Unit 1 Introduction to Poststructuralist Theories PDF

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Unit 1. Post-structuralism and deconstruction – Chapter 3 – Peter Barry Some theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism Is post-structuralism a continuation and development of structuralism or a form of rebellion against it? Structuralism = language does not reflect the world: rather, it shapes it = how we see is what we see. Post-Structuralism= the consequences of this belief are: -

Uncertainty: no access to any fixed landmark (reference point) beyond linguistic processing ⇒ not standard (norm, model) to measure anything. This lack of intellectual reference points=the DECENTRED UNIVERSE, we cannot know where we are= all the concepts that defined the centre (and the margins) have been deconstructed. STRUCTURALISM

mental each PROJECT ment)

ATTITUDETO LANGUAGE

ONE AND STYLE

ORIGINS

-From linguistic (objective knowledge can be established) -Scientific outlook: method, system and reason to establish reliable truths. -Its writing: abstraction and generalisation -Neutral and anonymous style -No access to the reality other than through the language -We need to use language to think and perceive with.

It questions our way of structuring and categorising the reality and incite to escape from habitual modes of perception, it believes that we can thereby (this way) attain a more reliable view of things.

POST-STRUCTURALISM -From philosophy (difficulty of achieving secure knowledge about things. Nietzsche: “there are no facts, only interpretations”. -Scepticism, regarding any confidence in the scientific method as naive (ignorant, simple) -Its writing: more emotive, urgent and euphoric tone. -Titles and/or central lines often i i not fully in control of the language: -Wet are meanings are fluid, subject to constant “slippage”. -Words do not have pure meaning, they are contaminated by their opponents (we cannot define night without reference to day) or they It distrusts the notion of reason, human being is not an independent entity, but it is a “dissolved” or “constructed” subject: the individual = a product of social and linguistic forces, not an essence at all.

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Introduction to Poststructuralist theories Brief summary of Post-structuralism Poststructuralism is a literary movement, which derives from philosophy rather than from linguistics and it was set in France in the late 1960s. The two main figureheads are Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida. Its writing tends to be emotive, euphoric and the style ostentatious. Its attitude to the language insists in the consequences and it states that we are not fully in control of the medium of language. Its aims are to show the idea of the human being as an independent entity. In 1968, Roland Barthes published “The Death of the Author”, In this essay, he announces the death of the author, which is a rhetorical way of asserting the independence of the literary text of what the author might have intended, so the work is no determined by intention, or context. Therefore, the consequence of the death of the author is the birth of the reader. The poststructuralist literary critic in engaged in the task of “deconstructing” the text. This process is given the name “deconstruction”. This was with the second key figure in the development of post-structuralism in the late 1960s with the philosopher Jacques Derrida. Brief summary of Deconstruction Jacques Derrida stated that in their time, they had to break with the past ways of thought and he associated the new movement to the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger and the psychoanalysis of Freud. Derrida embraced the decentred universe of free play as liberating, in the same way as “The Death of the Author” of Barthes. The consequences of this decentred universe are impossible to predict. The deconstructive reading of literary texts tends to make them emblems of the decentred universe, fragmenting the texts. The three stages of the deconstructive process described in Beginning Theory (Peter Barry) are the verbal, the textual and the linguistic.

Post-structuralism – Life on a decentred planet Post-structuralism emerged in France in the late 1960s. Two figures associated with this emergence:

Roland Barthes He moved from a Structuralist phase to a Post-structuralist phase as it can be seen by comparing two different accounts of the nature of the narrative: 1) The Structural Analysis of Narrative (1966): detailed, methodological and technical 2) The Death of the Author (1968): the hinge round which he turns from structuralism to poststructuralism: a. The independence of the literary text: the work is not determined by intention, or context. Rather, it is free by its nature of all such control. b. The death of the author = the birth of the reader. 2

3) The Pleasure of the Text (1973): a series of random comments on narrative, arranged alphabetically (emphasising its randomness)

Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004) – Philosopher His lecture or discourse “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Science” = it is considered the starting point of Post-Structuralism:      

He sees in modern times a particular intellectual “event”, which constitutes a radical break from past ways of thought: THE DECENTRING OF OUR INTELLECTUAL UNIVERSE. Centre of existence that was taken for granted = MAN – Western norms of everything. A centre against the OTHER AND MARGINAL. 20th century = centre destroyed due to historical events, artistic revolutions… Result – New Universe where there are no fixed points = we live in a DECENTRED or RELATIVISTIC UNIVERSE. This decentred universe of free play is liberating as in Barthes “the Death of the Author”.

