera ture alw ays leads us back to question the axiom s of value, them selves (apparen tly) never far rem oved from questions of ethics. The question of value (like the question of in terpretation) m igh t therefore be better approached after the ethical fram ew ork has been elucidated. As it stands, to describe w hat value is is not to say w hat we can do w ith it. We are in value, ju st as we are in in te rp re ta tion if we begin the problem s in this w ay. To p o in t ou t these difficulties cannot help acts of evaluation , cannot even begin to help approach value in Literature.

23 op. cit.. p.3.

24 ib iT , p.2.

25 ibid., p.26.

26 ibid.. p.27.

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I w o u ld like to explore an o th er w ay of look ing a t value and L itera ture w hich em erges from a book devoted to the project of p rov id ing su ch a n ew eth ical fram ew ork , A lasd a ir M acIn ty re 's After Virtue.'^'^ M acIn ty re 's a rg u m en t runs som eth ing along the lines th a t the m odern m oral crisis he identifies is a resu lt of the collapse of the environm ent tha t w o u ld su p p o rt (and, according to M acIntyre, did su p p o rt a t the tim e of A risto tle) such concepts as 'justice ' and 'eq u a lity ', a tim e w hen beliefs am o u n ted to facts and could no t be separa ted out. B arbara H errns te in Sm ith convincingly criticises M acIn tyre 's ow n version of th is Fall from virtue(s). H ow ever, p a rt of M acIntyre's argum ent consists of the no tion of 'te llin g s to rie s ' as a fu n d am e n ta l p a r t an d co n s titu tio n of h u m a n existence. It is not the case that narratives are foisted upon past events, as Louis M ink and H ayden W hite have argued, which thereby only succeed in d is to rtin g the tru th of those events, b u t that stories and events are m u tu a lly d ep en d en t and in terw oven. To have one is to have the o ther, ra th e r th a n h av in g even ts w hich are au to n o m o u s an d p rio r to the d isf ig u rin g , s tru c tu rin g n arra tive . N ow im agine th a t w e ap p ly som e version of th is to the p rob lem of value, in te rp re ta tio n (perhaps) and L iterature. O r im agine that instead of using 'theory ' to justify or explain w h a t those involved in L itera ture are doing, or w h at their a ttitu d e and ap p ro ach to it is (or m ine is for that m atter) we are really involved in telling stories. N ow im agine that we have been telling ourselves, or have been to ld , the w rong story, and have placed ourselves (or been placed) in the w rong historical narrative.

In w hich s to ry is it th a t value becom es 'e x iled ', as B arbara H errn s te in Sm ith (and Steven C onnor and others concur) p u ts it? It is in the sto ry of theory that traces Literary Studies (note not 'L iterature ') from R ussian Form alism , th rough S truc tu ralism and P ost-S tructu ra lism , the la tte r now shad ing into postm odern theory (including N ew H istoricism ). V alue m ay not, or does not, becom e exiled if we take either the view tha t th is is the w rong story of theory, or that this story is only a m inor p lo t in a m ore com prehensive sto ry of literary s tu d y or L iterature. A nother sto ry m igh t proceed along the lines of the sketch w hereby the h isto ry of theory is im bedded in the practice of L iterature and literary study , and has been a p p ro p r ia te on ly in the te rm s of th a t p rax is, in s tea d of its ow n m ethodological ru les and regulations. R ather than envisage the sto ry of

27 op. cit.

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L itera tu re in term s of how it has p rogressed th rough the eyes of theory, now cu lm inating in a se lf-aw akening w hich we call p ostm odern theory (the recognition of contingency, the resistance to closure — although of course this is m y depiction of that story — and an acknow ledgem ent of the to u g h n u t of value), w e can tu rn ro u n d and say th a t in the sto ry of L itera ture in general, in education , the m edia, everyday-speak, value has alw ays been there in its m any form s, and not solely as a consequence of the h ig h /lo w culture divide. It has only been exiled in theory , or a certain n arra tive of theory. In this story, then, theory has no t been successful, it has finally been b ro u g h t to heel by the exigencies of the story to w hich it finds itself subordinated . A nother w ay of looking at it w ould be to say tha t theo ry does no t have the au tho rity to continually revise w h a t it th inks L ite ra tu re is or isn 't. But does this alter w hat theory says (and can say) abou t value?

W ell, it w ou ld now ap p ear tha t the lim its of literary theory are value and evaluation , and, as seen in both this chapter, via C onnor and Sm ith, and in the last chapter, the ethical. A consequence is that theory is n o t a m eta-d iscourse w ith in and u pon L itera ture and sh o u ld no t even th ink of itself as such. In fact, this m ay be literary theory 's m ajor failing in no t accepting its circum scribed position, and finding itself hav ing to m ake exaggerated claims to gain status. I am not saying here. Fish or K napp and M ichaels style, that theory does not have consequences, it does, b u t these are alw ays circum scribed by the sto ry of w hich it is a subp lo t, or even subtext. The value of theory has therefore always been related to the value of L ite ra tu re , how ever defined. T heory 's reaw aken ing to eva lua tion , in th is s to ry , is th u s s im p ly the b eg in n in g of its rea lisa tio n th a t it is su rro u n d e d by — ra th e r than itself su rro u n d in g — lite ra tu re and the value thereof and therein. Value is not the problem w hen talk ing abou t lite ra tu re tha t the theoretical s tu d y of value w ould have us believe or presuppose. But w hat is this value from w ithin which we work?

The questionna ire asked 'w h a t is the value of s tu d y in g E nglish L iterature?'.28 Like m any of the questions on the sheet, its a ttem pt to give a free-range to the s tu d e n ts u n av o id ab ly allow ed for im pression istic answ ers. H ow ever, this w as in preference to p rov id ing a p rede term ined range of responses tha t the s tu d en ts m igh t have been asked to choose from (for exam ple, (a) im proves analytical skills; (b) broadens the m ind; (c) a good career choice), and w hich w ould have narrow ed the scope of the

28 Appendix 2.

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questionnaire unnecessarily , and thus probably have been self-defeating. The danger of the open approach taken w as that the replies m igh t have been uncollatable given the w ide varie ty of im pressions. A ppend ix 2b is the collection of all the responses to the question 'w h a t is the value of English L iterature?'. Each time a value was stated it was no ted and given a tick, and as can be seen, there w as at this stage no attem pt to fix categories. O nly w here the w ord ing w as v irtua lly identical w as a tick g iven to a response a lready stated . It w as som etim es the case tha t m ore than one value w as p roposed , in w hich case all w ere acknow ledged. 2b therefore rep resen ts the in fo rm ation before m y ow n in te rp re ta tio n s w ere p laced u p o n th e m , an d th is w ill en ab le m y ow n in te rp re ta t io n of the in fo rm atio n to be jud g ed . As it s ta n d s here, the four m o st p o p u la r responses were, in order of popularity:

(a) b roadens the m ind w ith respect to the w orld and life(b) develops analytical and in terpretative skills(c) en joyab le /end in itself(d) regarded in term s of other disciplines.

The categories I have im posed are no doub t debatable, and no doubt, like the questionnaire itself and m ode of assessm ent, som ew hat crude, and no t necessarily m u tu a lly exclusive. Eor exam ple, w hen som eone says the value of study ing L iterature is educational is this a category (a) or category (c)? N evertheless, if we regard these as a tentative indicator of w hat value L iterature has, acknow ledging the lim itations of the questionnaire such as English L iterature, 1st year underg raduates, we could look at theory w ith in the larger narrative of 'L iterature ' that m ight be constructed , delim ited at all tim es by the value of L iterature. Theory w ould , I im agine, be largely p a r t of (b), and the w ay it has often been conceived, or conceived itself, w o u ld have been at the expense of (a) and its association w ith liberal hu m an ist values (although w hy b roaden ing the m ind w ith respect to the w orld and life should be regarded as som ehow undesirable is unclear). Of course, there is nothing to prevent an attem pt to alter the narrative d rift of L ite ra tu re, to say tha t 'theo ry ' shou ld no t be the value th a t inform s the telos ra the r than the value of 'm ind-broadening ' (although the tw o are no t necessarily m utua lly exclusive). This only serves to po in t u p the fact th a t it is a question of ethics, in the sense of 'ough t', rather than any objective quality or factor. The question of how the s ta rting -po in t for L itera ture m igh t be reconceived in the light of this, and the ev ident failure of theory

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as show n in this Section (see the follow ing concluding com m ents as well), p rov ides the im petus for Section II.

Concluding Comments

The thesis so far stem s from a synchronic assessm ent of the state of theory w ith in L ite ra tu re . It has answ ered the attack of theory on such old- fash ioned item s as 'a u th o r ', 'in ten tio n ', 'lite ra ry ' texts and 'v a lu e ' in a n u m b er of d ifferen t w ays, and has show n tha t bo th sociohistorical and im m anent-based theories fail to eradicate — either logically or em pirically — these areas of interest. But to argue against is not necessarily to argue for any thing in particular. It is no use pretend ing that sim ply by answ ering th e se c ritic ism s and th e o rie s of L ite ra tu re , an d the s tu d y an d u n d e rs ta n d in g of it. L ite ra tu re is u n to u c h ed and re s to re d to som e p rev ious, less problem atic , u n d erstand ing . It is no t sim ply the case th a t because none of the theories ho ld up , from W im satt and B eardsley o n w a rd s , w e can re tu rn to the p re -N e w C ritica l d ay s w h en w e (supposedly) 'just read books'. Section II in contrast to this section argues positively . It takes the view that we cannot proceed from theory as such (or w ork entirely w ith in it) to solve the theoretical im passe betw een the theoretical cam ps — and although other reasons are given for this po in t of view in the next section, the very failure of all the preced ing theories to achieve any lasting force or recognition, again either on an em pirical level or a logically sustainable one — is evidence that theory cannot in itself be a starting-poin t. Also it shou ld be said that the initial gu id ing force of the thesis, as originally conceived, needs to be overhauled . The thesis cannot claim th a t it has found a m ediation betw een the tw o cam ps and their various m anifesta tions as w itnessed in the preceding chapters. I w ou ld identify tw o reasons.

Firstly, I still believe it true that theories, self-consistent approaches and m ethodologies, fall into one or other of these two cam ps, and th a t this tension, as Ray points o u t (and, as has been seen, m ost others) has been constan t th ro u g h o u t theoretical d iscourse upon L itera ture, and rem ains so. H ow ever, the p reced ing chapters show that no theory in either cam p can w ork w ith o u t u n d erm in in g its claim either on the one han d to be exclusively a theory of im m anence, or on the o ther h an d to be dealing exclusively w ith sociohistorical factors. In that sense, m ediation is already

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there. But then, if the theories are self-contradictory on logical g rounds, they are h ard ly theories, b u t approaches or m ethods (and even to call them 'm eth o d s ', w ith its connotation of system , m igh t be s tre tch ing a po in t). M ediation , in th is light, is there as a practical consequence and prac tica l exigency. W e m igh t also note th a t this is the d iffe ren tia tion betw een strong and w eak deconstructive positions.

Secondly, theory 's ow n (implicit) story of itself in L iterature is a self- aggrand ising narrative that is incom m ensurate w ith L iterature, unless we are p repared to accept that L iterature is purely and sim ply the theorisation of itself. I w o u ld also ad d that at every tu rn we have seen the im plicit u n d e rw ritin g of projects by ethical concerns th a t are ex traneous to the theoretical argum entation . This criticism too forms the background to the nex t Section.

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nffiank.s for tfie CTfieorij

So far this thesis has tackled the issue of how to b ridge the gap betw een im m anent-sty le theories and sociohistorical theories, the initial po in t from w hich the thesis began. There was a belief that som ething along the lines of a synthesis, even a 'dancing betw een ', could be the outcom e of such a project. The prev ious chapters have w orked from w ith in the rela tionsh ip betw een these tw o apparen tly m utually exclusive doctrines. W ith respect to the topics chosen — 'in ten tio n ', 'v a lu e ', 'po stm odern ism and h isto ry ' etc. — it has becom e clear th a t any particu la r one w ill alw ays involve a t som e stage engaging w ith some other. They are inextricably interlinked: this is the nature of the discourse. It has also becom e apparen t that no m atter w hich rou te is taken the initial project so conceived is unresolvable, except, theoretically, as som e k ind of 'doub leth ink '. It has also been constantly suggested tha t the m ain difficulty lay in how Literature was perceived in the first instance, since the sta rting -po in t w ould always p redeterm ine the lim its of w h at could be claim ed. The thesis thus far has done its u tm ost to su spend judgem ent or definition of this entity called Literature, apart from the belief that som ething as vague as artistic (literary) in ten tion (no m atte r w here located) is a p rereq u is ite to discuss L itera ture (Art). The resu lt has been a series of assertions tha t are perhaps inevitable as soon as the initial prem ises are w orked through (once again the initial po in t determ ines the outcome). A brief sum m ary of the life, work and thought of Jan MukafovskJ/ w ould serve as an exam ple at this juncture.

Beginning as a s tru c tu ra lis t and w ith no tions th a t s tru c tu res are concretised (as p roposed in the ph ilosophy of P henom enology), and so alw ays aw are of the m utability of taste and judgem ent (hence the title of a collection of his essays. Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts'^; in h e re n t here are bo th s tru c tu ra lism and reader-response , p refig u rin g de M an 's w ork), he sought, m uch as this project has done, to find a w ay ou t of the paradox that art 'objects' stay the sam e yet change from generation to generation. To deal w ith such contingency he eventually began to look for an th ropo log ica l g ivens, th a t is, concepts th a t are fu n d am en ta l to o u r description of hum an existence. To help solve the paradox of contingency and transcendence he looked for som e 'universal aesthetic value'. W ithout such a universal underp inn ing there can be no absolute g round ing for 's tructu re '.

I Jan M ukafbvsky, Aesthetic Function, Nonn and Value as Social Facts. Translated from Czech, with notes and afterword by Mark E. Sui no. (Ann Arbor: Michigan University, 1979).

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the shadow of 'taste ' (contingency) w ill alw ays fall across the v ision of transcendence. Like M ukafovsky, and this thinking is no t just confined to theories based upon structure, I see no other way to think any literary (Arts) theo ry th rough . There w ill alw ays be som e dependency on a un iversa l anthropological given that m ust underw rite the project. The history of literary theory tha t we present to ourselves is a version of this procession of thought. In fact, it is nothing m ore than an extended version of M ukafovsky 's writings. D errida 's "Structure, Sign and P lay",2 often taken to be the po in t of crossover from structuralism to poststructuralism , has in its title interchangeable term s w ith those of the M ukarovsky book, sh ifting from the le ft-hand term 'function ' to the righ t-hand term s of MukarovskJ^'s con tingent 'value ' and D errida 's equally contingent 'p lay '. It seems to me that a constant to-ing and fro -ing b e tw een these no tions is all tha t is possib le w h en w ork ing theoretically within the dialectic of herm eneutics and aesthetics and the v a ria tio n s on the them e th a t have taken place so fa r.3 W ith o u t an anthropological given w hich w ould m ake the whole notion of art universal (and to m y know ledge there isn 't one) we are left w ith culturally determ ined an d cu ltu ra lly located system s, p rocesses and va lida tions; cu ltu ra lly determ ined and culturally located structures, norms, values, signs and play. It rem ains purely a question of interpretation w ithin each culture w hether art is to be regarded as transcendental, contingent or both. There is no w ay of decid ing from som e m eta-art perspective since neither a rgum ent can claim ascendancy (back to the Good-God-Gold problem). The journey of such to-ing and fro-ing is interesting b u t it m ust be acknow ledged that there can be no destination. To continue conceiving of the problem in term s of the dialectic as such is always to be confronted by the im passe of the initial polarisation. I am now going to suggest that the place of theory w ithin the study of Literature, and the claims it makes, be reconsidered. The argum ents here m ight also be ex ten d ed to the A rts in general. Then I shall suggest how w e m igh t reconceive our relationship to L iterature (this too can probably be extended to the A rts in general). A t the sam e tim e as w orking th rough theory a t the logical abstract level, I w ill also p u t it into the context of cu rren t teaching.

2 Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" in Rick Rylance, ed.. Debating Texts: A Reader in Twentieth-Centimj Literary Theory and Method (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987).

3 We might go as far to substitute Science-Art and seriousness-joiiissance for the left- and right-hand terms.

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since, as w ill becom e clear, the very existence of literary theory does no t depend upon the force of its ow n argum ents.

T h e o r y

L iterary theory can be p u t into the follow ing generalised context: W ith respect to the institutions w here it is taught, specifically, h igher education, it has gained a reasonable foothold, and we now expect to see it on L iterature courses in one form or another. If m y ow n experience at Leicester U niversity is typical, and sim ilar stories are to be heard elsew here, teachers, tu tors, lecturers, 'facilitators', tend to fall into one of two camps. There are those w ho are hostile to theory, and there are those w ho favour theory and believe that it allows no place for people w ho just w ant to read books in an old-fashioned, Leavisite w ay (although this really is far from 'innocent' reading). Proponents of theo ry rubb ish the non-theorists for their naivete. The anti- and n o n ­theorists on the other side m aintain a defensive superiority along the lines tha t they know best anyw ay, that, no m atter w hat the fancy jargon used, all anyone ever does is read books and that no theory, m ethod or approach can contain or explicate this activity to any formalisable degree. The other p a rt of the contextual equation is that students, in the main, do not like theory — it is often a w ay of thinking they are not used to and have probably done their best to avoid th roughou t their education (I realise that this assessm ent is focused on the English education system , bu t the consequences as discussed later w ill be generally applicable). These students often find literary theory irre levan t to their enjoym ent and u nderstand ing of L iterature. M y lim ited u n d e rstan d in g of the cu rren t situation is that theory is going to have the sta tus of a bad smell lingering in the study of L iterature until it is given a different role from the one it presum es for itself and maintains.

Tony Pinkney has stated that the future of literary theory is linked to the sta tus accorded to it by pedagogy: 'the future of literary theory has an unavoidable pedagogic dim ension, involving a constant effort to m ake this difficult field of w ork accessible to underg radua te students; if w e lose this battle , literary theory has no w orthw h ile fu tu re at all'.4 This is n o t as

4 The Year's Work in English Studies 70 (1989) (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), p.25. Ironically, YW ES from 1994 onwards will no longer contain a section on literary theory. This will be published in a separate volum e as The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, perhaps confirming Pinkney's fear, as well as the lack of any felt necessary link between theory and the subject it is supposed to be concerned with.

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pragm atically innocuous as it sounds, and for the following reason. Literary theory in general is p rem ised upon the idea that it is an exercise in logic. Theories g round them selves and believe that certain consequences ensue from these g round ings. This can be seen in Form alism , stru c tu ra lism , M arxism , fem inism (ignoring for the m om ent those tendencies tow ard m y stic ism , an issu e d e a lt w ith la te r); even , I w o u ld a rg u e , in p osts truc tu ra lism , since this theory m u st itself posit som e transcendental epistem ological po in t of reference in order to argue that no g round ing can possibly be sustained by other theories (it is a question of belief on D errida's p a r t th a t every stru c tu re can be deconstructed , in o ther w ords , it is an interpretation of the structu ra lity of structure . A nalogous is K evin F lart's assessm en t th a t D errida 'deve lops a transcenden ta l a rg u m en t th a t any d iscou rse w ill contain the m eans to call its m etaphysica l claim s in to question'5). Thus it can be seen that literary theory in general sets itself up in a pseudo-scientific m ode. Yet it is obvious that none of these theories, often m utually incom patible, can be verified, proved or disproved in the w ay that a theory — such as the earth goes round the sun — is accepted according to the ru les of the scientific com m unity . There is no w ay to decide w hether F orm alism is r ig h t or w h e th e r M arxism is right. They are basically antithetical, yet are both tau g h t as theories to explain the function ing of Literature. Yet, for anyone teaching theory w ho is not a hardened theorist, it is self-evident tha t we are dealing w ith approaches and no t theories. N ote th a t I am not even do ing anyth ing as sophisticated as deconstructing the g ro u n d th a t each theory rests upon. N or does my argum ent depend upon som e o ther theory, such as the neopragm atist notion that theories have no necessary consequences. I am sim ply pointing ou t that by no stretch of the im ag ina tion can these p a rticu la r v iew po in ts w ith w hich w e ap p ro ach L iterature be called theories. We expect theories to be dem onstrably true or d isp rovab le . If not tha t, then we a t least expect a theory to fit in to a fram ew ork w hich can decide w hich theory has the g rea ter exp lanato ry pow er, som eth ing tha t the s tu d y of L iterature and literary theory m ost evidently cannot do. We m ight even expect a theory, if it is to be treated as a theory , to p red ic t the fu tu re behaviour of the m aterial under description. W hilst this surely sounds absurd w ith in the context of literary studies, it w ould hard ly be news to those in the sciences.

