The Rebellious Reader

The Naturally-Selected Narrative: Darwin's Aesthetic Directive

2009-07-22T22:26:00.007-05:00

…Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.

- Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (40)

In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin methodically decentralizes the individual, reframing him within the scope of species. Each individual serves only as a contribution in the chain of existence. If an anomaly appears in the chain, it is wiped out in the next wave of death and reproduction. Only through agreement of the masses can change be effected; only through an abundance of anomalies over an abundance of time can the once-unique characteristic develop into a new variety.

Darwin’s is an aesthetic of the aggregate. The theory of Natural Selection systematically devalues the singular, in terms of that single beetle or blade of grass. However, Darwin faced the problem of how to narrate the story of a group to a readership steeped in individualism. In order to pitch such a difficult idea to his reading public, Darwin borrows from novelistic tradition the singular glorified hero. Though the individual plays no part in Darwin’s theory, he dramatizes the phylogenic history of an entire species (successful or extinct) through an individual. “[E]ach organic being,” Darwin explains dramatically to his reader (using the singular), “has to struggle for life, and to suffer great destruction” (50). The reader imagines again that “humblest parasite” (39) struggling through the English garden, gallantly taking on the world, unencumbered by hubris. Anticipating again his novel-reading audience’s need for a happy ending, he goes on: “When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply” (50). Like a Victorian novel, twists and turns, murders and misdeeds, death and violence all lead to an incongruously happy ending––marriage and baby, surviving and multiplying.

Slow evolution over millions of years hardly makes for a gripping story; as a narrator, Darwin compresses deep time into a battlefield moment, where the “war of nature” kills “prompt[ly].” Darwin narrates Natural Selection as a battle of individuals, (anticipating modern visions of social Darwinism), but his story is, in fact, one of group survival, utterly unconcerned with the singular travails of that “humblest parasite.” A manipulative storyteller who understands the egocentrism of his readers, Darwin uses the drama of individual survival to draw in the audience.

Darwin’s is an aesthetic of sameness. To see the history of life in deep time, as Darwin does, is to see each single member of a species as just a grainy copy of all the others. In a world of copies, unique individuals no longer exist; they either perish completely or they are one in a multitude, moving “towards perfection” (307). The unique, a synonym for anomalous and the Romantic view of the distinct character of every soul, does not exist. Over time, and over space, each individual’s life story vanishes in the face of the story of species.

A novel that appeared in the same year as The Origin of Species also tells the story of group survival veiled in individual drama. The first serial installment of Wilke Collins’s The Woman in White appeared on November 26 of 1859, just two days after Darwin’s bestseller was released. As in the “war of nature,” the characters of Collins’s novel transgress social and moral boundaries, commit murders, and manipulate others, yet, in the end, “the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.” Against all odds, “the Heir of Limmeridge” (Collins 643) is born to the happy triumvirate, Walter, Laura, and Marian and the group flourishes. An orthographic (and near-genetic) copy of Walter Hartright, the newborn bears his father’s name in promotion of the community and of sameness. The redundancy of the heir’s name reinforces Darwin’s proposition that not only does the group ensure survival, their lack of individuality does, too.

In Collins’s narrative world, as in Darwin’s Nature, the unique life, while interesting, is cut short. In addition to promoting the aggregate, Collins’s novel promotes sameness. Whereas Count Fosco, an unmistakable character whose mere description serves to identify him to strangers (“I remember him, sir!” says the fly driver; “The fattest gentleman as ever I see” [630]), perishes regardless of his bodily strength, Laura Fairlie, who is so without individuality that her identity is easily mistaken, survives regardless of her frailty of body. A different kind of power dynamic dominates the novel. It disregards singular strength and punishes uniqueness. It is the structure of Natural Selection.

In the face of a restriction on both the singular and the unique, it follows that the artist, who legitimizes individual imagination, is put into jeopardy. Romanticism boasted of the artist’s ability to communicate a universal experience, proving that man’s creations are a true expression of his unique sentiments. However, if the new order of narrative and natural survival leaves only the unoriginal standing, the Romantic poet must fall into the ranks of the extinct. The Woman in White, a narrative embodiment of Darwin’s skeptical view of a singular Creator, adapts to the new order. Because a story of an individual is as intricate as that of a species, because ontogeny has as many missing links and dead ends as phylogeny, singular omniscience and unique individuals become impossibilities. In his novel, Collins mocks those who claim omniscience, as Darwin mocks man’s attempt to best nature in his selection of species and God’s attempt at creative perfection. To both storytellers the narrative rests not in man’s labored creation but in external evidence and natural selection, from which story emerges. Through character, content, and form Collins rejects the novelistic singular in favor of the naturalistic plural, the unique in favor of the copy, and omniscience in favor of corroboration. Ultimately, the aesthetic system of The Woman in White follows the scientific system in On the Origin of Species, taking Darwin’s suggestion that art function more like the works of Nature.

The works of man and the works of nature

The same zeitgeist of scientific exploration that led to Darwin’s Origin of Species influenced the arts towards to emulate the works of nature (This may not actually be true. --AG). At the heels of Romanticism and its projection of human feeling onto nature, Collins does just the opposite, projecting nature’s brutality onto the workings of mankind. Curiously, Darwin and Collins alike compare the works of man and the works of nature as two separate modes of creation, rather than considering man an element of nature. Though the later publication of The Descent of Man applies natural selection to man, On the Origin of Species attempts to keep the two separate. The opposition of the works of man and those of nature ensures that man and nature were seen as competitors at the time of writing, and therefore can now be fairly judged against one another, even though the comparison seems to run contrary to logic.

Darwin forces his readers to measure the works of Nature against the works of man through implication. The opposition between man and Nature is implied in the title of his work: the modifier by Means of Natural Selection tacitly constructs an opposition between Natural and “human.” Since the act of selection requires evaluation and projection, it requires intelligence. Man may select a course of action or a necktie based on his options and his goals. The term “Natural Selection” gives Nature the same agency as man. Likewise, Darwin draws man and Nature into confrontation in his chapter headings. Following the first chapter “Variation under Domestication,” which casts man as a central character, is “Variation under Nature,” a passing of the narrative baton that holds dispute under formal cohesion. Ultimately, the parallel structure of the chapter titles and their opposing content ensures Darwin’s intended comparison. The superiority of Natural Selection to man’s efforts in breeding (dogs, pigeons) forms the basis of the comparison for Darwin.

Darwin insults man’s efforts outright, a tone of pity in his words for the inadequacy of man’s creations. In his chapter introducing Natural Selection, Darwin explains why he frames his work within the context of the Domestic Selection: "Man can act only on external and visible characters … [Nature] can act on every internal organ … Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends. … [Man] does not allow the most vigorous males to struggle for the females. He does not rigidly destroy all inferior animals … He often begins his selection by some half-monstrous form" (53). Here, the writer lists everything man does wrong and nature does right. Halfway through the paragraph, the syntax shifts from stating what man does to simply stating what he does not do, allowing the reader to tacitly assume that each of man’s actions are missteps. At the end of his list, Darwin laments the state of man: “How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature” (53). Aside from making for an exciting read, the use of exclamation points and elevated language (particularly “fleeting”) evokes a sense of both pity and inevitability, as if man’s creations were as doomed to failure as Oedipus Rex. While Darwin clearly states the superiority of the “products” of Nature over those of man, it is unclear whether or not he thinks man can learn from the products of Nature. Surely, he explains the ‘dos and don’ts’ of selection; perhaps this suggests man can use the laws of Natural Selection to improve his own Domestic Selection, at least superficially.

To push Darwin’s critique further, man’s “products,” which above refers to domestic varieties, can be extended to include man’s creative products––art, literature, and other acts of creation. Since Darwin equally calls the works of the divine Creator into question, it is only natural that he should also question the works of earthly creators.

Additionally, Darwin explicitly links breeding to the fine arts, completing the comparison: “Natural Selection as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art” (40). If “the works of Nature” are so superior to “those of Art,” perhaps artists, like breeders, can learn from Nature to adapt. Collins does so in The Woman in White when his narrative takes up the patterns of Natural Selection.

The Problem of Creation

In his writing, Darwin poses a problem to creators of all kinds: if God’s creations are imperfect, man’s must be even more so. For Darwin, Nature begins as only a handful of imperfect forms created by God, that then “progress towards perfection” (307); that is, they evolve. If nature can improve endlessly upon the work of a singular divine Creator, how can man, a much less skillful creator, attempt perfection in art? Even when listing man’s poor choices in domestic selection, Darwin all but orders man to end his efforts and give over his work to the more accomplished breeder. How, then, can creation go on in a climate of anti-creationism?

In fiction, the skillful hand of the creator ensures the success of his creations. While Collins has carefully constructed his some few characters, he removes the creator from his narrative altogether. Collins simultaneously gains praise for creating believable characters while shifting the narrative responsibility to those characters, removing all artistry tied to the creator himself. Collins seems more like a scientist, gathering samples and specimens––examining the behaviors of species and gathering their bones. Thus, he effectively dodges the accusation of flawed creator, allowing the collected first-person and documentary narratives of his novel to govern themselves.

With the foundations for comparing Collins’s narrative to Darwin’s description of Natural Selection in place, the argument will proceed to describe Collins’s novel as a movement away from a focus on the singular hero, his unique disposition, and an omniscient narration in favor of the heroic ensemble, their general monotony, and the testimonial narration, all of which contribute to creating the aesthetic of Natural Selection.

The Absence of the Hero

Like Darwin’s own narrative in On the Origin of Species, The Woman in White is a group story paraded as that of an individual. Collins’s characters run counter to the typical heroes and heroines of the recently popular sentimental novel, unique individuals with stories to tell and sympathy to stir. Humanist protagonists lead bildungsroman existences centered on their individual struggles and triumphs. In turn, the typical novelistic narration follows that individual in omniscience, through her own voice or an outside narrator. Regardless of the point of view, the focus of the story remains the same: the individual, illustrated in all her glory, loving and losing in the human tradition. The specificity of her story, in its emotional and psychological extremes, allows the reader to identify with the protagonist, seeing in her a reflection of the reader and, by extension, a blueprint of all humanity.

No such singular hero exists in The Woman in White. Often the title character is most obviously the hero, but Anne Catherick, who the reader knows to be the Woman in White, is manipulated, used as a body double, and accidentally killed. Perhaps then, the reader thinks, her double is the hero and the title truly refers to Laura Fairlie. Contrary to the reader’s expectations, Laura lacks agency, leaving her, like the Woman in White, a pawn to be manipulated by some and saved by others. Marian Halcolme, while noble, decisive, and a key player in the plot to save Laura, is perhaps too guided by others to be the hero. Always an accessory to the crime, and always working for the survival of her half-sister, Marian would seem the archetypal sidekick, the second most likely hero. She even exhibits heroic change: over the course of the novel, Marian undergoes an apotheosis from the “ugly” (31) who, passed through the crucible of housework (441), becomes the “good angel of our lives” (643). If any hero exists, then it would be the character who notes the change in Marian and serves as a consistent link to the reader throughout the story.

Walter Hartright, then, could be seen as Collins’s unique individual, the coming-of-age hero who matures from wistful drawing master to determined leader and schemer. Love changes him, sympathy touches him, death scrapes by him, and dreams haunt him. His fits the external description of individuality: a tormented man, heroic in his commonness, touched by fellow feeling. He even occasionally addresses the reader as a narrator. “This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve,” (5) he begins. Hartright’s first line opens his testimony as a “story”; he sets up the romantic intrigue between “Woman” and “Man”, and he generally peaks the reader’s interest. Shortly, however, Hartright reveals his simultaneous position as socially conscious narrator, thereby uprooting his singularity as the hero figure. By consciously deflecting the narrative to the group, Walter shifts the story from one of his own life to one of the society around him. Hartright explains the format in objective terms: "When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright, by name) happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in his own person. When his experience fails, he will retire from the position of narrator" (5). The implication that Walter’s experience does “fail” (for it is a “when,” not an “if”), leaves him powerless to tell a story alone. The individual, as well as the individual creation, must rely on others to “succeed,” when the singular fails.

