literary theory - a survey

Literary Theory in the United States: A SurveyReviewed work(s):Source: New Literary History, Vol. 14, No. 2, On Convention: II (Winter, 1983), pp. 409-451Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468694 .Accessed: 18/08/2012 15:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toNew Literary History.

http://www.jstor.org

LITERARY THEORY IN THE UNIVERSITY: A SURVEY


T HE following survey was undertaken during 1982. An attempt was made to obtain representative statements from scholars in this country, Great Britain, and Europe regarding the teach-

ing and writing of literary theory at the present time. The survey seemed the most appropriate way to discover how theorists feel about their own subject and what they and their students think are its shortcomings and prospects.

The answers given below are presented in alphabetical order. Sub- sequent issues will contain essays pertinent to the survey.

The three questions of the survey were:

1. What ought to be the aims and functions of literary theory at the present time?

2. What practical consequences has theory had in your teaching of literature and in your writing of criticism?

3. What do you consider the shortcomings of theory, if any, in graduate education?

THE EDITOR

David Bleich, Indiana University: 1. I understand the traditional disciplines of language and litera-

ture to be the study of literary texts, genres, history, and meanings; I think literary theory today ought to be concerned with the purposes, reasons, presuppositions, and principles associated with the study of language and literature.

Literary theory should compare received concepts of language and literature with new concepts, sought concepts, and concepts from related disciplines such as philosophy, history, and sociolinguistics, and others, including the sciences. Theorists should promote exchange between orthodox students of language and literature and other students who ask why these subjects exist and why they are important; in addition, theorists should aim to disclose choices within traditional subject categories, so that change, growth, and development become more anticipated elements in any inquiry.

Literary theory should contribute to the changing of social and professional institutions such as the public lecture, the convention presentation, the classroom, and the processes of tenure and promo- tion. Theoretical work ought to show how and why no one class of scholars, and no one subject (including theory) is self-justifying, self-explanatory, and self-sustaining. Theorists should commit

411

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

themselves to disciplining intellectual change, and to the princi- pled reappropriation of ideas which seem not to change. Finally, literary theory ought to promote active awareness of each person's membership in several intellectual, cultural, and professional communities at once, to disclose our responsibilities to these communities, and to teach us to form new communities when needed.

2. The emergence of literary theory as a working curricular genre in my university has had several important consequences in which I have been involved. (a) An interdisciplinary formal minor-a program of courses-has been established on both undergraduate and graduate levels; courses from other literature departments and other humanities departments are included. (b) Several faculty and student-faculty groups have begun to meet regularly (monthly, usually) to study new work in literary theory, and to share one another's works, either published or in progress. (c) Annual theory conferences have been encouraged and supported by the university to enhance familiarity in this community with the work of other theorists. (d) The teaching and the study of writing has begun to include, in addition to composition theory, theoretical work in language, cognition, and literature.

My work has moved toward experimenting with different classroom formats, different means of studying practical language, literary response, and critical judgments, and my published writing has begun reporting on these developments. I have tried to create classroom procedures and forms of thought that combine theoretical, critical, and practical aspects of language and literary inquiry, in freshman, undergraduate, and graduate courses. I report on these developments regularly in local forums, study groups, and conferences. Study in theory has suggested certain ideas for these experi- ments and makes them comprehensible when I report them in public.

3. Theoretical concerns cause problems when they present themselves as self-sufficient and autonomous. Some schools of theory seem to call on others to "apply" them, and graduate students are often eager for such tasks; some theories present themselves as "beautiful," as Elizabeth Bruss has noted, and graduate students are eager to admire them. However, either to "apply" or admire theory implies that it has already been perceived as an essentially separate domain, e.g., "let us see if we can now 'use' all the theory we know," which suggests that social, professional, and practical consequences were not a concern of the theories to begin with. This feature of theory is a danger because it reinforces the historic stereotype of intellectual effort as aimless and useless.

Some forms of theory encourage apprentice thinkers to question,

412


negate, or "resist" the assertions that some have risked. There is a "trope of negation" which makes its task to deny or invert affirmative proposals, regardless of how tentatively they are presented. Such theories have already decided what it is that cannot be decided. For- mulaic negation, while often stimulating and provocative, ultimately suggests that thinking is better than, and separate from, acting, rather than that theory and social initiative are mutually responsible to one another.

Theory ought to show that questioning alone, or "resisting" alone, or even understanding or textual mastery alone are inadequate; consequences among real social groups (students, professors, deans, or politicians or entrepreneurs, for that matter) should be anticipated, sought, and tested by theorists. Ideas which begin and end as theories reduce the value of theory.

Morton W. Bloomfield, Harvard University: 1. I think it is very important that, after the excitement of New

Criticism (in its theoretical aspects), structuralism and various post- structuralisms (reader response or reception esthetics, social context, and Derridian deconstruction), we try not to lose our heads on the next "wave." After all, literary theory has always occupied the minds of those who are interested in literature (from at least the time of Aristotle) and is going to continue for a long time to interest readers, critics, and teachers of literature. It is true that it has received special attention and has become fashionable in Western Europe and America in the past twenty-odd years. That wave will subside, but it will by no means die. It would be helpful if we realize this fact and the wide-ranging scope of literary theorizing. It would be better for all of us if we did not leap from one bandwagon to another, but recognized the multiplicity and complexity of our subject. I do not expect any suggestion for an eclectic approach to be accepted.

2. The present widespread interest in theory has made me aware of many aspects of literature which I either did not know or did not concentrate on. I can't say that is has improved my teaching or writing of criticism, although I think it has. It makes one ask different and new questions of the literature one reads or teaches. It enriches our subject and helps to create and maintain the excitement that makes literature such a significant and enthralling subject.

3. A certain amount of theorizing will come into graduate classes no matter what we think. I also think a graduate student in literature should specifically study a few courses devoted to theory, but I do not think it should replace the study of literary works and to some extent literary history as the centers of graduate education. The major

413


shortcoming of theory is its tendency to minimize the particular and to overemphasize the general. Both are necessary. The study of literature must not be buried in philosophy and philosophical reasoning, although it must not neglect it. A student without some awareness of literary theory would be seriously handicapped; one who knows only individual literary works and/or literary history is inadequately prepared to be a good teacher of literature.

Literary theory at present tends to be narrowly focused. No matter how strongly we subscribe to one school or another, we must allow our students to experience some of the other theories. The Marxists should have their day, but they must allow for intrinsic factors in the understanding of literature. The deconstructionists, who are strongly imbued with the Romantic spirit, must also allow the classicists to have their say. Not all literature is Rousseauist, some of it is Shakespearean. Psychologizing has its limits.

Jim Springer Borck, Louisiana State University: 1. The purpose of any critical methodology ought to be to keep the

language of the tribe "current" and "alive," as well as to display the variety (variety here meaning the artistic generosity offered by the text) of the text under examination.

2. The practical consequences of working within a specific critical methodology have been reminders of rigorous discipline; to be aware of other methods, and to acknowledge them in my own writings, creates a fairness of approach. Though I am made very uneasy by some of the permutations of structuralism, poststructuralism, decon- structionism, et al., and regard myself primarily as a historical con- textualist, I find de Man, Derrida, and Iser (to cite a few) all illuminating when "reading" a text. My heart, however, still remains with Wimsatt and R. S. Crane.

3. Shortcomings of theory as now taught: both that it is taught too little and too much, that graduate students are not exposed to enough critical theory and its importance, and that they tend to misuse theory by way of avoiding reading the text. I also think that the impact of computer technology hasn't been evaluated in terms of the study of literary texts-not just compilation of bibliographies and concor- dances-but questions about the effect of having machines "read" texts, the exciting work with artificial intelligences, and the humanistic evaluative computer languages such as PL/1.