5 Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p.xi.

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U ndoubted ly the Interest and desire for theory w ith in the s tudy of L iterature arises from a desire to place it on a scientific footing (see below for an assessm ent of the situa tion even if this prem ise is n o t g ran ted . The outcom e is the same). This is at best m isconceived, at w o rs t foolishness. Theory has its uses in the Arts, b u t the very fact tha t m u tua lly exclusive theories can inhabit the sam e field of discourse without any means of deciding between them, or even the w ill to do so, is surely evidence that the status of theory w ithin Literature (and the Arts) is sim ply not that of the sciences (see below also for a m odified view of how theory m ight be v iew ed w ithin the sciences). This is not to valorise one a t the expense of the other, it is m erely to acknow ledge that the fram ew ork for theory is different w ithin the discourse o f the A rts. N o r is th is the K n a p p /M ic h a e ls a rg u m e n t of non- consequentiality . In fact, w hat they say is that theory does no t necessarily have the consequences it claims for itself — which is not to say that there are no consequences. They are p o in tin g o u t that theory and practice are d iscon tinuous in the sense that there is no p re-o rda ined cause-and-effect relationship. From a practical point of view, we could regard the discourse of literary theory as one tha t has a variable am ount of influence on literary studies, bu t such a view com pletely underm ines theory's ow n reasoning and rationale, and w ould leave it in no better state than any single non-theoretical com m entary or m using that m ight be proffered and found to be persuasive.

To re tu rn to the difference in status for theory w ithin the sciences and theo ry w ith in the Arts: as tronom y and physics can p rove to their own satisfaction that the earth travels around the sun and not vice versa. That the earth goes round the sun is 'true ' in scientific terms, and is at the expense of any th eo ry w hich claim s the su n goes ro u n d the earth . There is no equivalence for theory in L iterature. For exam ple, a theory w hich prom otes 'lite rariness ' as the criteria for L iterature, as opposed to one w hich claims there is no objective criteria bu t only a set of cultural practices, cannot be said to be w rong or righ t in the sam e w ay as the su n /e a r th argum ent. N or is it a question of appeal to a m etadiscourse that could decide betw een the two. The d iscursive field tha t constitu tes physics also validates w hatever goes on w ith in it at any given m om ent. It does not have to reso rt to som e m eta­physics discourse. In other w ords, given that the question is w hether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa, w ithin the field of physics it can be decided according to its ow n rationale. In this sense theory certainly cannot have consequences in L iterature. It m ust be regarded in som e o ther way. Before m oving on to just how it m ight be viewed I w ould like to answ er three

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possible objections that m ight be raised against my sum m arisation of theory w ith in the Arts and science.

The first objection is that theory as used in the Arts, and particularly literary theory, does not have the sam e m eaning or im port as it does w hen considered in the sciences. This w ould be along the lines of saying that any theory w ithin the A rts/L ite ra tu re was m ore of an approach or m ethodology than theory. At a practical level, as m entioned in the in troduction to the first section, this w ould certainly appear to be the case. A lthough the history of literary theory w ould show that as each theory has appeared it has claim ed to be pow erful in the w ay th a t a scientific theory is, in terms of explanatory force as well as in its ability to supp lan t all previous theories of Literature, no theory has proved capable of dem onstrating itself to be the suprem e one, though we have seen the predom inance in certain institutions of single theoretical schools as if this w ere the case (Yale, for example). Since the problem is resolved at a practical level, w ith the cohabitation w ith in the s tudy of L iterature of incom patible theories, it m ight seem that there is little m ore to say on the m atter. Yet this situation is a b la tan t nonsense. Is one m ethodology or approach better than another? H ow are we to decide? If there are no hard-and-fast interpretations and analyses — sem antically, aesthetically, évalua lively — w ith w hich we can test any particular approach as to its effectiveness we have no t advanced one jot from the pre-Form alist days, since any judgem ent on the pertinence of any one m ethodology is purely a subjective judgem ent that cannot be subject to rational critique. There is a type of regulation in academ ia that passes itself off as objective evaluation w hen o thers ' argum ents are dam ned for being 'u n th eo rised ' — b u t this m eans only that a critic has no t used som e p re ­o rd a in ed theoretical view -finder. It is not, as the charge suggests, th a t som eone's argum ent falls dow n on logical grounds, and that logical grounds are availab le elsew here , because clearly there is no logical g ro u n d in g available elsewhere.

A nother response to evaluating the efficacy of a theory has been to prom ote the idea that the m ore discourse any particular m odel generates the better it is ■— so such 'm asters of discourse' (Foucault's term inology) as Freud, M arx an d Saussure w ou ld ev idently have the best theories. The difficulty w ith this — w h at am ounts to a m arket-driven concept of the p ragm atist's

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evaluative criteria —- is that it reduces to an argum ent w hereby those w ith pow er, the economic clout, or m ore directly, institutional clout, decide which m odels are to w in ou t at any given time. Theory, m ethodology , literary theory: none of these can be said to be continuous w ith the claims they m ake for them selves, w ith respect to exhibiting dem onstrable logic, since their efficacy is pu re ly to be re la ted to som e econom y ou tside of the ir ow n param eters and not their ow n reasoning pow er. It m ay be that as regards theo ry w ith in the Arts and L itera ture this practical so lu tion is the only available one, and that a calculation of the num ber of ML A and Social Science Index citations is a ready indicator of the value of a theory. If this is to be the case, at least w e should m ore openly adm it the relativity, contingency and non-tenability of all theoretical discourse w hen we are expected to take it on its ow n term s. This is certainly no t to say we are ou t of the quagm ire of know ing w hat L iterature is in that we can choose the m ost procreative theory, it is ju st to adm it that there is an inform al system which validates one or tw o theories at any given time. However, w ho w ould be prepared to suppo rt such a process as the agreed version of w hat w ould decide the best (if we are not to have logically coherent) theory? Even though m any are p re p a re d to acknow ledge that the pressure is to publish and that this is m eant to provide evidence of valuable critical activity, furthering the cause of know ledge, it is unlikely tha t anyone w ould actually subscribe to this process as a m eans of determ ining theoretical validity.

It can be argued that m y portrayal of scientific endeavour does no t take into account tha t in practical circumstances science itself does not actually possess the m eans suggested to decide betw een theories, that there are no hard-and- fast rules to decide betw een com peting m odels. A current exam ple m ight be the controversy su rround ing James Lovelock's theory of the earth, know n as Gaia, w hat he calls planetary m edicine.6 He claims that the earth exists in the m anner of a living organism , that it is a sick patient w ith deteriorating lungs and poor circulation. The m ore com m on and scientifically accepted m odel of the earth is tha t it is a lum p of rock w ith som e w ater on top. A lthough Lovelock's approach is classified by m any scientists as at best eccentric, their

6 James Lovelock, Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine (Gaia Books Ltd., 1991. N o place of publication given).

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real an tagon ism m ay be tha t there is no w ay to decide betw een these com peting m etaphors, and that the scientific way is show n, w hen pushed , to be no th ing m ore than a m etaphor, even if it is the dom inan t one. Yet this objection to m y delineation of theory w ith in the sciences w ould be to deny those o ther areas in science w here there is v irtua lly no d issen t — the discovery of the m odel for DNA for example. No such equivalent m odels can be said to operate w ith in literary theory — even if the w ay deconstruction and Bakhtin's dialogism have been hailed and treated suggest otherwise.

A further objection is that theory w ithin the sciences no longer claims to have the status p resum ed above, that it too, like postm odern theory in the Arts, acknow ledges its ow n lim its and contingencies. This m ight be explained cursorily by saying that the notions of 'chaos' have been taken on board by science. 'Chaos theory ' states that there can never be enough inform ation to understand and predict w ith com plete (any) certainty any given system. It is tied u p w ith the notion of non-linear system s: a very sm all change a t the beginning of an event can have a drastic effect on the outcom e ('chaos theory' is no t therefore about 'd iso rder' as its nam e m ight suggest). There are two things to be said. Firstly, it is hard ly taken as read that the greater p art of the scientific com m unity has been taken over by this 'paradigm shift', (the phrase th a t m ost popu la r expositions of the topic use, derived from K uhn 's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'^) rather, the practice of science has rem ained to a large extent unaffected by this theoretical paradigm , just as the reading of L iterature outside academ ia has rem ained largely unaffected by the rise of literary theory over the past three or four decades.

Secondly, so w hat? If L iterature is a system w hich e ludes linearity (w hatever that m igh t entail) there is no t a lot we can do, theoretically speaking. There appears little alternative bu t to relegate theory at this po in t and prom ote a philosophy of Literature as at least m ore honest, and open to judgem ent as such. If L iterature does always elude system isation how can we s tudy it except under the influence of som e desire? Are people in terested in L itera ture because of theory? That w ould seem an absurdity . If theory is a discourse of its ow n, then Literature is likewise not beholden to it. We have com e full circle, except that we have the know ledge that theory cannot be used on its ow n term s to circumscribe Literature. The circle is closed because w e are still left asking just how can, or how should. L iterature be viewed? This is linked to the third objection.

7 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd Edition enlarged. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

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W hilst it m ight be granted that we cannot expect there to be a theory existing w ith in and for Literature and the Arts that w ould have the force of 'the earth goes ro u n d the sun ', we m ight have a theory of the type app lied w ith in physics to the na tu re of 'ligh t': som etim es light behaves 'as i f it w ere a 'w ave ', and som etim es it behaves 'as i f it consisted of particles (photons), yet bo th cannot be true at the sam e time. For literary theory this m ight be treated as an acceptance tha t texts actually functioned , or could be v iew ed as operating , in the w ay that different theories claimed they did , bu t only under certain circum stances or w ithin certain param eters. This w ould overcom e the p rob lem of the m u tua l exclusiveness of sociohistorical (contextual) and im m anent (textual) theories: som etim es texts behave as if they w ere 'au thors ' m essages', som etim es as 'au tonom ous, self-sufficient constructs', som etim es as the m anifestation of w ider social concerns (it sounds convincing to m e, yet is it any different from 'doublethink'?).

A further analogy m ight be that of the different forces science claims to be operating at different levels of analysis — at the m acro-physical end of the scale are the gravitational forces that affect large bodies, and at the m icro­physical end the nuclear forces o pera ting at sub-atom ic levels. This is analogous to the difference betw een m uch of the problem over the d iv ide betw een sociohistorical and im m anent theories. The latter are m ore applicable to p u re ly textual m atters at a particu lar and discrete level (deconstruction, 'c lose-read ing '). H ow ever, the fact that it can only be sa id to be 'm ore app licab le ' is a sign th a t the analogy can only be p u sh ed so far, since historical evidence can also explain small textual problem s, such as the usage of a particular word. The fact that both science and the Arts use m etaphors as m odels for explanation does no t alter the fact that such a process in the sciences has a m eans of evaluating those m odels in term s of their aptness of fit, usefulness, elegance (economy) and predictability . In the Arts, in the teach ing of theory , as already sta ted , w hich m odels are used is pu rely a question of current fashion, a tutor's individual preferences and politics.

Yet this third objection rem ains only w ith in the discourse of theory, even if it does po in t a w ay out (by analogy) from the theoretical stalem ate the thesis has been exploring. It dem onstrates once m ore that 'theory ' w ithin the Arts and Literature is dependen t upon the status of theory w ithin science and the princip les said to be in force there. The argum ents above in the th ird

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objection are using m etaphors im ported from science because theory w ithin L iterature and the Arts has no choice bu t to proceed as if it w ere a scientific tool for the attainm ent of know ledge, as opposed to other criteria we m ight use such as 'in teresting ' or 'fun ' or 'beautiful' or 'clever', them selves surely as m uch drives as the desire for 'know ledge ' w ith in L iterature.8 To im port the sc ien tific en v iro n m en t as casually as literary theo ry does also leaves u n a n s w e re d id e a s of 'p re d ic ta b i l i ty ' an d 'v e r if ic a tio n ' (H irsc h n o tw ith s tan d in g on the latter). To begin to con tem plate the A rts and L ite ra tu re u n d er such concerns is to show the lim its of theory for such ventures. W hat if Literature and the Arts are predicated prim arily, inherently, im plicitly, upon always ou trunn ing our understand ing and enjoym ent of it, o r predicated upon always ou trunn ing our response to it? This is no t the w ay of science, it proceeds along the lines of b ring ing w ith in its rem it and com prehension certain phenom ena .9 P hysics is the s tu d y of physical phenom ena. But L iterature and the Arts are not constitu ted by the s tudy of them . They are human creations. In this sense, and given tha t they cannot be subject to statistical laws, such things as 'philosophy ' and 'ethics' m ust play the ir part. The follow ing is an a ttem p t to show w hat a non-foundational philosophy of L iterature m ight look like.

A Note on Philosophy and Mysticism

It w ould possibly be m ore accurate to term w hat follows — if it d id not carry such unacceptab le connotations — m ysticism . M ysticism has often been castigated as ph ilosophy 's other. Kevin H art notes that m ysticism has been regarded 'as tha t w hich m ust at all costs be excluded from philosophical discourse '. 9 Indeed, H art identifies this need for exclusion in the reception of deconstruction , as S pivak 's fram ing of the debate in her in troduc tion to D errida's O f Grammatology illustrates:

8 This is not to say that these categories are non-existent within the sciences, only that they are not part of the scientific imperative.

9 An exam ple of the way science must exclude and preclude 'the unknowable' from its application is evident even in the m ost speculative branches such as Stephen Hawking's A Biief History of Time (London: Bantam Press, 1988). Carl Sagan's introduction notes that the word that m ost constantly recurs in the text is 'Cod', in that H awking m ust constantly disregard such a notion.

9 op. cit.. p.xi.

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Speaking of the process of deconstruction , Spivak issues a ste rn w arn ing to the reader: 'Let me add yet once again that this terrifying and exhilarating vertigo is not "m ystical" or "theological"'. This is a curious m om ent in a text w hich has talked so anim ated ly abou t the danger of adding supplem ents.’'

F urther to this I w ould add (risking another dangerous supplem ent) H art's follow ing distinction betw een philosophy and m ysticism as suggesting tha t m ysticism w ould be nearer the m ark as a description of any antifoundational philosophy:

Yet if the borders of ph ilosophy are continually expand ing , it is nonetheless true tha t m ysticism represen ts ph ilo sophy 's 'o th e r ', a discourse (or at any rate, a family of discourses) concerned w ith tru th and reality b u t w hich rep u d ia tes philosophical m ethod and w hich p rize s certain experiences over reason and language . W hereas philosophy licenses itself as prosecutor and judge, m ysticism appears closed to dialectical inspection. The m ystic's vision finds expression in m etaphors, hyperboles, oxym orons, prosopoeia — in tropes of every k ind — which are anathem a to philosophical lucidity, and all the m ore alien to philosophy since the thought which gives rise to them seems anything bu t confused.’'2

If w hat has been said to date is true, and that nothing, either in theory or ph ilosophy , has incontestable and irrefutable grounds, then all theory and ph ilosophy are in essence m ysticism in any case (don 't D errida and o ther m etaphysicians of his ilk actually sound like mystics?). H ow ever, to avoid Section II being autom atically throw n out, I shall reaffirm that w hat follows is an a ttem p t to begin a ph ilosophical outlook as opposed to an overtly theoretical one.

ibid.. p.45.

^2 ibid.. p.211.

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security : Shïartin ‘BuSer's 'I-^âou ' in Literature and the Sdrts

It is obvious from the prev ious rem arks th a t 'theory ' is in no position to g round itself. From w hat we can observe of the m ovem ent of literary theory to grasp and elucidate L iterature — and the fact that theory cannot g round itself does no t im ply it fails to address areas of im portance for L iterature — there has been a p reoccupation w ith in te rp re tation , aesthetics and ethics. C u rren tly , a p rob lem w hich p lagues (or graces, d ep e n d in g u p o n you r position) m uch theoretical and critical discourse is the notion of 'the O ther', the prob lem of alterity.^ W hy shou ld this be the case? It does no t appear consisten t w ith the argum ents centred on the L ite ra tu re-as-au tonom ous/ L ite ra tu re -a s-so c io h is to ric a l p h en o m en o n d iv id e . Its a p p e a ran c e in postcolonial, fem inist and som etim es postm odernist discourse (and the three are no t always discrete) w ould suggest it favours the sociohistorical side of the div ide, although a little m ore consideration m ight show its im m anent, transcendental and ultim ately mystical qualities (an issue we w ill re tu rn to). Its im portance to fem inist and postcolonial theory is self-evident. Its relation to m ore recent d iscussions on postm odern ism is also obvious if w e take R obert Y oung 's descrip tio n of p o stm o d ern ism as 'E u ro p ean cu ltu re 's aw areness tha t it is no longer the unquestioned and dom inan t centre of the w o rld '.2 The huge influence of Bakhtin on recent literary theory in m ost areas also suggests the prevalence of the concern w ith alterity. The po in t is forcibly m ade by Iris M. Zavala:

The question of alterity (altérité, autrui) is one of the vantage points of m uch posts truc tu ra list linguistic theory, specifically deconstruction and psychoanalysis. It is also the explicit focus of Bakhtinian theory of the sign and com m unicative system s, w here com m unication and in te rp re ta tio n are seen to be d ep e n d en t u p o n rea l or im p lied "o therness," as co -partic ipan ts in the "event." "Voices," th a t is, "sem antic positions" are responsive, open to response; otherness refers to "voice interferences" and the dialogic, as interlocution w ith "others" (including readers) w ho m ust yet respond.

The Bakhtinian "other" is the speaking individual as well as the speaking collective, the co-participant in an utterance.3

1 Further proof of the desire to achieve the same status for theory within the Arts as within the sciences is Giard Luce's com ment that Michel de Certeau attempted 'to constitute a "science of the other'", "Epilogue: Certeau's Heterology and the N ew World" Representations 33 (1991), p.213.

2 Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (London: Routledge, 1990), p .l9.3 Iris M. Zavala, "Bakhtin and Otherness: Social Heterogeneity" Critical Studies 2 (1990), p.77.

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Also, given the influence of D errida on m uch theory, it is not surprising that 'the O ther' has surfaced, since he in turn is indebted to the w ork of Levinas w here 'responsibility to the O ther' exists 'pre-originally ' and 'an-archically'.4 This has p roved m ost fo rtu itous in the desire to re-in troduce ethics in to theory at a tim e w hen political-correctness is everything and w hen ethics had v irtually been elim inated from the m ainstream of theoretical debate, thanks to th o se very theo ries w hich w o u ld have done aw ay w ith it, nam ely s tru c tu ra lism and posts truc tu ra lism ; likew ise the N ew H istoric ism th a t descends from Foucault, although no t the N ew H istoricist practice of Jerome M cC ann w hich Brook Thom as (as already stated) identifies as a separate strand^ and the cu ltu ral m aterialism deriv ing from R aym ond W illiam s. I w o u ld argue th a t the in te res t in 'th e O ther' is a consequence of the unacknow ledged necessity of theory to ground itself in an anthropological un iversal given, since 'the O ther' can certainly and rather sim plistically be a rg u ed to be everyw here — som eth ing or som eone alw ays s tan d s in opposition to som ething else or som eone else som ew here along the line. The th ink ing is clearly dependen t upon S aussurean /D erridean notions of b inary oppositions. At p resen t 'the O ther' functions as the b inary opposition to end all 'o thers'. If theory could m ake ou t the case that 'the O ther' is here, there and everyw here (as it seems to), then w hat could be said about 'the O ther' w ould ho ld good for all aspects of L iterature (art, life, etc.). H ow ever, rather than p ro ce ed w ith the n o tio n th a t 'th e O th e r ' can in d e ed p ro v id e the anthropological universal given that will solve all our theoretical problem s (the thesis rem ains ever sceptical that this holy grail can be located) let me em phasise that w hat follows is not in tended to be taken as a 'theory '. It is a 'ph ilosophy '. W hat follows then, it should be re-iterated, does no t consider itself a 'theory ' of L iterature, b u t a ph ilosophy that 'believes' L iterature has certain properties and is dependent upon certain outlooks and predications.