The Group as Hero

In accordance with Walter’s deflected narration and Marian’s selfless motives, no individual hero exists but that of the group itself. Like Darwin’s dramatic narration of natural selection, that story of the masses through the norms of the individual hero, Collins’s collation of Laura, Marian, and Walter makes them function, in their multiplicity, as the novel’s hero. Living in domesticity “in the far East of London” (440) the group works like a pack, thinking and feeling as one. Having lived closely at Limmeridge, once they reunite in London, the threesome has already experienced pack mentality: “Living in such intimacy as ours,” Hartright explains, “no serious alteration could take place in any one of us which did not sympathetically affect the others” (66). Forming early in the novel, the multiplicitous hero suffers the trials of separation, identity confusion, and eventual affirmation through the birth of their heir, Walter Hartright.

Yet the mere formation of a cohesive pack does not ensure survival: antagonists also use the network of the pack to achieve their goals. Count Fosco, the alpha-antagonist uses his mental and physical dominance to draw together followers, as the alpha wolf would his pack. Fosco’s ease in training five white mice only showcases his facile manipulation of Percival Glyde, Madame Fosco, Frederick Fairlie, Mrs. Michelson, and Anne Catherick to secure his pecuniary position. While multiple parties benefit from the workings of Fosco, the benefit to others is not Fosco’s primary goal, but rather another means to an end. Though Fosco proudly declares his friendship and therefore his aid to Glyde (“you have appeals to my friendship; and the duties of friendship are sacred to me” [336]), self-promotion, rather than pack promotion, guides his every move. Even Frederick Fairlie, the least sociable of all characters, thinks Fosco, “so extremely considerate in all his movements!” (356). Marian remarks on his character, “The man’s slightest actions had a purpose of some kind at the bottom of every one of them” (314). Fosco later corroborates the statement by claiming “with [his] whole heart … the fidelity of the portrait [presented in Marian’s diary]” (343). Fosco’s “purpose” is, of course, to claim Fairlie’s fortune for himself by process of elimination. Fosco’s strained manipulation of others speaks to his self-serving motives. As leader of the core pack of Percival, Mme. Fosco, and himself, Fosco dictates the movements of others because the others look to him for the lead.

On the other hand, Walter, Laura, and Marian join together as equals tied by love and so attract additional individuals to willfully support their cause: Mr. Kyrle, Mr. Gilmore, Mrs. Clements, Pesca, and, eventually, the village of Limmeridge itself. The threesome all share alpha roles, forming a pack as Elias Canetti describes it: “[An individual] may be in the center, and then, immediately afterwards, at the edge again; at the edge and then back and the center” (quoted in Deleuze, et. al. 37). Hartright provides financial support, Marian the housework, and Laura the motivation. When Laura senses her contributions cannot be quantified like Marian’s and Walter’s, Hartright, knowing the pack mentality, sets her to work. Though Laura’s drawings, “poor, faint, valueless sketches” (490), could never bring in money, Hartright acknowledges her need to toil for her loved ones and feel useful by paying her accordingly. Were it not for Hartright’s enlivening deception, Laura would not have survived to keep the others motivated. All members of this pack work for the same goal (proof of Laura’s identity) and for one another.

Darwin’s inclusion of happiness in the formulation, only “the vigorous, the happy, and the healthy” can “survive and multiply,” seems gratuitous in the face of unfeeling nature. But, while Fosco attempts to please his underlings, they cannot be said to be truly happy, least of all Madame Fosco, whose tight-lipped obedience seems to hide “something dangerous in her nature” (219). On the other hand, the quiet understatement of love in the east London apartment contrasts Count Fosco’s boastful dedications of faith to his followers. Laura’s happiness, even attained through deception, allows her pack to survive in Darwin’s nature.

The Value of the Copy

Walter, Marian, and Laura share many more commonalities than Fosco and his followers. Mild-mannered yet determined, all three seem as content and as faceless as Laura herself (once Marian has felt the subduing effects of housework). Their lives meld into one another’s and their differences disappear. “After all that we three have suffered together,” Marian says, explaining their commonalities, “there can be no parting between us, till the last parting of all” (637). Hartright’s narration after his marriage to Laura also refers to life in the plural, suggesting the indistinguishable nature of happiness in triplicate: “The only event in our lives which now remains to be recorded…” (641). In Darwin’s natural world, commonality ensures survival. More than just the suggesting the similarities of Walter, Marian, and Laura, Collins dwells on the motif of copies.

Copies, both true duplicates and mere resemblances, present themselves throughout Collins’s novel in an attempt to efface the individual, both as the singular and the unique. He systematically confounds the value of the copy over the original. Most prominently, the title character of “the woman in white,” which can refer both to the young Anne Catherick as well as her half-sister Laura Fairlie, focalizes the reader’s attention on the central act of duplication. Doubtless, Anne Catherick would appear to be the singular woman in white, since Hartright refers to her as such (“the woman in white was gone” [27]) and each of the twenty times the phrase is mentioned in the novel, it refers clearly to the young Anne Catherick, whether in body or idea. Thus it seems linguistically, at least, that Anne Catherick is the true “woman in white,” and that Laura, the more prominent female in white, just happens to occasionally match the description. Laura is merely “dressed in plain white muslin,” (54) “a white figure (60), or “ the living image…of the woman in white,” (60) but is never directly referred to as a “woman in white.” Laura seems a poor copy of the woman in white, one who merely bears an uncanny resemblance to the original specter. However, arguably Laura is the original woman in white and Anne Catherick, the copy, since Laura’s mother dressed Anne in the signature “white frocks” (59) of Laura’s own childhood. With no true origin, “the woman in white,” could refer to both, either, or none; both Laura and Anne are copies of each other, by nature and by nurture.

Likewise, when Frederick Fairlie employs “two photographers” to “produc[e] sun-pictures of all the treasures and curiosities in his possession,” (201) the photographs are treated as if they were more valuable than the relics themselves. Affixed to “the finest cardboard,” and with “ostentatious red-letter inscriptions,” (201) the copies, according to Marian Halcolme’s description, command undue attention from Fairlie. Collins’s triple repetition of the inscription, “In the possession of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire,” (201, 202) communicates to the reader Fairlie’s interest in proliferating the knowledge of his possessions. Fairlie reveals later that the purpose of the photographs is to “[improve] the tastes of the Members [of the Institution at Carlisle],” which he considers “a great national benefit [to] his countrymen” (346). Safe but meaningless in his home, the etchings and sculptures venture out in duplicate to better the awful civilization Fairlie sees around him.

More central to the plot, the town registry containing Percival’s secret exists in duplicate. Again, the copy and not the original is valuable to Hartright in discovering Glyde’s illegitimacy. Unveiling the “duplicate” at Old Welmingham, Hartright’s “heart [gives] a great bound” because it lacks any mention of the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde and Cecilia Jane Elster, which had been forged into the original in Knowlesbury (“compressed at the bottom of the page” [512]). Glyde, blinded by the centrality of the original, ignored the copy’s power to survive.

In terms of natural selection, the threesome, the women in white, the photographed treasures, and the registry all have greater chances to survive, as none are absolute anomalies destined for extinction. Even the woman in white survives despite her own death; the disappearance of Anne Catherick only enforces the law of natural selection when Laura survives and returns to claim her inheritance.

The Failure of the Unique: Count Fosco

Within the world of the novel, all of The Woman in White is a copy. Collated not as a single creation, but rather as a book of duplicate documents, testimonies, and evidence, copied down letters, and repeated stories, the narrative could be reassembled at will by gathering together its various components. It exhibits no overwrought “plan of creation,” but rather a plan of assembly, with matter-of-fact footnotes included to ensure the plan’s transparency (345). The whole novel seems to reject art, with the exception of one character. Within the assembled documents, Count Fosco’s narratives call out to be published separately. In their overdone style, overused exclamations, and boisterous self-praise, his writings exemplify and mock the writer-artist as unique in his expressions.

The attempt to represent nature through overwrought hyperbole and challenge it through chemistry marks the über-human hubris that leads to Fosco’s extinction in the novel. Count Fosco suffers from the bravado Darwin scorns in man’s attempts at artistry. Equally accomplished in chemistry and psychological deceit, Fosco manipulates nature (mineral and animal) and narrative for his own purposes. Ultimately, his portion of the narrative demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the individual story, the incompetence of man as singular creator.

Darwin says of the successful breeder, “We have seen that man … can adapt organic beings to his own uses” (40). Like Darwin’s man, “[selecting] only for his own good” (53) Fosco uses nature to benefit himself. Whereas Fosco’s science gives man power, Darwin’s takes it away. “Chemistry,” Fosco writes, “has always had irresistible attractions for me, from the enormous, the illimitable power which the knowledge of it confers. Chemists, I assert it emphatically, might sway, if they pleased, the destinies of humanity” (617). Fosco explains how chemists could change humanity: given a drug, Shakespeare would write “abject drivel”; Newton would simply “eat [the apple]”; Alexander the Great would “run for his life” (617). Rather than explaining how he could better society or best nature, Fosco relishes in his dreams of destroying great minds, sending mankind through a self-induced devolution. Reinforcing Darwin’s supposition that Natural Selection is “immeasurably superior” to the “efforts of man” (40), Fosco’s science opposes Darwin’s in its striving for failure and centralized power.

Just as he revels in the chemist’s omnipotence, the Count frequently praises the fine arts (including those from his own pen), always championing man. He sees the events of his life as a worthy subject for art: “Where is the modern Rembrandt who could depict our midnight procession? Alas for the Arts! alas for this most pictorial of subjects! the modern Rembrandt is nowhere to be found” (622). Fosco sees the absence of that “modern Rembrandt” as a loss to culture (“Alas for the Arts!”); he seems to revel in the creations of artists more than those of Nature. “What a situation!” he again boasts of his adventures. “I suggest it to the rising romance writers of England. I offer it, as totally new, to the worn-out dramatists of France” (626). No other character invokes the arts with as much verve as Fosco. In terms of his own artistic talents, Fosco praises his writing explicitly. In his account of the novel’s events, he writes, “I announced, on beginning it, that this narrative would be a remarkable document. It has entirely answered my expectations. Receive these fervid lines––my last legacy to the country I leave for ever” (629). Again, Fosco sees his story as “a remarkable document,” rather than the series of events that took place in reality. His “fervid lines,” and not his deeds form his “last legacy.” Fosco attempts to rewrite history, privileging the “works of man” over the “works of nature” in his unrealistic, overbearing style.

The performance of his narrative engrosses Fosco as he attempts to make his work as unique and identifiable as his own person. A spectacle before Hartright, the act of writing his testimony provides Fosco with an opportunity to demonstrate his individual talents in the most unique way possible: he “clear[s] his throat,” “[writes] with great noise,” and “[tosses each slip of paper] over his shoulder,” (609) before ending with a “ ‘Bravo!’ ” (610). The obvious performative nature of Fosco’s writing suggests its falsity and, correspondingly, the falsity of the individual, omniscient narrative. Even further, when the Count sits down to join together the slips of paper, he fastens them with “a bodkin and a piece of string” (610), as if to further manifest the presence and prominence of his own (obviously constructed) “narrative thread.” Then, like other men, Fosco identifies himself with a characteristic signature, though his can be both seen and heard. Walter hears “a sudden splutter of the pen, indicative of the flourish with which he signed his name” (609). Earlier his mere initial is described as “surrounded by a circle of intricate flourishes,” from which the reader can only surmise the flourish of the entire name (458). Fosco’s intricately drawn signature simultaneously embodies his elevation of the arts and his overbearing individuality.

Fosco’s declaration of narrative omniscience to the reader follows his dreams of controlling the world through chemistry: he withholds known information and adopts a familiarity with the reader expected only from a trusted narrator. “Curiosity may stop here, to ask for some explanation of those functions on my part,” the Count predicts his readers will wonder. He denies them, teasingly, happily withholding knowledge: “[D]iplomatic reserve forbids me to comply with [the request]” (614). Through numerous exclamations and parentheticals directed at the reader, Fosco attempts to gain his trust, manipulating the reader like Fosco does his followers or his mice. “Youths! I invoke your sympathy. Maidens! I claim your tears,” (628) Fosco both pleas and commands, both invoking and claiming as his own. Fosco’s overdone attempt at entertainment and originality makes him a caricature of artistry that illustrates perfectly Darwin’s critique of the arts as “feeble efforts.”