3 Books:   

Speech and phenomena Of Grammatology – Key text in Post-structuralism: there is nothing outside the text Writing and Difference

More philosophical than literary topics. His method involve the DECONSTRUCTIVE READING OF SELECTED ASPECTS OF OTHER PHILOSOPHERS Deconstructive methods borrowed by literary critics and used in the reading of literary works. The deconstructive reading of literary texts = makes them emblems of the decentred universe (texts previously regarded as unified artistic artefacts are shown to be fragmented, self-divided, and centre-less. CONTRADICTIONS, PARADOXES, BREAKS, GAPS, FISURES, DISCONTINUITIS LINGUISTIC QUIRKS The term APORIA = popular in deconstructive criticism – it refers to the self-contradictory nature of the text:   

It is an impasse, and designates a knot (nudo) in the text which cannot be solved because what is said is self-contradictory. “The Death of the Author” ⇒“everything must be disentangled (desenredado), nothing deciphered (decoded)”. So APORIA= a knot which resists disentanglement such as contradictions, paradoxes, shifts

WHAT POST-STRUCTURALIST CRITICS DO: 1. They “read the text against itself” looking for hidden meanings considered as the “textual subconscious” which may contradict the surface meaning. 2. They focus on superficial similarities of the words (in sound, in their root meanings…) and bring these to the foreground (front), becoming them crucial to the overall meaning of the text. 3. They look for inconsistencies and fissures in a text, in order to show that the text is characterized by disunity rather than unity. 3

4. They concentrate on a single passage and analyse it so intensively. As a result, multiple meanings emerge and it becomes impossible to sustain a single and stable meaning. 5. They look for shifts and breaks and see these as evidence of what is repressed (suppressed), or silenced, or ignored by the text in its “surface” meaning. These discontinuities are called “ fault-lines” (a geological metaphor referring to the breaks in rock formations which give evidence of previous activity and movement).

Critical authors Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) “The Death of the Author” (1968) Allegory Modern scriptor

Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004) “Of Grammatology” (1967) Signified Signifier Referent = signified

Literary text A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London by Dylan Thomas (1914 – 1953) 1.1. -

CONTEXT

Author: Dylan Thomas Title: “A refusal to mourn the dead, by fire, of a child in London”. A declaration of intention: the title announces what the poem will do, although then it ends up just the opposite. o “, by fire,”: stresses that this is a sacrificial death. Author´s nationality: a welsh poet (from Wales), born in the city of Swansea (bombed as well during the Biltz –World War II). He lived in London, the city which most dramatically suffered the consequences of these bombings. Historical context: Published in 1945 in a journal, towards the end of World War II. A girl died during the Biltz in London inspired him to write this poem. o

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Literary context: Thomas´s work is developed in modernism, a literary movement developed during the first half of the 20th century, characterized by formal experimentation. It is the movement that most directly reflects the effects of the two great world wars. 4

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FORM AND CONTENT

1) GENRE: it belongs to the genre of poetry, more specifically lyrical poetry and Elegy 2) POETIC SPEAKER/VOICE/PERSONA: -

Written in first person We could identify it with the voice of the author

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It expresses a pacifist ideology 3) VISUAL ELEMENTS

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a) METAPHORS: “FATHERING”: metaphor and personification. Creating (=fathering) is becoming the father of a child. Masculine metaphor which contrasts the figure of the mother (last stanza) “THE SEA TUMBLING IN HARNESS”: sea= violent horse; harness= to keep it under control Metaphors with Judeo-Christian Biblical connotations suggesting peaceful and protected spaces: o “THE ROUND ZION OF THE WATER BEAD”: a metaphor inside a metaphor⇒ water drop=water bead (bubble, drop...)=the city of Zion o “THE SYNAGOGE OF THE EARN OF CORN” “THE LAST VALLEY OF SACKCLOTH”: suggesting the Biblical phrase “valley of tears” “MY SALT SEED”: combines the two central events to the poem SALT=DEATH (mourning) – SEED=REBIRTH (engendering)

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“NOR BLASPHEME DOWN THE STATIONS OF THE BREATH”: metaphorical allusion to the journey towards death Jesus. In non-religious terms =journey of life, first station of breath being birth. “A GRAVE TRUTH”= ironically used “the dark veins of her mother”= reference to mother earth

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b) SYNESTHESIA: “THE SHADOW OF A SOUND” (sound + sight)

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4) IMAGERY (the use of language to represent ideas, feelings, objects...): “BIRD, BEAST AND FLOWERS”: it could represent various forms of life. 5) AURAL ELEMENTS