The 'ev idence ' of the ou tbreak of 'the O ther' in literary theoretical discourse across a num ber of areas is testim ony to the saliency of such a discussion. H ow ever, to follow the Section 11 Introduction, this is certainly not to be taken as supporting a notion that 'the O ther' p rovides one of the best theoretical m odels, sim ply that an analysis of it provides a pertinen t ready-

4 Sean Hand's introduction to Levinas's "Otliervvisc Than Being" in Sean Hand, ed.. The Levinas Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p.88.

5 Brook Thomas, op. cit..

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m ade starting-point. Allied to this there will be an assum ption (a set of beliefs, 'a p h ilo so p h y ') on the p a r t of the thesis tha t lite rary theo ry fails 'to u n d erstan d ' (we w ould not use the w ord 'fails' if it accepted its ow n rem it and param eters) L iterature because there is always a disjunction betw een 'the read ing experience' ('just reading books') and the (academic) discourse about L itera ture. The follow ing is an a ttem pt, therefore, bo th to elucidate the p h ilo so p h y and to p lace 'th e read in g -ex p erien ce ' in to som e k in d of form ulation that can enable us to talk about it. I w ould even suggest that the continual w averings betw een ethics and aesthetics, or herm eneutics and aesthetics, across all literary theories, m igh t be taken as allo tropes of this single elem ent, just as coal and diam ond are allotropes of carbon, and that this curren t concern w ith 'the O ther' is a m anifestation of an attem pt to get to the underly ing structu re (other conceptual anchorings will no doub t supersede 'the O ther'). To enable discussion along these lines I w ould like to tu rn to the book I And Thou by the Jewish philosopher M artin Buber, first published in 1923 {Ich und Du), as being germ ane to a num ber of the thesis 's ongoing concerns by v irtue of its suggestiveness. 'Suggestiveness' is used to m ake clear tha t neither the analysis of 'the O ther' or Buber's book is g rounded in anyth ing other than the w ish to take part in current academ ic thinking, and th a t such analysis sheds further light on the function of theory , especially w hen it has to operate w ith in the context of 'the O ther', and the relationship betw een all parties concerned — texts, authors, critics, audience, institutions.

Buber can be said to fit in to the philosophical trad itions of Jewish m ysticism and Phenom enology, the latter in that there are parallels w ith his w ork and that of H usserl and H eidegger.6 As well as m y above disclaim er th a t use of Buber is not in tended to underw rite a theoretical project, it is also acknow ledged that Buber him self does not w rite 'theory ' in the general sense th a t the idea is understood . The turn to a relatively unap p ro p ria ted w riter w ith respect to literary stud ies and postm odern theory is an a ttem p t to engage the notion of 'the O ther' at a place that avoids a predictable insertion into the ongoing discourse. Further to this, rather than paraph rase Buber's philosophical/m ystical treatise 1 will give the series of declarations that open the tract in full, since they contain v irtually all of the potential m aterial for w hat comes after in 1 and Thou.

To m an the w orld is twofold, in accordance w ith his tw ofold attitude.

6 Buber is put into context in greater detail further on in the chapter.

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The attitude of m an is twofold, in accordance w ith the tw ofold nature of the prim ary w ords which he speaks.The prim ary w ords are not isolated w ords, bu t com bined words.The one prim ary w ord is the com bination 1-Thou.The other p rim ary w ord is the com bination Tit; w herein , w ith o u t a change in the p rim ary w ord, one of the w ords He and She can replace It.H ence the I of m an is also twofold.For the I of the prim ary w ord I-Thou is a different I from that of the prim ary w ord I-It.

Prim ary w ords do not signify things, bu t they intim ate relations. P rim ary w o rd s do n o t d escribe so m e th in g th a t m ig h t ex ist independently of them , bu t being spoken they bring about existence. Prim ary w ords are spoken from the being.If Thou is said, the I of the com bination I-Thou is said along w ith it.If If is said, the I of the com bination I-lt is said along w ith it.The prim ary w ord I-Thou can only be spoken w ith the w hole being.The prim ary w ord T it can never be spoken w ith the w hole being.

There is no I taken in itself, bu t only the I of the prim ary w ord TThou and the I of the prim ary w ord Tit.W hen a m an says / he refers to one or other of these. The I to w hich he refers is present w hen he says I. Further, when he says Thou or It, the I of one of the two prim ary w ords is present.The existence of I and the speaking of I are one and the sam e thing. W hen a prim ary w ord is spoken the speaker enters the w ord and takes his stand in iW

7 Martin Buber, I and Thou. Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith. (Edinburgh; T. & T. Clarke, 1947), pp .3-4 .1st published 1923 as Ich und Du.There is a strong sense of the I-Thou in Denis Donoghue's notion of 'epi-reading', in Denis Donoghue, Ferocious Alphabets (London: Faber and Faber, 1981):

Epireading is not w illing to leave written words as it finds them on the page, the reader wants to restore the words to a source, a human situation involving speech, character, personality, and destiny construed as having a personal form.

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W e can begin form ulating a philosophy w ith this question: Is the relationship in Literature, betw een Literature and aud ience/au tho r, an I-Thou or an I-It? I believe this is answ ered by recasting the question as follows: Is our problem w ith L itera ture an ontological one, 'W hat is L iterature? ', or an ethical one 'W hat ought Literature to be?' (similarly Art). I w ould suggest that the answ er lies so m ew h ere a long the fo llow ing lines. L ite ra tu re is e th ica l an d philosophical in that w hen we ask 'W hat is L iterature?' we are in effect asking 'W hat ou g h t L iterature to be?',® especially since theory cannot answ er the question . In o ther w ords, the ontological of L iterature is the ethical and philosophical. Hence, w hen Buber talks of the possible vacillation betw een the prim ary w ords 1-Thou and 1-lt we can relate this to Literature as follows. W e can say th a t the I-It, w hen ap p lied to L ite ra tu re , is ac tua lly the re la tionsh ip betw een L ite ra tu re and the theory of L ite ra tu re , it is th a t relationship w hich perta ins betw een L iterature and a u d ien c e /a u th o r w hen L iterature is perceived to be in the realm of things. If this could be said to be the case for the w hole com plex entitled Literature, that is, if L iterature w ere always an It and our relationship w ith it always deem ed to be in the nature of I-It, L iterature w ould present no problem s for theory. But because this I-It is always changing into the I-Thou (or, m ore accurately, reverting to the I-Thou, since it is the I-It w hich is the real im position) w henever L iterature is talked about, w hereby this alterity m eans that there can be no m astery, only in this infinite openness of the I-Thou can there be said to be Literature(Art). O nly as I-It can m astery of an O ther (object) be achieved, and this is the w ay in w hich theory operates.

N ow it m ay be objected, am ongst m any others, that I have not spelt ou t exactly w h at or w ho is involved in the 1-lt and the I-Thou as regards L itera ture. It m ay also be objected that 1 have not sta ted w hether I am proceeding by analogy or w hether the relationships are m eant to be taken

We som etimes say that the reader, within this tradition, is trying to find the secret of each text, like a m essage lodged in a bottle floating in the sea. But it w ould be more accurate to say that the object of discovery is not a message or a secret but a person.

D onoghue goes on to say 'We read to meet the other', p.99. It should be noted that Donoghue is writing in opposition to deconstruction's and Derrida's 'graphireading'.

® The analogy between 'Literature' and 'power' in the Introduction to the thesis m ight collapse at this point, since it is unclear whether we would transform the question 'what is power?' into 'what ought power to be?' — although even here the analogy might hold if w e consider that changes in definitions of power have had ethical drives (or drives to exile ethics).

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literally, tha t is, are we speaking of an 'it is as if we w ere involved in an I- T hou s itu a tio n ' ra th e r than 'w e are so engaged '? Let us assum e th a t A rt/L ite ra tu re is at some crossover po in t between analogy and literalness. By this I do not intend that we cannot decide, bu t that A rt has its status precisely because it exists on this b o u n d ary betw een taking the p rim ary w ords as analogous and taking them to be the fact of the m atter in Art.

A nother w ay to view this latter relation, which also relates to the first objection, is that in a particular situation -— let us call it a m atrix — involving L iterature and an ind iv idual (a single re a d e r/v ie w e r/p a rtic ip an t) we have the possib ility of e ither I-lt or I-Thou. N ow the I-It is the theoretical relationship. There is no acknow ledgem ent of reciprocity in the sense of that openness to alterity the 1-Thou relationship involves. The I-Thou is L iterature as replete, unlike the I-lt. It explains the preference that lies in literary studies for w h at is m ore complex, 'deeper', since these notions desire, superficially at least, a state of affairs w here im m ediate m astery (the I-It) is deferred in favour of a L iterature that is beyond easy com prehension. That such a construction of the activity of Literature has political possibilities in term s of elitism is p art of this, b u t no t a necessary consequence. We should also distinguish betw een the openness of the I-Thou and talk of sim ply rehabilita ting 'im m ediacy ' over con tem plation , tha t is, an a ttem p t to valorise w hat is conceived to be im m ediately felt a n d /o r understood (not necessarily the case for always) over 'in tellectuality '. Such attem pts at rehabilita tion are usually given the m ost com plex defences, for exam ple w hen A ntony Easthope appraises a 'Tarzan ' novel in contrast to one by C onrad and argues that (to reduce the argum ent) the latter should not be den igrated for appealing to an audience a t a m ore sensory and less reflective level.^ In terms of the 1-Thou, w hat is im m ediately understood or felt, 'exhausted ' (and 1 realise that this line of thinking is very unfash ionable and has the pejorative connotations of a certain [Leavisite] m orality -— b u t given the drive to force ethics back into literary stud ies we should bew are such knee-jerk dism issal) proceeds against the openness of the I-Thou relationship. This is no t to say tha t Easthope is w rong in tha t m ore consideration m ight be given to Edgar Rice Burroughs — it m ight be that an I- It relationship has previously prevailed w ith respect to his work.

Inductively I take the preference for a Literature(Art) that constantly opens o u t as sym ptom atic of the 1-Thou re la tionsh ip tha t u n d erw rites L iterature(A rt) (Easthope 's claim m igh t also be seen to be a claim for an openness). Similarly, L iterature that is regarded as too obscure or 'difficult'

Easthope, Litemnj into Cut turn! Studies, op. cit., pp.80-98.

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rem ains a t risk of being altogether too 'O ther'. This in itself m ay be view ed as a radical o therness that m akes the partic ipan t aw are tha t the bou n d ary is indeed a boundary , and that the openness of the 1-Thou is inhibited . The relationship in this particular m atrix is thus an I-It, there being no reciprocity, only a reification into the Obscure. In this sense, then, good Literature is /h a s been tha t w hich appears to be constantly w ithin the I-Thou (it 'speaks to us' rather than 'speaks at us'). O nly by m aintaining the I-Thou is L iterature thus authentic; only w hen theory throw s up its hands and acknow ledges that the a ttem p t to totalise is an attem pt to m ake Literature inauthentic and to ignore th a t the I-Thou rather than the I-It is the prim ary relationship w ill it really be able to approach Literature. N or is this argum ent applicable just to the study of Literature, it refers to the whole m atrix of readers, w riters, listeners, critics, theorists, b iographers and texts that constitutes Literature.

This w ay of speaking about L iterature — the O ther, authenticity , I- Thou — strikes m e as ou t of kilter w ith w hat m ight legitim ately be said at present. As philosophy or ethics or m ysticism it undoubted ly fits into the roll- call of ph ilosophers involved in Existentialist thought, and w h at has been appropriated from them by literary theory. Nietzsche, H eidegger and H usserl all s tan d beh ind both Existentialism and those in literary theory such as de M an and D errida (and no te too L ev inas's in d eb ted n ess to those ph ilosophers w ithin the roll-call). A nother pigeon-hole m ight be that of the 'd ialogicians' identified by Michael Theunissen in The Other.'^’ He notes tha t 'the philosophy of dialogue' ('dialogicalism ') as practised by Buber and m any 'lesser ph ilosophers ' 'derives ego or self in som e m anner from an original encounter w ith a "Thou"'.^^ An alternative fram ew ork to tha t I have taken from Buber for 'the O ther' is prov ided by H usserl, H eidegger and Sartre and their 'transcendental phenom enology' which 'Starting from the prem ise of the ego, seeks access to intersubjectivity by construing the O ther basically as an "O ther I" or alter ego'.^^ My preference for Buber is that the alternative prov ided by H eidegger, H usserl and Sartre, w here they begin w ith the self in isolation and w ork tow ards the social sphere from this a priori, autom atically leans tow ards the individualistic. Buber, on the other hand, begins w ith the social relationship, this is w hat pre-exists and cannot be gainsaid. A lthough

Michael Theunissen, The Other: Studies in the Social Ontology of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Buber. Translated by Christopher Macann. Introduction by Fred R. Dalhnayr. 2nd Edition. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984).

ibid.. p.xi.

loc. cit.

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superfic ially the tw o varia tions p rom ote in tersubjectiv ity , the s tran d of H eidegger et ah alw ays possesses the possibility of b reak ing dow n in to ind iv id u al atom s, an alienation that can in effect deny the social. W hilst Buber's I-It m ust share som e features w ith this, it still rem ains in essence a relationship in the social sphere.

H ow ever, to return to the I-Thou and Literature, is it really possible to take term s from 'existentialism ' and apply them in this way? Can we really speak of 'au then tic ity ' w ith in the m atrix of L iterature, or as a lim it on the m atrix of u n d ers ta n d in g L itera ture, and of the 'in au th en tic ity ' of m uch lite ra ry theory? A re n o t these term s sim ply tw o m ore a llo tro p es, a réin troduction of the problem of w hat constitutes Literature, or com prehends L iterature, as outlined at the very s ta rt of the thesis? After all, how can we possibly utilise a notion of Literature which asserts that L iterature(A rt) is to be located w herever the 1-Thou rela tionsh ip is extant? H ow w ould it be possible then to distinguish between the 1-Thou of my confrontation w ith the Face of the O ther (to conflate Buber and Levinas) and w ith a piece of art w hich I did not som ehow have to define as an art object, w here I d id not have to separate it ou t as an entity to w hich 1 added m yself or an audience or an au thor or an institution for deciding such m atters? Does this not take us back to the desire for a universal anthropological given that could determ ine Art? Isn 't the I-Thou precisely a universal anthropological given?

I am certainly not arguing that the 1-Thou is universal, although Buber appears to, as does the whole philosophical discourse centred upon notions of 'the O ther' or 'B eing-in-the-w orld-w ith-others'. This m ay or m ay no t be the case. I am quite p repared to accept that A rt is culture-specific, even if it does appear to go across the m ajority of cultures encountered. M y assertion is that A rt is at once the m anifestation of the I-Thou in that it exists for the I-Thou, and is predicated upon the I-Thou in that its assum ption is that the I-Thou is a p rim ary w ord in Buber's sense. In this w ay A rt can be d istinguished from a tree, for exam ple, w hich cannot be said to be predicated upon the I-Thou, unless it is classified as G od 's Art, even though, according to Buber, the tree m ight be involved in an I-Thou relationship. The latter w ould be an exam ple of w here we are tem pted to say that the tree is a w ork of Art.

This leads us into the realm of intentionality. To say that the tree is not A rt (I w ill re tu rn to d is tingu ish ing L iterature w ith in Art) depends (God no tw ithstand ing) upon the notion that we can d istinguish w hat has been p red icated upon the I-Thou and w hat has not. W hilst the tree is a natu ra l fo rm and (again G od n o tw ith s tan d in g ) cannot be sa id to have been

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'in te n d ed ', that is, p red icated upon the I-Thou, w hat of those argum ents closer to hom e, such as the 'bricks in the Tate'? Were they Art? I regard this as a 'lim it' a rgum ent for our purposes in that it stands at the edge of w hat we w an t to regard as Art. At least, it appears to do so. The question as to w hether it is A rt is easily answ ered as 'yes' since we are in an I-Thou relationship as described above, that it is a m anifestation of, and pred ication upon , the I- Thou. The question really being asked is w hether it is good art or bad art. But this m ay appear that 1 am avoid ing the problem that p roved im possibly knotty in the first section — again: 'W hat is Literature?'

The question 'W hat is Literature(A rt)?' throw s us back onto the above notion of in tention , w hich also needs to be reconceived. It shou ld no t be though t of (and w hen I say 'should not' 1 m ean that given the prem ise that is p red icated upon the p rim ary w ord 1-Thou we look for the lim its of this form ulation) as authorial intention as discussed in the first section. In asking 'W hat is Literature(Art)?' we are asking has there been a predication upon the I-Thou? W e can now th ink this th rough in term s of de M an 's no tion of intentionality . We can differentiate betw een A rt and the natu ra l w orld (the equivalent to Buber's tree is de M an's stone in this form ulation) as above; this is no problem . As to de M an 's no tion of d iffe ren tia ting be tw een the in ten tionality tha t inform s A rt — it is autonom ous, an end in itself, target- practice — and the intentionality that inform s the hun ter's aim at an anim al, w hich is circum scribed by the intention to eat or to sell, this also does no t p ro v id e a p rob lem (ignoring the contrad ictions inheren t in any case as w orked through in the first section) since the 1-Thou predication is not one of au tonom y as so conceived. It m ight be said that each I-Thou rela tionsh ip concerning A rt and Audience (although this is phrased badly since the notion of A rt always brings w ith it the notion of Audience) is a closed circle and thus autonom ous. This w ould be to ignore the 1-Thou nature, or to belittle it, since Buber's I-Thou is a prim ary relationship that has an infinity in openness and obviously so conceived cannot be gainsaid — unless it be argued that, in fact, the relationship is always I-lt and that it is w ishful thinking to believe that A rt is p red ic a te d u pon , or is the m an ifesta tion of the I-Thou. G iven the accum ulation of w hat has been so far said, the latter possibility does not seem plausible.

It w as stated in Section I that Literature(Art) has to be distinguished (it is a logical necessity) by positing some kind of literary (artistic) intention. This idea still holds perforce in the dom ain of theoretical reasoning. The I-Thou

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m anifesta tion and predication does no t have the sam e sta tus of necessity, although it does have an obvious structural affinity w ith this idea of intention. Such a hom ology betw een the two is possibly the easiest w ay to grasp the natu re of the I-Thou m anifestation and predication.

W hat of that intentionality, as described by H irsch, w hich claims tha t authorial intention is the only form of validation in interpretation? This is not m uch of an issue given the I-Thou, since, just as theory reduces the I-Thou to an I-It, that is, stands in an inauthentic relationship w ith the O ther of A rt in o rder n o t to face the O therness of A rt — alterity itself — and theory 's ow n vulnerab ility to w h at constantly exceeds it (I-Thou; Art) — to regard A rt solely as determ inable herm eneutics is likewise to condense the I-Thou into an I-It. But to explain this it w ould be necessary to turn to those areas w hich have been rejected by m ost recent theoretical work, and consequently m ade o thers feel nervous: the idea of A rt being close to life, of it being affective (emotive), of the role (and im portance of the role) of the im agination from all aspects. Let us just look for now at one of those areas so recently exiled, the 'p ro d u c e rs ' or 'c rea to rs ' of art, in ten tiona l au tho rs, e ith er considered singularly or collectively.

They too are in an I-Thou relationship. Like an audience, w hich for m any reasons they cannot be separated from, they too m ust suffer or em brace — w e have no guidelines as to which m ight be the m ost desirable response to the m anifesta tion and pred ication upon the 1-Thou p rim ary w ord — the alterity of Art, know ing (consciously, subconsciously, sublim inally) that the A rt they produce, create, author, exists w ithin the I-Thou m atrix of A rt, is a m anifestation of the I-Thou and is predicated upon it. Likewise the audience in the A rt m atrix is in a double relationship w ith A rt in that it is both in the re la tionsh ip of being in an I-Thou (m etaphorically , literally) w ith A rt as O ther, w hilst know ing (consciously, subconsciously, sublim inally) th a t this A rt is itself predicated upon the 1-Thou and is the m anifestation of the I-Thou that, according to Buber, inform s the hum an condition. The difference, if not already clear, betw een the secular 1-Thou that constitu tes in its various aspects Art, and the I-Thou of Buber, is that w hereas the form er is p art of the description of the hum an condition, the latter sim ply is. The hum an condition is thus no t a m anifestation of the I-Thou, it is the I-Thou, and as such m ust precede our discussion of A rt/L itera ture.