The Refusal of Omniscience and Artistry

Directly opposite Count Fosco’s claims of omniscience and artistic splendor lies the shrewd narrator’s attempt to defer all responsibility for creation, flawed as it is. Darwin himself, a creator and narrator, avoids claims of perfection from his introduction on: “The Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. … No doubt errors will have crept in…” (1). Rejecting his role as the sole source of narrative, countless times, Darwin omits information, instead referring the reader to the external narrative of data. He admits, “No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this“ (1). Later, though Darwin provides numerous detailed examples, the deferral remains: “I cannot here enter on the copious details,” (6) he remarks once. Again, the excuse returns: “To treat this subject at all properly, a long catalogue of dry facts should be given; but these I shall reserve for my future work” (29). As if to avoid hypocrisy by refusing to even attempt the perfection accomplished only through natural means, the author denies responsibility for creating the contents of his own text.

Collins, too, like Hartright above, claims no authorship over his work. The antithesis of Fosco, Collins does not sign his work with a flourish, nor reveal his singular narrative thread, clumsily poking through each page. In the 1860 preface to the book’s publication, Collins writes that telling the story in plural first-person “has afforded my characters a new opportunity of expressing themselves” (644). He generously nurses his readers’ view of the characters as “recognisable realities” (4) that have introduced the author to many friends, writing that the novel’s form allows the characters to “[express] themselves,” rather than writing that it allows him to express himself. Collins projects all responsibility for expression and therefore the artistry of writing onto his characters, “realities” that they are.

Additionally, Collins’s own characters echo Darwin’s reservations about art. Fosco shows a negative demonstration of praise for artistry and Hartright’s relationship with art is surprisingly ambivalent. Deftly, Collins draws lines of opposition between his characters and the arts. Walter Hartright, himself a “Teacher of Drawing,” maintains a curiously skeptical view of them (5). Considering his primary watercolor subject is landscapes, Hartright is ironically dismissive of Nature’s influence on man: “Admiration of those beauties of the of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature” (53). To him, admiration of Nature’s perfection is a learned behavior (“No uninstructed man or woman possesses it” [53]). By extension, his own artwork is merely a disinterested, paying exercise in reproduction, not an expression of human creativity. Even Laura Fairlie’s sketches he unsentimentally deems “valueless” (490). Hartright is not an artist, not a creator. Rather, he is a teacher of drawing––a benefit to others in society, a worker, but not one to express his individuality as a Romantic in ink and oil. Hartright relies not on the subjectivity of art, but rather on the objectivity of law to express the truths of experience.

Corroboration as Natural Law

Darwin ends his narrative with a phrase that suggests a new, somewhat paradoxical power system. It simultaneously rejects intelligent design while still implicating some governing force: “[E]ndless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved” (307). Those “beautiful,” “wonderful” forms in their superlative state would be seen by most God-fearing creationists as those “good” forms created in Genesis. The fact that these forms “have been, and are being, evolved,” and not created implies that, at their creation, the forms were imperfect––not (as) beautiful or wonderful. Again, Darwin states the fact more clearly when he writes, “all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection” (307). Ironically, the phrase’s form recalls a pilgrim’s urging towards divine will while its content rejects divine intention.

Though he restricts the talents of a singular Creator, Darwin tempers the opposite extreme. The insistence on passive voice (“have been, and are being”) restrains nature from self-serving anarchy; something governs the forms, though in this sentence the subject is ambiguous. Granted, a form cannot “evolve” itself, nor can the English language gracefully form an active construction of the phrase (“have evolved and are evolving”?). Still, we must respect the implications of Darwin’s carefully-chosen words. After all, he never directly uses the word atheism (and “God” appears only once [105]), but since readers have already inferred this concept, I will join the tradition of reading Darwin closely.

In fact, the forms are “being evolved” by the very subject of The Origin: law. As Darwin states in his conclusion, “[these forms] have all been produced by laws acting around us,” which he then lists (307). Perfection and good, therefore, come not from a Creator or from within the individual, but rather from the exertion of law.

In this vein, The Woman in White adopts law as its framework. Hartright relies on the law, in theory though not in practice, to prove his story. Though his writing is not directed to a jury (since that approach, being a “servant of the long purse,” [5] would fail), Hartright explicitly positions the reader as judge: “As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now,” he declares (5). Though the legal system has failed him, Walter still trusts in the principles of the law. For this reason, he states, “the story here presented [is] told by more than on pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness¬¬––with the same object, in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect” (5). The “object” of legal procedures, when executed faithfully, as Hartright understands it, is to reveal truth. Mrs. Michelson echoes this purpose in her statement, in which she explains, “my testimony is wanted in the interests of truth” (364). Law, and not art, brings truth.

Additionally, Laura’s reintroduction to Limmeridge House suggests a courtroom scene: lawyers, witnesses, evidence, and jury are all present. After “the proceedings,” (634) as Walter calls them, he asks the members of Limmeridge House, “Are you all of the same opinion [as Mr. Kyrle that the evidence is conclusive]?” (635) A jury functioning together as a singular judge, the tenants’ “opinion” is written by their shouts of approval.

Wilkie Collins’s Walter Hartright makes the reader responsible for creating the narrative. The goal of Hartright’s narrative, and his collection of the narratives of others, is to gain “public attention” (5) supposedly for the purpose of bringing justice and revealing truth. Ultimately Collins’s narrative is not just one of natural collaboration, but one of legal corroboration.

“No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence” (5), he declares. According to Hartright’s strictly legal lens, Collins implies from the start that omniscient narratives are, themselves, hearsay. Though Hartright could easily have written the story in an omniscient voice with information gathered from his interviews, he chooses, instead, to reflect the standards of the law.

Just as Darwinian selection eradicates inconsistencies in favor of repetition, Collins’s legally minded narrative relies on the successful collation of multiple stories, judged by the reader as by a jury, to tell the truth. Only by interviewing multiple people and confirming multiple sources can Hartright piece together the story of the world around him.

*

These works of collaboration, though truly written by one author, reflect the developing viewpoint that, in light of Darwin’s claims about the success of natural selection, the singular individual, the omniscient narrator cannot possibly tell a story that will live on. In order to “survive and multiply,” to be read and republished, a story must attain approval by the population at large. As the moment for the Creator’s master plot had passed, the people’s plural plot emerged, identified by sameness and pack-mentality. Sold to a population fragmented by varying sources of identity, The Woman in White suggests a trend towards a selection of story in accordance with Darwin’s laws natural selection. The decentralizing of the individual and the questioning of creative omniscience that Darwin proposes in On the Origin of Species ultimately leads the literature of Collins and his successors towards the modernist sensibility of multiplicity.

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. 1861. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 1859. Mineola, New
York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. “1914: One or Several Wolves?” A Thousand Plateaus.
Trans. Brian Massumi. New York: Continuum, 2004. 30-43. Google Books. Web. 15 June
2009.

Didacticism in the Classroom:

2009-04-27T18:21:00.008-05:00

Early American Literature in the Secondary Curriculum

by Seth Van Horne and Alexa Garvoille

In a time of growing emphasis on standards-oriented education, when teachers post competency goals in classrooms and students gain enumerated skills, English teachers increase their dedication to the state standards, especially when confronted with high-stakes testing and administrators looking to cut positions. These curricular documents, sometimes centuries in the making, represent to educators the ideals of knowledge paired with the rudiments of implementation. Sometimes, though, the standards can wear away at creativity and discovery, leaving departments with worn copies of inaccessible classics that they continue to teach year after year. However, close examination of the standards exposes occasional oversights that lead to innovative opportunities to set the curriculum right. Based on our experiences teaching American literature courses in North Carolina high schools, we believe the addition of a non-canonical novel popular in late 18th century America offers an opportunity to discuss in a new way what it means to be American, as well as addressing a curricular deficiency.

The early novels of America lend themselves to exploration of how literature and education can or should influence life decisions, as they strived to form the common opinions of the new republic. By discussing the goals of literacy in early America, students can question the goals of their own schooling, thus creating what Paulo Freire calls a “problem-posing education” (1970). In addition, students can use the novels as a springboard to evaluate of the morals expressed in the media that surrounds them. Pairing narratives produced during the boom of printing technology and those during the boom of digital technology allows students to engage in historical discussions and critique their own world. By teaching early American fiction, educators can bring character education into the classroom without imposing a set ideology on the students.

A 2003 report from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies stated that, in order to engage students in urban environments, schools needed to offer “Relationships, Rigor, and Relevance” (Stipeck). At first glance, using two hundred year-old novels in order to foster relevance and relationships seems unlikely if not impossible. Yet, because they allows for investigation of the disempowered, questioning authority, and discuss literary communities, the parallels between the first years of the American republic and today offer the perfect opportunity to connect to and engage students.

Using the North Carolina Standard Course of Study (NC SCS) as a guide, we will examine how the traditional American Literature reading list misinterprets North Carolina content standards on “Colonial Literature.” We will then propose that the addition of an early American novel to the curriculum would both address the content gap and fulfill competency goals. Contrasting the current SCS with North Carolina’s original 1898 Course of Study reframes the curriculum through the new three Rs. In this article we will provide our readers with a background on the historical relationship between literature and the emerging republic, arguments for the relevance of this study in the classroom, and practical suggestions for implementation of two sample texts in high school English.

The pros and cons of incorporating an early American novel into the curriculum vary. We acknowledge that it takes valuable teacher time to invest in original research, including gathering primary source documents. Creating new units is always difficult, as it should be. However we hope this overview of the subject and examples provided should alleviate much of this stress. In order to justify the use of these novels to administrators and parents, teachers need only cite the relevance of the skills each reading can produce. These novels offer a fruitful dichotomy to explore by putting forward moral warnings alongside lascivious narration. They also allow students to practice deciphering the moral messages of different works of literature and media. As objects of advertising campaigns, targeted by corporations, affiliations, friends, and lifestyles, 21st century students need the ability to evaluate didactic messages both in and out of the classroom.

While time and tradition may work against curricular change, our students benefit from studying little-known works. Unable to look up summaries or purchase essays online, not faced with the same canonical fear of “getting it,” students can engage more authentically with the texts. In addition, the discussion of didacticism in reading, media, and education requires students to use higher-level thinking in the form of critique. As juniors in high school, students in the American Literature classroom are also developmentally prepared to use abstract thought to evaluate the texts before them. Examining these early works in public schools would offer English teachers and their students numerous advantages: curriculum integration between English and history departments (NC DPI xi), high-interest readings for students, and, of course, the ability to evaluate the didactic media of their own world. With little effort, teachers can create units that simultaneously include NCTE (National Council for the Teachers of English) and statewide standards and invite students to explore their inner selves and the world around them.

Including the Missing Texts: Standards and The 3 Rs

The content of the current North Carolina Standard Course of Study (2004) is based largely on the western canon and illustrates a world concept centuries of educators wished to communicate to citizens. Regardless of the contemporary English teacher’s goals, the contemporary English teacher’s reading lists reveal a set of moral lessons for Americans. Though educators are so often concerned with beginnings and foundations (the first president, the first great novelist, the Constitution), English teachers have failed to adequately address the beginnings of American literature. While Hannah Webster Foster, Susanna Rowson, and William Hill Brown are unfamiliar to many high school English teachers, those names tell as much about the foundations of America as the familiar tones of Cooper, Emerson, or Hawthorne. Writing at a time when national identity was taking shape in congress, revolutionary-period writers had their own national duties to fellow citizens. Novels provided readers with entertainment, but also sought to define the ideals of an emerging nation. While authors wrote sensationalist narratives replete with sex and murder to attract the interest of the reading public, publishers linked their profession with that of the legislators to promote the books as didactic tracts that would form the moral character of the country. Such a contradiction offers students a rich territory for critical debate (Competency Goal 4.03: “Assess the power, validity, and truthfulness in the logic of arguments given in public and political documents.” NC DPI 111).