Leo Braudy, Johns Hopkins University: 1. The English Institute this year was a fascinating gloss on your

first question. There, for the first time in a while, the mode seemed

414


integrative rather than confrontational. Whether the subject was Pope or Marxist theory, there was an openness to other ideas that I enjoyed very much. (On the other side would be Stanley Fish, who thought it smacked of "liberal pluralism.") It is just in this area that I think literary criticism ought to go. Much has been exposed and debated. Now I think it's time to see what is useful and what isn't. Then, as in so many other disciplinary subfields, there will be theory that everyone ought to have at least a nodding acquaintance with (like Chaucer or Donne), and theory that only the specialist will be aware of or interested in (like Henryson or Hall).

2. In my own teaching, the existence of theory, not necessarily its specific preachings or perspectives, has pressed me to sharpen ideas and perspectives that might otherwise be unexamined. But in graduate education I think it too often supplies a false refuge for the student looking for defenses rather than expansion. That is one reason why I like the situation at the English Institute so much. For a long time I have been turned off equally by the more extreme claims of both the trendy and the troglodyte. Now it seems that a period of dynamic synthesis is in prospect. Maybe it is liberal pluralism (if that can be separated from wishy-washy). But I like it anyhow.

Terry Eagleton, Wadham College, Oxford, England: 1. One aim of literary theory today should be to offer students the

conceptual means to connect literary studies to other, arguably more historically and politically important concerns. Another aim is to offer them the means to read literary texts in ways unacceptable to the ruling ideologies. The former aim is perhaps largely confined to places of higher education; the latter is one which literary theorists should be trying to develop in cooperation with those who teach literature in schools.

2. One of the main practical consequences of my using theory in teaching has been to create problems for students reading English literature within a deeply traditionalist university. Students tend to experience the gap between the approaches institutionally demanded of them, and the new methods to which they are introduced, as both illuminating and frustrating. Some disown the new methods, but perhaps in the awareness that they are rejecting something of potential value; others hive them off from their bread-and-butter work and settle for a semischizoid existence; a minority campaign and organize, as at present in Oxford, to radically overhaul the academic system. The main effect of my introducing theory into my writing has been some rather hostile reviews.

3. Literary theory is in danger of becoming quarantined within

415


literary studies as an esoteric area of its own, reputedly akin in diffi- culty to nuclear physics. It provides a stimulating but speculative en- clave of ersatz radicalism for teachers and students caught in a period of relative political deadlock in the advanced capitalist societies. It can escape such confines only by practical interventions within the academy into what is taught there, how, and why.

John M. Ellis, University of California, Santa Cruz: 1. The aims and function of literary theory should be close to those

of theory in most fields: the investigation and clarification of the most general questions in the field, i.e., those dealing with the aims of the field, the nature of its results, the appropriateness of competing methodologies. Because the central questions in theory are mostly well known already, progress in theory is made by patient, careful analysis of concepts and arguments, accurately formulated distinctions, or reexamination of familiar lines of argument to see if their logic con- ceals some fundamental hidden confusion. The character of critical theory is not (or should not be) dazzling or "exciting" (except in the sense that any important new theoretical idea or argument is exciting if it is important); above all, its strength must lie in accuracy and pre- cision of formulation. Only thus can progress be made in the reexamination of the theoretical issues which arise in literary criticism.

2. My own criticism has always been guided by the analysis I have made of the theoretical issues in criticism. The priorities that I have argued for in criticism in my The Theory of Literary Criticism have been those at work in my Narration in the German Novella and two books on Kleist; the critical procedures of these volumes of criticism have been the procedures argued for in the theoretical book; the nature of the interpretations arrived at is, I am certain, very much part of the view of criticism from which they originate. My teaching of literature is similarly very much a part of the same complex.

3. The shortcomings of theory in graduate education at present follow from the view of the value of theory in paragraph 1 above. At the moment, theory is a matter of fads and fashion, and the emotional basis of its popularity seems to be more a question of enthusiasms, fashionableness, feelings of superiority over the common herd, excitement and inspiration, and group celebrations of tribal solidarity and power. The accepted style of theoretical inquiry is the splendor of grandiose vagueness, rather than the clarity required for any genuine theoretical inquiry. All of this is, in fact, a travesty and degeneration of what theory ought to be. And in this climate far too many are very poorly informed about the real complexity of theory of language and

416


literature that existed before Derrida, for example; graduate students are taught to see his attack on the metaphysics of presence as a great breakthrough and innovation, and neither they nor the faculty who have them read Derrida seem to have any idea how many and how complex are existing writings which have attacked essentially that idea in more logically profound ways. In short, theory now in graduate education is something of a scandal.

Raymond Federman, State University of New York at Buffalo:

1. You ask, what ought to be the aims and functions of literary theory at the present time? For me, above all, to reassert the value of literature, to authenticate its presence, to affirm its existence in our culture as one of the most important of human activities.

At a time when literature (especially in our retrogressive anti- intellectual society) seems to have lost its credibility and even its func- tionality; at a time when anything passes for literature in the super- markets of books, when cookbooks, comic books, pseudoscientific manuals, celebrity biographies written by ghost writers, gothic novels, spy novels, harlequin romances, and so forth, are confused with literature; at a time when, in order to be, literature must be approved by reviews in the official mercantile press (The New York Times Book Review, or such depressing publications), then the role of literary theory (aims and functions, if you prefer) is to make the distinction, to mark the difference between books and nonbooks. In other words, literary theory, for me, should not only have an intellectual responsibility to articulate what literature is or is not, where it has been and where it is going, but should also have a political responsibility to expose and denounce the imposture, the fraud of what pretends to be literature.

2. You ask, what practical consequences has theory had in your teaching of literature and in your writing of criticism? I am tempted to say none, though that would be unfair. As a fiction writer (one whose work has been labeled experimental) who teaches literature out of necessity, and occasionally writes criticism, it seems to me that one cannot separate literature (the text) from theory. I consider my work (and that of my contemporaries) to contain its own theory. Therefore, when I teach literary texts, I do not deal only with literariness but also with the theoretical aspects of the texts. In fact, all works of literature contain their own theoretical dimensions. Old-fashioned (traditional) criticism ignored this aspect of literature. New literary theory perhaps overemphasizes that aspect too much, to the point of only seeking the theoretical in a literary text. In other words, too often

417


literary theory abandons literature. Moreover, and this seems more serious for me, literary theory does not seem able to deal with contemporary texts (experimental ones especially). Perhaps this is because these texts being themselves theoretical, articulating within themselves their own theory, in a way exclude the theoretician. I am not sure I have stated this too clearly, but I do deplore the fact that so little attention is given to the contemporary text in literary theory.

3. You ask, what do you consider the shortcomings of theory, if any, in graduate education? Since a graduate program, by necessity, is limited to a certain number of courses (credits or units) the time devoted to literary theory is taken away from reading and studying literature. And when literary theory takes over completely, as is the case in some graduate programs, then we create strange creatures with a huge head but no body who speak a rather curious jargon which they themselves do not always understand. There must be a way for literary theory and literature to find a happy balance, ajoyful union in our graduate programs. To be quite blunt, I feel that wher- ever literary theory takes over the study of literature, it creates a kind of anxiety in our students.

Stanley Fish, Johns Hopkins University: 1. I don't think literary theory has aims and functions, except that

it is an attempt to give a general account of what we do; it also sets its own questions and problems, and therefore at any one time one already knows its aims and functions.

2. My teaching of literature has been markedly affected by theory since I find myself continually reading literary texts as thematizations of the theoretical position I happen to hold. This is no doubt true of everyone, but probably more self-consciously so of those who are themselves theorists.

3. The fact that neither theory nor the history of criticism is taught as a serious subject in most graduate departments is, I think, a great and all-encompassing shortcoming.

Alastair Fowler, University of Edinburgh, Scotland: 1. I think that literary theory should now increasingly move away

from issues of structuralism and of deconstruction, to engage again in questions of description or preliminary construction. And there should be more attention to questions of the ontology of the work, less about the ontology of literature. It seems to me striking how the work of Ingarden, for example, has had so little continuation. Then, the relation of diachronic and synchronic criticism needs to be further examined.