So here it is clear that, to use the older categories of im m anent (for exam ple, de M anian) theory/critic ism and sociohistorical (external 'evidence', for exam ple, H irschean), neither is full enough to cope w ith the I-Thou of A rt

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— or ra th e r, does not acknow ledge the im possib ility of such fu llness (immanence, authorial intention). N or is this to m isread Hirsch, w ho does no t deny th a t the evaluative process exists, rather only asserts that the p roper approach to m eaning can be w hat the au thor intended. To separate in such a w ay how ever denies the I-Thou relationship, which is primary. In other w ords, H irsch , like de M an, focuses u p o n a part w hich in its se lf-c losure autom atically disallow s certain o ther features — after all, de M an does no t d isa llow the openness of theory to m ore theory w hen he claim s th a t 'the resistance to theory is theory itse lf, or deconstruction the openness of itself to m ore deconstructive operation. It is no t therefore su rp ris ing tha t the self­closure of such theoretical w ork ( 'open ' only in the sense that they are open to the ir ow n reasoning), given the I-Thou we have been talk ing of, renders l i te ra ry th e o ries as m u tu a lly in c o m p atib le , and h ence , a lso , the incom patibility of theory w ith non-rational philosophy. They are not open in the sense of the openness of the 1-Thou, bu t open only in the sense of infinite regress (irony, for example). H irsch disallows evaluation as having any claim to the operation of in terpretation of Art. But this is a pointless exercise. It w ould be like arguing for the im portance of the m eaning of the Thou in the I- Thou at the expense of the w hole relationship. To regard it in these term s is to act in bad faith since the I-Thou is not a sum of two parts b u t a relation, both in Buber's w ork and as we are discussing it here.

H ow m ight the Knapp-M ichaels (neopragm atist) argum ent fit in to all this? A gain, as w ith Hirsch, this is som ething of an irrelevance in that the I- Thou of A rt is an acknow ledgem ent, through its whole predication upon the I-Thou, of an Other. Given the m ysticism of the I-Thou, perhaps it could be a rgued tha t G od w a s /is author. But this is not an obstacle. A ny th ing can function as the im plied au th o r, as K napp and M ichaels p o in t out: the subconscious of psychoanalysis and som e fem in ist theory ; society in M arxism , N ew H istoricism , feminism. It is only because of the underly ing alterity th a t the audience (individual, collective) is faced w ith tha t such a range of authors can be im plied in the first place. Just as w ith the whole range of theories that cannot theoretically co-exist if their separate prem ises are true, or are said to be true, it is only by virtue of the 1-Thou which is in excess of the I-It (although, strictly speaking the I-Thou is sim ply of another order and not the subsum er of the I-It) and underw riting the notion of au thor tha t we have a variety of approaches attem pting to pin dow n a particular author. They are sym ptom s of a com m on cause, and this m ight be taken as further evidence of the w ay in w hich the second section is justified in speaking in such a fashion.

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Thus far Section II appears to favour those approaches, theories and criticisms dependen t upon inform ation outside the text, as if the I-Thou (and even I-It) w ere really the sociohistorical side of the coin by another name. The objection rem ains that the text (art object) is autonom ous, that it transcends ind iv idual perception, that qualities such as literariness are im m anent in the text. The problem here is that if we view the argum ent as one of either I-Thou or au tonom y we have set up a false opposition . There are a num ber of 'refu tations ' (it m ight appear scientific b u t is not in tended to be so). Firstly, I am inclined to say^® that given the prem ise that Art is at once a m anifestation of and predication upon the I-Thou, the argum ent for autonom y is actually conducted at several rem oves dow n the line from this. The issue hard ly m akes any sense, since it w ould depend entirely upon the w orld of things, the w orld of the It, not even an I-It relationship. 'Very well', the objection m ight continue, 'b u t 1 still m aintain that there is a quality that m akes L iterature "L iterature", and that the quality is "literariness" of som e form or o ther, w hether objectively verifiable or subjectively perceived. A nd w h at is this "literariness" if not som e autonom ous feature that eludes your I-Thou?' But — and it does no t m atter w hether we take 'literariness' in its technical sense or som e looser general sense — 'literariness' is a quality or function w hich is taken, in the technical sense, to give the 'stoniness of the stone' (defamiliarise) or d istinguish it, in the general sense, from w hat is not literary or Literature. In the latter case it is sim ply another version of the g o o d /b a d in Literature, in tha t som e w an t to argue that Literature is separated out because of some great literary quality ('literariness'). The form er objection, that the qualities of A rt exist in the au tonom ous realm is to say that either the Thou is com pletely O ther (hence 'm akes strange' — although surely this 'm akes strange ' has to be for som eone, or, along sim ilar lines, this too is an acknow ledgem ent of the I- T hou in th a t A rt is on its g u ard aga inst transfo rm ing itself and being transform ed into the I-It, since, as Buber states, any I-Thou m ight becom e an I- It); or th a t it is in the realm of things — the least p robable line of this argum en t — or of a thing, that is. A rt as a whole field in its ow n objective right. This w ould not p revent an 1-Thou relationship, bu t w ould not be the I- Thou of A rt (m anifestation and predication), rather, it w ould be of the order of the I-Thou that Buber states can be entered into w ith the tree. W e can say

For there can be no finality or mastery in the I-Thou as there is in the I-It, only the continual opening out and opening up that constitutes the relationship: even the 'play' of poststructuralism and celebratory postmodernism is not of the order of 1-Thou in that it is im posed upon texts, perversely, in the same way that 'literariness' has been said to constitute Literature.

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th a t argum ents for autonom y and im m anence fail on any one of the above objections, yet there is still nothing to stop a counter assertion that A rt is not this double of 'm anifestation' and 'predication ' upon the I-Thou, only that the I-Thou provides a far better explanation for the contradictions tha t theories of Literature have continually w orked through (in the sam e w ay that Section I of this thesis attem pted to do), better than one which w ants to categorise A rt purely as an It, w ith the structure and mechanics of a m achine. Putting it this w ay suggests that we have an ethical choice, that m aybe we can regard Art as 'ou t there ' w ith its laws and limits, processes and products, a separate entity, a m an-m ade tree, in fact, or that w e can choose to have this philosophical relationship w ith Art, (more properly, an ethical relationship in that w e m ust ask ourselves 'w hich do we prefer?', bu t I will come to this later). This w ould in effect take us back to the sta rt of the thesis, its abyss-m al fram ew ork of allo tropes w here , due to the lack of any g ro u n d in g s tru c tu re for this fram ew ork, we can choose either pole as the preferred one, or som e 'dancing betw een ' as an ongoing struggle, challenge or openness. H aving said there are no guidelines, once the prem ise that there is a fundam ental relationship of I- Thou that constitutes Art and upon which it is predicated is accepted, there is no real choice. If A rt is this doubleness of m anifestation and predication upon the I-Thou, the I-It is to be regarded either as bad faith, inau thentic, or the failure at som e particu lar po in t of the I-Thou, a reification of the I-Thou (it could be argued that there is the possibility of choosing 'bad faith ' of course, w hich is w hy w e are m aking an ethical choice). It is no good attem pting, as w as illustrated by the theoretical shortcom ings of the first section, to argue against theory w ith another theory, or w ith the language of theory. No doubt there is som e kind of subsum ing going on in that the I-It m ight appear to threaten the I-Thou. But the I-Thou is prim ary, is the raison d'être of Art. N or is there any purchase to be gained from attem pting to deconstruct the prim ary of the I-Thou, as if the I-Thou w ere threatened at the m argins by the I-It. The I-It is not the opposite of the I-Thou in Art, nor in Buber's scheme, in the sense of a b ina ry opposition . The relation betw een the prim ary term s is at best asym m etrical, and m ost fundam entally of different orders (a problem w ith deconstruction is that it is always assum ed terms in opposition are som ehow logically com m ensurate). The 1-Thou is a positive term, although this is no t to state a full presence. It is a positive term in the sense that it escapes the net of oppositional logic, w hich is exactly w hy it cannot be theorised. To theorise w ould be to claim a com plete know ledge of the O ther, to assert an I-It. Hence w e are in w hat I can only describe as a non-rational environm ent.

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As I have repeated ly stressed there are no necessary consequences w hen regard ing L iterature in this way. At this juncture I w ill go as far to p rov ide a w orking definition of Literature in the light of the above. It w ould be to say th a t L itera ture is w ritten m ateria l existing as p red ication and m anifestation of the I-Thou (this m ight how ever also serve to b ring us nearer to understand ing w hat artistic intention m ight consist of). Such vagueness is u n lik e ly ever to p ro v id e the firm basis for d iscussing , s tu d y in g and eva lua ting L iterature. A defence for the s tudy of L iterature is som etim es couched in term s that it p rov ides a good sta rting po in t for asking m any questions across a w ide range of topics — history, politics, psychology, language, aesthetics — exactly the kind of open-endedness the Form alists w ere kicking against in their search to found a science of Literature. Such a defence sounds as if it is a m anifesto of the I-Thou, bu t, valid as it m ay be w ith in the realm s of pedagogy, it is really an argum ent that the s tu d y of L iterature is a convenient location for interdisciplinarity. N o w onder then that there is a trend for 'literary into cultural s tud ies ', w hich, I w ould suggest, probably is a better use of resources if Literature is so conceived, although I w ould be inclined to say that the notion of Literary Studies being transform ed into C ultural Studies is really Literary Studies being turned into the sociology of L iterature, another case of the I-Thou being turned into the I-It w ith even less space for acknow ledgem ent of the I-Thou nature. Also, is it no t the case, as s ta ted in the in troduction , tha t a certain am ount of im agination and creativity is involved in theory and criticism? Do not these am ount to the I- Thou relation, especially in the light of certain critical practices? For instance, shou ld no t an essay such as C ixous's 'Sorties' be view ed in exactly such a way?i4 Yet it is difficult to see how these could be anything other than a type of critical essay. Its particular use of language, which w ould be regarded as atypical for criticism in its 'creative ' aspects, is sim ply p a rt of the larger critical arg u m en t it is m aking abou t language, gender and subjectivity . Likewise D errida et ah. A lthough they are predicated upon the I-Thou in their attem pts to open out language and language use, and to m ake readers aw are of the instab ility of language and m eaning, they can no t be taken to be m an ifesta tions of the I-Thou since they still d epend upon the critical know ledge and underp inn ing of w hat their critical and theoretical project is. Rather than shifting the balance so that criticism and theory are taken to be as creative as the p rim ary lite ra tu re they com m ent u pon , the a ttem p t to

H élène Cixous, "Sorties: Out and Out: A ttacks/W ays/O ut/Forays", in Catherine Betsey and Jane Moore, eds.. The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticisjn (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989).

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in troduce the I-Thou m anifestation and predication into criticism and theory betrays the desire to collapse the description of the thing into the thing itself, th a t is, to collapse criticism and theory into Literature, to turn the m ap into the territory, so to speak. H aving failed to tu rn the I-Thou of L iterature into an I-It of m astery, rather than accept the disjunction, it claims that there is no d ifference, and th a t theory and criticism them selves can re-enact the generation of Literature. But is no t the study of Literature part 0/ w hat w e call L ite ra tu re in any case? Yes, since it is only na tu ra l th a t the I-Thou of L ite ra tu re /A rt generates debate and dialogue, bu t it should be rem em bered tha t it is the I-Thou that is intrinsic.

N ow , if any one theory is really no m ore than an approach, a particular m achine to p u t texts th rough and p ro v id e readings, is a ph ilo sophy of L iterature any different? After all, philosophy as a discipline is hard ly in any better condition than literary theory w hen it comes to decid ing betw een alternative models. No single philosophy will be able to successfully claim a priori g ro u n d s in the cu rren t p o stm odern clim ate, and an tifoundationa l philosophies leave us in no better a position from which to argue the case for L iterature, since w hat possible g rounds could 1 have for argu ing the an ti­foundational nature of all discourse? It is very tem pting to argue that m y case for the I-Thou has been p roved apodictically , that is, true by v irtue of dem onstration, as I have tried to do in the preceding rem arks. I w ould hazard th a t it is indeed only supportab le in such an em pirical m anner (em pirical in the sense of experiential —• bu t then this is the whole point — experience and the reflection of and u pon experience). In the clim ate of epistem ological scepticism that has successfully challenged all systems of thought that believe them selves to be grounded, there is room only for negotiations, com prom ises and consensus. There is no room for absolutes. Is it therefore possible to dem onstra te the 1-Thou in a m ore particu lar way? This question can be p a r tia lly an sw ered by the fo llow ing ex p lo ra tio n of w h a t is called 'im possibility fiction'.

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ImpossiSitity ffiction? I f f onty . . .

The U niversity of Central England on 03 July 1993 held a one day conference based u pon a category term ed 'im possib ility fiction'. Before the Call for Papers for this conference m aterialised I had not come across the phrase. N evertheless, I found m yself looking at the various categories of w riting in c lu d ed on the b lu rb (A ppendix 3) and a ttem p ted to find a com m on denom inato r w hich w ould account for them all. This w as in preference to im m ediately hun ting dow n its m eaning in academ ic journals and scholarly articles. It w as partly an exercise in attem pting to retain the I-Thou instead of seeking ou t the I-It of m astery. I thought this m ight be done by refusing to let the category be reduced to the definition provided by the blurb: 'any fictional narratives that deal ostensibly w ith alternative w orlds, or w hich foreground im agination, fantasy, desire, unreality or the unexplained '. The term in trigued m e so m uch I w anted to know it in a w ay that, for the time being, evaded this discursive net, a net I presum ed it had already been caught up in. M ight it be possible to use and m anipulate the phrase in a way that illustrates the I-Thou? In particular, m ight 'im possibility fiction' be construed so as to dem onstrate the ineffable experience of A rt/L ite ra tu re — the gap betw een the read ing experience and the know ledge of that experience? Rather than proceeding therefore in a particu larly logical or theoretical way, w hat follows is the a ttem p t to delineate an 'im possib ility fiction' that lives up to the au ra of in trigue it invokes and suggests. This p a rt takes the a ttitude of w anting to create an en tity called 'im p o ssib ility fic tion ', one th a t is n o t sim ply in terchangeable w ith the descrip tive term prov ided by the conference — 'alternative w orld fiction' — and to see if it could possibly be illustrative of the I-Thou in som e way.

The initial attraction for the conference was, 1 suspect, that the term m ight draw together a num ber of d isparate elem ents into an unexpected bu t determ inable field, rather like the attraction of the phrase 'alternative-w orld fiction' itself. One candidate for the role of common denom inator for the field is the notion of m etaphor. This appears to provide the perfect rule of thum b for w h at m ight be 'im possibility fiction'. W ith m etaphor's jux taposition of item s th a t cannot logically coexist in the real w orld, and w ith its com pression of im ages in to an im ag ina tive space w hich defies or is d es troyed by paraphrase , m etaphor is itself the perfect analogue. Juxtaposition is no t the rig h t w ord to describe m etaphor how ever. The definition is m ore ap t for simile. Let us take the simile, 'Eric is like a tree'. The com paring w ord 'like'

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s im u lta n eo u sly acknow ledges and sep ara te s o u t the s im ila rities and differences of the term s 'Eric' and 'tree'. If we rem ove the w ord 'like' in order to change it to the m etaphor 'Eric is a tree' we have som ething that is of an entirely different order. It is at this point w e enter the realm of w hat can only be called 'im possibility fiction'. We know 'Eric' is not a 'tree ', it is sim ply not possible, yet w e know or feel that it does contain that politically incorrect ideal 'tru th ', tha t som ehow , no m atte r how im possible, Eric is a tree, tha t there, we have said it, and it cannot be m ore perfect. This is not to say tha t the m etaphor does no t also function in the m anner of a poetic trope. W hat I am saying here is that it can be viewed as entering the sam e netw ork of relations tha t w riter, w ork and reader do w hen engaged in the activity of fiction (and I w ould extend the argum ent to all Art). More than this, m etaphor by its very nature , w hen given this im aginational status, either culturally or analytically, m u st also outreach the notion of possibility from the au th o r's and reader's points of view (as it was suggested Literature does), which is no t the case if regarded as a poetic trope (since this fits into a pre-given scheme). This is not to exile the poetic connotations of m etaphor. This aspect indeed m akes the apparen tly irreducible nature of 'Eric is a tree' m ore easily com prehensible. If w e find that a particu lar m etaphor cannot be m ore perfect, it is because as soon as we begin to explain in w hat w ays 'Eric' is and in w hat ways 'Eric' is no t a tree w e lose the insight (the reading experience) — m etaphor in this way is no t understood analytically (again, a non-rational environm ent prevails). Instead, m etaphor is irreducible, or, to use a completely untheoretical concept, it is m agic (the chapter now continues to use the w ord 'm agic ' as often as possible in order to give it the air of a technical term). Allow m etaphor the sta tus of fiction and it then has to be thought of as 'im possib le ', som ething w hich is no t necessary if we p u t it into the netw ork of relations regarded as poetry (in the above sense). This kind of magic w ould be exactly w hat I w ant from IF and w h at the b lu rb , d esp ite its call for the incorporation in to academ ia of m arginalised fiction, w ould appear to disallow.

Yet this reasoning only leads to a dead-end. If m etaphor is, as we m ight say, one of the conditions of possib ility for fiction (A rt etc. — for fiction continue to read Art), then all fiction is impossible, since it inhabits this unreal space, and the phrase is hard ly suggestive at all. It is no th ing m ore than a vicious circle to take m etaphor as a type of im aginative fiction in its b roadest sense and proceed to argue that fiction, in a narrow er sense, thus has the appearance of unreality and the magic of m etaphor. The consequence of this line of thinking w ould be that 'im possibility fiction' could only serve to be the generic g roup ing of, prim arily , science-fiction and fantasy w riting th a t the

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conference poster suggested . So to take m etaphor as a sta rting po in t tha t could u n d erp in the term can only entail som eone saying th a t all fiction is im possible because it is alw ays m etaphorical in the first instance. It w ould also be a cul-de-sac because fiction itself has anyw ay so far e luded all attem pts to categorise it, has escaped all attem pts to give it an und isp u ted poetics, and rem ains as m uch in this sense Im possib le ', m uch like a child is said to be im possible, that is, will not conform to any strictures (the relevance of this line of thinking to the I-Thou in that all L ite ra tu re/A rt ou truns theories an d poetics is self-evident). Just to p u t 'im possib le ' in fron t of 'fic tion ' therefore seem s a red u n d an t exercise all ways round. Again, IF m ight just as w ell be called 'science-fiction' or 'fantasy ' or 'a lte rna tive-w orlds fiction'. In o rder no t to reach this conclusion and instead to reach out for that som ething m ore w hich the phrase suggests, m aybe it is possible to use the them e of 'alternative-w orlds' or 'o ther-w orlds' as the com m on denom inator, bu t in a w ay th a t escapes itself and retains the m agic of m etaphor. The allure of the im possibility of m etaphors and their other w orlds is surely close to w h at we could m ake IF into. After all, how can a m an possibly be a tree? W hat is this other w orld Fric inhabits w hen he is one? W hat is the ontology of m etaphor? A nd let us rem em ber that just as there is no satisfactory all-em bracing account of fiction, nor is there of m etaphor. 'Fric is a tree' could generate endless theses and leave us none the wiser. 'Fric is a tree' is precisely an other world. But how to describe it? Then again, w hy should this matter?

Jeff T orrington 's Szving Hammer Swing!, w inner of the 1992 W hitbread Book of the Year, has in sm all p art this issue of m etaphor and other w orlds. Its ow n form al resolution of w hether to take this w orld or an alternative w orld as its s ta rtin g p o in t is qu ite illum inating . The novel is se t in the G orbals, in Glasgow, w here its central character has taken a year out from trying to earn som e m oney and is a ttem pting to w rite a novel instead. The novel he is w ork ing on, he m uses a few pages into the novel proper, m ight begin like this:

There was once this deepsea diver w ho discovered a tenem ent building on the floor of the ocean. He w ent through one of its closes and found him self in a backcourt w here the calm corpses of housew ives w ith carpet beaters in their hands floated around.^

Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing! (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1992), p.23.