However, as of a 2002 survey of high school English teachers (Appendix), the typical North Carolina classroom addresses none of these early novels. The English III competency goals require that learners “[evaluate] the literary merit and/or historical significance of a work from Colonial Literature, the Romantic Era, Realism, the Modern Era, and Contemporary Literature” (Competency Goal 5.01, SCS 112). While this list of five eras seems to exempt the period between 1776 and 1820, “colonial literature” should encompass early American and revolutionary texts. Yet, upon examining the list of titles commonly used to fulfill these standards, not one example of colonial fiction appears (Appendix). The list incorporates numerous documents of the founding fathers, including The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, The Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and even the letters of Abigail and John Adams; however, not one single work of “colonial” or “early” fiction makes its way into the classroom.

Partly, this omission could be explained based on terminology: “colonial” often calls to mind 17th century Puritans, for instance Jonathan Edwards (whose sermons are included on the list). “Literature” in terms of fiction was practically nonexistent with the Puritans, for whom “literature” was constrained to the bible, sermons, and religious tracts. By the early 18th century, laws forbade book hawkers selling chapbooks of stories from peddling their wares in Massachusetts (Davidson 41). The mid- to late-18th century brought the growth of cultural centers like Philadelphia and Boston, which created more diverse literary communities. In this way “colonial literature” in the colloquial sense of Puritan fiction is an oxymoron. Therefore, we extend our search for early American literature into the revolutionary period.

North Carolina teachers’ attempts at addressing this oversight have been inadequate. Our district, Durham County, requires English III classrooms study either The Scarlet Letter or The Crucible early in the school year; it seems the “Colonial Literature” requirement is being filled by revisionist historical fictions, written in 1850 and 1953, respectively, centuries distant from the period they depict. While both texts offer exemplary insights into colonial life, especially when paired with historical background, students need to “examine and explain how culture influences language” (Competency Goal 2.02, NC DPI 108) contemporaneously, not merely in retrospect. Historical knowledge has a central place in the English III curriculum, but exposing students to the distinctive style of early Americans authors adds a level of rigor to language study.

Not only do the authors use advanced vocabulary and a complex (and dated) syntax but, more importantly, they reflect the culture around them. Students may track how the author’s style implies the gender or class of the readers. The narrator of Susanna Rowson’s novel Charlotte Temple, for example, addresses the reader as “he” “my dear sober matron,” and “oh my dear girls,” (Rowson 58, 59, 60). Considering the variety of readers described, students may debate the author’s reasons for including such references and who the intended reader truly was (or was not) (Competency Goal 4.04, “[identify] and [analyze] elements of critical environment found in text in light of purpose, audience, and context,” 112). Students may also critique what the use of language in addressing a particular audience implies about that class of people. If Charlotte Temple is, indeed, “for the perusal…of the fair sex,” students may consider how its contents reveal assumptions about women (Rowson 35). The novels, particularly those written in epistolary or confessional form, often use conversational language, which offers an even more authentic view into linguistics of the time. On a broader level, students may imagine how their own language in conversation, notes, emails, and texts implies an audience and a culture through its syntax, diction, and content. Instead of drumming literary conventions into students year after year, teachers should jump at the chance to offer a novel that challenges the language patterns to which they are already accustomed.

The literature is more than rigorous: it is engaging. Before reality television, there was the early American novel. Purportedly true tales of murder, seduction, and social disgrace filled these compact narratives which excited the sensibilities of 18th century readers. Viewers today follow televised ritual humiliation and cinematic tales of betrayal and retribution for the same reasons. Like the video game or social networking system of the present, in early America, the novel was the new, risqué medium, sweeping the nation through the combined innovations in printing and the establishment of the lending library. Yet high school students do not study the time in American literature when the novel began its meteoric rise, filling libraries and salons, falling into the hands of not only ladies but also men, maids, and menial laborers (Davidson 28). We protest not on the scale of a special interest group lobbying for the inclusion of a book on a list, but as teachers looking for new ways to engage and challenge our students. The rise of the novel in America, along with the disdainful remarks of our forefathers on the genre, provides teachers with a fascinating parallel to our own times that we should exploit.

History

Books are not only texts which allow interplay between writer and reader, but are also products. Students must learn to see communication, not only books but movies, games, commercials, songs and emails, as products designed and marketed to specific readerships. By discussing the history of the novel in the United States, teachers can not only create interdisciplinary connections but can help their students develop awareness of themselves as producers and consumers of information. American literacy, which developed alongside the popularity of the novel, provides an additional historical connection. Examining the goals of the novel with those of early education allows students to relate their own academic experience to both those presented (or omitted) in the fictions and in the primary source pedagogical documents. In the following section we aim to provide a few examples from the development of the novel and education in America and demonstrate the novels’ relevance to classroom implementation.

The Novel as Product

Novels in America at the time of the revolution were as much products of the publishers as they were of the authors (Davidson 79). Most books in the United States before the revolution were imports. Trade slowed to a standstill during the Revolution, giving American publishers a window in which to establish their own market before trade re-opened at the close of the war. Still, printers had to import most of their supplies and content from England (74). In this competitive market, publishers took a huge risk whenever they had to publish anything new. This was particularly true of fiction, which had to compete with centuries of (pirated) British texts. The costs of printing, combined with the risks involved, meant that most American publishers produced books for a small, local market (76). Since they were taking the majority of the risks, knew their clientele and controlled the means of production, publishers had to act as editors, publicity agents and producers all at once.

Relaying facts about the development of the novel as a historical reality not only provides context for students but invites a slew of critical activities. The NCTE calls for “Students to adjust their use of spoken, written and visual language (e.g. conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate with a variety of audiences for a variety of purposes.” Those same standards call for students to “to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace” (National Council 3). Students analyzing early American book markets consider how publishers adjusted and chose texts to suit their audiences based on those workplace demands. Publishers had to chose new novels and determine how to advertise them. This sets up the analysis of audiences to help teach students to modify their own writing and does so in a realistic context.

Due to the competition and the difficulties of printing, most people in the late eighteenth century could not afford to buy books. In Revolution and the Word Cathy Davidson writes that a carpenter in 1800 would make $1 a day, but a novel would cost between $.75 and $1.50, and an unskilled laborer would be giving up two days wages (85). Books, in short, were a luxury most people could not afford. Yet afford them they did, by joining lending libraries. These libraries worked through subscriptions, each member contributing and then able to borrow books from them (88). As such, libraries became the number one source of books for most readers. Due to popular demand, most of these books were novels (89).

Discussing the economics of the novel also invites discussion of modern economic issues. The first copyright laws protected publishers from global competition, providing a discussion of globalization. The cost of books invites an interdisciplinary analysis of how much we spend on entertainment today. Students can study how television and movie producers analyze the market and what determines which shows get made. The dangers of piracy and the protection of copyright demand discussion of modern piracy in music and media. These are not just connections to today, but a genuine opportunity to teach students to analyze the world around them using examples from two hundred years ago.

The competition during the revolutionary period led to advancements in printing technology. Whereas a novel might run between 350 and 1500 copies at the beginning of the nineteenth century, by 1830 newspaper copies of books could run over 30,000 copies (75 – 76). These changes came primarily due to new innovations which made paper cheaper. Before 1800 paper represented roughly 20% of the cost of a book, now it was only 7% (Altbach 161). Congress also passed and enforced copyright laws, protecting publishers from pirating. Tariffs on foreign books also helped bring down the price of publishing (Davidson 97). Consequently, where Charlotte Temple was considered hugely popular by selling 40,000 copies in a decade, James Fennimore Cooper’s The Pioneers sold almost 9% of this figure by the day after it was released in 1823 (Southam 1). At a time when Americans were deciding what it meant to be part of a republic, changes in technology allowed novels to reach an unprecedented audience.

The amount of information available due to cheap paper pales in comparison to the communicative power of new technologies. A September 2008 CBS news survey found that people between 13 and 17 years of age send and receive an average of 1,742 text messages per month (Reardon). Research firm IDC estimated that 97 billion email messages went out in 2007 alone (40 billion of which were spam) (Leggatt). If ever there was a time when changing technology was once again democratizing information, it is now. Studying changes in the novel and the fear it caused can help students understand the role of electronic communication for them today.

The Novel as Community

Reading in the 18th century was often a communal event. Letter reading and writing was a hugely popular form of entertainment, and epistolary manuals with instruction on how to write correct styles, formats can content for different types of letter throughout the eighteenth century, often running at least five editions (Bannet 13). The guides included instructions on reading those letters aloud, including pronunciation guides and how to properly hold the paper when addressing a group (27). The expectation was that letters would be read aloud. The popularity of the epistolary novel mirrored these manuals. Like actual letters, they were often designed to be read aloud to a group as well (28). The epistolary novel and instruction manuals shared popularity reveal the importance of letters in colonial society as a communal event, through sharing them aloud, and as a cultural standard, through the rules and proscriptions.

Early American novels, therefore, offer an opportunity to talk to students about community. People in the eighteenth century (lacking television and malls) would hang out and read to one another. Letters connected families across the country. Epistolary novels revealed the way people thought about the events in their lives and the lives of those around them. Asking students to consider how they connect to people opens up the possibility of creating that connection. Write a letter to your students. Have them write to each other, or to you, or to a family member. Asking students to mirror novels by writing about people in their own lives or stories they have heard about creates opportunities to foster those all important relationships in the classroom.

The Novel as Democracy

Analyzing novels as products should not reduce them to merely pieces of consumer information. Novelists and publishers saw their role as encouraging democracy. In terms of pure economics, writing and publishing novels was not lucrative and often lost money. Yet publishers produced over 100 American books before 1820 (Davidson 99). They did so in small part because they believed they were creating and defining the cultural atmosphere of the new republic.

The popularity of the novel, through the emergence of the library, meant that novels had a vast audience. Moreover, this audience was non-elite and aware of the ways in which the republic failed to live up to the promise of the Declaration of Independence. New readers were not wealthy land owners (indeed they could not even afford their own books), and were not invited into the halls of the constitutional convention. Instead, they were the landless laborers who would not have the vote for another sixty years and women, who would not have it for another hundred and twenty. The texts they read mirrored their positions; these were not exclusively sermons or instruction manuals, but focused on the lives of common or disadvantaged people (105). Novels were, in short, a form of democracy, giving voice to the common man and woman.

Gentleman legislators and members of the highest offices of the nation, far from the lowly social position of the average reader, condemned the novel. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, fierce political rivals, both took time to attack the genre (104). This attack came about because, in the wake of the revolution, Americans were still struggling to sort out the bounds of authority and freedom in a world with a president instead of a king (105). If the republic were going to survive, it would need to exist on a set of cultural as well as governmental principles (Mulford xvi). Critics saw the novel as “subversive,” undermining the authority of a fragile government (Davidson 24). Given its support of the disenfranchised, this fear was not entirely unfounded. The Algerine Captive by Royal Tyler mocks politicians of the day. The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown was based on the lives of some of Boston’s wealthiest politicians and was attacked by John Adams himself. Critics dismissed novels as gossip and a waste of time. The condemnation of the novel as morally questionable, as a waste of time and energy, highlights the founders’ fear of overwhelming freedom in a world without monarchy. This provides the opportunity for educators to emphasize just how terrifying and difficult the prospect of democracy seemed.

In order to address the accusation of immorality, revolutionary publishers and authors often introduced their texts as examples and warnings. Seduction novels were instruction manuals for HOW NOT TO BEHAVE. Heroines who allowed themselves to be seduced regularly ended in ruin and death. These novels claimed to educate young women about the dangers of the world and to help create a single, common American morality. William Hill Brown even addresses The Power of Sympathy to “the young ladies of United Columbia,” revealing his own, intentional construction of morally didactic text. This project fit in with the authors' attempts to create an American democracy while simultaneously combating their critics' fears that novels would destroy America through subversion.

