Resumen Comentario the Textos Literarios and Lengua Inglesa: Barry POST AND structuralism DECONSTRUCTION PDF

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SUMMARY RYAN: CHAPTER 5 POST-STRUCTURALISM AND DECONSTRUCTION:

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Theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism (aka poststructuralism) – Structuralism: How we see (language) is what we see = language shapes reality. – Post-structuralism: Rebellion against structuralism. Accuse structuralists of not having the courage of their convictions. Structuralists said: language shapes reality, so: –

Universe

of

radical

uncertainty.

Nothing

beyond

linguistic

processing = hence, no standard by which measuring anything. –

If we base upon structuralist theories, we lose the fixed intellectual reference points.

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= Decentred universe

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Language is useful for day-to-day purposes. Useless for other.

(Of Grammatology:

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There is nothing outside the text.

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About Rousseau's “Essay on the origin of languages”.

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Supplement = in French can also mean replacement, in the sense that language replaces or stand for reality.

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We have inherit the language as a ready-made system.

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So, to reproduce when interpreting the text what the author thought and expressed is a doubling commentary.

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Critical reading must produce the text, since there is nothing behind it to reconstruct. (=deconstruction))

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List of differences between structuralism and post-structuralism:

Structuralism

Post-structuralism

Origin

From linguistics = objective knowledge. Method, system, reason = establish reliable truth.

From philosophy = difficulty to achieve truth = sceptical by nature. Poststructuralists intensified the scepticism of philosophers. Nietzsche's: There are no facts, only interpretations. Know we can't know anything for certain (=irony/paradox)

Tone

In writings = abstraction and generalisation. Neutral and anonymous style, as is typical of scientific writings.

Emotive writings. Titles full of puns and allusions. The central topic is usually a pun or a word-play of some kind. Deconstruction = deconstruct material aspect of language (metaphors, etymology) = warmth.

Attitude to language

The world is constructed through language. Reality is linguistic. Language is an orderly system.

Linguistic anxiety. Reality = textual. Meanings are fluid and subject to constant slippage or spillage. = Reality changes with words. Meanings are not guaranteed. Words are contaminated by opposites. The long-dormant metaphorical bases of words are often reactivated by use in philosophy or literature = interfere with literal sense

Project (Fundamental aims Question structures and of each movement, what it is categories of reality = we they want to persuade us of) can achieve a more reliable truth.

Distrusts the notion of reason ans the idea of the human being as an independent entity = dissolved / constructed. Its scepticism burns away the intellectual ground on which the Western civilisation is built.

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Post-Structuralism: Life on a decentred planet. Post-structuralism appeared in France, late 1960s. Roland Barthes

Jacques Derrida

(from structuralism to post-structuralism)

1966: “Structure, Sign and Play in the

1. The structuralist Analysis of Narrative.

Discourse of the Human Sciences” (=

2. The pleasure of text

considered to be the starting point of post-

- Technical

structuralism)

- Emphasises the randomness of the - Modern times = radical break with the past material.

(influenced by: Nietzsche, Heidegger and

3. The Death of the Author (= the hinge)

Freud).

Independence of literary texts. There are - Decentring of our intellectual universe. two texts: Text produced by the author / Text Before, man was the centre (=Renaissance) and Europe.

produced by the reader. Deconstruction:

Not

abandonment

all

of

a

hedonistic But:

restraint,

but

a - WWI/II Destroyed Europe and man = no

disciplined identification and dismantling of centre the sources of textual power.

- Relativity: No time / space - Modernism: No harmony / no chronos. = If there is no movement from a centre = free-play. Nietzschean universe = no facts, only interpretations. Speech and phenomena Of Grammatology Writing and difference

According to Derrida = philosophic. Deconstructive reading of other philosophers' works. Then, deconstruction was borrowed by literary critics. –

There's nothing outside the text.

–

The text is not unified.

STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM: some practical differences

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Post-structuralism often claims that it is an attitude of mind, not a practical method of criticism. (but, so it is with other critical orientations). – Engaged to the task of deconstructing texts. – Deconstruction: Reading against the grain / Reading the text against itself to know the text as it cannot know itself. (Terry Eagleton) – language has hidden shadows of meaning. – Guest has the same root as host, which comes from the Latin hostis meaning enemy. – Barbara Johnson's definiton of Deconstruction. – Deconstruction is not synonymous with “destruction”. It is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word “analysis”, which etimologically means “to undo”... The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text. – Derrida's description of deconstructive reading: –

A desconstructive reading must always aim at certain relationship, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of language that he uses... (it) attempts to make the not-seen accessible to sight.

– J.A. Cuddon's definition of deconstruction: – a text can be read as saying something quite different from what it appears to be saying... it may be read as carrying a plurality of significance or as saying many different things which are fundamentally at variance with, contradictory to and subversive of what may be seen by criticism as a single “stable” meaning. Thus a text may “betray” itself. – So = textual harassment / oppositional reading – To show that the text is in war with itself.

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Structuralism: looks for unity of purpose within the text.

Diagram:

Seeks

Structuralist

Post-structuralist

Parallel/Echoes Balances

Contradictions/Paradoxes Shifts/Breaks in: - Tone - Viewpoint - Tense - Person - Attitude Conflicts Absences/Omissions Linguistic quirks Aporia

Reflections/Repetitions Symmetry Contrast Patterns Effect

To show textual unity and To show textual disunity coherence

WHAT POST-STRUCTURALIST CRITICS DO: 1) They read the text against itself so as to expose what might be thought of as the textual subconscious, where meanings are expressed which may be directly contrary to the surface meaning. 2) They fix upon the surface features of the words – similarities in sound, the root meanings of words, a “dead” (or dying) metaphor – and bring these to the foreground, so that they become crucial to the overall meaning. 3) They seek to show that the text is characterised by disunity rather than unity. 4) They concentrate on a single passage and analyse it so intensively that it becomes impossible to sustain a “univocal” reading and the language explodes into multiplicities of meaning. 5) They look for shifts and breaks of various kinds in the text and see these as evidence of what is repressed or glossed over or passed over in silence by the text. These discontinuities are sometimes called “fault-lines”, a geological metaphor referring to the breaks in rock formations which give evidence of previous activity and movement....