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N ow , if the novel had opened like that it could quite easily have taken us into the realm of an 'alternative w orld ' w here the Gorbals was som e place to be discovered at the bottom of the sea. Sxving Hammer Szvingl's ow n opening is indeed itself very similar. It begins:

Som ething really w eird w as happen ing in the G orbals — from the battered hulk of the P lanet Cinem a in Scobie Street, a deepsea diver w as em erging. He hesitated , bam boozled m aybe by the shim m ering fa thom s of ligh t, the to w erin g rockfaces of the sn o w -co ra led tenements.2

The novel's actual opening and the possible opening can be d ifferentiated as the difference betw een sim ile and m etaphor, the use of 'som eth ing really w eird w as happen ing ' functioning in the sam e way as the w ord 'like ' in a simile. The actual novel we read is therefore saying it is 'as if' the Gorbals w ere underw ater. The novel has decided to function as a simile. But w hy shou ld Jeff T orrington com e dow n on this side, on the side tha t uses the cau tion of sim ile, and not the side that w ould structu re the book on the im p o ssib ility of m etap h o r? W hy no t go w ith the o rig ina l idea of a sub terranean w orld called the Gorbals? W hy not, in other w ords, w rite the im possible fiction? At this level there is no difference, the two books w ould be interchangeable. The other w orld of a subterranean Gorbals w ould not be an o ther w orld at all. It w ould no t really be m agic bu t the sam e food w ith a different sauce. To look at it like this m eans that the category of science-fiction as an equivalence for the IF we are attem pting to create fares rather poorly. The w orld and fiction of novels like M argaret A tw ood 's The Handmaid's Tale and George O rw ell's 1984 are, like Torrington 's hypothetical other Gorbals w orld , im possible only in the m ost prosaic way. Or, to use the term inology tha t abounds in talk of fantasy and sci-fi, the secondary w orld of these novels is no t a m illion miles from our ow n prim ary w orld. If we w an t to discount them from IF in term s of m etaphor, the tenor and the vehicle of their w orlds are far too close. They are not really m etaphors. But then m aybe tha t is because they are no t the hard-core sci-fi w hich is really and tru ly o ther­w orldly. But then, this is not exactly w hat 1 w ant from the term IF. My desire is to m ake visible the I-Thou. Sci-fi in m y reading always reflects back onto this w orld in som e way, satirically, for example, a n d /o r as utopia or dystopia, and is therefore easily delineated and com prehended (it lacks the I-Thou). Sci- fi is m erely the creation of w orlds replicated from this one, and 1 say 'm erely '

2 ibid., p .l.

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because I have to have som eth ing that is altogether d ifferent, th a t in its en tirety approaches the m agic and irreducibility of m etaphor itself. Let me look a t sci-fi here by w ay of a diversion to see how it falls short of w h at I desire from 'im possibility fiction'.

In a book called The Rationality of Emotion Ronald de Sousa uses a science-fiction scenario to illu s tra te a concept used in science called 'emergence'.® 1 w ould like to use this exam ple in two ways. Firstly, the idea of 'em ergence' itself in relation to m etaphor, IF and science-fiction, and secondly (briefly) de Sousa's ow n use of a sci-fi vignette for explanation. So, firstly, 'em erg en ce ' is an idea th a t is u sed in scientific theo re tical m odels. 'Em ergence' is a property that som ething has if it cannot be deduced from its constituent properties bu t can only be know n by em pirical discovery.^ 'In tha t sense' (de Sousa argues):

em ergence is to be expected at m any levels of science. To see this, consider the following story. In the Beginning or shortly after, w e are told, all was H elium Soup. Could F.U. (an Fxtra-U niversal scientist) have p red ic ted the fu tu re p ropertie s of gold on the basis of o ther properties of existing particles? I see no reason to think so — unless we are w illing to endorse classical rationalism , in w hich case all tru th s could be deduced a priori.

But w hat if F.U. is allow ed com plete freedom to experim ent w ith new com pounds? She m ight take bits of helium off in her TUTU (Trans-Universe T ransport Unit) into a universe w here the conditions w ould allow for the constitution of gold. Then she can sim ply observe w hat the properties of gold turn out to be. In this w ay she will discover a new p ro p erty of helium particles, nam ely, the p ro p erty of being capable of being constituted into gold.

A little further on de Sousa explains the story as follows:

This account is in tended to p lacate both the reduc tion ist and the antireductionist. Reductionism is vindicated because the higher-level p roperty [i.e. gold] is indeed explained by the low er-level one [i.e. helium ]. On the o ther hand, the opposition is righ t in its claim tha t there is no conceptual sufficiency of the lower-level properties. Given the right em pirical hypotheses, one can explain, b u t one cannot analyze or define, the higher in terms of the lower.®

3 Ronald de Sousa, The Raliariality of Emotion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987).

4 iblA , P-33.

ibid.. pp.33-34.

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M etaphor too m ight be considered as the transportation of elem ents from this w orld in to an unreal or hypothetical w orld , just as in the story. A nd the quality of the m etaphor 'Eric is a tree' m ight be considered as precisely that of the em ergent, in tha t we can explain the h igher term , tha t is ,. the m etaphor itself, in term s of its low er term s, for exam ple 'Eric' and 'tree', bu t no t analyse or define it w ith these term s and their accom panying baggage to a necessary and sufficient degree. The m etaphor cannot indeed be d educed from its constituent properties, it rem ains irreducible, magic — in which case we are w itness to the I-Thou rather than the I-It. This also holds good w ith respect to the discussion on the A uthor as uniquely creating and w ith w orks of A rt in the sense of uniqueness, although the differentiation de Sousa m akes betw een the categories 'explanation ', 'analysis' and 'definition' is not particularly clear. W e can 'ex p la in ' a w ork in term s of its co n s titu e n t e lem en ts (the d isen tanglem ent of history, psyche, society, etc.) bu t could not pred ic t the p roperties of this m ixture (we cannot predict the properties of gold from observing helium).

G iven the preced ing rem arks there should be no confusion betw een 'im possibility fiction' as it is here described, and such literature as science- fiction and fantasy w hich have surface sim ilarities because of their 'o ther- w orld ' characteristics: they are not of this nature, they do no t have the quality of em ergence bu t are fully explicable, definable and analysable in term s of the ir low er elem ents, tha t is, elem ents taken from the recognised w orld (although of course in term s of the broader argum ent, as Literature in general they are p art of the 1-Thou. Through the notion of IF I am sim ply attem pting to outline in a m ore concrete way how we m ight understand the I-Thou in a particu lar instance). This ease of com prehension (I-It m astery) w ould have been the case if Torrington had set his G orbals in the sub te rranean other w orld , it w ould no t have had the quality of emergence. In term s of language, subject m atter, epistem ology and ontology, the other w orlds of fantasy and science fiction m ay be self-sufficient — and they usually are in ternally coherent and are expected to be so^ — bu t they are w orlds w hich are either extensions of this one or are literalisations of m etaphors. The latter po in t is m ade by Jacqueline Pearson w hen she talks of w om en's science fiction, b u t I take it to be paradigm atic of science-fiction in general:

See Ann Swinfen, In Defence of Fantasy: A Study of the Genre in English and American Literature since 1945 (London: Routlcdge and Kegan Paul, 1984), pp.5-6, in agreement with Tolkien.

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W om en's novels, or fem inist theoretic, provide m etaphors of gender difference w hich can be given detailed m ateriality in science fiction. The literal w ar betw een the sexes in a novel like Joanna R uss's The female man is only a continuation in another form of the m etaphorical w ar in w om en 's novels from A phra Behn's to Alison Lurie's The war between the TatesP

In o ther w ords Joanna R uss's novel is sim ply a kind of translation in that it does no th ing that these other, non sci-fi novels do not also do. Similarly, the category of sci-fi fiction know n as 'cyberpunk ' does no th ing that a novel set am ongst the underclass could no t do: they are either electronically generated para lle l w orlds, or the m aterial m anifesta tions of such m etaphors. They them selves do no t have the m agic 'o ther w orldness ' of m etaphor. Their literalisations are the equivalent of paraphrase, ways of saying things 'in other w ords ' or even 'in other w orlds'. Such it is too w ith de Sousa's use of a science fiction narrative to illustrate his point about emergence. His ow n scenario, like sci-fi in general, does not itself have those characteristics of em ergence. It is designed purely to illustrate points concerned with the nuts and bolts of the p rim ary world. At this po in t we are as far as ever away from creating the IF w e desire. If fantasy and sci-fi cannot do it, w hat can?

A nn Swinfen, in her book In Defence of Fantasy d istinguishes betw een those novels w hich utilise parallel w orlds and those which create w holly secondary w orlds, the prim e exam ple of the latter being Tolkien 's Lord of the Rings, w here an entire other w orld is created. Parallel-w orld fiction is that type of fiction w here p rim ary and secondary w orlds co-exist. A nn Sw infen has serious reservations about this type of fiction:

[The fantasy of w orlds in parallel] has neither the firm underp inn ing of realism found in the fantasy set entirely in the p rim ary w orld [by w hich she m eans the type of fantasy-fiction involving 'talking-beasts'], nor the com bination of im aginative freedom and logical discipline w hich shapes the creation of the p u re secondary w orld fantasy. Two w orlds seen in parallel tend to clash, to contrast too strongly, to w ork aga in st each o ther — m aking one or the o ther less credible, or underm ining the relationship between the two.®

Jacqueline Pearson, "Where no man has gone before: sexual politics and w om en's science fiction", in Philip John Davies, ed., Science Fiction: Social Conflict and War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p .16.

® op. cit.. p.74.

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But m ight it not be that w ithin parallel-w orld fiction it is at the intersection of tw o w orlds that we find the real im possibility of fiction and hence IF itself, the I-Thou m eeting, the m anifestation of the ontology of the 'in-betw een' of the I- Thou? A nn Swinfen takes the approach that it is incredibly difficult to w rite successful parallel-w orld fiction, She is probably righ t to argue tha t there needs to be this internal coherence for fantasy which is difficult to sustain in parallel-w orld fiction. But w hen it is successful, w hen it does balance tw o w orlds tha t are m utually exclusive, could this be our 'im possibility fiction'? Let m e take three quite d ifferen t narratives that m ight fit the bill: H enry Jam es's The Turn of the Screw, K urt V onnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and Angela C arter's Nights at the Circus.^

The tw o w orld s in Turn of the Screw are the n a tu ra l and the superna tu ra l (we m ight also say the realist and the m odernist, b u t tha t is ano ther m atter). W ith regards to the parallel w orlds, the sto ry gives an e i th e r /o r situation , know ing th a t it cannot be resolved, that is, w e either accept it as a ghost story or as a story of m ispercep tion /lunacy /so lipsism . But for readers the story is deliberately am biguous and allow s us the m ore em bracing explanation of precisely this am biguity. The bigger picture, so to speak, is th a t the tale is about its ow n fictional sta tus and the problem of fictional know ledge. It p resen ts us w ith the paradox tha t w ith in its ow n p rim ary w orld the natural and the superna tu ra l, or the real and fantasy, cannot coexist, it is an e ith e r /o r event, yet w ithin the secondary w orld of fiction, from the p o in t of view of the reader, they do co-exist, ju st as I described the operation of m etaphor at the start of this chapter. N ote that here I do no t m ean that it is the literalisation of any particular m etaphor, although Turn of the Screw does also have this side to it in that it is continually tu rn ing the screw of effect, as it suggests in the fireside banter at the beginning of the tale. W hat I am suggesting is that in its very structura l functioning of the coexistence of logically inconsistent elem ents it is a m etaphor. For Turn of the Screw cannot both be a ghost story and the realist tale of som eone w ho is m ad, yet it is, the nature of fiction allows it, just as the nature of m etaphor allows for 'Eric' to be a 'tree '. But I w an t to say that the Turn of the Screw is not 'im possibility fiction', the reason being that 1 believe we should incorporate another elem ent into our definition, in keeping w ith the desire to find the I- Thou in observable operation — that of the ineffable, that which is always ou t of reach, beyond our grasp intellectually, or fictionally, or em otionally even.

Henry James, The Aspern Papers arid The Turn of the Screw (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986); Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5 (London: Triad/Panther Books, 1979); Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus (London: Picador, 1985).

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Turn of the Screw does no t fit this descrip tion because it encom passes and circum scribes its ow n am biguity , it s tands in relation to itself as I-It, the reader can grasp the tale because it is about its ow n fictional status. It is the na tu re of fiction that m akes it possible, and so from this angle w e are not in the realm of the impossible. It is going to take som ething more.

W hen I first read Slaughterhouse 5 some years ago I took it to belong to the sam e class of fiction as all of V onnegut's early novels, tha t is, science fiction. You do not think twice about the ability of the pro tagonist to travel in tim e b e tw een decades, and in space be tw een the p la n e ts E arth an d Tralfam adore, it is all p a rt of the contract that the generic expectations of science-fiction set up betw een reader and text. Sci-fi and fantasy genres allow w h at is norm ally im possible to be possible. That is one reason w hy I do not find the term 'im possibility fiction' com pelling when used in this way, in the m anner the term was set-up by the conference at the U niversity of Central England. N o t until I en tered academ ia d id som ebody p o in t o u t th a t an alternative reading of the novel w ould have it that the hero /an ti-h ero , Billy Pilgrim , was m ad, and that this could account for Billy's time and space travel as the im aginings of som eone w ith senile dem entia. It appeared (appears?) to be an inclination am ongst people w ho w ere content to m arginalise fantasy and sci-fi tha t w henever a novel was difficult to read as a realist text in the canonic m ainstream it could alw ays be recuperated by claim ing that the narrative was by or about som eone insane. And of course, once the claim is m ade that the novel is about m adness, this m akes the novel som ehow m ore w orthy. K urt V onnegut's ow n sta tem en t som e way into his career tha t his w ork sh o u ld no t be regarded as science-fiction re-enacts this academ ic recuperation of the im possible. Yet neither reading of Slaughterhouse 5, as realist or science-fiction, has prio r claim because they both stem from this sam e urge, to nullify im possibility, to allow the im possible to be possible. A realist reading cannot allow the parallel-w orlds of two planets to co-exist, or the parallel-w orlds of the past and present to co-exist, so the realist reading says Billy P ilgrim m ust be m ad. The generic science-fiction read ing perm its and even dem ands the existence of parallel worlds. In neither instance do we have 'im possib ility fiction', even if we do have 'a lternative-w orld ' fiction. A nd here I th ink is a crucial difference betw een the b lu rb 's p resum ption abou t IF and w hat, by w anting to dem onstrate the I-Thou, this section can create as IF.

I suspect that the sam e difficulty applies to w hat is called 'm agical realism ' in that the generic m arker always recuperates or allows the space for the possibility of the parallel w orlds of magic and realism, or, to p u t it m ore

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prosaically, the w orld of fact and fiction. By the time w e reach the 1980s this generic recuperation is well in hand, to the point where the novels are doing it them selves, as in Angela C arter's Nights at the Circus of 1984. It has a central character called Fevvers w ith w ings just like an angel. It begins w ith Fevvers being interview ed by a journalist, W alser, w ho is ou t to establish w hether the w ings are real or not. In fact, the am biguity is rather like th a t set up in The Turn of the Screiv since w e do no t know w h at kind of novel w e are in. If Fevvers is a con-artist w ith artificial w ings then the novel is essentially realist. If, how ever, the w ings are real then we are being en tertained by m agical realism. If readers had not gathered this for themselves the novel at a couple of po in ts self-reflexively tells them the paradox upon which it is structured. One of those instances occurs w hen the train W alser has been travelling on has broken dow n and he has ended up in the com pany of som e tribe:

The Sham an listened the m ost attentively to w hat W alser said after a d rea m because it d isso lv ed the s len d er m a rg in the S ham an app rehended betw een real and unreal, although the Sham an him self w ou ld no t have p u t it that w ay since he noticed only the m arg in , shallow as a step, betw een one level of reality and another. He m ade no categorical distinction betw een seeing and believing. It could be said that, for all the peoples of this region, there existed no difference betw een fact and fiction; instead, a sort of magic realism. Strange fate for a journalist, to find h im self in a place w here no facts, as such, existed!^®

If anyth ing w ere a candidate for 'im possibility fiction' w hen defined as tha t literature w hich exploits the cusp of parallel worlds (possibly the 'in-betw een' of the I-Thou) and had a w hiff of the ineffable it w ould surely be magical realism . Yet this quote from C arter's novel illustrates the difficulty of such dem arca tio n in that, as w ith science fiction and fan tasy , the generic contextualisation can be seen to converge w ith the very notion of fiction itself. If m agical realism is d istingu ished in the m ode that Nights at the Circus d istinguishes it, as being a region w here there exists no difference betw een fact and fiction, this is surely in the natu re of fiction in any case. In o ther w ords, it is in the nature of fiction to always allow for the impossible. A nother novel by Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hofftnan, pu ts the case very succinctly w hen a character claim s one of the D octor's m ain princip les is that 'everything it is possible to im agine can also exist'.""i This

40 ibid.. p.260.

44 Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman (Harmondsworth; Penguin, 1982), p.97.

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points to the beauty of fiction in that it does allow for everything im aginable to exist, b u t also therefore to the red u n d an cy of the term 'im possib ility fiction'. So, w here to from here? 1 see four possible ways ahead that w ould not autom atically be this continual falling back and collapsing of IF into the very natu re of fiction itself.

1. It m igh t be claim ed that the analysis of fiction and m etaphor has been faulty because the analysis has been of the logical-analytical type w hen in fact this is entirely inappropriate. To subject the m etaphor 'Eric is a tree ' to the sam e m ethodological scrutiny of tru th as an apparen tly sim ilar sta tem en t such as 'Eric is a m an ' is to be categorically w rong. M etaphor calls for an analysis and poetics that stem s from a contextual approach to m etaphor rather than a subm ission to logic. H ow ever, 1 do not see that in the long run the provision of a different fram ew ork of analysis for m etaphor w ould avoid once again IF converging w ith the nature of fiction itself.

2. IF m igh t be that type of fiction we regard as violating its ow n in ternal coherence. This is not the sam e as that type of postm odern fiction that bares its devices or is m etafic tional. A m ore ap t term w o u ld p ro b ab ly be 'unsuccessfu l fiction ' or 'ru b b ish '. We w ould be say ing th a t because som eth ing did not succeed as fiction on its ow n term s it therefore becam e im possible as fiction (it has not m astered itself as fiction, or as the fiction it sets itself up to be). W hilst there m ight be a certain am ount of in terest in this idea, I do no t see too m uch m ileage from it in terms of IF.

3. W e concentrate on that type of fiction that tends tow ards the sublim e, that k ind of fiction that has been called 'the literature of exhaustion ', exem plified by the w ork of Borges, N abakov and Calvino. Indeed, to talk of it like this suggests the 1-Thou at work. This type of fiction is the literary equivalent of d raw ings by Escher w ith im possible sta irw ays and colum ns. The phrase comes from an essay by John Barth. John Stark sum m arises the essay thus:

The identifying characteristic of the Literature of Exhaustion, he states, is that w riters of it pretend that it is next to im possible to w rite original — perhaps any — literature. In other w ords, som e w riters use as a them e for new w orks of lite ra tu re the agonizing hypo thesis tha t literature is finished. "Exhaustion," then, has two m eanings in Barth's essay: one, that literature is, or is nearly, used up; the other, that, given its curren t condition, w riters should invent and exhaust possibilities and thus create for literature an infinite scope. They can accom plish

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this latter pu rpose by w riting abou t the p resen t exhausted sta te of literature, thereby m aking their original hypothesis a paradox/^

H ow ever, this too probably takes us no great distance from o ther generic term s such as Patrick P arrinder's 'portm anteau novel' which Neil Cornw ell says is a term

in tended to designate the com plex, m ulti-levelled or m ulti-layered novel which has come to dom inate the novel form in the second half of the tw entieth century . . . . This m ay often conform to postm odernism , at least in M cHale's terms of ontological preoccupation .. .4®

4. The fourth possibility is m ore bizarre. Let us im agine that 'im possibility fiction' exists bu t is invisible, it is an 'invisible genre', and it is invisible in two ways. Firstly in that w e are always looking for it b u t like the ineffable can never g rasp it, or ra the r, it is that type of litera tu re w hich w e can no t recuperate by genre. This m ight be either as an individual, in w hich case we m ig h t com e across a novel w hich confounds all o u r expectations and categories and contexts, or w ithin the study of Literature. In its tem porary sublim ity it w ould have the natu re of epiphany. Like m etaphor such fiction appears to tell you a tru th yet in a way that cannot be explicated. Of course it w ould only rem ain 'im possibility fiction' until that time the fiction had been circum scribed either by the individual or institution and no longer defeated our ability to com prehend it, or at least classify it. An exam ple w ould be the invention of the descriptor 'free indirect discourse' which came along to tam e the p re-em inen t m odern ist narra tive technique derived from F laubert, or o ther term s such as 1 have already used like 'the literature of exhaustion ', 'portm anteau novel', or understanding the difference between m odernist and postm odern ist fiction as that between the dom inant of epistem ology and the dom inant of ontology.