The Novel as Education: Moral Didacticism in Schools

The female readership of revolutionary novels through the next century gave rise to the female educator of the industrial revolution. Thus women, who had gained literacy by reading early novels, soon gained agency in the classroom of America’s common schools. Whereas novels replete with cautionary morals had once been dedicated to their “fair sex,” by 1900 women led 71% of rural classrooms in which they transmitted the morals to the nation’s next generation (Hoffman). The shifting role of women in promoting literacy in America parallels the shift from educating the masses through entertainment to educating them through a public school system. In both arenas, the goal of literacy and literature was to form a coherent political body that shared a language and a set of values.

Nation and literacy link at the roots. Over the world, language study falls under the title of the nation of origin rather than the process––reading, writing, or grammar. While in America, middle school students may only study “Language Arts,” soon enough, they move onto the more serious high school “English.” Language study and literacy have always served national purposes in America, especially. With such a diverse population of immigrants flooding into the ports by the time of independence, a young America needed to provide a standard educational system with language instruction in order to create a cohesive populace. In the movement towards universal education in the early colonial period, Americans used the common language to communicate the shared values of a nation. Today, secondary teachers across the nation continue this value-based education, promoting canonical works that speak to the glory of the American identity, working as double agents for literacy and patriotism, or what it means to be a “good” American. However, seldom do teachers explicitly educate students about the philosophical and historical nature of didacticism in education and reading.

The first line of North Carolina’s current Standard Course of Study, written by the Chair of the State Board of Education, boasts, “North Carolina has had a Standard Course of Study since 1898” (NCDPI iii). Having established the nation’s first public university at Chapel Hill in 1793, North Carolina is proud of its educational standards. That 1898 course of study offers pragmatic examples of implementation, with the suggestion that “weary” teachers “must study and keep up with their profession, or fall out by the way and make room for those who are progressive,” evidence that educational best practices were already being broken and reinstituted (199). An 1845 report from the first superintendent, Calvin Henderson Wiley, provides more background on the goals of schools. The standards of 2004 and the earliest report on North Carolina schools are not so different: both emphasize the importance of preparing students to be productive citizens, both socially and morally. The 2004 SCS aims to form, “contributing members of society,” “collaborative workers who possess…the desire to contribute to the improvement of society,” and “responsible,” “informed citizens in a democratic society” (4, 7, 83, 8). Wiley, too lays out the basis for education in North Carolina: “To make a nation truly great and happy, its heart and mind should both be educated” (23). The repeated emphasis on “society” and “nation” reinforce the role of education in creating a manageable populace.

Wiley, however, alludes to an additional aspect of education not so freely aired in the current SCS: the education of the heart. “Extreme care … should be taken to improve the heart and subdue its passions,” he explains (23). The direct link between didactic novels and education lies in this “schooling of desire” (Bohlin 18). Character education, a movement of values-based teaching first promoted in the early 1990s, seeks to establish a school environment that promotes active reflection on morality in an effort to curb teen suicide, pregnancy, murder rates as well as counteract the barrage of media messages students decipher every day (Lockwood). While critics of character education argue that the “hidden curriculum,” or values message, of the program is more didactic than is effective, the notion of prescribing morality through literacy education has carried on as an American issue since the earliest days of Puritan religious education (Giroux). The dissenters, however, bring up the point that character education, whether between the walls of a classroom of the covers of a book, can seem stifled. The disparity between the good intentions of the educators and the occasional failures of the program, the superficiality of which “[s]tudents are quick to size up,” parallels the disparity between the intentions of early American publishers and their authors, who, like adolescents, were seemingly often more interested in gossip and seduction than utter moral righteousness (Bohlin 4). Coincidentally, in 2001 North Carolina passed the Student Citizen Act, which enforces the implementation of character education in public schools (NC DPI, Character Education). An educational policy debate could give students one more opportunity to understand their role as citizens in America; ironically, the educator can encourage character development in students by asking them to question its validity.

Asking students to write about their own view of the goals of education and entertainment (books and media) can spur an authentic discussion in the classroom (Competency Goal 3.01: “establish and defend a point of view”). Students may also find the study of early documents on North Carolina schools fascinating in their explicit summoning of moral goals. By opening the floor to students, teachers can both avoid the “non-interference policy” that leaves schools utterly divorced from explicit discussion of values and still support Freire’s problem-posing education, which itself fosters democratic individuals.

The history of education in America suggests that one key goal is to ensure all citizens understand the laws and thus form a mor(ally) perfect Union. Discussions of didacticism and moral formation go beyond the classroom to society at large. The struggle to define the role of popular entertainment continues today. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently began to pay Viacom (which runs television networks including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and BET) to include social messages in their television scripts and run advertisements about healthy living (Arango). These messages have already started with an episode of Law and Order: SVU. President of United States operations at the Foundation, Allan Golston, said to the New York Times that, “television in this vein was essential because the foundation could reach more people than through direct support of education” (Arango). The decision to make morally instructive programming parallels the moral missions of Early American novels and reveals many of the same fears about the integrity of society. Studying both allows students to question the purpose of their own education and how much influence popular literature (including media) has on them.

Examples of Early American Novels

The didactic nature of early American novels is best revealed through examples. Examining just two of the most popular novels from the end of the eighteenth century The Coquette and Charlotte Temple, will reveal the ways in which didacticism intertwined with the roles of women and democracy in the emerging republic. Other novels to consider include William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy, Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive, and Charles Brocken Brown’s Arthur Mervyn. We have selected the two texts we believe would appeal most to the students we have encountered in our work in North Carolina.

The Coquette

Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel The Coquette (1797) is the story of Eliza Warton. Eliza is torn between two suitors: Mr. Boyer, who she thinks is too stodgy, and Mr. Sanford, who is unreliable. Her indecision eventually drives away Mr. Boyer, while Mr. Sanford marries another woman for her money. Sanford and Eliza have an affair and Eliza, in typical seduction novel style, becomes pregnant. She dies alone in the countryside, far from her friends and without a husband.

The novel was popular, going through thirteen editions before the end of the nineteenth century (Mulford xli). Foster based the novel on the life of the highly publicized death of Elizabeth Whitman, a lady of Hartford Connecticut who delivered a stillborn baby before passing away at the Bell Taverns in Danvers, Mass in 1788 (xliv). Critics made her story into a didactic lesson about proper morality almost immediately. The Massachusetts Centinel September 20, 1788 edition even wrote that “she was a great reader of novels and romances and having imbibed her ideas of the characters of men from those fallacious sources, became vain and coquettish” (xlv). Attacks on Miss Witman embodied the moralizing sentiment that novels at the time were supposed to embody.

Both Elizabeth Whitman’s life and Hannah Webster Foster’s treatment thereof invite examination of didacticism, women’s roles in society and democracy as a whole. The criticism of Eliza for her actions, the repeated advice that she find a husband, highlights the espoused morality of the time. Simultaneously, though, Eliza is a sympathetic character; her decision in the novel form as much due to her role as an American woman in the late eighteenth century as due to her own decisions. Her tombstone at the end of the novel, which urges readers (both in the novel and out) to “throw a veil over her frailties, for great was her charity to others” suggests a far friendlier reading and undercuts the overt moralizing of a woman dying through letting herself be seduced. This was the moral ambiguity which so terrified early founders.

These themes connect to three of the six North Carolina primary competency goals, with room for the other three. In a 140-page text made up of brief letters, students can analyze the historical significance of a text (Competency Goal 5.01), by looking at the discussion surrounding novels. They can “assess the power, validity, and truthfulness in the logic of arguments given in public and political documents” (Competency Goal 4.03), by looking at whether Eliza’s problems emerge due to her coquettish style or her place in society. Finally, students “demonstrate the ability to read, listen to and view a variety of increasingly complex print and non-print argumentative texts appropriate to grade level and course literary focus, by . . . identifying and analyzing personal, social, historical or cultural influences, contexts, or biases (Competency Goal 3.04) by looking at the need to include didactic reasoning in these early American novels. Students can learn to interrogate the world around them and examine themselves within the scheme of American history all at once.

Charlotte Temple

Susanna Rowson, herself a didactic author cum educator, established a girls’ school in Boston, for which she wrote both curriculum (including manners and morals) and textbooks, eight years after publishing her bestseller, Charlotte Temple (Kirk 14). Rowson’s novel, originally titled Charlotte: A Tale of Truth for its original London printing in 1791 and later personalized into Charlotte Temple for subsequent American audiences, offers readers a morally wrought commentary on education along with a sensational narrative. Just as modern classics franchise into movies, posters, spin-offs, and endless reprints, Charlotte Temple became a distinctly American tale, inspiring over 200 American editions and numerous traveling theatrical reprisals of the story.

The story of Charlotte, a young British schoolgirl seduced, kidnapped, and taken to America by a British lieutenant quick to lose interest, offers Americans both a story of pathos over which to weep and a didactic opportunity to showcase the kindness of their nation. After arriving in America, Charlotte is soon forsaken by her seducer and left to fend for herself, pregnant and depressed. Throughout her toils and further abuses her American neighbor, Mrs. Beauchamp, offers her asylum and friendship. After giving birth to a daughter, Charlotte dies in the presence of her father come from England to find her and her savoir Mrs. Beauchamp. A love story turned tragedy, the novel offers itself to cautionary moralizing about the dangers of seduction, the kindness of community, and the forgiveness of parents.

One central point of interest for students is the discussion of how and why Charlotte makes the decisions she does. Faced with choices between duty and romance, education and adventure, trust and healthy skepticism, Charlotte could be seen as the means of her own downfall. However, in the Preface, the narrator mourns those who, like Charlotte, are “spoilt by a mistaken education” (Rowson 35). This phrase turns the blame on Mademoiselle La Rue, the French schoolteacher in charge of looking after Charlotte when she is first seduced, instead encouraging the young girl to forget her family and sail to America. La Rue, along with the other seeming villains, the seducers Montraville and Belcour, offers an excellent character for analysis, as many scenes show these characters as morally ambiguous.

An entertaining and manageable read at about 130 pages, Charlotte Temple offers opportunities for students to address five of the six North Carolina primary competency goals. Students “discover multiple perspectives,” in the classroom in debating the reason for Charlotte’s downfall for which they must provide “textual evidence to support [their] understanding of and … response to [the] text” (Competency Goal 1.02, 1.03), and “examine how culture influences language,” by locating didactic passages of narration and discussing their effectiveness (Competency Goal 2.02). In order to further explore the impact of didacticism in popular entertainment like the traveling plays of Charlotte Temple, students should analyze the moral imperatives suggested in various media (sitcoms, commercials, music videos, songs, etc.), thereby “recognizing propaganda as a purposeful technique” in “non-print argumentative texts” (Competency Goal 3.01, 3.04). Finally, by pairing the discussion of didacticism and Mademoiselle La Rue with a discussion of the role of education, students can “synthesize ideas” between their own educational life and that of Charlotte (Competency Goal 4) and “interpret the significance of literary movements” in relating the appeal of Charlotte Temple to those citizens prevented from having a full education. By focusing on the education strands of Charlotte Temple, students can evaluate moral choices in a context immediately relevant to their own lives.

Conclusion

We do not mean these examples to confine or limit teachers. Instead, we should work together to imagine the country at its founding. With our students, we can envision who was included in defining our country. We see their lives and their anxieties, their dreams and their nightmares, their greatest aspirations and their worst failures.

We can imagine all of these things because they still exist today. Where Adams feared the novel, we fear Myspace. Where publishers gave moral rules, modern entrepreneurs rewrite television scripts. Where texts once questioned roles and social places, our students now take their place.

Our task is still to create an American culture; that we have unified standards at all reveals this purpose. Yet in a democracy, that culture must be one of questioning and critical thinking. It is a culture which not only produces healthy citizens, but engaged and challenged students. Over two centuries after Rowson, Foster, Brown and Tyler struggled to define the limits and expectations of freedom in a new republic, it is our task to do the same.

Altback, Philip G. and Edith S. Hoshino Eds. International Book Publishing: An Encyclopedia.
New York: Routledge, 1995. Web.