418


2. I feel that too much of my time has to go in rebutting opinions of theorists who seem to have relatively little interest in literature. Much current literary theory seems to me a distraction from the subject itself. In a sense, current literary theory has had little other bearing on my own criticism, except for genre theory, which has had a very great deal.

3. While literary theory is in my view deleterious at the undergraduate stage, a small amount may be beneficial for postgraduate students-say, half a dozen seminars per year. These might have the effect of arousing a sense of the complexity of the subject. But in general the early years are so important in the task of acquiring familiarity with literature and its historical context and of developing a sense of period, that we cannot afford dissipating them on literary theory. Specific shortcomings include the following: it lends specious support to the neglect of diachronic study; it lends support to narcissistic tendencies of criticism, already strong at that age; it provides a means of avoiding the challenge presented by tradition; and it avoids the challenges of verification and of possible disproof.

Michel Glowinski, Institute of Literary Research, Warsaw, Poland: 1. I cannot imagine a literary study which would not accept the

dominant position of literary theory. If there were, such an inadequate study would fall victim to its own naivete, would remain true to an unacceptable, irrelevant, purely referential theory, whereas any theory dealing with the work of art, its process of development and expression, is always relevant to our actions. I see the main objectives of literary theory as threefold: (a) It creates an apparatus that can explain or describe the literary work, its poetics, its existence in history, and its function. It allows the opening up in literature of those aspects and events that were up to this time neglected or minimized (for example, the problematic of the reader and of the principles of selection). Working with a new vocabulary, literary theory creates the possibility of new insights into general problems and specific works. (b) Literary theory integrates findings gleaned from analyses of particulars and demonstrates that literary study need not be a mere dis- organized collection of bits of information on various subjects. Liter- ary study is now beginning to have a systematic character which has significant consequences; namely, it unites concern for particulars with a larger philosophical context. (c) Literary theory creates an arena for understanding among scholars and thus performs an important communicative function. Theorists speak in varied languages, but we know the basis of each language, so that even though we may not agree when dealing with problems, we can at least understand one another.

419


2. The answer to this question is entailed in the previous answer. Literary theory is the main subject of my interest, and I refer to it even when I am involved in studying particulars, for instance, the analysis and interpretation of individual works. The main problems-highly complicated ones-seem to me to be the transition from theory to interpretation, from poetics to the description of a concrete work, and from description of a work, which in its very nature is undirected, to hermeneutics.

3. In the last few decades, literary theory has played an important role, but this has brought with it a number of uncertainties. Just as interpretation has limited its analysis to the particular work, and thus brought about the minimizing and disregard of general problems, so literary theory can lead, in its overemphasis on generality, to a disregard of problems that are specific to works of art. This danger is equally present in teaching and writing; moreover, because of theory's abstract and schematizing methodology, it creates difficulties in locating the individuality of a work. The reader of theoretical works cannot remain unconcerned about this threat. But an awareness of this danger is the method for preventing its occurrence.

Lionel Gossman, Princeton University: 1. I don't see that the question can be answered solely with refer-

ence to literary theory. Like many similar intellectual activities, literary theory usually has two aspects. It is a technical investigation of an object, in this instance the nature of literature-its ontological status, how it comes to have meaning or create meaning, its relation to other aspects of culture, and so on-and the nature and practice of criticism, commentary, and interpretation. But in addition, in a more indirect way, it is-to a far greater extent than many who practice it would care to admit-a normative activity, a "political" activity in the widest sense, conveying values and judgments, establishing legitimacies and illegitimacies, performing exclusions. In this it is not different, I think, from other activities in the humanities and social sciences (philosophy, theology, some kinds of sociology at least): i.e., it is a way of addressing, indirectly and within a socialized framework of com- monly accepted terms, rules, and procedures, fundamental questions of life that can't easily be addressed directly (one cannot look directly at the sun or at death, as La Rochefoucauld put it)-identity and community, tradition and individuality, time and death, and so forth. There is a theoretical discourse which claims to be untainted by such concerns and which rests its claim to be theoretical precisely on its transcendence of ideology. I personally cannot accept this claim. As

420


much as I respect the observance of rules and procedures of argument and discourse and recognize the need for them, I reject the positivist illusion of a value-free discourse. I believe all human discourse is freighted with desire and embedded in history. The best theoretical discourse recognizes its own "materiality," so to speak (i.e., the impossibility of achieving absolute purity) and understands that, far from constituting a flaw, this inescapable materiality contributes essentially to the meaning, interest, and importance of theoretical discourse. I suspect that theory which claims to be above desire and history almost always functions repressively and terroristically.

2. I have found some theory largely self-contained and of little relevance to the study of texts. This is not intended as an adverse criticism. Theory can be interesting and stimulating even if it doesn't illuminate texts-like esthetics. On the other hand, some theory (from Lukacs to Lotman) has helped me considerably by indicating new ways of looking at texts, new features of them, new questions to ask. If I can speak autobiographically for a moment, my first sense of actively practicing literary criticism, rather than simply recording impressions whose origin and status I was uncomfortably unsure of, came to me after I discovered Lukacs in the German departmental library at the University of Glasgow in 1947. Until then I had no idea what I was doing or should be doing. I can't claim to be a very theoretically informed or rigorous critic, but to the extent that I am a critic at all, it is through Lukacs, and I owe him an enormous debt. I haven't been faithful to Lukacs, of course; but I haven't been unfaithful either. If Lukacs's work can be considered theory, I owe a great deal to theory.

3. Theory does tend to absorb the energies of graduate students. Many become interested in it for its own sake, as a kind of philosophy or science, rather than as a means of enriching and deepening their understanding of texts. I personally do not find this reprehensible or regrettable. I myself sometimes wonder whether my interest in cultural history is at the service of my readings of texts or whether it is itself my true object. My chief reservation concerning theory was stated in my answer to question 1. It is that it may function terroristically and repressively, making student readers reject interesting and suggestive perceptions and ideas because they can't be formulated with sufficient rigor or can't be justified and validated in terms of a comprehensive theory, or even incapacitating them altogether. There is a whole range of responses to literary texts, and I think it would be a pity if we permitted ourselves to ask only those questions which a coherent theory of literature or culture legitimizes. We have to work in the dark too. Often such work is the most resourceful kind of work

421


the critic can do. It needn't be stupid or uninformed or unself-conscious.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, West Germany: 1. This is just the problem I was dealing with in my forthcoming

essay in New Literary History "History of Literature-Fragment of a Vanished Totality." I assume that the meaning normally attributed to the (in text reference) word literature arose prior to that of a totality- concept of history which has, by this time, become more than problematic. The first question of a "literary theory" must be: Does it still make sense to assume that there is a coherent object such as "literature" on which coherent "theories" can be built (which has to be structured by a series of concepts)?

In other words: in the present moment the main task of literary theory should not be to establish theories of literature but to think about the question-what the object (and the role) of our discipline ought to be, considering that we have now abandoned totality- concepts of history.

I assume that the result will not be a new "definition" of the term literature; rather I see two-quite separate-perspectives for the future of Literaturwissenschaft: (a) the development of "normative" concepts (proposals) for a nonprofessional, pleasure-orientated use of texts in a future society in which "working time" becomes an increasingly unimportant space (compared to "pastime"); (b) the integration of a particularly high competence of interpretation and analysis of texts (the integration of the heritage of Literaturwissenschaft) into other disciplines such as "history" (especially of "mentalities") and sociology (especially interactionist sociology).

2. As I do not consider "literary theory" one part of Literaturwis- senschaft but rather its "philosophy," there is, on one hand-ideally speaking-no writing that I publish and no course I teach which is not in a deductive relation with "literary theory." On the other hand I write, more and more seldom, purely theoretical articles or books; I teach, more and more seldom, purely theoretical seminars.

I personally prefer to use my competence as a historian of literature within the field of a "history of mentalities," profiting-I hope-from theoretical work (in the sense defined above). There is a mutual (and productive) relation between this kind of work and my theoretical thinking.