The second w ay we m ight term it an 'invisible genre' is in m any ways related to the first b u t is even further from view and w ould be described by C alv ino 's ow n definition of literature: 'L iterature is a search for the book h idden in the distance that alters the value and m eaning of the know n books;

42 John O. Stark, The Literature of Exhaustion: Borges, Nabakoz.', and Barth (Durham: Duke University Press, 1974), p. !.

43 N eil Cornwell, The Literary Fantastic: From Gothic to Postmodernism (N ew York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), p.l54. McHale's own term is 'the postmodern fantastic'.

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it is the pu ll tow ard the new apocryphal text still to be red iscovered or in vented '.44 In trying to define the inner m otivation for L iterature it seem s to m e Calvino is describing exactly w hat cannot be Literature, it is the Literature tha t does no t exist, it is the fiction we are always headed tow ard b u t can never reach. So, of course, not existing, being an invisible genre, there can be no exam ples (my apologies). Such w riters as C onrad, Jam es, Joyce, W oolf, Pynchon, M arquez, Borges have arguably been such w riters in the past, in th a t they d id alter the conditions of possib ility for fiction, b u t hav ing recuperated them of course they cannot now be 'im possible' as such. W hat m ay, in term s of genre, have existed in the realm of the I-Thou because they had no genre, can no longer do so. IF is then a generic idea that is always fu ture-oriented and exerts a pull on current fiction writing. It is the fiction ou t of reach. Such a continual tension betw een 'the new ' and attem pts to define and describe w hat appears as 'the new ' is suggestive of literary theory 's relationship w ith L iterature as a whole. The im possibility of literary theory 'catching up ' w ith its object or discourse is evidence of the I-Thou.

It sh o u ld be sta ted that at this local level of exem plification the preceding argum ent only holds good for a certain type of fiction — that k ind of fiction that does not stand in relation to the body of fiction or itself in term s of the I-It b u t rather in term s of the 1-Thou. It is at this po in t the general argum ent of the I-Thou of A rt/L ite ra tu re and a particular m anifestation of it m u st p a rt com pany — although undoubted ly the whole th rust of Form alism and the argum ent about 'literariness' w ould foreground this inner m otivation as som e k ind of defam iliarisation . The general and the p articu la r p a rt com pany because of C alvino 's (and this section's) reification of L iterature (it w ou ld be the sam e argum ent for Art) and apparen t neglect of the reader. W h a t is n o t ad d re sse d is the re a d in g (Art) experience. H o w ev er, 'im p o ss ib ility fic tion ' does d em o n s tra te the ineffab le experience of A rt/L ite ra tu re — the gap between the reading experience and the know ledge of that experience. H aving show n that IF can be used as a term to designate a certain k ind of L itera ture w ith an inner m otivation p red icated upon the ineffable, I w ould now like to address the problem of the thesis as it appears at this juncture, and w hich m ight now be taken to be one of the m ajor fault- lines betw een theorists and anti-theorists w ithin literary theory and Literature — the very disjunction betw een the experience of A rt/L ite ra tu re and the m anner in which it is talked about or theorised.

44 Quoted in Cornwell, ibid.. p .l42.

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DespaiTj Œfncfiantment; (Prayer: PL Condusion

N ow I w an t Spirits to enforce, art to enchant.A nd my ending is despair Unless I be relieved by prayer.W hich pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults.As you from crimes w ould pardoned be. Let your indulgence set m e free.

The TempesP

He knew everything about Literature except how to enjoy it.Cafc/z-222

The thesis thus far has strugg led to m ediate theoretically betw een textual ( im m an en t) an d so c io h is to ric a l (co n tex tu a l) th e o ries , a p p ro a c h e s , m ethodologies of Literature. It was successful to a certain degree by altering the conception of w h at text and context m ight m ean, say, in term s of 'the au th o r'. It w as dogged all the w ay th rough by the question 'W hat is L iterature?'. And despite the critique of postm odernism and the conclusion th a t ideas of the postm odern are flaw ed along the lines of 'h is to ry ' (or 'm aterialism '), it nevertheless rem ains the case that the theoretical argum ents, if no t alw ays the practical consequences (in the w orld ou tside of academ ic discourse), of its antifoundationalism are persuasive. This led to reth inking the direction of the thesis and to the sw itch of Section II, w hich, after its recognition of the lim its of theoretical endeavour in any form in the A rts (w ithin its ow n delim itations), attem pted to find an escape rou te by w ay of dem anding a philosophy of Literature (Arts). It decided that the evidence was for a ph ilosophy w hich took as an article of faith a belief in som e kind of 'I- Thou ' form ulation. It used Buber for freshness and relevance to the curren t debate : he is re la tive ly u n k n o w n , yet has obvious affin ities w ith all critic ism /th eo ry /p h ilo so p h y involved w ith 'the other' — D errida, Bakhtin,

4 W illiam Shakespeare, The Tempest (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968). Ed. Anne Righter (Anne Barton), p. 137.

2 Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (London: Corgi Books I Trans wo rid Publishers Ltd], 1964), p.79.

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de C erteau, Levinas. I believe that the 'I-Thou' has m uch going for it and yet, inevitably, it is still not enough (necessary bu t not sufficient). Let us face the facts head on.

1. W e do not know w hat Literature is, or, we cannot construct a definition of L ite ra tu re tha t is satisfactory . Theoretically it w ou ld ap p ear to requ ire recogn ition on the p a r t of those involved — teachers, critics, au th o rs , pub lishers, readers — of literary in ten tion (which m igh t subsum e o ther intentions such as 'au thor's m essage') bu t this is unhelpful.

So, at the m ost basic level, there can not be a theory of Literature since it w ould always have to ask the question 'w hat is Literature?' to w hich there is no satisfactory answer.

2. A t a m ore abstract level, the very notion of a 'theory ' is absurd. N or can we really circum vent this difficulty by replacing it w ith 'm ethod ' or 'approach ' since the objection w ould rem ain that they w ere theoretically inform ed, for exam ple, close-reading m ight be deem ed a m ethodology or approach, b u t it w o u ld still be in form ed by certain theoretical ideas of organicism and 'holism ', ideas of cognitive psychology, linguistics, etc..

3. 'In the cu rren t p o s tm o d ern c lim ate ', desp ite v a lian t a ttem p ts to (re )in troduce notions of 're sp o n sib ility ' (ethics, the O ther, a [or 'th e '] 'sub jec t'), such attem p ts are alw ays dup lic itous in tha t they con trad ic t (logically) their ow n fundam ental (a w ord not w ithout irony) groundlessness. Everyw here, at every assertive juncture, for example, claims for basic rights like freedom and justice, or som e notion of history, we can ask — since they are in effect asking us to authorise such dem ands — 'and how do you ground that value, that ethic?'. D em ands for such things as an ethically responsible criticism m erely show that postm odern theory is caught up in the cu rren t clim ate of political-correctness. M ost im portan tly , these dem ands are no t consequences of the ir ow n theoretical m ach ina tions. The ch ap te r on postm odernism and history w ithin this very thesis m akes a claim for history tha t cannot be theoretically or logically grounded. It too is caught u p in the PC climate.

4. The hope for an answ er and g rounding that has also haun ted the question of 'w h a t is Literature?' has been in the elusive form of some 'anthropological un iversal g iven ' — again, people talk of freedom and justice; o thers m ight

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talk about love, although this is a g rounding rarely encountered in academ ic discourse, despite its prevalence as a topic in Literature and A rt ('sex' on the o ther han d has proved quite alluring). Yet there m ight be m ore reason for considering such explicitly 'hum an ' qualities as a useful starting-poin t since the notion of L iterature can be taken (should be taken) in the first instance as a 'hum an ' endeavour. H ow ever, all in all, there are no 'anthropological givens' on the horizon that I can see universal agreem ent on (for exam ple, gender is a culture-specific construct despite the obvious biological differences betw een m ale and fem ale w hich m igh t be sa id to be un iversal). F urthe rm ore , L iterature itself is specific to certain cultures only. Saying this, how ever, does no t negate the thinking that led us to require a universal grounding.

5. Tangential to 3, if rationality (the Enlightenm ent project) h as tailed, there Is a certain redundancy to this thesis in term s of 'add ing ' to know ledge in the sense of 'p rog ress ' or 'advance '. It m igh t avoid this trap by argu ing it p rov ides a d ifferent perspective w ithou t m aking claims that am ount to the teleological aims of the Enlightenm ent, b u t this w ould be a case of pedan try rather than substantive difference.

If w e do ditch rationality , p resum ably we are left w ith a choice of irra tionality or non-rationality . 'N on-rational' and 'irra tional' are no t to be autom atically assum ed derogatory terms. Barthesian 'p leasure ' ('jouissance') is irrational. So too, I w ould argue, is de M an's irony. The non-rational m ight include belief and m ysticism . The thesis thus acknow ledges that it cannot g ro u n d any of its claims (but then, of course, no one can), and tha t it m ay even contrad ict certain notions laid ou t at the beginning, particu larly the 'sliding-scale ' notion of probability and plausibility. It could be argued that the situatedness of all such discourse entails the accountability to context, to the strictures and boundaries of such strictures in force in particular societies, cultures and com munities. This entails the type of argum ent that is pragm atist and cannot be gainsaid — purely because it is a sim ple assertion that 'w hat is, is'. It is the com plem ent of the other p ragm atist notion that w hat w orks in the w orld is by definition true. P ragm atism can thus be seen to be underp inned by a rather mystical outlook just as m uch as a practical one.

So w hat is left, w hat can be done, w hat can be said?

Let m e try to reform ulate a position.L iterature exists w ithout w ell-defined boundaries. It appears as some

com plex or m atrix of au thors, texts, publishers, educational system s and

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readers. The desire to define w hat constitu tes L iterature exists p rim arily w ith in education and is at its m ost acute in academia. In the practical w orld of L iterature there is no such necessity — people read novels and poetry, they w atch dram a — w hether it is to be deem ed Literature (or Art), and w hat its defin ing properties are, rarely m atter. Even such a high-profile case as The bricks in the Tate' d id no t lead to a full-scale review of people 's perceptions, since, in the non-academ ic w orld , for som ething to be A rt carries w ith it a value judgem ent: 'The bricks in the Tate' w ere perceived by the m ajority no t to be A rt because they w ere no good, and, conversely, desp ite being in a context w hich signified Art, they were no good because they failed to achieve the sta tus of Art.

The obvious objection to this is that Art and Literature are no t natural phenom ena; people have been educated in various w ays to recognise these w orks as L iterature and Art, so the argum ent goes, it is just tha t the criteria have been internalised. The education process is therefore open to scrutiny since tha t is w here Literature and Art are, in effect, being produced. But this argum ent has only a lim ited validity. Just because people are educated to be lite ra te does n o t m ean that this p rocess p roduces the phen o m en o n of new spapers. The existence of new spapers m ight depend upon literacy, b u t that is as far as the argum ent does go. The very existence of dram a and poetry does n o t depend upon the education system , even if its livelihood does. H ence, the problem of 'w ha t is "L iterature"? ' is purely academ ic. This, no doub t, to som e people, w ill seem rather obvious. Be th a t as it m ay, the consequences are no t self-evident. The existence of theory, the existence of L iterature departm ents, the tradition of English Studies, can only be said to im pinge upon Literature (and Art) in the m ost m undane way. W hy an author w rites and w hy a reader reads is a m ystery, and there are no hypotheses or observations that have brought us any nearer to solving it. Yet the reasons for the very existence of A rt forms m ust lie w ith these desires. W here could we begin to analyse such desires? T hrough the lens of sociology? But the psychologists w ould object. Through a science of aesthetics, or a philosophy of aesthetics? But the scholars of politics w ould object, and quite possibly the sociologists. Etc., etc.. W hat justification is there, therefore, for the s tudy of L iterature, A rt or culture that is not, at the final analysis, im plicated in the process and ideology of culture? Looked at like this, any assessm ent can only be g iven value by the system it is p art of. Therefore, w hat value can such stud ies have? And if this is the case, the value determ ines the definition. In one sense this re tu rn s us to P inkney 's forecast, that the fu tu re of literary

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theo ry dep en d s upon its value for pedagogy. There is ano ther scenario w hereby literary theory continues in Cultural Studies, or Critical Studies, and is hence circum scribed by a different set of values, yet just as unlikely to be able to describe the functioning of Literature.

The Real Return of Value and Pedagogy

W e do no t necessarily s tu d y L iterature because people enjoy it — yet tha t m ay be its prim e ontological foundation. As stated above, if this is so, it does n o t appear that we will ever be in a position to u nderstand it on its ow n term s. W e s tudy it because we presum e it has som e value. Im m ediately, therefore, there is a disjunction. We are approaching it from a view point tha t has a set of criteria not intrinsic to its m ateriality. M uch of our failure and difficulty has been this incom m ensurate, or unacknow ledged, im position of value onto enjoym ent, not that the two are necessarily antithetical. W hat is the value of enjoym ent? If it were possible to form ulate an understand ing of that question then Literary Studies w ould be saved in some form like its present. But enjoym ent exists, or can exist, w ithout value, at least value in the sense of hav ing value for stu d y , that is, it exists as an end in itself, the value is psychological or sp iritual or biological in a w ay that cannot be captured. L ite ra tu re (Art), as the com plex or m atrix in the non-academ ic w orld described above, cannot be defined, except as some description of current and pas t m aterial practices, a definition that w ould have to be changed every few hours like a baby 's nappy . No, the only w ay to define L iterature, since it doesn 't exist, if we are to be fully aw are of the matrix, is in term s of its value for study. This will rein troduce the factors that form the m atrix —- authors, tex ts , la n g u ag e , au d ien ce , ed u c a tio n , etc. — b u t on ly w ith in the understand ing of the value it has for study. Any other claims to know w hat L iterature is w ithout this circum scription is to speculate in term s that exceed the condition of possibility for studying Literature.

The thesis is still not ou t of the fire since the suggestion now is that it can define Literature, albeit in reduced circumstances.

Firstly, in order to proceed, we m ight regard Literature as a blik.W hat is a blik?

The w ord is R. M. H are's and signifies any deep conviction w hich is no t susceptible to verification or falsification. M oreover, a blik does not

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constitute an explanation, as it is precisely that by w hich we decide w hat will or w ill not count as an explanation

It shou ld be rem em bered, that even w hen we decide on our belief about L itera ture in the academ ic environm ent, we are still circum scribed by our attachm ent to value. My enjoym ent and response to Literature is irrelevant for w hat I decide to say w ithin the academ ic establishm ent. This is precisely w hat is in excess of literary studies. My personal value system is of no in terest to w h at I say abou t L iterature, except under the um brella of the m ore general value system em bodied w ithin the discipline. W hat 1 am about to say should be understood as still circum scribed by this notion of L iterature being both a blik and a value-dependent notion w ithin education.

L iterary stud ies has two m ain strengths. W hether defined in existential, psychological or societal terms, sim ply and simplistically. L iterature provides enjoym ent for a large num ber of people and provides insight (or perspective if you prefer) into the hum an condition. If we are to talk of value, surely that is the starting point.

To re tu rn to literary theory, I find theory interesting as a discourse on its ow n term s, virtually divorced from the experience 1 get from reading and experiencing Literature. 1 also feel, and 1 do not know if this is a com m on experience, that m y know ledge of theory has im pinged little upon m y so- called innocent reading. But I do see how know ledge of any of the theories I have previously m entioned can add to my understanding of L iterature ■— I do see tha t I m ight view, N ew Critical fashion, a w ork of art as a w ell-w rought urn , and I do see that I m ight view a text through the eyes of N ew His tori cism and see it as p a rt of a m uch larger social and cultural text, and find tha t in tu rn interesting, bu t only by virtue of the fact that they will feed back into w h a t I can only vaguely call the read ing experience, as well as p rov id ing fu rther understand ing (or different perspectives) on the hum an condition. It sh o u ld be u n d ersto o d tha t the actions and thoughts of such th ings as characters is of in terest and open to debate, that the relationship betw een the au thor and his or her w ork is a site of interest, as is the relationship betw een art and life, because we live in a w orld w here people w ith an actual and historical existence create, for w hatever reasons, works of art for audiences, them selves w ith an actual and historical existence, to enjoy and experience and learn from. And it is often the case that people believe that these w orks of

3 Kevin Hart, op. cit.. p. 100.

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art speak to them in a real and sign ifican t w ay (the I-Thou), tell them som ething about them selves, about other lives, give them ideas, enable them to u n d erstan d things, all the o ld-fashioned things L iterature and A rt w ere expected and presum ed to do (again, the I-Thou). We let theory belittle these experiences at the risk of losing studen t's in terest in Literature. Helen Taylor describes the divide betw een H igher Education and the schools teaching the s tu d e n ts w ho go on to s tu d y in these estab lishm ents as precisely this disjunction betw een w hat is felt permissible.

Rarely are English teachers given the credit due for the increasing num bers of English and cultural studies applications to colleges and universities, as well as the radical re th ink ing of exam ination and assessm ent m odes. A ccepting the English lesson as the one clear cu rricu lum space in w hich s tu d e n ts ' em otional, in te llectual and political experiences, questions and doubts may be explored through those im aginative responses university lecturers are nervous about, sch o o lteach e rs h av e co n tin u a lly ex p e rim en ted w ith w ays of contextualising both language and literature.^

If theory is p u t into this context, if it is naturally subordinated to the reading experience, to the I-Thou underw riting Art, and the excitem ent and in terest generated by it, then I do not see any problem s for the teaching of theory. For a studen t no t to w ant to do theory in their Literature degree w ould then be no m ore heinous a crime than som eone not w ishing to study Shakespeare. The w hole project of literary theory has deem ed itself essential to L iterature and the s tudy of it. This should not be the case unless we are to alter read ing of L itera tu re into a purely technical exercise, as we have seen Tony Bennett dem and, or see it in terms of sociology, as Cultural Studies dem ands.

Leicester U niversity , for exam ple, appears to have listened to the dem ands and wishes of its students. The academic year 1993-1994 saw a shift in the w ay it taugh t theory. In the past, one theory after ano ther had been le c tu re d u p o n , s ta r tin g w ith F orm alism , w o rk ing its w ay th ro u g h structuralism , feminism and N ew Historicism. It was left up to the individual tu tor as to w hether they looked at 'p rim ary texts' in the light of these theories. Theory w as thus treated as a discourse of its own. The revised course instead takes th ree prim ary texts — P lath 's Ariel, C onrad 's Heart of Darkness and Hamlet — and allows tutors to bring in theory as and w hen they choose. This is perhaps the w ay forw ard if people are determ ined to keep theory w ith in

4 H elen Taylor, "Leaving Parties and Legacies: Reflections Across the Binary Divide On a Decade of Englishes" in Bradford, op. cit.. p.66.