“Appendix: Works Commonly Taught in NC High School English Language Arts,” from In the
Right Direction. 2002. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Web. 26 Apr. 2009.

Arango, Tim and Brian Stelter. “Messages With a Mission, Embedded in TV Shows”
newyorktimes.com. New York Times. 1 April 2009. Web. 26 April 2009.

Bannet, Eve Taylor. “Printed Epistolary Manuals and the Transatlantic Rescripting of
Manuscript Culture” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 36 (2007): 13-34. Project
Muse. Web. 26 April 2009.

Bohlin, Karen E. Teaching Character Education through Literature: Awakening the Moral
Imagination in Secondary Classrooms. New York: RouteledgeFalmer, 2005. Print.

Brown, William Hill “The Power of Sympathy” The Power of Sympathy and the Coquette. New York: Penguin. 1996. Print.

Character Education. 2001. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Web. 27 Apr. 2009.

Davidson, Cathy. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Print.

Foster, Hannah Webster. “The Coquette” The Power of Sympathy and the Coquette. New
York: Penguin. 1996. Print.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970. New York: Continuum, 2007. Print.

Giroux, Henry. Ed. The Hidden Curriculum and Moral Education: Deception or Discovery?
Berkeley: McCutchan Publishing Corporation, 1983. Print.

Hoffman, Nancy. Woman’s True Profession: Voices from the History of Teaching. New York:
The Feminist Press and McGraw Hill, 1981. Cited p. 68 in Koch, Janice. So You Want to Be a Teacher?: Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009. Print.

Kirk, Clara M. and Rudolf. Introduction. Charlotte Temple. By Susanna Rowson. 1791. New
Haven, Connecticut: College & University Press, 1964. 11-32. Print.

Leggatt, Helen. “Spam volume to exceed legitimate emails in 2007” bizreport.com. BizReport.
12 April 2007. Web. 26 April 2009.

Lockwood, Alan. L. The Case for Character Education: A Developmental Approach. New York:
Teachers College Press, 2009. Print.

Mulford, Carla “Introduction.” The Power of Sympathy and the Coquette. New York: Penguin.
1996. Print.

National Council of Teachers of English & International Reading Association. Standards for the English Language Arts Urbana, IL: 1996 Standards for the English Language Arts:
International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. Print.

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. North Carolina Standard Course of Study.
Raleigh, NC: Public Schools of North Carolina, 2004. Web.

Reardon, Marguerite. “Text Messaging Explodes In America: Survey Texting Now More
Popular Than Calling, With Messaging Up 450% Over Past Two Years” cbsnews.com.
CNET Networks. 23 Sept. 2008. Web. 26 April 2008.

Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple. New Haven, Connecticut: College & University Press,
1964. Print.

Southam, B.C., George Dekker and John P. Williams. Fenimore Cooper New York: Routledge,
1997. Web.

Stipek, Deborah et al, “Publication Announcement: Relationships, Rigor, and Relevance: The
Three R's of Engaging Students in Urban High Schools” National Research Council Committee on Increasing High School Students' Engagement and Motivation to Learn, 2 Dec. 2003. Web. 26 April 2008. Web.

State Board of Examiners Course of Study for Teachers in the Public Schools of North Carolina. Raleigh: W. W. Holden, 1898. Web.

Wiley, Calvin Henderson. First Annual Report of the General Superintendent of Common
Schools. Raleigh: W. W. Holden, 1854. Web.

Writing Wikipedia Pages in the Constructivist Classroom

2009-04-02T21:52:00.016-05:00

Look for the original in the 2009 AACE-Ed Media Conference Proceedings!

Writing Wikipedia Pages in the Constructivist Classroom
by Alexa Garvoille and Dr. Ginny Buckner
Abstract: In response to current anxieties over students’ ability to critically evaluate internet-based sources, we propose a secondary curriculum that uses Wikipedia as a platform to pose questions about information verifiability, ethical use of technology, and the democratic role of internet-users. We argue that, while already prevalent in college curricula, the examination of Wikipedia page creation in secondary classrooms provides a developmentally relevant approach to guiding adolescents into higher levels of thinking. The proposed project, appropriate for any discipline, but here concerned with high school English, develops traditional research and editing skills and culminates in a contribution to public knowledge through writing and editing underdeveloped Wikipedia pages (stubs). Methods for project implementation, including suggestions for scaffolding and differentiating learner tasks, are included.

Introduction

High-tech classrooms, innovative technology, and specialized software help teachers introduce students to new educational paradigms. Computing technology, second nature to students under the age of twenty-five, often aligns itself with educational prowess. As young adults prepare to face the challenges of the twenty-first century job market, educators, in turn, must devote themselves to advancing twenty-first century skills. However, amidst the development of such skills in close proximity to all things technological, lies the problem of critically evaluating that technology from a distance. Since so many young adults claim intimate familiarity with technology, educators might pass over outright discussions of how technology has changed the way students think. Despite the incredible onward and upward trend in educational technology, students can gain critical distance examining in-depth the most basic technology. In addition, students in public schools, for instance, do not always have access to the most recent technological resources. However, using just the internet students can advance developmentally and gain critical thinking skills by the careful consideration of and contribution to one of the most familiar sites on the internet: Wikipedia.

It’s been suggested that in these hard economic times, an expensive liberal arts education could just as easily be replaced with the absolutely free “Random Article” feature on Wikipedia. The ability to access information about anything by merely checking a BlackBerry or going to the computer lab has transformed the way we think and, more importantly, the way the next generation thinks. Information has become addictive. Most high school students look on Wikipedia for research information. Numerous college students have even been caught citing Wikipedia as a source in papers, which earned failing grades. While there is consensus that Wikipedia (or any encyclopedia for that matter) should not be cited for academic work, exactly how Wikipedia fits into our schools has yet to be determined. Though numerous post-secondary institutions have successfully incorporated Wikipedia page expansion into course requirements, some secondary schools have banned the site. The new mantra, “Wikipedia does not count!” has led schools to block its access on campus. Librarians and principals argue that students cannot distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources and therefore Wikipedia shouldn’t be available to tempt students.

Wikipedia, however, offers a consistent alternative (Giles 2005) to the vast, ambivalent sea of sites that is the internet. These days, even Google searches help the curious by sending them to Wikipedia first. Since students will certainly continue to use Wikipedia outside of school, the classroom is actually the ideal place to address questions of source reliability (Davidson 2007, Groom 2007). Secondary schools should take up the project that has already begun in universities all over the world. By examining the workings of Wikipedia in the context of the classroom, students at a younger age can understand why Wikipedia isn’t actually a source at all (thus preparing them for college), and how they can help make it a better resource by becoming budding Wikipedians themselves––that is, editors of Wikipedia. Instead of researching on Wikipedia, students learn critical skills by researching for Wikipedia. In addition to appealing to students, this high-interest project finds support in education standards: the International Reading Association in conjunction with the National Council for the Teachers of English (1996) require that, for one, “students use technological and informational resources…to gather and synthesizeinformation and to create and communicate knowledge.”

In this paper, we will present a theoretical framework for using Wikipedia in the classroom, not as a source for research, but as an opportunity to conduct research and engage in critical thought. We will specifically provide a focus for how Wikipedia relates to adolescent development. Then, we will suggest how, for example, secondary English teachers can integrate a Wikipedia-editing project into a typical high school curriculum, as well as recommend other possible academic trajectories for the project.

The Context: 21^st Century Adolescent Learners

Most adolescents rightly see Wikipedia as a viable source––much more so than many adults. However, students may not understand the trepidation of parents and teachers to use the site as an academic source. Developmentally, many high school students and sometimes even college students think in concrete-operational terms, according to Piaget, meaning they understand logical processes in terms of cause-and-effect but often cannot yet grasp abstract gray-area concepts. The concept of source reliability is difficult for these students to understand (Eastin 2008, Piaget 1959). Each developmental stage builds on the last, and in order to progress to the next stage, the learner must experience a complication of their previous understanding. Exposing students to the process of editing Wikipedia pages for themselves would create a moment that Piaget terms cognitive dissonance. This state occurs when a prior assumption (the truth of the Wikipedia page, for example) clashes with newly acquired knowledge (that the page is easily edited). The new concept does not fit into the previous system of thought, thus leading to the accommodation of a new idea, the creation of a new set of paradigms in the brain. Instead of leaving students to continue thinking concretely about the internet by “just saying no” (Olanoff 2007) to Wikipedia, educators can make the ubiquity of the Wiki not only a teachable moment, but, more importantly, part of the developmental process.

By introducing students to the technical intricacies creating Wikipedia pages, we address technology and content standards (NCTE/IRA 1996) in addition to allowing students to personally possess their education by actively constructing it. Students would explore firsthand the unspoken contradiction between the casual acceptance and academic restriction of the internet. In such a way, students pursue what Paulo Freire (1970) calls a “problem-posing education.” Instead of censoring information or feeding students sources, as from a cart of librarian-selected books, a problem-posing classroom embraces the constraints placed on the students in order to lead them to a higher level of consciousness about their place in the world and, today, their place on the net. Freire suggests the goal of education is to perceive the world not as “a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.” Likewise, instead of seeing knowledge (represented by Wikipedia) as static, students learn the process behind creating knowledge, thus empowering them to contribute to the transformation of knowledge, both within themselves and in the greater world of the internet.

Incorporating and even welcoming this sometimes inaccurate, vandalism-prone medium into the classroom, educators gain a platform for exploring problems of source credibility, ethical standards in technology, and the democratic role of internet-users. By taking advantage of the novelty of the medium, we offer students the opportunity to speak as experts based on intimate prior knowledge and engage in higher order thinking by evaluating a media resource. By making Wikipedia the topic of discussion, the focus of a project-based, student-centered classroom, rather than the outlawed but still-consulted secret, students can identify the shortcomings of Wikipedia themselves and actively engage in improving it.

Origins of the Project: A Graduate Student’s Perspective

I haven’t yet had the opportunity to try Wikipedia-edits in a high school classroom. But I spent the year in public high schools as a candidate in Duke University’s Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program, a one-year, intensive teacher preparation program. I managed student teaching in Durham high schools while taking graduate English classes at Duke. Since the central element of our MAT program is the cultivation of reflective practices, I always observed my graduate professors and classmates metacognitively, taking notes on what I could bring back with me to the high school. I always tried to connect how seminar discussions with fellow graduate students might help me reach high schoolers, which was not always apparent. However, my experience in a course on the early American novel did more than bridge the gap.

Instead of fulfilling expectations about the class based on its title (“The Early American Novel”), the professor, Cathy Davidson, an interdisciplinary scholar and advocate for Wikipedia use, shattered and exceeded the students’ expectations. In the first class meeting candidates learned that the course would be devoted to improving public knowledge on the web and promoting the digital humanities (as opposed to the already-successful digital sciences). Like every successful educator, the professor set higher order thinking (evaluation not memorization) as the goal for the class. Bloom’s Taxonomy of thought, from which the term higher order thinking derives, guides many educators’ planning and applies to adolescents as well as adults.

Bloom puts forward an idea similar to Piaget’s notion of development, which categorizes thought into six levels that, like stair steps, lead the thinker from simple, lower order concerns like fact recall to more complex, higher order concerns like source evaluation. The learner progresses, in order, from knowledge, comprehension, and application to analysis, synthesis, and, finally, evaluation (Bloom 1956). This graduate literature course quickly escalated to evaluation. We questioned the very basis of our discipline, for instance, wondering why novels are categorized by nationality. We learned the content, but the main goal was always to address the big questions. By evaluating the novels, the canon, and the discipline, our discussions consistently kept the higher order concerns at hand while engaging students personally by requiring that each take responsibility for sharing knowledge gained in class with the online community.