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Poem arranged in STANZAS and LINE-BREAKS (break and divide the text into different lines) It follows the REGULAR STANZAIC FORM= 4 stanzas of 6 lines each RHYME SCHEME: regular “abcabc” ALLITERATION: “mankind making”; “bird beast”, “last light”, “sow my salt seed” METRE and RHYTHM: o Traditional English rhythms:  Long verses: 4 beats (stressed syllables)  Short verses (verses 2 and 5): 3 beats o Variation in the length of the lines (from 5 syllables: “beard beast and flowers” to 11 “the majesty and burning of the child´s death” 5

6) SYNTAX -

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NON STANDARD SYNTAX and PUNCTUATION First sentence covers 1st, 2nd and the first line of the 3rd stanza= a syntactically complex TIME AGENT (main verb in the 20th line= “Shall I let pry”) Intentional breaking of the first sentence into 3 stanzas: function of breaking down of the language in correspondence with its subject matter (decomposition; the end of the world) ENJAMBMENT o “... the round /Zion...” o “... to mourn / the majesty and burning of the child´s death” GERUNDS around the first stanza (making, breaking, tumbling....)= suggests action in progress The recurrence of the CONJUNCTION “and”(6 times within the first 13 lines) 7) POETIC DEVICES/ FIGURES OF SPEECH

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PERSONIFICATION: o “FATHERING”: creating is becoming the father of a child o Her “MOTHER”: the earth PARADOX: refuses to mourn but ends up mourning 8) THEME: the death of a little girl as a result of a German Bomb during the Biltz in London in 1940-1941 and the rebirth. 9) INTERRELATION FORM –CONTENT

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Rhythm and syntax that recall the solemn style of a preacher and the Biblical quality of some images The form reflects the speaker´s confusion, shock and expresses the contradiction between intending not mourn and ending up doing so 1.3.

THEORY AND CRITICISM

Post-structuralism does not take into account the author´s intentions (so avoid biographical circumstances, supposed intentions, etc. ) PS Looks for DISUNITY, rejects fixed meanings: dissolve the meanings, deconstructing it, reading the poem against itself, in 3 stages: THE VERBAL STAGE Read against itself: going against the grain of the poem.

CONTRADICTIONS: “After the first death there is no other”: if there is a first, there must be a 2nd, 3rd...

Juxtaposition of “never” and “until”, it will never happen but it will happen at a given moment (until) 6

“the still hour (...) tumbling” still -lack of movement/ tumble -a violent continuous movement.

“the majesty and burning”: conflicting images.

PARADOXES: “tell with silence”

Those internal contradictions= examples of language´s unreliability and slipperiness PS reverses the polarity of common BINARY OPPOSITIONS1 (like male and female, day and night, light and dark... ) so that the second term is privileged and regarded as the more desirable: -

“light” -“darkness”: “darkness” as engendering life (rather than “light”), as a moment of realization that will spring awareness. “life” and “death”

Those paradoxes = show that language does not reflect our world but constitutes a world of its own, a kind of parallel universe or virtual reality. THE TEXTUAL STAGE A more overall view of the poem (beyond individual phrases):

DISCONTINUITIES; SHIFTS and BREAKS in the continuity of the poem (in focus, in time, in tone, in point of view, pace, attitude, vocabulary, grammar) that show paradox and contradictions on a large scale. 1st stanza= an impersonal phrase, which contrasts with the use of “I” in the 2nd stanza.

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BINARY OPPOSITION: The principle of contrast between two mutually exclusive terms; each term is dependent on the other to constitute itself mutually exclusive terms (on/off, up/down, left/right). The study of binary opposition is one of the key of poststructuralism. The first two stanzas refer to geological ages and the “end of the world”: the last light breaks, the sea finally becomes still, the cycle which produces “Bird beast and flowers” comes to an end as “all humbling darkness” descends. But the third stanza talks about the present –the recent death of the child. “The majesty and burning of the child´s death” The final stanza = historical progression of the history of London, as witnessed by the unmourning water/of the riding Thames. So we are not given a single context to contextualize the death of the child= difficult to understand 7

OMMISIONS: he does not tell why he refuses to mourn, why his intention of not doing so is then carried out

THE LINGUISTIC STAGE Moments when language as a medium of communication is called into a question (unreliability of language) The whole poem does what it says it will not do: says he will not “murder/the mankind of her going with a grave truth”= condemns all the accepted ways of speaking about this event, but it is not followed by silence Contradiction between intention and performance =a kind of paradox involving the whole text.

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