3. Since graduate education normally leads to (and should lead to) professional activity as a "Literaturwissenschaftler" and since I think that

422


the future (maybe the survival) of our discipline depends on its capacity to find a role adequate to new problems, there cannot be, in my eyes, any graduate teaching without a continuous theoretical discussion. We have at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum created a Kolloquium dedicated to the type of questions described in question 1 which is regularly held every two weeks.

I have to emphasize, however, that "graduate teaching of literary theory" (in my sense) can only be realized in a true discussion. Its aim is to enable graduate students (and future colleagues) to think on their own about the kinds of questions I defined above.

Ihab Hassan, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee:

1. The aim of theory is to heighten our awareness of literary knowledge and language, and to organize that awareness in new heuristic perspectives. The heightened awareness of literary knowledge implies the mind's encounter with itself under the aspect of language; it should also lead to gnostic delight. The heuristic perspectives should aim at wisdom, right praxis.

2. Though theory holds no priority in my professional life, it has clearly affected both my writing and teaching. Thus, for instance, my "paracriticism" reflects postmodern theory and culture no less than my personal sense of the self. And my teaching has become more tropic (rhetorical), problematic, comparative, multidisciplinary, and sometimes abstract, the latter a tendency against which I try to guard. Quite simply, I teach more literary theory now than I did twenty years ago, a fact that I regard with acute ambivalence.

3. The shortcomings of theory today? Bad prose, rebarbative jargon, tedious psychomachias. But beyond such lapses and lacks, graduate education needs to create a nexus of values in literary studies as well as to provide a continual critique of itself based on history, ideology, and speculative vision.

In the end, though, I must return to the instigations of desire. I take it that no human activity can thrive without serving some principle of pleasure as well as will to knowledge and power. Does literary theory appear to us now a bride of wisdom or an iron maiden? Is critical discourse a banquet table or a verbal wrack? There is pleasure, of course, in intellectual beauty, gaiety in the mind's struggle to make the world ever more conscious, and happiness in the play of language, which breaks continuously on the soft edge of silence. The critic's tongue has indeed become more strenuous; now it must learn to "burst Joy's grape against his palate fine."

423


Go/ran Hermeren, Lunds Universitet, Sweden: 1. As to your survey, I find it easier to answer question 1 and

question 3 (since I am not a literary critic). To put it very briefly, I think that the aim and function of literary theory ought to be to offer new directions and to revitalize literary scholarship and literary criticism. So did once the New Critics, and so have the best Marxists, structuralists and semiotic scholars done. I believe that the potential of the contemporary phenomenological and hermeneutic tradition in this respect is not fully explored.

3. The shortcoming of literary theory in graduate education is that its relation to literary, critical, and scholarly practice is not made explicit. Too often literary theory is discussed separately, and its relevance becomes, therefore, difficult to grasp. What difference does it make, in writing about X, what literary theory I use explicitly or implicitly (take for granted)?

Norman N. Holland, State University of New York at Buffalo:

1. Literary theory has, surely, as one of its aims, the sheer joy of play. It is, quite simply, fun. For another, literary theory serves to satisfy our deepest curiosity about the literary process, a task that asks us to engage in the most profound exploration of human nature, especially our own.

For me, these two aims are the same. 2. As a result of my theoretical concern with the person, I have

changed utterly my way of teaching and writing. I used to think of myself and my students as objectively analyzing texts. Now I acknowledge and emphasize the personal response of student, teacher, and critic. I encourage the conscious use of one's self, one's identity, really, as a sensing instrument. I no longer think of critical writing as a report on something other than itself, but as itself a constitutive act around which we continually focus and create ever new experiences of both literature and life.

3. The eruption of theory in the last two decades has brought a vigorous and refreshing intellectuality to the study of literature. By the same token, unfortunately, literary theory can degenerate into mere words, an exercise in choplogic-we can become Swift's spider, ignoring the world around us in order to spin a geometric web of abstractions out of our own entrails. An absorption in theory sometimes cuts off the study of literature from other human realities- science, history, politics, society, a variety of psychologies, the facts of literary creation, the sociology and economics of our profession- finally, therefore, from both literature and life. At its worst, literary

424


theory becomes hermetically sealed against the slightest breath of common sense.

Wolfgang Iser, University of Constance, West Germany: 1. The aims I consider to be threefold: (a) Frameworks have to be

established in order to make the encounter with literature intersub- jectively verifiable. A framework, however, should be more than just a collection of premises if it lays claim to being a theory; it stands in need of both revealing and substantiating its basic presuppositions. This distinguishes literary theory from prevailing types of criticism, such as literary appreciation or taste-oriented impressionism. If frameworks fail to tackle the task they were designed for, their inadequacies can be rectified. This does not hold true of literary appreciation, and this is why it tends to lapse into dogmatism.

When the study of literature is under fire-as it is nowadays-it stands more than ever in need of a type of discourse which both objectifies and justifies this particular scholastic endeavor.

(b) Literary theory allows for self-reflexivity of interpretation. This twin focus on what is to be interpreted as well as on what is being brought to bear in this activity is indispensable in view of the growing awareness that interpretation itself has its own history. A discovery of the historically conditioned stances is bound to throw into relief the viewpoint underlying and operative in each interpretation. In this respect literary theory initiates a hermeneutical process, in the course of which past and present are continually mediated.

(c) A basic function of literary theory consists in opening up new realms of investigation, which so far have not been fully in perspective. The literary medium lends itself to the exploration of the work- ings of the imagination, to answering questions such as why we stand in need of fiction and to what extent literature is able to channel the otherwise diffuse quality of the imaginary into our conscious existence. These pursuits can be subsumed under the general heading of a cultural anthropology of literature.

2. Theory set me thinking about what it is I want to know while studying literature. It proved important in my teaching, as I did not have to impose my own ideas on the students, but could make a case why the subject under discussion was approached from a certain angle, and also what the chosen approach was expected to yield. This enabled students to reflect on their own interests much more in- tensely, and provided an opportunity for them to test their own ideas against those I had advanced. In this respect theory functions as a form of midwifery in teaching.

As to my writing, theory enabled me to ponder issues lying beyond

425

the ordinary business of interpretation, such as why we interpret and to what extent we live by interpreting. Explorations of this kind made it necessary to look into activities anterior to interpretation, such as reading and text-processing, which happen in this very activity. Scrutinizing areas both anterior and posterior to interpretation re- sulted in an awareness of larger issues, such as the imaginary as the fountainhead of the literary text, patterns and processes of communication, as well as the way in which human faculties are being acted upon by the medium of our concern.

3. A basic problem is posed by the fact that theory is more often than not learned and studied as if it were a subject in its own right and not an instrument for finding things out. Consequently, students at times project a theoretical frame of reference onto the text, thus downgrading it to an illustration of what the theoretical premise entails. Moreover, it proves difficult at times for students to apply theoretical frameworks properly.

This is largely due to the fact that the distinction between theory and method is either not distinctly drawn or not sufficiently observed. Theories generally provide premises, which lay the foundation for the framework of categories, whereas methods provide the tools for processes of interpretation. Whenever categories are used as tech- niques, confusion ensues. Shortcomings of this type have a twofold cause: (a) In literary theory as a discipline the distinction between theory and method is all too often blurred. (b) In order to apply both theoretical premises and categories adequately, a certain amount of philosophic training is required which a great many of our graduate students lack. Therefore it is all the more necessary on the part of the theorist to be both sufficiently clear and articulate in regard to what he intends to put forward.

Wallace Jackson, Duke University: 1. To open texts and contexts. I take this to be the prime function of

literary theory. Theorists seem always and properly engaged in building the city of criticism and thereby providing a habitation for sensibility and intelligence.

2. Theory is the way critics see. By which I mean to say that once I have grasped a principle, that, for example, there are no texts but only intertexts, I am well advanced on the way to an understanding of how imagination deploys itself intracanonically. A basic theoretical principle of this kind underlies my forthcoming study of Pope's poetry.