To successfully defend the use of Wikipedia in any class, it is important to note here that this class focused on novels popular mainly in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, but not considered canonical or common knowledge. The Wikipedia pages for these texts reflected their marginal status, giving the class much to work with. Of the six novels on the syllabus, at the beginning of the semester, four of their Wikipedia pages were classified as stubs, one was short enough to be a stub, and one, though more thorough, cited no sources. Again, the unsung status of these subjects was key to ensuring the success of the Wikipedia project. These were the kinds of novels that have no SparkNotes, no eNotes, no cheat sheets. Having come from the public school system, entrenched in canonical classics, the idea of working with little-known literature struck a chord. While classics will generally maintain hold of education in terms of content, I could use less seminal works to teach skills––of source evaluation, writing drafts, conducting research––all in the name of Web 2.0. Imagine the impact high school students could have on the knowledge base of Wikipedia if, instead of using it as a source, they learned the value of finding print and non-print sources in order to contribute to the site; if, instead of turning in a book summary to the teacher and then throwing it away when returned, students were required to post the checked draft to Wikipedia, where it would be saved forever in the history of an article? Our small class of nine graduate students alone has since removed the stub status of all articles, added a significant number of sources, and, overall, contributed more than twenty kilobytes of information to early American novels on Wikipedia. High school students could improve the resource and feel a sense of empowerment and social responsibility, just as I did after adding my first edit.

As a teacher and learner, the experience of evaluating contemporary media and engaging in Web 2.0 materials during a course helped me see the value of maintaining a focus on relevance and immediacy in the classroom. Because of my experience in the course, I now spend hours looking through Wikipedia stubs and page histories, just correcting grammar and editing style. Even if students do not have internet access at home, this kind of project is so much at the core of our reading habits that it can follow the students beyond the classroom. For high schoolers, publishing on Wikipedia would provide a readership beyond the teacher and the classmate (NCTE/IRA 1996), subsequently offering an authentic writing experience for the student. In addition, research shows that adolescent brains favor novelty (Spear 2000), so bringing ever-new technology into the school keeps students engaged and looking forward to class. For teachers, principals, and families, this means students will be more likely to attend and less likely to stay home or linger outside school. In addition to using novel technology (which still seems young at eight years old), improving Wikipedia stubs necessarily involves interacting with new information. In order to supplement the SparkNotes Classics of our reading lists, students will interact with little-known books or subjects to increase the knowledge base of Wikipedia and to gain higher-order thinking skills.

Wikipedia Applied: A Classroom Project

We’ve explained how studying Wikipedia supports adolescent growth and higher order thinking in students from high school to graduate school. Now, based on my combined experience of using this tool in a graduate-level class and interacting with high school students on a daily basis, we will propose one method of implementing the project in a high school English classroom, explaining the educational or developmental impact of each different step. Wikipedia offers students an expansive opportunity for intellectual growth and innovation. Most curricula require research, summary, and writing skills. In this project students will gain all three, with the added benefit of increasing their technology and media knowledge. After assigning a project to ninth-graders in a public high school to create a Facebook page on a character from literature, I know that students with both extremes of ability level consider Web 2.0 a worthy and entertaining project. In addition, both levels of students find innovative ways of using technology that the teacher usually does not think of.

At the point in the school year in which the project would be introduced, my students will have already conducted research using a database. In addition, students will have practiced summarizing text and identifying main ideas. The Writing Wikipedia project reinforces research and summary skills in addition to incorporating the evaluation of information and opinions. The educational goals for the project enable students to 1) understand the need to verify information through multiple sources by experiencing the fluidity of knowledge on Wikipedia, 2) improve editing skills regarding clarity, style, and mechanics, 3) conduct research, cite, and synthesize information, and 4) understand that all new media requires critical evaluation.

At each step of this project, which culminates in expanding a Wikipedia stub, younger students need extensive support to help them utilize prior knowledge and skills in order to apply them to the next step of the process. This support, or scaffolding (Vygotsky 1978), ensures that the learners can reach a goal appropriate to their current skill level. If experience is an indicator, students can never have too much support; intermediate steps ensure gradual thought development and skill mastery. Vygotsky suggests that both scaffolding and social interaction increase the effectiveness of education (Vygotsky 1998); therefore, students should be divided into small groups to establish social development goals alongside intellectual ones.

The eight-step project outline that follows gives one approach to incorporating Wikipedia into a secondary classroom. Each step aligns with a level of thought from Bloom’s taxonomy or an instructional procedure found to be successful in previous university-level executions of the project.

1. Set the stage: The teacher conducts a Socratic-style seminar on the ethical and practical pros and cons of Web 2.0, including Wikipedia, Facebook, and YouTube. The class assembles a list of pros and cons to reference throughout the project. This initial discussion engages students in the project, allows them to speak as experts, and contextualizes editing Wikipedia as a timely and relevant problem. This discussion engages the highest order of thinking (evaluation, level six) from the start, thus issuing an initial buy-in from the students.

2. Learn the rules of Wikipedia: Students create a document that communicates, in their own words, the core values of Wikipedia. Instead of using direct instruction (lecture) to communicate the rules, the teacher allows students to construct this information by reading Wikipedia’s “About” section and its Manual of Style. This activity anticipates how students will interact with the page itself to answer questions throughout the project. Students should work together, ideally each at a computer, to instill at an early stage a sense of collegiality rather than competition. This step involves display of knowledge and comprehension (levels one and two).

3. Reinforce Wikipedia style: Since encyclopedia writing is very different than essay writing, the teacher needs to reinforce the importance of code-switching, that is, using different styles for different purposes. To assert style and content requirements, the teacher might lead students in evaluating numerous sentences copied from Wikipedia or other sources that may show bias or unverifiable information. In small groups, students could sort these sentences into two categories and explain their rationale for each grouping of “acceptable” or “unacceptable.” Once students begin to compare results, this activity results in productive debate. Students use analysis, Bloom’s fourth level of thinking, to group the sentences.

4. Introduce stubs and their weaknesses: The class explores the “List of Stub Categories” on Wikipedia to find small, incomplete articles on literature. At this point, students should explore the “History” of the article, including how to compare two versions of it. The teacher may choose to quickly demonstrate an edit on one of these pages to create a moment of cognitive dissonance, showing students the power they have to fix errors (or create them). One way to introduce students to the amount of work that needs to be done on Wikipedia would be to allow teams to print and edit a few pages for mechanics. This could also lead to an initial, less intimidating edit of a live page, thereby preparing students for their full content edits. This step engages Bloom’s third level of thinking, application, since learners apply previous editing knowledge to a new medium.

5. Stub selection: In order to best differentiate for a multi-level class the various requirements of page edits, the teacher should create heterogeneous (mixed-ability) groups of three to four members. As a team, students decide each member’s strength and assign each an appropriate role: for example, source identification, research, image addition, or style consistency. The teacher may choose to specify a stub category (for instance “Poetry stubs”) in order to avoid the indecision or vague goals characteristic of students faced with too much choice (Groom 2007). Student groups should then decide on a stub to expand. This step involves interpersonal evaluation (level six).

6. Research: This is the most important step and should be allotted enough time to ensure that it is truly effective. After surveying their entry, students should compile a list of information they will need to expand it. For instance, students might list “plot summary,” “list of characters,” “history of writing,” as categories to add. Since students are constructing their own knowledge in this project, the teacher should not suggest categories, but instead direct students to full Wikipedia entries on similar topics to see their format. The teacher leads students in research, which they will conduct collaboratively. Students will then synthesize the information (Bloom’s level five) into one document, for instance on GoogleDocs. At this point, the advanced student can take a leading role to ensure clarity and style consistency, two main critiques of Wikipedia. One student should also lead the others in ensuring the consistent use of in-line citations. Before publication, students peer-edit and the teacher reviews the articles.

7. Publish: To learn how to edit pages, students may look to the Wikipedia tutorial:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tutorial. The teacher may then refer students to the “Sandbox” feature on the site, which allows experimentation.

8. Follow-up: Sign up for the “Watch List” on all student-edited articles to see how other Wikipedians improve them. This may also allow students the opportunity to revert page vandalism.

At the end of publishing on Wikipedia, students can feel both a sense of entitlement and accomplishment for adding to public knowledge in a responsible and credible way. Student will have also gained critical research skills from page building. If not, they will soon find the page deleted by other Wikipedians. No grade can impact students like the acceptance or rejection of their work by the English-speaking, internet-using world.

Beyond the Classroom

Here, we’ve suggested a project-based method of integrating Wikipedia use in a secondary English classroom, an extension of the current university-level work, but the applicability of the project is wide-reaching.

In addition to teaching English content strands, this project offers faculty an opportunity for an interdisciplinary collaboration. Schools that pair English and History classes or use the Freshman Academy model to keep one small group of students circulating within a team of teachers could use Wikipedia for the basis of joint planning. Research skills are central to educational goals in many departments, as well as being central to Wikipedia’s standards.

As noted, the creation of Wikipedia pages enriches post-secondary and doctoral work by encouraging an active online community of scholars. Research universities’ humanities departments can use Wikipedia as an opportunity to break out of the ivory tower or the obscure journal to increase public interest, readership of their work on the web, and, eventually, readership in their subject area.

New teachers looking for positions in a competitive market of schools focused on twenty-first century skills benefit from understanding and embracing cutting-edge technology in the classroom or lecture hall––not as a cheap trick to lure the attention of hyperlinked brains, but as a platform for profound discussion on a topic for which boundaries have not yet been established. A discussion of Wikipedia may lead to one on social networking and its etiquette, for instance––a topic far from having such boundaries. Students are much more likely to take an active role in discussion when they know the teacher isn’t looking for a certain answer… Because right now there is no sure answer.

In a broader view, since Wikipedia pages and their history can be accessed from anywhere, a course on Wikipedia improvement could be offered by a variety of institutions. As a higher-order thinking project, Writing Wikipedia Pages could be a distance learning class gifted students in rural or underprivileged districts. Likewise, summer enrichment programs could develop such a project into an intensive workshop devoted to debating the social and ethical underpinnings of public knowledge before focusing on significantly expanding stubs into scholarly articles.

With Wikipedia edits in hand, our adolescents will have gained the power to impact readers all over the world, the resources to answer their own questions, and the critical analysis skills to evaluate sources. The next generation of information managers will know that Wikipedia is not a source, but rather a collection of sources and a seed for a powerful shift in the educational paradigm.

References

Bloom B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives, Handbook I: The cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Co., Inc.

Davidson, C. (2007). We can’t ignore the influence of digital technologies. Chronicle of higher education, 53 (29), 20.

Eastin, M. (2008). Towards a cognitive developmental approach to youth perceptions of credibility. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation series on digital media and learning: Digital media, youth, and credibility, 29-47.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Giles, J. (2005). Internet encyclopedias go head to head. Nature, 438, 900–901.

Groom, M. (2007). Using Wikipedia to reenvision the term paper. Information futures: Aligning our missions, 2007, EDUCAUSE, Seattle, WA.

National Council for the Teachers of English and International Reading Association (1996). Standards for the English language arts. United States: NCTE/IRA. Also available atwww.ncte.org/standards.

Olanoff, L. (2007). School district unites in banning Wikipedia. Seattle Times. 11/21/2007.

Piaget, J. (1959). Language and thought of the child. (M. Grabain, Trans.) New York: Humanities Press.

Spear, L. P. (2000). The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 24(4), 417-463.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1998). Early childhood. In R.W. Rieber (Ed.), Collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 5. Child psychology, 187-205. New York: Plenum.

Resources

Broughton, J. (2008). Wikipedia: The missing manual. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Free copies for educator use.

Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC). http://www.hastac.org. Educator and graduate student perspectives on the digital humanities, including information on Cathy Davidson’s courses at Duke University.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation series on digital media and learning. Boston: MIT Press. Available to download free at http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/dmal/-/2.

Wikipedia School and University Projects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_and_universities_project. Listing of Wikipedia-editing projects currently being conducted.