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the study of L iterature in that its focus rem ains the Literature, rather than the occasional use of L iterature to prove a theory. But a note of caution should be sounded even here. There is already a book on the m arket w hich prin ts the text of C onrad 's Heart of Darkness and follows it w ith a variety of theoretical readings: N ew H istorical, psychonalytical, etc..5 This is an increasing trend b u t I th ink this too is a m istake in that it sim ply substitu tes the claim of a single dogm a, as we m ight have had in the past, for a few dogm as more. Once again the read ing experience is ousted by a sequence of pseudo-theories. Surely it is the read ing experience and our desire for know ledge into the hu m an condition that shou ld inform our s tu d y of L itera ture to a greater ra ther than lesser extent, and that should be the context w ithin w hich theory operates. By hum an condition it is not m eant the 'hum an subject' in hum anist term s. It sim ply m eans that L iterature is one practice am ongst o thers that provides a place for discussing and analysing hum an existence, and is m ore often than not its dom inant concern. This is one of its values for the study of L iterature as it is circum scribed by the larger cultural concerns of academ ia and society.

To conclude I w ould like to identify three positions that the w ork of this thesis has m ade available (or believes are available), positions apparen t in P ro sp ero 's sum m ation of his m agical project at the end of The Tempest: despair, enchantm ent, prayer.

Despair

The thesis agrees w ith an tifoundationalist argum ents of the neopragm atists. The consequence does not have to be nihilism or despair — it can sim ply be acknow ledged that this is how things are, theoretically speaking, and that the w orld continues to be the w orld irrespective of the theories tha t attach them selves to it. This does not m ean that theory has no use. It sim ply m eans th a t any particu lar 'theory ' is a self-consistent approach or w ay of seeing som ething (texts, physical objects, power) and we should be aw are of this and particu larly w ary of m e ta theories. This aw areness w ould acknow ledge tha t the dem and for self-consistency m ay in itself be an obstacle to understand ing com plexes d raw n into the discursive fields we w ish to explicate, and w ould also acknow ledge that our understand ing is not necessarily com m ensurate

Ross C. Murfin, ed., 'Heart of Darkness': /I Case Study in Contemporary Criticism (N ew York: St. Martin's Press, 1989).

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w ith w hat we w ish to study. It does m ean, how ever, that Literary Theory is from the outset a conglom eration of heterogeneous, incompatible perspectives. W hilst these perspectives are 'ra tional' (or aim to be), I w ould go as far as saying tha t the um brella term 'Literary Theory' and the project it em bodies is 'irra tional'. To devote ourselves pu rely to Literary Theory is, therefore, to invite despondency, since it can be nothing other than a failed project. Interest in L iterature is not a consequence of theory. Nor should we believe that we can u n d erstan d L iterature th rough theory. This too is irrational. Instead I w ould w an t to prom ote a m ixture of the final two positions, 'enchantm ent' and 'prayer'.

Prayer and Enchantment

This identifies the philosophical position — a belief in the I-Thou, w ith A rt m anifested and predicated upon it. We w ould proceed hopefully (on a w ing and a prayer) on this basis: this is w hat relieves us from the im precations of an tifoundational logic (and it is logical, after all). The a ttitude of 'p rayer' ( 'hopefu lness') is essentially the position of the last two chapters. C oupled w ith this is an acknow ledgem ent of the 'enchantm ent' we find in L iterature (Art) — we are in its thrall, we cannot escape that. I suggest therefore we proceed un d er the sw ay of the 1-Thou, under the sw ay of an ethical drive, ack n o w led g in g tha t w e can n o t g ro u n d o u r eth ics at a theore tically satisfactory level. We will, in our desire to understand Literature, have to note the 'read ing experience' as being sim ilarly beyond any perm anen t (or even half-satisfactory) theoretical form ulation — yet base our understand ing upon this (hence non-rational), along w ith an acknow ledgem ent that there is a certain creative (im aginative) un iqueness to w orks of A rt, or a t least the possibility of such. Hence we w itness the retu rn of the Author. This is no t to say th a t m ean ing is confined to au tho r in ten tions (w hich are p lausib ly recoverable and articulable) b u t that 'in ten tion ' is a variable quality also locatable elsew here (and here m ay be the value of the self-consistency of theories). The no tion of u n iq u en ess shou ld also signal the re tu rn of evaluation, of a w illingness to say that on these grounds som e artistic w orks and som e ideas are m ore valuable than others. This is how w e m ight begin to say w hat we w ant L iterature to be and how we w ant to study it, teach it, read it, and live w ith it.

Despair, Enchantment, Prayer 154

Appendix 1

Interview zuitfi Jerome McQamD-

The follow ing is a transcrip t of an in terv iew betw een Jerom e J. M cC ann (U niversity of V irginia), Steven E arnshaw (U niversity of Leicester), and P h ilip Shaw (U n iversity of Leicester). It w as rec o rd e d a t W arw ick U niversity , E ngland, on July 10, 1992. A llusions in the in te rv iew to a p ap e r re la te to a talk earlier tha t sam e evening by P rofessor M cC ann en titled 'R ethinking R om anticism .'

PS: M y first question is related to the w ork of Lacoue-Labarthe and N ancy in The Literary Absolute. I w ondered how you saw your w ork in relation to the idea of R om antic lite ra tu re p ro d u cin g its ow n critical reflection. D oes R om anticism constan tly d em and critical perfection , and do you th ink tha t your w ork is a contribution to that dem and?

JM : I 'm n o t su re I agree w ith the p rem ise th a t lite ra tu re constan tly d em an d s th a t perfection . There is an im pulse in literary w o rk /a r tis t ic w ork, generally, that is tow ard a certain k ind of perfection, b u t it is no t the k ind of perfection, at least as I see it, that philosophers postu late , or should I say a ph ilosopher like P lato postu la tes — w hich is one of the reasons w hy he tosses the poets out — because it's clear that poetry, insofar as it's im itation , cannot be a discourse of perfection, it has to be a discourse of im perfection . To m y m ind , poetical w riting or im ag ina tive w riting , is im itation th rough-and-th rough , so it's always im perfect in a certain sense bu t, as in a recent book of m ine [The Textual Condition], I try to po in t ou t th e re 's another w ay of thinking about perfection w here y o u 'd say of Sister Theresa, or y o u 'd say of M adonna, or y ou 'd say of M ichael Jordan , th a t they are perfect, and they are perfect in som e sense. It's a h igh ly inw ard sense, it 's no t a percep tual sense or theoretical sense. T here 's a fu rthe r sense in w hich one w ould say of som eone as ephem eral as M adonna, that the perfection probably w ould be very short-lived, it's h istoricality is very short, th a t's clear. It's alw ays clear in sports. P indar for m e is a very g reat poet because that is w hat he w rites about, he is aw are that his subjects are

I A version of this appendix appeared in The Cambridge Quarterly, "Interview with Jerome McCann" 24 (1993): 355-69.

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McCann' 156

tha t h u m an and that tran sien t and so he tries to cap tu re them a t a m om ent of w hat he sees as perfection, bu t they 're not transhistorical.

PS: So you w o u ld n 't see Rom anticism as a specific m om ent in the history of ideas? It raises the idea of im perfection and thus the need for perfection in a w ay tha t is unprecedented?

JM : Some R om antics — say, a theoretical w riter like C oleridge, or a p ractical one like W ordsw orth — see the presence of fragm entation and im perfection and use their w ork as a struggle against it. It is m ore-or-less heroic in th a t respect. It's also m ore-or-less self-deceiving in tha t respect, b u t no t all Rom antics do that. Byron certainly d idn 't. He is, it seem s to me, a poet w ho w oke up to realise that he had inherited ideas of perfection and th a t they w ere folly. So it's like trying to live on after the revolu tion has been destroyed —- literally in this case — and how to live on w ith o u t finally blow ing your brains out. How do you now pursue culture know ing th a t culture is self-deceived, that it cannot be w hat you have been told or learned to believe it ough t to be. His greatness for me is tha t he goes on. I t's n o t an easy th ing to do. W ordsw orth lived un d er illusions, and he could no t have carried ou t his g rand project w ithout agreeing basically to w ipe ou t his self-critical intelligence. That's a lim it to his w ork, b u t to say so is no t a debunking. To say so is to describe his work.

PS: M y second question is aligned to this idea of lim its, and it's to do w ith y o u r re la tio n to p o s ts tru c tu ra lis t though t. A lot of p eo p le say th a t p o s ts tru c tu ra lism is a c o n tin u a tio n of R om anticism , the n o tio n of 'som eth ing everm ore about to be,' which 1 think you 've touched on w hen you ta lk abou t R oland Barthes in your w ork, and also to som e ex ten t de M an. A lo t of peop le talk ab o u t de M an 's theory of rh e to ric as, paradoxically , self-circum scribing. Do you think that sam e criticism could apply to w hat you 're doing w ith history?

JM : W hat you said of de Man 1 w ould not dissent from. W hat I do, w hat anyone does, is to have a project in m ind that is m ore or less socially, collaboratively, im aginative. It does seem to me that Paul de M an 's w ork w as far m ore personally and subjectively im agined than I try to im agine m y w ork. You can see it in his studen ts. H is s tuden ts tend to be people w ho w ork along the lines that he believed in so passionately. If you knew

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McCann' 157

m y stu d en ts you w ould know that in general this is no t the w ay it is. I p refer to have stu d en ts w ho th ink d ifferently from me. People th ink of M arjorie Levinson, a s tu d e n t of m ine, as an h istoricist critic. She's not, she 's basically a psychoanalytic critic w ith a strong influence of Spinozistic and o ther philosophical thought. She's far m ore theoretically ad ep t than I am . It w as im portan t for her to pass th rough, as it w ere, the tutelage and h istorical m ethod that I drove dow n her throat. In any case, m y w ork is circum scribed, b u t it differs from the kind of circum scription, as I see it, of de M an 's work.

P S : I liked w h a t you sa id at the end of the talk abou t being open to criticism and positively inv iting it, w hich is, 1 think, som eth ing de M an d id n 't really do. Do you see your ow n project aligned in som e w ay w ith w h at D errida w ould call 'responsibility for the other'?

JM : O ne of the earliest influences on m e w as de Man. I w as educated at Yale. This is very early on. 1 w ent there in 1963. At that po in t de M an was a k ind of u n d erg ro u n d figure. We passed around his essays on H olderlin , his early stuff. There's a sense in which when 1 first read Bakhtin in 1975 it w as a real p rob lem for m e because B akhtin ju s t o v erth rew m y Yale education, and so at that po in t I w as in a quite hostile relation to de M an, although, as a friend of m ine used to say, 'You never w rote about it', and th a t is true. I w as afraid of w riting about him , taking his nam e in vain and all that. N ow , as I look back on it, de M an seems to me to have been righ t ab o u t aporias. All those deconstructive m oves on the text seem to me exactly the rig h t th ing to have m ade at that time. It's no t un like certain k inds of fem inist deconstruction. The difference is, as / read de M an, he saw this in a highly rom antic or m elancholy way, he saw this as failure. So w h en p eo p le c ritic ised h is w ritin g s he b ris tled , an d d e fe n d ed the co rrec tn ess of w h a t he w as d o in g , w h ich seem s to m e a p a te n t contradiction. D errida is not like that, or has not been like tha t in his best w orks, w hich is w hy, to bring back de Man again, w hen the w hole case of de M an cam e up and D errida developed that series of articles in the Critical Inquiry exchanges, 1 was appalled at D errida's perform ance there. I do und erstan d that he w anted to defend his friend from w hat w ere clearly in certain cases the m ost m ean-sp irited k inds of attack. So m any people w ere lying in w ait to get him and they d id n 't need anything m ore than to have this k ind of evidence of w h at they took to be the evil tru th of his

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McCann' 158

philosophical positions. But that d id n 't m ean that D errida h ad to becom e w h a t he seem ed to behold in the people that he talked w ith. He w as incredibly contem ptuous of his critics.

SE: H ow successful do you think your call for an engagem ent betw een the textual scholar and the herm eneutic critic has been?

JM : As I see the cu rren t scene, one of the liveliest areas of critical scholarship going on today is textual studies. Partly this is because, as I read it, the problem atic of textuality came like thunder into that m ost sacred of areas, Shakespeare studies, focused on the two texts of King Lear, w hen it w as show n that the w hole tradition of delivering over Shakespeare 's texts had been in several fairly im portan t w ays m istaken. The subject had to be re th o u g h t. I t 's n o t th a t you h ad to re th in k the in te rp re ta t io n of Shakespeare, b u t you had to reth ink the very textuality of Shakespeare in delivering it up. To m y m ind , the w hole geography of criticism is really p ro fo u n d ly shaken, and this is beg inn ing to happen in m any areas, for exam ple, in som eth ing as taken for g ran ted as Emily D ickinson in our co u n try an d her sacred w riting . H ere the in te rv en tio n of F ran k lin 's facsimile edition about eight years ago has been decisive. It's clear that she has to be ed ited from the beginning — no t just the poetry , b u t the letters. They 're no t w hat they appear to us to be. I think w e're seeing sim ilar k inds of dram atic events taking place for exam ple in Hopkins. M acKenzie's OET ed itio n s ta n d s in a rad ical con trad ic tion to his facsim ile ed ition . The H opk ins texts are no t w hat we im agine them to be. T hey 're in teresting cases because they 're both w riters, especially Dickinson, w ho d id n 't w rite for p rin t. W hen you d o n 't w rite for p rin t, w hat y o u 're do ing has a term inus in the activity you 're engaged in right at that point.

SE: Is the k ind of w riting that is just for private use actually p a rt of 'the tex tual cond ition ' you talk about, or is th a t only in opera tion w hen the w riting enters the public dom ain?

JM : I used to think that there was such a thing as w riting for p rivate use, and obviously there is a difference betw een the w ay Byron w rites for his m assive public, or Tennyson, and the way Dickinson, or H opkins w rite, in a m uch m ore restricted space. But they 're all to my m ind rhetorical spaces. Even if you are like, say, D ickinson, in m any cases, w riting to people w ho

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McCann' 159

are dead. From the po in t of view of the w riting, these people are still alive, you still have a conversation going on. But language is alw ays com ing th ro u g h a B akhtin ian k ind of dialectical scene, it's never private. Once m ore I 'm going to come back to D ickinson because she interests m e a lot. U ntil recently , people w ho w rote about D ickinson w rote abou t her as if she h ad no audience. There are clearly three d ifferen t audiences in her w ork , a t least, there m ay be m ore. She w rote for her fam ily, and if you w rite poetry or whatever, you know that if you w rite a poem for your m other, or for your sister, now tha t's a certain kind of poem . O ther people m ay read it, b u t that audience is determ inative for that particu lar k ind of w riting . She w rote for her fam ily, and she w rote for people in her sm all N ew E n g lan d w o rld , a certa in k ind of w orld , an d th a t k in d of env ironm en t can also be recovered analytically , and h istorically , and it should be recovered. W ithout recovering it you d o n 't have the dialogical scene in w hich the w riting is taking place. And then, at least at one o ther level, w hich is often nam ed M aster, w hich is often nam ed G od, w hich is often nam ed Eternity, som e other level of discourse that she 's carrying on, perhaps w ith herself, perhaps w ith God, w ho know s w hat it is?, b u t in any case it is no t her fam ily, it's no t the town. It's another rhetorical order. W riting is alw ays a conversation of som e kind, dialogical as we say these days. It's essential that you explicate the scene of w riting in this sense tha t w e 're ta lk ing abou t here, the en v iro n m en t w here the conversation or in tercourse takes place. For that m eans that you d o n 't in te rp re t in the w ay th a t comes to us th rough that highly patriarchal form of read ing , w hich is herm eneu tica l in te rp re ta tio n of the w ord of G od, w here you have the Bible there, and the presum ption is that there is a m essage in there w ith a m eaning , w hich if you have enough grace — 1 guess th a t's w h at it all comes dow n to — you can arrive at a sense of it, but that m eaning is there in a k ind of transcendental and fundam ental form. All the in te rp re tations of course w ill vary over tim e, space and place, bu t the im agination is in the m ean ing — is there transcendentally . I d o n 't th ink tha t w e believe tha t, although I also d o n 't think that our criticism is taking our ow n belief seriously — that read ing , in terpretation , is a conversation w ith a text tha t itself is w h a t Keats called legendary , sho t th rough w ith com plicated , m ultip le , sp lin tered , talk.

PS : Do you th ink it 's possib le to have a conversation w ith the n o n ­h u m a n ?

Appendix I 'An Interview with Jerome McGann' 160

JM: Yes. Absolutely. (Laughing) Do you w ant me to elaborate on that?

PS: I w as th ink ing of things that a re n 't necessarily to do w ith the social, w h a t F reud m igh t call the 'unheim lich,' or de Man m igh t call, in another sense, 'language itself.

JM : C ertain ly , I believe that, in several senses. W e talk w ith all sorts of n o n -hum an things, w e certain ly en ter into conversations w ith our pets, w ith ou r p lants. I think, for me, the w orld is alive in the w ay th a t John C ow per Powys believed.

SE: W hat distinguishes, in your view, literary know ledge from other types of know ledge? Does it, as you suggest in 'Shall These Bones Live', depend u pon the 'aesthetic experience', and if it does, how w ould you define the 'aesthetic experience'?

JM : Scientific know ledge is com m itted to conceptualisation. Its parad igm form for us is the replica table experim ent. That m eans tha t it's a t once very abstract as a form of know ledge, and highly concrete as a form of replicated activity. Poetry in a certain sense is the opposite of this. To me, it has to be physical, poetry is — even if you d o n 't speak it o u t loud — it is som eth ing that you get in your ears, your m outh , lips, and it's best, it seem s to me, if you, as a teacher of poetry , get people to recite it, and physicalise the language. T hat's 'the aesthetic ' of poetry , literally physical or sensory, sensible. So know ledge in poetry is always com ing th rough at the level of experience ra th e r than at the level of concept. Insofar as concepts are in poetry they are there in h igh ly concrete form s. Take som eth ing like De rerum natura, which happens to be a favourite poem of m ine. Very abstract, a philosophical poem , full of ideas of various kinds, m any of them 'obsolete' ideas, bu t being carried in the poetry, although it's true, centuries ago, this was read the way we read N ew ton, or the w ay we read E instein, as a scientific or a philosophical treatise, and now w e no longer take it this way. Even then, the w ork was produced by a w riter w ho clearly felt that the language was a total body experience, tha t know ledge took place in the entire organism . That to m e is w hat d istinguishes poetry from scientific know ledge or expository know ledge. It's language — total.

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McCann' 161

SE: W ould you sep ara te th a t experience, tha t experien tial basis, from critical w riting?

JM : It's very d ifferent, separate , and 1 though t you w ere going to say so m e th in g like, 'w ell, w h a t's the d ifference betw een p o e try and the conversation w e 're hav ing righ t now ?', w hich is basically w hat you are saying. The difference is tha t in poetry , the sensory elem ents are h ighly o rg an ised , deco rative ly o rg an ised , and the physical character of the language calls a tten tion to itself. But we carry on our conversation here, o u r w o rd s just go aw ay, we are so in ten t on transm itting m essages or inform ation that we d o n 't pay a lot of attention to w hat we are saying. But in poetry , th a t's w hat it's all about, and you 're constantly being b rough t back to an atten tion to the language as a thing itself. Fiction d o esn 't do tha t, w hich is w hy fiction locates a serious problem for me. I believe it's the case tha t w hen you read fiction, (with certain exceptions •— w riters like D juna Barnes, or fiction w riters w ho are so poetical th a t the surface of their text calls attention to itself —■ b u t let's take a great fiction w riter like Jane A usten or George Eliot), the language for the m ost p a rt is a system th a t you are to pass through in o rder to get to the story that is being told. I t's as if it w ere perm eable. In poetry it's not, the surface of the poem is im perm eable, it's resis tan t to you, it calls attention to its ow n rhetoric at the surface of it, bu t you go through the fictional surface in order to follow the story , unless you 're a Joyce, or a m odern ist text, obviously you try to m ake poetical tu rn ing-poin ts.

SE: So y ou 're saying tha t the literary know ledge you get from fiction is d ifferent because the aesthetic experience is different?

JM : It has to be, it's certainly different for poetry, along the term s that I've described here. Clearly, o ther people m ay have d ifferent lines of th ink ing abou t this. By m y com m itm ent to an idea that poetry is language calling atten tion to itself, then im m ediately fiction proves itself a problem . As the n o v e l in the L ukacsian sense r ises you have the em erg en ce of cap ita lism /bou rgeo is civilisation. There are a lot of friends of m ine on the left w ho m ake a g reat deal of this. It's inescapable tha t these two things have com e together. W hat the m eaning of it is. I'm not sure, and how one th inks about language in fiction as opposed to language in poetry I 'm not

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McCann' 162

sure. I th ink that Bakhtin had it backw ard , bu t 1 confess to you I d o n 't know exactly how to think through the rest of this right now.