3. The easiest (and probably the most correct) response is to say

426 NEW LITERARY HISTORY


that the shortcomings are those of the theorists, but perhaps my problem is with the question itself. It covertly implies a distinction between theory and, say, other modes of inquiry ("education"), whereas I prefer to think that theory is the form in which reason recreates (raises) itself, an objectification of our knowledge and critical wisdom, and thus theory is the apotheosis of our discipline. Theory is aggregative rather than dispersive, multiple rather than single, open rather than closed.

Carol Jacobs, State University of New York at Buffalo: 1. To think in terms of "the aims and functions of literary theory"

might well seem to presuppose the distinction between the question of literature and the question of its theory, as though theory were a methodology of investigation external to its object of inquiry. Any study of literature is implicitly or explicitly a theoretical study, even if, and in a sense all the more tellingly when, it denies itself as such. No critical analysis can confront the literary text without thinking, if only unthinkingly, such questions as the nature of representation, of truth, of language, and of reading. The "ought" in relation to the study of theory, the necessity of the theoretical, is the ought of literature itself.

2. The theoretical consequences of this are that the teaching of literature will inevitably coincide with a teaching of critical theory. The practical consequences are that the best students learn to read, not only for content, and not only within a variety of received traditions. They learn to read literature, theory, and philosophy, but also, most remarkably, themselves, which is to say, they learn to write.

3. Theory, therefore, cannot be ascribed to an eccentric group of critics with a perverse insistence on importing foreign, continental modes of thought, nor can it be relegated institutionally to one or two faculty members in a department. The shortcomings of the way in which theory too often functions in American graduate programs arise precisely from this forced compartmentalization of the theoretical. The aberrations are many. The most common is the illusion that one must, or even could, choose between literature and theory, as though the choice were inevitably political, and often polemical. For what would it mean to choose "literature" to the exclusion of "theory" if not a significant ignorance of the object at hand as well as of the condition of one's own critical enterprise? And what would it mean to choose "theory" to the exclusion of "literature"? Perhaps the too common delusion that a critical study of theoretical texts might be possible without an appropriate coming to terms with the traditional

427


literary canon. But more crucial is the potential blindness to the literarity of the critical text itself.

Hans Robert Jauss, University of Constance: 1. In the last decade the theory of literature was faced primarily

with the task of asserting and methodologically establishing its own position vis-a-vis the competing paradigms of linguistic poetics, structuralism, the empirical social sciences, and semiotics. In view of the new paradigms for the study of the function, effect, and reception of literature that have recently won wide acceptance-New Literary History bears witness to this trend-it seems to me that the time has come to build new bridges to neighboring disciplines. I am thinking, for instance, of historical anthropology. The new initiatives of this discipline will especially benefit if the theory of literature succeeds in distinguishing the aesthetic from other functions of communication in life, and brings into focus the actual achievements of that productive, receptive, and communicative activity of man which underlies all experience of art. I am also thinking of the interdisciplinary theory of understanding. Perhaps a still-to-be-developed literary hermeneutics might relinquish its theoretical autonomy and, in reflecting on its own practice, attempt to make clear what possibilities of communication aesthetic experience has unlocked in the course of its history; indeed, what possibilities, even today-in opposition to the experiential de- terioration of modern industrial society-it might still be able to un- lock. Such a hermeneutics could help especially in meeting our press- ing need to clear up the conditions, limitations, and obstructions in communicative practice, as these apply to both our everyday and our historical existence.

2. At the University of Constance, since its founding in 1967, literary scholarship has attempted to develop, for future teachers and experts in various artistic media, curricula that demand equal familiarity with the areas of theory and history, method and application, interpretation and criticism. These initiatives were at first successful, were much imitated in the period of German university reform, but then fell victim, more and more, first to governmental control in the "counterreform" of the seventies, then finally to a policy of restriction that had its most adverse effect in Germany upon the university as an educational institution. The ideas of the "Constance school" are today practically extinguished in undergraduate study, although they do live on in an unfortunately elitist postgraduate program.

3. Literary study in the Constance mold allows its graduate so much freedom for independent research and personal development

428


that the postgraduate program is better regarded as a "frame" than as a system of requirements. Possibilities for interdisciplinary cooperation, however, are not used to full advantage. This is not a failure on the part of the offerings in theory, but rather a result of the German government's policy of restriction, since interdisciplinary studies are not rewarded with academic positions or other vocational opportunities.

Annette Kolodny, University of Maryland: 1. In general, literary theory should function in such a way as to

make us all better readers of the widest possible variety of texts. For American literary study at this particular historical moment, for example, that entails the development of theoretical frameworks which will permit the female, the nonwhite, the non-Anglo, and the sometimes oral traditions to become, at last, recognized segments within our multifaceted cultural inheritance. In this way, literary theory can finally begin taking responsibility for the social consequences of its assumptions and procedures.

To do this, however, means that professors of literature must join in acknowledging that we all practice (or employ) theory-whether or not we consider ourselves "theorists." And, whether in the American literature survey or the Milton seminar, we must make explicit the theories underpinning our interpretive strategies and paradigms of literary history. Happily, few in the profession still hold to the notion of the innocent reader. Even so, too few of us actively incorporate into the daily classroom dialogue some explanation of the how and why of our reading methods. As a result, we continue to mystify students (and one another) as to the magic path by which we move from the printed page to so elaborate an interpretation of it. In short, literary theory must come out of the closet of the occasional theory course or summer institute and acknowledge its presence, where it has always been, in the literature classroom.

2. At the very least, the term "feminist criticism" implies a challenge to the theoretical constructs and methodological procedures that have previously blinded literary discourse to women's achievements and to the symbolic encodings of gender within texts. No feminist critic, therefore, can write or teach without regard for the ways in which s/he is rejecting or refining established theories and methods. As a result, individually and collectively, feminist critics are repeatedly responsible for initiating the academy's most probing analyses of the generation of literary theory. But in so doing, feminist critics suffer a peculiar burden.

429


Because feminist criticism is not (and does not wish to be) distin- guished by any monolithic theoretical proposition or by any single critical agenda, it continues to develop and to derive its strength from the very fact of its diversity. No questions are peremptorily put aside; and with so much remaining to be done, feminist critics-as a group-generally tend to do everything. Our label, however, mis- leads. For the fact is, although the term "feminist criticism" has the status of an umbrella under which diversity and ongoing dialogue take shelter, many in this profession still hear it as descriptive of a specific (even dogmatic) procedure or method, on the order of "Marx- ist" or "psychoanalytic criticism." For colleagues so foolishly inclined, there is always the temptation to believe that once they've seen (or read or heard or hired) one feminist critic, they've encompassed us all. In a sense, then, while our label allows for a valuable statement of political cohesion, it also contributes to rendering us continually mar- ginal and deplorably underemployed.

One practical consequence is that the feminist critic is thus bur- dened to explain, in every class s/he teaches and in everything s/he writes, that her or his work participates in, but may well be radically different from, the work of other feminist critics. And that repeated caveat, especially when addressed to nonfeminist colleagues who do not know our work, has the further consequence of obscuring our shared concern with questions of theory.

3. The shortcomings, as I see it, reside not so much in theory itself as in the way theory takes its place within graduate education today. To begin with, few graduate programs provide any systematic and comprehensive introduction to the multiplicity of current critical schools, theories, and debates. One explanation may be that English departments too often seek out some "star" theorist and subsequently invest all responsibility for the graduate training of theory in the hands of this one prominent appointee. Another explanation is the understandable tendency of departments to become havens for the like-minded and thus function as centers for one particular school or method.

To be sure, many a renowned critical theorist honors the value of introducing her or his graduate students to the widest possible variety of methods and theoretical orientations. Such a teacher thus avoids the danger of merely reproducing clones who will forever follow in the mentor's beaten path. But it is also the case that those who have attained prominence because of their articulation of some new theoretical proposition tend to have powerful commitments to pass- ing on their own way of doing and seeing literature. The very passion

430


of that commitment can be coercive for the young and impressionable graduate student, as can the subtle suggestion that the mentor is initiating the novice into a privileged vocabulary or privileged community.

These are, however, the inevitable risks of the passion and commitment that should properly mark the critical enterprise. To minimize the more vicious consequences of such risks, I would urge that we utilize that passion and commitment in such a way as to en- large and open up debate at the graduate level. This can be ac- complished, first, by encouraging all faculty to examine the presence of theory in their courses; and, second, by requiring that graduate students be exposed to a variety of theoretical stances and theoretical practitioners during the course of their formal training. Where a single department does not boast the necessary diversity, we might there begin experimenting with regional summer institutes and with the sharing of faculty between two or more institutions.

Jan Kouwenhoven, University of Edinburgh, Scotland: 1. This question seems to presuppose some kind of situation ethics,

which I cannot espouse. Literary theory should concern itself, at all times, with whatever problems genuinely suggest themselves, regardless of fashion or expediency; embracing no causes per se, not even the most tempting of all, apparent common sense. In all its pursuits, however, it should never lose sight of two axioms: literature requires valid interpretation; and it has value, in virtue both of what it is and of what it is about.

Thus occupied literary theory will recognize its ancillary status. For example, examining the nature of metaphor, it might come up with a sophisticated version of the view that all literature, or even language itself, is radically metaphorical; yet it will not persuade itself that this is somehow a more commanding insight than delicately tuned appreciation of metaphor in, say, Horace, or Keats. In its search for general truths it will not treat particular works as "cases" but, on the contrary, try to understand historical and individual "thisness" itself, extending the hand of fellowship to scholars and biographers and not even disdaining "writers about their work." If it must deconstruct anything, it will deconstruct itself rather than literature.

2. I have long been aware that, though all students are, presum- ably, impressionists in the sense of deriving impressions from what they read, some articulate these as a matter of course whereas others remain naturally dumb. In the study of particular works, theory, or

431


rather specific theoretical propositions, may usefully be fired at both categories. They will sometimes induce the silent to talk while they demand coherence from the voluble.

Whether one should teach theory as such to students early on, when they usually have little reading experience to apply it to, I do not really know. Probably one should, at the risk of creating a spurious sense of mastery and giving rise to insubstantial party strife.

Murray Krieger, University of California, Irvine: 1. In view of the emphases of several recent theoretical move-

ments, I suspect the main business of literary theory should be to address the question of whether literature exists, and, if so, to determine, in principle, its differences from (or overlappings with) nonliterature-whatever that turns out to be. But if the distinction between literature and nonliterature collapses, then severe questions must be addressed about the continued existence of literary theory. We would have to ask whether there is only theory of discourse at large, into which what we use to call literary theory must be seen to flow, without differentiation and without privilege. So literary theory's primary task, in the face of current challenges, is to decide upon its own status. This decision will help determine its function in relation to the interpretation and criticism of texts and the realm of private and public power behind them.

Today literary theory must ask also about the status of theoretical discourse itself as a text. Is it still responsible for individual acts of criticism, so that it has what we used to think of as referential obliga- tions to a world of texts for the explanation of which it was thought to provide a rational structure? Or is it itself an original and autonomous text demanding the interpretive activity we used to reserve for so- called literary texts? Further, what is its relation to its culture's history as well as to the history of its own discipline? What attention should be paid to its earlier practitioners?

Finally, as a result of these explorations, literary theory should be prepared to address the consequences of its decisions for the function of academic departments of literature. It can do so only if it confronts, and seeks to resolve, the unease it feels with respect to its subject and to itself.

2. For me theory has had significant and continuing consequences in my activity as a critic, both in teaching and in writing. I am old- fashioned enough to think my theory exists in large part to enlighten and guide my practice. I insist, in other words, that it be responsive to requirements for a definition of literature that, in turn, is responsive

432


to the brilliant verbal performances by the best works in the Western literary canon. Recent developments have led me to recognize other, less text-centered theoretical concerns at the very edge of the literary as it merges into other texts and other forces in psyche and society, perhaps also to be read as texts. But finally, I measure what works theoretically for me by its power to help me work critically upon those texts that constitute the master syllabus for our courses in literature.

3. After many too many years during which literary theory was denied a role in graduate education in literature, the recent spread of theoretical consciousness has, in a good number of institutions, led to a theoretical arrogance. In many places the way has been opened for theory to become a major force in graduate study, but many of its defenders would now turn upon the literature department that has newly licensed it and would put in question the department's own license, while claiming the right for theory to be studied on its own. It sometimes seems ready, then, to deprive that department's subject of its privilege even while it would privilege itself. Whatever the vul- nerability of literature departments to such assaults, I would suggest that, to the extent that its successes and popularity lead it to succumb to these temptations, the major shortcoming of theory has been its failure to define its own limits. A second has been its tendency to become partisan, if not narcissistic, so that, instead of learning theory, the student too often is learning a theorist or restricted group of theorists. So theory, as a subject of study, must try to find its common subject. Why not begin by exploring the historical development of the discipline and its texts, up to and including the recent, embattled movements? Whatever the necessary distortions produced by our personal commitments, some dispassion and distance resulting from this exploration might induce corrections leading toward a scholarly responsibility appropriate to graduate study.

Neil Larsen, University of Minnesota, graduate student:

1. One must start by recognizing that literary theory is in a state of protracted crisis. The existence of this crisis on the institutional level has meant an undermining of the professional self-identity and function of the literary scholar/theorist. This in turn has lent a defensive posture to intellectual work whose capacity to produce social use values is no longer guaranteed by social convention and whose own internal unity and coherence as a body of theory and analysis is problematic.

This is good in part-it has made it more difficult to maintain the hegemony of the various positivist and formalist orthodoxies which

433


result from the modernist hypostatization of the "literary." It has allowed for useful debate.

The danger to theory comes in determining its mode of response to the social pressures exerted upon it, particularly in its ability to distin- guish between opportunities to give itself a new and critical/political effectiveness and demands which simply reflect the needs of the state (e.g., the restriction of theory, and its subordination, to the study and description of "national cultures").

The present crisis in literary theory comes of a more radical crisis which poses the existence of society in its present form as a question. Given this, literary theory should adopt the measures which are necessary for it to transform itself into a well-defined practice of social critique and social redirection.

2. A variety of circumstances-my training as a comparatist, previous training in philosophy, political concerns-have made questions of theory, both literary and otherwise, the main focus of my work as both graduate student and instructor. Practically speaking, theory has been my point of departure-in particular the theory/critique of ideology.

As might be imagined, the consequences of this have been difficulties in constructing a conceptual object of theorization which em- braces both the "literary" texts traditionally assigned to this category and the "nonliterary" contents which have made theory itself an object of renewed interest and criticism. In the production of critical "writing" this presents itself as a hesitation before the "simple" task of "interpreting the text." In teaching it is the seemingly contradictory job of instructing a canon alongside theoretical approaches which require that the canon be challenged and questioned as to its basis.

In the one major opportunity I have had to teach a course in theory (in this case the theory of ideology as it relates to aesthetics) I found that the students ("honors" undergraduates at the University of Min- nesota) had serious difficulties in the "application" of theory to literary texts. This was due neither to an incomprehension of theory nor to an unfamiliarity with reading literature, but rather to a marked resistance to the positing of representation as a theoretical problem.

3. Again I should note that my encounters with theory as a graduate student are probably atypical. In my particular program theory is heavily emphasized, and there is a considerable degree of breadth in the theoretical discourses with which one is encouraged to become conversant (e.g., semiotics, psychoanalysis, Marxism, hermeneutics, etc.). I see no special deficiencies in this type of intellectual training-I think it has proven advantages.

If there are deficiencies, they are not the result of the educational

434


project of learning and elaborating theory, but rather the effect of having to negotiate the demands which both the tradition and the uncertain social logic of the profession place on this kind of project. In this sense the deficiency of literary theory is its hesitancy to move in the direction of a more powerful and rigorously defined theory of ideology and sign-culture, lest, by doing this, it give up its claim to ultimate authority over an exclusively "literary" field of texts, values, and practices. But meanwhile, this field is losing, or has lost, its social underpinning, and theory is left hanging.