SE; H ow far are aesthetic responses sho t-th rough w ith the ideology of the time? Is there a separate space for the aesthetic from the ideological?

JM: I d o n 't th ink tha t anyone is able to escape false-consciousness. I m ean, to m e, ideology is, in one w ay or another, a state of m isperception , false- consciousness, and to the degree tha t tha t's the case, it seem s to m e tha t no-one is ever able to get beyond that. As we sit here w e 're a p a rt of it. In poetry , I know th a t the trad itional view is that poetry like science in its h ighest and m ost ideal form, is im agined to be able to get beyond ideology. I d o n 't believe that for a m inute. It seem s to me that science is clearly invested in political and cultural and social ends. It is in the service of certain k inds of au thoritative pow erful organisations and institu tions. It's clear th a t poetry now , and lite ra tu re in general, serves cu lture. To the d eg ree th a t it se rves cu ltu re , in so far as a cu ltu re is a sy stem for m ain ta in ing certain k inds of social orders, it is ideological. I d o n 't th ink these cu ltu ral services p resen t a p roblem if you are aw are th a t w ith in h ierarch ies of do m in an t and in d o m in an t ideologies peop le are alw ays shifting in and out. There's som e sense in w hich one person m ay be m ore com m itted to, say, the service of the m ost do m in an t ideological sta te apparatuses, as opposed to som ebody like C hristina Rossetti, w ho w asn 't. But in som e sense w e 're all invested in d ifferen t scales of ideological p ro d u ctio n , and I d o n 't th ink that poetry is any d iffe ren t from tha t, or escapes any more.

SE: It takes m e on to another point. You say that w hen we engage in critical activity it's always an ongoing dialectic between the presen t and the past, and that we should always 'know thyself', know w here we are a t the presen t time. I've always had problem s w ith this. H ow are we supposed to bare ou r ideological selves?

JM : W e can 't know ourselves, no-one can. This is an ideal th a t is p u t fo rw ard , w hich is unattainable. On the other hand, like ideals of any kind, it is there as a heuristic to organise, or help to organise, a p u rsu it of tha t k ind of self-consciousness. Not that self-consciousness as itself, or in itself, is the sole end of life or the h ighest goal that one can perceive. Self­

Appendix I 'An Interview with Jerome McCann' 163

consciousness is a very im p o rtan t thing, b u t w hat abou t spon taneity? W ith o u t spon taneity you are dead. You m ust have that, th a t's ano ther goal. You m easure yourself by the au thority of the goal of spon taneity as well. H ow to negotiate those things, well . . .

P S : M arjorie L evinson uses the m odel of transference and co u n te r­transference in her in troduc tion to Rethinking Historicism. I 've alw ays fo u n d th a t a very usefu l m odel for tha t p a s t /p re s e n t dialectic, an d I w ondered if you found that useful?

JM : N o, I d on 't, M arjorie and I really p a rt over F reudian structures. My d is tru s t of F reud ian s tru c tu re s is deep. 1 am very in te rested in m ore anc ien t ideas of d ream and dream in terp re tation . I'm no t hostile to the ideas of Freud, bu t F reudian m odels of the psyche, of dream , I resist them.

PS: Y ou're no t tem pted to cross the b ridge betw een M arx and F reud via Lacan, or A lthusser?

JM : N ever. I m ean I do read these people and read them w ith a great deal of in terest, b u t it's no t the w ay m y attention goes. I will never do the sort of th ing that M arjorie does. I'm incapable of it.

SE: As far as I can gather from my reading of your work, you do no t allow theory any space separate from praxis, especially in The Textual Condition, you r last w ork , w here you say that 'w h a t is textually possible cannot be theore tically e s tab lish ed ', and you actually veer tow ards calling your ap p ro ach 'an ti-th eo ry '. Do you th ink that theory and practice shou ld alw ays be coterm inous, perhaps to the extent that no d istinction can ever be m ade?

JM : N o t necessarily coterm inous bu t 'dancing '. You have to be try ing to obtain tha t k ind of self-consciousness that theory postulates. If you just do theory in the p u rsu it of that k ind of self-consciousness y o u 're constantly being called back. I am always called back by the au thority of w hat people call 'facticity ' and the resistance that certain k inds of m aterial realities or conditions raise up. I w an t the theoretical structures in fact to reveal them . So Blake is one of my great heroes. H is idea of poetry w as revelation , 'If the doors of perception w ere cleansed, everything w ould appear as it is.

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McGann' 164

infinite '. He literally saw poetry as som ething that just cleared aw ay so he could see, as if know ledge w ere so im poverished that you had to begin at th a t m o s t e lem e n ta l level, b ecau se the im p o v e rish m e n t w as an im poverishm ent of the body, so you turn the body inside out, you m ake the b ody reveal, ju st see. A theory d o esn 't ju st w an t to see, a lthough 'theo ria ' m eans 'to see ', it w ants to see conceptually, w hich is a d ifferent thing. So, K ant and Blake, for m e, are both theoretical — 'seeing ', as it w ere, im aginations. But the one is conceptually dom inated and the o ther is aesthetically dom inated . In a w ay, the w hole w orld , in m o d ern ity 's te rm s, is d iv id e d over the idea of w h e th e r y o u 're co m m itted to K antianism or w hether you 're com m itted to Blakeanism.

PS: That's an interesting distinction. I 'd 've said Kant and Marx.

JM: Yes. W hy d id n 't I say that? Probably because one of the m ost form ative in fluences I know on m y th ink ing has been religion. It's true th a t m y fam ily 's religious life was always quite involved w ith social action, b u t the g ro u n d in g w as religion, and so my m ind definitely tends to go in th a t direction. M arx for me is a conscious decision of choice, it's no t instinctive, as it were.

SE: Do you see a collapse of literary studies into cultural studies, and if so, do you think it's desirable?

JM : (Laughing) I w onder w hat p rom pted that question? Does it show tha t I find th a t a problem ?

SE: I alw ays get the feeling that you have this real love of poetry w hich is a t odds w ith a certain w ay that 1 see educational establishm ents in Britain going. It seem s to m e their desire is to do cultural studies. A t the back of every th ing you w rite there appears to be this clinging to Blake, that ideal w hich seem s to m e d o esn 't have a space in the new w ay of looking at litera tu re .

JM : I agree w ith that. I w o u ld n 't have, m aybe five or so years ago. But now I am not involved in cultural studies — it's not w hat 1 do — I'm interested in it, b u t it's definitely no t w hat 1 do. I'm m uch m ore concerned abou t w h a t used to be called 'a rt ' or 'poe try ', 'im agination ' perhaps you w ould

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McGann' 165

call it. The w orld seem s to be getting along very well w ith cultural studies, as it always has. These things change from time to time, and som e things I have m ore sym pathy w ith than o thers, b u t art, especially in ou r day, seem s to m e is in great peril, and it also seems to me to be a w ay of holding — and I am hu m an ist in this sense — ho ld ing certain k inds of h u m an w ays of experiencing p resen t and active. As I see o u r p resen t cu ltu ral s itu a tio n w e 're increasing ly a liena ted from im m ediate experience. It's m ore and m ore w ild ly and com plexly m ediated . 1 do see tha t younger people seem to be able to m aintain their aesthetic, as it were, m ore easily, th an I can, in face of this. Young people especially seem to live in the w orld of sim ulacra, as if they w ere always in that vicinity. It's hard for m e to live in tha t relation to sim ulacra.

SE: So do you find yourself fighting a rearguard action?

JM : I 'm old-fash ioned in the sense that I'm in terested in textuality . I 'm in terested in editing. I'm interested in all sorts of m em orial-type things.

SE: Yet you came up w ith the em ergence of N ew H istoricism , w hich is the la test th ing , and here you are saying tha t you 're o ld-fashioned. Do you th ink N ew H istoricism is just an 'o ld-fashioned topic'?

JM : To do historical studies well, you have to be trained and train yourself in certain k inds of skills that do n 't come very quickly. It's not that they 're hard e r than o ther things, bu t they do take m ore time. U nder the p resen t in stitu tional fram e of reference that we live in, or the w orld that w e live in as scholars, that k ind of w ork is hard for a person to undertake, unless you w an t to take it in a k ind of fast w ay — you are skilled and go after it. But really im portan t scholarly w ork takes years for a person just to acquire the body of facticity that can be needed to w ork well. The institu tions d o n 't encourage you to do that. It's a difficult situation.

PS: This th ing you w ere talking about earlier of 'lived experience', I just w ondered if it w as possible to have a 'lived ' relationship w ith postm odern cu ltu re, the idea of the sim ulacra , or w hether or no t in th a t sense th a t B audrilla rd uses, the sim ulacra just overflow ed every th ing •— the m ap now covers the territo ry , there is no longer a d istinction betw een the appearance and reality.

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McGann' 166

JM : W e live in a w orld of sim ulacra, and w hatever com fort one can take ou t of the fact that w e know that this is the case — it m ay be an opening- up , an avenue for getting at a certain am ount of hum an control over these things. I say that very sceptically because it does seem to m e the case tha t w h a t's h ap p en ed in the U nited States over the pas t tw elve or th irteen years has invo lved the im p lem en ta tio n of a m assive in s titu tio n a lly - governed sim ulacra-driven presen tation of culture to itself. Large portions of the intelligentsia are aw are of it b u t it seem s to have m ade no difference w hatsoever. W hat has h ap p e n ed recalls for m e one of m y favourite passages of Byron, though I d o n 't like to think of it as one of m y favourite passages: 'The tree of know ledge is not that of life'. That's a terrible idea for anyone engaged in intellectual life — to say it and to expect o ther people to believe it. Is that true? If that's true, it's a terrible truth.

PS: W ell B audrillard w ould say you can 't even say it's 'tru e ' anym ore. T hat's the inflection.

JM : Once again you catch m e in my old-fashionedness. We all speak in the language that we inherited , that we learned, and we have these conceptual form s th a t we have. I know there are o ther people, B audrillard for one, w hom I adm ire a g reat deal and read all the time, b u t w ho speak in a language tha t I have to reach for. It's not at all natural to me.

PS: Just to pick up on that quote you came ou t w ith earlier d u ring your speech. You m entioned Ulysses, 'to follow know ledge like a sinking star'. I see you now as inhabiting 'the voices that m oan in the deep ', to m isquote Tennyson quite severely. Do you see yourself as recovering dead voices?

JM : I do feel that w hat we d o n 't know can be blessed, and probably will be blessed, in w ays that we have no idea of, so you becom e com m itted to — and I certainly do see my ow n w ork in this way -— to saving things, even though you have no sense w hat possible use they m ight have. It's like old people w ho have a house full of knickknacks and they save them . Some of them w ill have associa tions, som e of them w ill have, as it w ere, conscious m eanings, b u t m any of them will not, they are ju s t there in som e w ay tha t you d o n 't understand .

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McGann' 167

PS: Felicia Hemans for example?

JM : That is the kind of w riting she does, that is exactly the k ind of w riting she does. The sim ulacra poet of tha t p e rio d is T andon, and w h a t her subject is, is love, the great Rom antic subject, and its illusions, told from a w om an 's po in t of view now w hich m akes all the difference in the w orld. It's all very well to talk about it from a m an 's point of view b u t it m akes a big difference w hen you pick up som e subjects in a d iffe ren t fram e of reference, a w om an 's frame.

The fo llow ing replies are w ritten answ ers to questions sen t to Professor M cG ann.

SE: In Social Values and Poetic Acts you say that '"M eaning" in literary w orks is a function of the uses to w hich persons and social o rganisations p u t those w o rk s '.2 This seem s to m e to be firm ly in the trad ition of p rag m a tism . Do you see a g rea t affin ity be tw een y o u r w ork and p ragm atism ?

JM : Yes, clearly m y w ork has strong affinities w ith the pragm atic tradition. (E uropeans associa ted w ith w h a t is called 'L iterary P ragm atics ' have show n a good deal of in te rest in my w ork.) D ew ey has been a strong in fluence on my though t — from the earliest tim e (I960 or so) th a t I th o u g h t self-consciously about the social function of art and im agination. But I d o n 't th ink about pragm atism and its traditions in the w ay that, say, D ick R orty does. My in terests are m ore procedura l than his, even m ore institu tional and pedagogical (e.g., 1 spend a fair am ount of time w orking on e x p e rim en ta l c lassroom an d cu rr ic u la r p ro jec ts). I th in k th a t p ragm atism as a philosophical p u rsu it is (to borrow your earlier term ) a k ind of anti-theory, or theory as practise. One of my principal 'theoretical' projects righ t now is a hyperm edia edition of the com plete w orks of D ante G abrie l R ossetti. 1 see the ed itio n itse lf as a th eo re tica l act and in tervention , a 'statem ent' if you will about theory of textuality.

op. cit., p .l25.

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McGann' 168

SE: In you r article "A D ialogue on D ialogue", one of the in te rlocu ters claim s that 'ou r conversations' are g rounded in 'the p u rsu it of m eaning, in herm eneutics and the desires of in te rp re ta tion ', rather than the p u rsu it of tru th and pow er.3 W hat is the sta tus of tru th and pow er in your ow n w ork?

JM : 'Pow er corrupts, and absolute pow er corrup ts absolutely '. For better and for worse, that is for m e an article of faith. My passion for poetry stem s from m y percep tion of it as an activity of loss. Social Values and Poetic Acts w as orig inally titled Buildings of Los(s), bu t the p ress drove m e off th a t title by persuad ing m e — I w as stup id to agree — that no one w ould u n d e rs ta n d it — tha t read ers m igh t even think it w as a book ab o u t architecture! A nyw ay, 'B uildings of Los', that is w hat Blake understo o d poetry to be. So pow er enlisted as a m achine for dism antling the structures of p o w er — a house set aga inst itself, and that therefore canno t stand . Em ily D ickinson 's religion, which eschews salvation (because salvation is p a r t of an econom ic system of rew ard s and pun ishm en ts, a system of pow er).

A nd then the re 's 'tru th ', if you will. T ru th is for m e inseparab le ( 'ideally ') from the decisions and acts that m ake up the drive tow ard the tru th . T ru th is therefore a k ind of test of itself, or a test of the person w ho has m ad e a com m itm en t to it. The tru th of the sc ien tists an d the p h ilo sophers is som eth ing else. Their T ru ths are all very w ell, in their w ays, b u t they aren 't 'T roth '. Except perhaps in the case of Socrates, w ho h ad finally to face T ruth as Troth.

"A D ialogue on Dialogue" Postmodern Culture 2.1 (Sep. 1991), electronic journal, file names: McGann-1 991; McCann-2 991.

Appendix 1 'An Interview with Jerome McGann' 169

A p p e n d ix 2a

Questionnaire ffor ffirst ffear Undergraduates Studying UngCisfi Literature

M ale Fem ale Age FT/PT

Single Subject Com bined Studies

W hy did you choose to study E nglish L iterature for your degree?

W hy did you choose this particu lar course?

W as E nglish L ite ra tu re your best sub ject at schoo l/co llege?

D o you expect English L itera ture at U niversity to be a) a continuation o f your schoo l/co llege studies? b) radically d ifferen t?In w hat w ay?

D o you regard studying English L itera ture as a) vocational b) an end in itse lf c) other (describe)?

W hat is the value of studying English L iterature?

D o you regard E nglish L ite ra tu re as prim arily an academ ic subject?

Should the teaching of E nglish L itera ture be aligned w ith a particu lar p o lit ic a l s tance?I f so, w hich one?

D o you consider your personal en joym ent of L itera tu re to be separate from the study of it? Explain your answ er.

H ow w ould you describe w hat L itera ture and the study of it is?

Appendix 2a Questionnaire 170

A p p en d ix 2b

Slnszoers to ^Wfiat is tfie value o f studying Lngtis ft Literature?'

Score Category!

satisfying to exam ine and analyse one's thoughts and ideas about a piece of literature

develops personal skills of analysis and in te rp re ta tio n

speaking up in tutorials

helps understand different perceptions in life

helps understand a range of em otions that can be expressed

encourages criticism

encourages originality

in troduces philosophy

in troduces experience

insights into the m ind

insigh t into w ide range of subjects

b roadens the m in d /o u tlo o k

end in itself

acquiring know ledge

10

1

13

3

1

1

2

1

1

1

3

4

2

Key

a) broadens the mind with respect to the world and lifeb) develops analytical and interpretative skillsc) enjoyable/end in itselfd) regarded in terms of other disciplines

Appendix 2b 'What is the value . . . ?' Responses 171

a challenge w hich is rew ard ing w hen particular sty les/theo ries are understood , and can be appliedto further study 2 c

to argue coherently 1 b

to b roaden know ledge of au th o rs /lite ra tu re 9 c

to learn m ore abou t ind iv iduals ' philosophies 1 a

insigh t into life 6 a

confronted w ith different ideas and situations 1 a

enjoym ent of history - how we used to think andb eh av e 6 d

com m unication skills 3 b

to gain confidence in ow n ideas 3 b

to learn about English culture 2 a

im proves know ledge of language 3 b

subject central to study of hum anities 1 d

enjoyable 8 c

d em an d in g 1 c

em path ise w ith characters and events in their lives 1 a

helps understand ing of the w orld 1 a

art 1 d

educational 1 c+a

to learn about culture 1 a

subjective 2 c

opportun ities to express ideologies and opinions 1 b+a

entire w ay of thinking and viewing the w orld 1 a

changes and shapes view points 1 a

Appendix 2b 'What is the value . . . ?' Responses 172

helps analysis of books

develops reading tastes

d o n 't know

w h at is the po in t of study ing anything?

Key

a) broadens the m ind w ith respect to the w orld and life

b) develops analytical and in terpretative skillsc) en joyab le /end in itselfd) regarded in term s of other disciplines

Totals

422530

9

Percentage of male to female 30/70 Average age 20 61 students questioned

Appendix 2b 'What is the value . . . ?' Responses 173

A p p e n d ix 3

'hnpossiSiCity fiction ' Conference CBHurS

CALL FOR PAPERS

Impossibility Fiction A n Academic Conference on the Literature of Fantasy and SF

School of English, UCE

July 3rd, 1993

In recant years, the academic exploration of fantastic and science fictional texts has become more popular and more acceptable in the mainstream of literary studies. The effect of this has been to draw literary critics, philosophers, cultural analysts and scientists into a common discourse. As an opportunity of furthering this debate, a conference has been organised to provide a space to reflect upon the significance and meaning of this major strand of our literary cultural life.

The phrase 'impossibility fiction' is intended to be a generic term covering any fictional narratives that deal o stensibly with alternative worlds, or which foreground imagination, fantasy, desire, unreality or the unexplained. It encompasses fantastic and science fictional texts from all periods of history and across all cultures and disciplines. And it includes the impossible as a conceptual framework in texts that claim to be n o n - f ictional. It recognises that the d efinition has as much to do with readers' perceptions as with textual features.

'Impossibility f i c t i o n ' is inherently multi-disciplinary and has escaped many of the traditional literary categories by being so long regarded as 'inferior' literature. It is expected, therefore, that conference participants will come from a variety of disciplines, and will represent various fields of inquiry, including science, literary studies, film and communication studies, social science, education, writing, reading and cultural criticism. Participants not affiliated to academic institutions, post-graduate students, and final year degree students will be equally welcome.

Papers and seminar sessions are invited dealing with any aspect of relevance to the conference theme. Workshops and panel discussions will also be welcomed. It is envisaged that subjects covered might include the relation of impossibility fiction to the mainstream, experiraentalism in form and concept, issues of science, rationality, imagination and fantasy, the nature of reality and fictionality, the reception of fantasy texts, studies of individual authors and works, religious or mythic narratives, medieval and renaissance fantasy, dream texts, drug-induced narratives, utopias, the gothic, horror, magical realism, cyberpunk, folk literature, fairy-tales, theoretics of fantasy literature, pulp or transitory fiction, children's literature, escapism, w i s h - f u lfilment, psycho­analytical interpretations, fantasy in film, television and graphic form.

Presentations should be planned for a one hour session, to include an opportunity for discussion. An abstract, typed on one side of A4, should be provided in advance.

Appendix 3 'Impossibility Fiction' Blurb 174

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