David Lodge, University of Birmingham, England: 1. Some people regard literary theory as a self-sufficient field of

speculation and deductive reasoning which need not justify itself in terms of practical application; but I must admit that I myself see its value primarily as serving the cause of the "better" reading of texts, by enhancing our awareness of the multiplicity and complexity of the processes of composition and reading.

2. I think it has been a two-way process: intuitive insights in search of a theoretical explanation or justification for themselves, and the encounter with new theories (formalism, structuralism, poststructuralism) provoking one into discovering meanings in texts one might otherwise have missed.

3. I would put this the other way round: a major shortcoming of graduate education (and for that matter undergraduate education) in this country is a lack of coherent, systematic teaching of the theoretical bases of the subject (English)-though at Birmingham we do better than many other institutions.

Adrian Marino, Cluj-Napoca, Romania: 1. Literary theory lies at the very foundations of all esthetics, liter-

ary criticism, and literary history. Without a coherent and well- reasoned literary "system" all of these disciplines would be at a complete loss, which often happens. By "literary theory" I mean not only special theoretical (structuralist, semantic, semiotic) disciplines but also a general interpretive "system of systems" which at present is lacking.

Literary theory also has the extremely important function of analyzing, classifying, and defining basic literary concepts. The number of "personal," subjective acceptations and definitions is steadily increasing. The semantics of literary terminology is becoming more and more individualistic, so to speak, hence the objective necessity of a "criticism of literary ideas."

435


Literary theory is conducive to free literary thinking, a sound alternative to all rigid and dogmatic, rigorously orthodox, literary ideas.

2. Literary theory offers basic conceptual information and orientation to all students of literature. It serves as a true "introduction" to the theoretical and ideological world of literature. Literary works are related to categories and placed on various abstract and general levels. Hence, the development of a double literary response: intuitive- esthetic and reflective-intellectual with the ensuing equilibrium of the levels. The literary product qua art offers esthetic satisfaction operat- ing simultaneously as an artefact produced in a specific ideological context which has an explicit or implicit esthetic program presup- posing, nay, compelling theoretical reflection.

In my works of criticism, literary theory constitutes at the same time a starting point, a method, and a target to be aimed at as a possibly original contribution. Two of my latest works, L'Hermeneutique de Mircea Eliade (Paris, 1981) and Etiemble ou le comparatisme militant (Paris, 1982), are related to an organized hermeneutic and comparative theoretical reflection, which I present as interpretations from my point of view and in which I "criticize" and offer a "personal" solution. Essays of this kind would not be possible without a general hermeneutic and comparative theory. The practical consequence directs us to personal orientation, stimulation, comparison and research.

3. The shortcomings of literary theories in graduate education, almost all of them, derive from two sources: (a) Personal studies of wide range (the Rene Wellek kind) are on the decline or rarely to be found, so there is a shortage of basic reference works and the teaching of literary theory inevitably becomes fragmentary and incomplete. Practically speaking, one can no longer speak of a "complete" course of literary theory. (b) Pressure exerted by intellectual fashions is almost everywhere very strong and, therefore, "modern" methods enjoy priority over "classical" methods. Teachers of literature very often fall for modern definitions of rhetoric, forgetting the two-thousand-year standing of the subject. They also forget the no less important fact that the new definitions simply repeat or "rediscover" ideas that are well known. What is essentially lacking at the moment are detailed courses in the history of the literary idea, of rhetoric, poetry, and so forth. Works uniting all the aspects of literary study are likewise lacking. Fragmentariness runs counter to synthesis while fashions run against confrontation and historical perspective.

Henryk Markiewicz, University of Krakow, Poland: 1. I consider as main tasks of literary theory at the present time: (a)

further reflection on the regularities of literary process, surmounting

436


the Marxist-structuralist alternative; (b) development of a "grammar of the literary text," especially a theory of "great semantic configurations" (e.g., characters, space configurations, plot as opposed to nar- rative scheme); (c) elaboration of a canon of description of literary works; (d) methodological reflection on modes of argumentation in literary criticism and on standards of valid interpretation.

2. I think that, owing to literary theory, my teaching of literature and my essays in criticism are more systematic, precise, conscious, and persuasive.

3. These shortcomings are connected with the speculative and abstruse character of many of today's theoretical efforts. But they are also caused by intellectual weaknesses of students who are unable to apply their theoretical knowledge to practical criticism.

Vida E. Markovic, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia: 1. Now that we are witnessing the process of the "revaluation of all

values" and the hitherto unquestionably accepted principles of literary theory are brought into question, it is literary theory that ought to offer a basis, or better a point of departure, to combat the general fluidity and reaffirm the basic assumptions governing the rules of the game in the art of literature.

Its functions should continue to be to keep the heritage of literary theory of the past fully alive and to offer the necessary guidelines to the study of literature so that, once this radical reexamination has reached point zero, toward which it is heading, and a period of rein- tegration has set in, the study of literature can continue its uninter- rupted course without having suffered any permanent damage.

2. It is by falling back upon literary theory that I could direct my students toward the reading, and from there to the appreciation and evaluation of literary texts. Without an awareness of a literary work as aform I could neither have taught literature as an ontologically autonomous art, nor could I have firmly grounded any of my writings of criticism. Unless the student is made aware of a literary work as a form, which offers certain possibilities to the author, on the one side, and determines the scope of the reader's expectation, on the other, the literary work cannot have its real effect, exercise its full impact on the student. The invisible line separating a literary text from that of mere information, even of the highest order, gets obliterated; the actual meaning of the work, contained in the inseparable unity of

form and content, gets lost: literature, bereft of its ontological nature, is reduced to yet another avenue of information. And it is just what literature alone can offer, beyond information, that makes it unique and invaluable.

3. If properly used, within the confines of its referential field,

437


literary theory can only contribute to graduate education. If superim- posed on the study of literature, treated as a pursuit with no reference to the study of literature proper, i.e., if mechanically used-like chasing a single poetic image in say a novel, a poem, a drama, or a story, with no reference to its meaning or function in the work as a whole-literary theory becomes irrelevant. Separated from its object it becomes meaningless.

Jerome J. McGann, California Institute of Technology: 1. The purpose of theoretical work, in any practical discipline like

literary study, is to expose the grounds and premises on which one's scholarly work is based. Theory is intramural and reflexive, and comments on practice. It ought to improve the study of literature/literary works either by improving (refining, disciplining) one's normal practice, or by suggesting new avenues of approach.

2. My own theoretical studies, in the past eight years at any rate, were deliberately undertaken to enable a more salient kind of historically grounded critical practice. It has always seemed to me self- evident that literature is a form of social and cultural practice, and hence that literary study had to be historically grounded, and historically self-conscious. To the reigning forms of ahistorical criticism (they are legion, and still dominant), nothing could be less self- evident. Consequently, I found it impossible to practice my own work, in the present academic climate, without acquiring a clearer and more self-conscious grasp of my own scholarly and critical premises.

3. Despite the hostile responses which theoretical work sometimes draws to itself nowadays, and despite the mere fashionableness of so much current theoretical work, I do not see that theory is an area which shows any special educational shortcomings. The problems one sees in graduate studies seem to me a function of a more general decline in scholarly skills and standards. Since your question is not addressed to this matter, however, I will forebear expatiating on it.

Ronald Paulson, Yale University: 1. Literary theory should illuminate works of literature-within as

well as outside the canon-and also, I believe, works outside "literature" itself. I mean that literary theory is beneficially applied to the underdeveloped areas, for example art history and history. Literary theory has led us in the last couple of decades to deal with much more than the discrete work of literature-with series of works, their au- thors, ambiences, audiences, and so on. Secondarily, the function of

438


literary theory can be (in a sense must be) to direct the student back into the study of literary theory itself-and so to bring theory back, once again renewed, to illuminate works of literature.

2. Theory-divorced, I suppose you mean, from practice-has led me to rethink my own practice and return to it with a freer, more open mind. It has also, in graduate teaching, led me to place more emphasis than I used to on different methodologies, their use by critics, and their relative appropriateness to this or that body of literary-historical materials.

3. The only shortcoming of literary theory-or rather its present hegemony-for graduate study is that, since we are at a breakthrough and consolidation stage, there is a tendency to replace as well as aug- ment the teaching of the canon with the teaching of literary theory. Much as I respect the theoretical work of the last decades, I am sometimes disappointed to see graduate students emerge knowing more about current theories than about Milton or Shakespeare; and, a second consequence, feeling that a dissertation, essay, or book that is not "at the cutting edge" critically-indeed, that is not about theory-is inferior. I wish it were not beneath the dignity of some graduate students to edit a text or carry out old-fashioned research; I also wish it was a more common practice to start with the text and original research and then build appropriate critical models upon this firm foundation. The order of priority for graduate study has to remain: knowledge of the canon, knowledge of how to teach and write about literary texts, knowledge of the historical context (e.g., critical theory) of these texts, and knowledge of contemporary critical theory, first as applicable to the texts, and second for its own sake. Having reached this spot, some graduate students may want to specialize in the history of critical theory or in critical theory per se.

David Punter, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England: 1. To address itself to the interpretation of the reading act in the

contemporary cultural context; to demonstrate for us the location which the

"unaccompanied word" is coming to have in a world where habitual learning patterns are now largely characterized by the con- densed hieroglyphs of commercial and political persuasion; to lay out the ground on which reflexivity can be understood, so that students and teachers alike can come at a better understanding of the subjects (selves) which the literary text is designed to produce; thus to assist in constructing a correct political discrimination between texts.

To produce a new and more sophisticated understanding of the processes whereby text becomes commodity, and cultural intercourse

439


is reduced to the model of the exchange of currency; to recognize and work with the fact that the old literary function of the provision and refinement of self-images has now largely passed to other cultural forms (popular music, debased political rhetoric, journalistic practice), and to seek on that basis an understanding of the role of the "contemporary literary"; to develop ways in which, pedagogically, the blocked circuits which should connect literature with the expansion of the imaginary and of fantasy can be revitalized.

2. The works of Barthes and Foucault in particular offer theory in ways which can be made over into the act of teaching, because they deal in the "becoming" of knowledges, in the actual modes of repro- duction and acquisition which characterize education. They encourage us to think seriously about strategies and thus about the hidden "interests" which the text serves. This is an area where students need to experience demystification if they are to perceive the more detailed and local structures of literature as effective in terms of their own experience.

Much of the energy deployed in writing criticism now seems to me to be useful only insofar as it relates to the pedagogic; there has been a flow of lifeblood from education, economically and symbolically, and this needs to be reversed by the encouragement of a serious reflexivity about the nature of our activities as teachers of literature, and about what it is that we "hold" for the wider society. Unless we can effect such connections, we will find ourselves genteelly inhabiting a museum, with the "modern" products of Marxism and feminism no less securely encased in glass than the traditionalisms we profess to despise and supersede.

3. The comparative absence of reflexivity means that many critics and theorists, even when they are writing about the construction and deconstruction of the subject, do not contemplate the selves they are endeavoring to produce in their readers; those selves often are not ones familiar to or valued by students at undergraduate level. At postgraduate level, this becomes the ground for a schizophrenic phe- nomenon: students repeat and try to internalize progressive formu- lations, while being still bounded by the formal individualism of research; advance in theoretical understanding comes to seem indistin- guishable from a loss of felt authenticity.

Postgraduates are the "adolescents" of the symbolic family system of higher education, but we can no longer promise them a future; they hope that by acquiring the protective coloring of theory, they can somehow escape this fate, but in fact this acts as a pacifier to their incipient revolt. Rather than theory, I believe that what the higher teaching of English is in need of is method, a concentration on placing

440


instruments for analysis securely in the hands of students, so that they can come at a less mysterious understanding of the text, and simultaneously see the complex of social and psychological relations which characterizes the social system of the educators.

David S. Randall, State University of New York at Binghamton, graduate student:

1. The aims and functions of contemporary literary theory ought to be to continue articulating a variety of fundamental questions concerning the inquiry into its "disciplinary" nature. This inquiry ought to pursue the liberation of literary theory to determine its own "proper" ends, by recognizing those elements in its past and present, especially in the economic and political contexts in which theoretical priorities have been established, which have philosophically per- petuated what Nietzsche has called the spirit of "ressentiment." This recognition is a means toward transvaluating expectations and ends, as well as exploring and exposing ideological inconsistencies and equivocations. This inquiry ought to recognize the source of such value judgments as dynastically attempting to determine and define the existence of the so-called literary object as well as recognize the tendency of contemporary literary theory to oppose the systematizing of the question of interpretation, which, as Martin Heidegger has suggested, is ultimately the question of understanding. Further, this inquiry ought to recognize and accept its critical "failure of consen- sus" without irritably reaching after the alleged facts of its "structural" frame of reference, formal literary semiosis, or the apparent rational- ity of the relationship between literary production and political economies.

2. The practical consequences or implications of the current crisis in theory has influenced my teaching, which if we follow Derrida is ultimately a form of writing, by rendering it an inquiry into unin- tended commitments and accidental alliances. This hermeneutical inquiry has disclosed practices and assumptions which were being exer- cised informally and implicitly, especially in the realm of"rhetoric," in which a relentless methodological attachment to the technology of Platonic and neo-Aristotelian persuasion harbors particular ideological and philosophical entanglements. This inquiry invariably implies alternative strategies of reading, which appear to involve possibilities for change in the aim(s), function(s), and relevance of literature itself, reverberating in the shifting significance of criticism as well as literary theory. Essentially, contemporary literary theory has not merely skeptically scrutinized the traditional presuppositions and meth-

441


odologies of scholarship structurally, destructively, and deconstruc- tively, but, perhaps more important, it has revitalized the sclerotic and obscured problematic of language itself. To assert that this consequence of contemporary literary theory ought to be (or has been) one of its primary intentions or functions would be indicative of an all too familiar rational impulse. Nevertheless, it is crucial that students of both writing and teaching reassess their understanding of language, its "prescribed" aims and functions, in light of as well as in the sundry shades of darkness that theory illuminates.

3. At the level of graduate education a few shortcomings of theory include: (a) the perpetuation of an ambience of seemingly irresolvable and violent ideological warfare among its privileged "theorists," and (b) a ubiquitous anxiety surrounding its students, since mere lip service is institutionally extended to the necessary interdisciplinary conceptual instruction essential to encountering the current critical crisis. This anxiety in the academy has been heightened in part since the shift from scholarship to speculation engendered principally by the general distrust of and inquiry into the conventional paradigms of analysis referred to previously. Graduate learning is theoretically a forum for educational exploration and experimentation but, in terms of praxis, it becomes a coercive disciplinary instrument for the impo- sition of exclusive categories of thinking, standard discourse systems, and distinctively defined opportunities. Hence, graduate education becomes a review of the inscribed forces of theory, literature, and language; a panoptic overview of the strategic and occasionally solip- sistic skirmishes between licensed practitioners; as well as a preview of the nihilistic potential of the hermeneutical circle of ressentiment ex- tensively sustaining theoretical dialectic. These remarks asserting certain inadequacies of theory in an academic context are not intended to imply a desire or direction for "reform," merely the hermeneutical awareness that all knowledge or understanding is neither totally theoretical nor practical. Both theory and practice legislate a priori assumptions, and what must be questioned in this "quandary" is the partial and contextual nature of interpretation.

Philip Rice, University of Birmingham, England, graduate

literary theory - a survey

Documents

survey literary theory

functions of literary

shortcomings of theory

subject including theory

study of literary texts

access tonew literary

concepts of language

new concepts