The Destabilizing of Traditional Legal Artifacts in African American Literature

2009-04-02T16:37:00.002-05:00

African American literature roots itself in documentation: slave narratives bear witness to the writer’s humanity. Likewise, African American citizenship finds its source in written constitutional omission and documented hypodescent: the three-fifths clause of Article I of the Constitution provides record of a black citizen’s marginal existence, while family records indicating the blood quantum of an individual serve to disqualify him from traditional property-holder rights. As a result, historical text artifacts traditionally serve to marginalize the African American’s personhood and individuality, binding him to words written against him in documents created neither by nor for him. In an attempt to reverse the fate inscribed by generative legal artifacts, some African American novelists use their narrators’ voices to reaffirm the marginalized individual, using references to law embedded in their work to undermine the reliability of traditional legal evidence rather than to simply root their narratives in painful history. Ship logs and testimonials, generated by unreliable narrators provide parallel faulty versions of the standard evidence of African American exploitation, suitably riddled and decentered by logical fallacies, playful anachronisms, and outright lying that have come to characterize a certain genre of African American literature.

Tituba of Maryse Condé’s I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Rutherford Calhoun of Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage provide different forms of evidence that these witty and self-aware narrators favor artifice over artifact in their use of legal documents and forms. From the literal evidence of a faulty deposition in I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, to the curiously ahistorical ship log in Middle Passage, African American first-person narrators reclaim a legal “heritage the weft of whose genesis is [their] own disinheritance” (Williams 217). The “profoundly troubling paradox” articulated by Patricia Williams pinpoints the ability of narration to be formally indebted to such condemning historical artifacts while simultaneously rejecting and rewriting their marginalizing content through explicit and intentional artifice and inversion. In revising such artifacts, characters reject their status as objectified citizens or property on which white laws are enacted in favor of a system in which the narrator himself creates laws to enact on others, thus transferring his status from object to subject, from one made by text to one who makes text.

The most literal embedding of a historical artifact occurs in Maryse Condé’s novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, since the factual transcript of Tituba’s deposition occupies the very center of Tituba’s narrative. If the law were to be incorporated in a novel for its historical ramifications, certainly Maryse Condé’s fictionalized account, based in research and founded on the deposition of Tituba Indian herself, would provide evidence enough (199). However, displaced from the Essex County Courthouse to Condé’s novel, the deposition loses its positively historical appeal, contextualized, on the contrary, as a ruse––a product of Tituba’s bad acting (“I confess I wasn’t a good actress”) as well as John Indian and Hester Prynne’s extremist coaching (106).

That the Salem court accepted Tituba’s outlandish testimony, retaining both Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good and intensifying its search, proves the absurd judgment of the legal system Condé attempts to expose. Symbolically manifesting her doubt of the legal system through plot, Condé further emphasizes the factual inconsistencies of the trial by framing a deposition accepted as historical legal fact with an outlandish literary event—the playful and affectionate meeting of Tituba Indian, historical entity, and Hester Prynne, fictional character further fictionalized by an adopted feminist ideology. By framing Tituba’s deposition as a well planned “trick,” many lines of which come at the direct suggestion of an ultra-fictional entity, Condé inverts the legal status of the deposition from reliable evidence to undeniable fabrication (100).

Though the deposition provides the historical material from which the novel emerged, its foundational status does not confer on it semiotic primacy. On the contrary, the deposition, a generative document metaphorically reissued in literature, serves to destabilize, rather than canonize, the original while providing a more significant alternate story. First, Condé’s Tituba reveals the artifice behind the artifact by musing on her acting skills to the reader. Then, Tituba provides an alternate version of the story, reorienting her condemning yet paradoxically life-saving confession within her own narrative, which reveals it as a painful lie. Therewith, Condé shows her reader that the interpretation of Tituba’s legal artifacts relies on context, rather than any fair, systematic rule. While the court had nothing from the Tituba but her words in court and others’ accusations, Condé’s Tituba provides the reader with written evidence of her plotting with Hester, thus releasing her deposition to its necessarily perjurous meaning. Meanwhile, Condé ensures that the reader fathoms the centrality of legal corruption by in turn corrupting the novel, her own work of legal research, with irreverently ahistorical scenes. Thus, by incorporating Tituba’s deposition within the fabric of her first-person narrative, Condé proves the falsity of the historical document, while additionally using the winking, anachronistic playfulness central to her narrative to deride the kind of legality that would accept such documents as indisputable evidence in court.

If Tituba’s first-person narrative serves to fictionalize a specific legal document and system through both its confessions and plot twists, Charles Johnson’s presentation of a narrative ship’s log in Middle Passage serves to critique an entire genus of historical evidence through altering the purpose of a log book to subjectively qualify rather than objectively quantify the movement of bodies and goods. From the very start, Charles Johnson’s recreation of the middle passage artifact parallels Condé’s fabrication of Tituba’s autobiography in its creation of evidence in a mode that would typically incriminate its protagonist. The novel announces its intent to play at being a “Journal of a Voyage” on “the Republic” before the first page of narration. Writing aboard the Juno after his rescue in June 1830, Rutherford Calhoun, in effect, records his autobiography under the auspices of creating a body of evidence detailing the ship’s mutiny: “Exhibit A for any investigation into the loss of the Republic” (201). Rather than concerning himself solely with numbers, he equates the logbook with his very life, writing at the beginning of the final entry that, “[h]ere the log of the Republic––and my life––might have ended,” suggesting not that the logbook would have been lost at sea, but that the story told in the logbook would have ended with his own life (185). Johnson uses his self-interested narrator to imbue a mere object that traditionally objectified human life as enumerated cargo the subjectivity of a human life.

However appealing to the reader initially, in providing the him with a longhand narrative, Calhoun calls into question not only his reliability as a witness, but more broadly, the subjective nature of the logbook as a documentary form. Though Rutherford Calhoun’s log follows the structural conventions of the supposedly objective ship’s log—dating and numbering each entry––(just as Tituba’s deposition resembles its historical original) his “ship’s log” is not a log at all, but rather a narrative. Nor does he write his log during his voyage or on the ship named on the frontispiece of the book, as the conventions of objectivity would require, but rather he writes out of time, after the ship wrecks and the dates of voyage have passed. Thus, the dates of the logbook do not correspond to the supposedly objective events described, but to the subjective act of reminiscing as performed by the writer. Calhoun’s very act of writing a narrative––and an anachronistic and highly subjective one at that––in the previously unused logbook exposes the poor accountability provided by this purportedly objective document handled by only one person. To further emphasize the questionable nature of logbooks as documentation, Johnson gives to Rutherford Calhoun a mischievous narration, full of intellectual asides and lascivious anecdotes. Calhoun often sounds like a 1970’s theorist, throwing about terms like “displaced” and “decentered,” “Raw” and “Cooked” with the glancing pride of a graduate student eager to impress (142, 75). In addition to his narrator’s hyperbolically extensive reading in literary theory, Johnson also gives to Squibb the characteristic of a doubter of Darwin, claiming that the mysterious cargo “was the Missing Link between man and monkey,” thus setting his characters’ points of reference well beyond the two months in 1830 allotted for the logbook’s events (67). Just as Tituba’s alternate-literary-universe meeting with Hester Prynne makes a parody of the credibility of historical documents in Condé’s work, Rutherford’s anachronistic literary references show Johnson’s attempt to himself destabilize the textual artifacts of African slave trade, leaving behind an artifice so intentional as to forthrightly invert the accepted power dynamic of traditional document-makers.

In the rewriting historical documents as blatantly ahistorical first-person narratives, a genre of revisionist documentarians emerges from the works of Condé and Johnson, in which characters, visibly manipulated by their authors, claim the documents as their own, in an attempt to reclaim their documentation. Yet, in the ironic effort to reclaim a “disinherit[ing]” legal “heritage,” the authors sabotage their own narrators’ credibility in a sneer at the biased system which determines what is credible. While most African American literature remains rooted in legality (especially that of its protagonists), these authors present readers not with artifacts of legal historicity, but rather with anachronistic artifice. By rejecting the historical artifact to rewrite it as artifice, African American first-person narrators create questionable documents intended not to hold up in court, but rather to call into question the objectivity of all evidence, thus reframing each exhibit as an exercise in subjectivity. Since the courts historically refused to allow African American witnesses to testify Maryse Condé and Charles Johnson create first-person textual artifacts that could serve as physical evidence to be presented in court—subjective plays on those objectifying textual artifacts on which the court itself is based.

Beckett

2009-03-14T19:06:00.001-05:00

Newer Work

2007-05-02T22:44:00.000-05:00

Photographs from Spring 2007

Self Portrait in Green

Bath

Active Space, After Ill Seen Ill Said

Company / Conversation Piece

Beckett Photographing / Photographing Beckett

2007-04-20T19:00:00.002-05:00

The Pseudomorphoses of Beckett's Fiction and Criticism

Beckett Photographing

Samuel Beckett was critic and poet, patron for many visual artists, and experimented with film and television. This study explores specifically the photographic elements of his work, an important relationship largely undeveloped (unlike the excellent work done on the painterly in Beckett) that illustrates the great potential for collaboration between literary criticism and photography.

The texts of Samuel Beckett lend themselves naturally to this kind of interdisciplinary work. Beckett himself was a pioneer of the interdisciplinary arts, merging critic, poet, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, and choreographer into one. The final tableaus of Beckett’s plays, the cropping of bodies and body parts, the opposition of darkness and light, and the insistence on the subjective I in his prose––all these traits of his writing share in the basic nature of photography. But more centrally, photographs mirror the problematic nature of representation in Beckett. The truth of photographs, like the ability of language to express, is taken for granted. Reexamined, photographs and words reveal uncertainty and subjectivity, where previously unexpected.

In many of his pieces, Beckett neglects the established rules of the medium. Instead, he applies the rules of another. Text is approached as an image, and image as a text. This act of pseudomorphosis––that is, approaching one medium with the aesthetics of another––is key to Beckett’s work and undermines even the most basic understanding of words and images, that being words speak and images literally do not. The later prose successfully reverses Simonides’s dictum that ‘poetry is speaking painting and painting silent poetry.’ In a transposition of words, poetry in Beckett is silent painting and his still images speak (like poetry). The attributes of painting and poetry taken for granted in Simonides’s dictum have been denied: poetry itself goes mute, and painting, so long silent, begins to speak on its own. Daniel Albright phrases this reversal of speaking and silence in terms of motion and stillness in Beckett’s late prose. “[P]ictures turn into animated cartoons,” he writes, “while fictions develop the dead immobility of pictures.”

In Beckett’s texts, the imagery conjured by the words is a single photographic image, a two-dimensional still snapshot, not a painting and never an animation. Krapp’s celebrated description of his vision on the jetty typifies the stillness emblematic of the Beckettian image: “that memorable night…at the end of the jetty…when suddenly I saw the whole thing. The vision at last.” The sudden, whole vision appears all at once in a flash, like a photo that freezes even “the foam flying up in the light.” These kinds of pictures appear in all of Beckett’s texts, often infused with much more narrative and figurative symbolism than the words themselves. The words, on the other hand, often evoke a palpable and still silence, contradictory to the fact that the reader must pronounce them in time.

In Beckett’s 1981 prose piece Ill Seen Ill Said, for example, unassumingly stark language and repetitive near-still action contrast the dynamic images. Always fading and reemerging, enveloping the character and losing her, the image takes over the central active role of text. Though the words are paradoxically silent, the images fill the silence, not with sound, but with meaning and potential action. The image hangs in the imagination, like a moment captured on film—frozen forever, endlessly signifying, and always ready to spring into motion.

Throughout his career, Beckett changed the rules for creation. He highlighted image in text and signification in images, used still shots in a motion picture, and wrote a play for no actors. Often mistaken by critics for ‘negation’ (of life, of art, of hope), Beckett’s use of pseudomorphosis negates only the established tenets of specific artistic media, thus opening the medium to new uses. By addressing one medium in the guise of another, Beckett and his texts encourage the audience to likewise readjust their own methods of reading.

This abandonment of standardized creation parallels and informs a more general movement occurring in the mid- to late-twentieth century to approach art with the eye of a critic and criticism with artistic flair. The rise of conceptual art in the sixties and seventies suggested the artist’s visual creation to be of equal importance to his related critical writings. Likewise, critical and theoretical writers began to explore more poetic language. The fact that each of the arts, especially photography in its painterly approach and theory in its use of poetry, began using the methods of other disciplines shows that Beckett’s experimental and sometimes troubling fusion of media reflects a more universal redistribution of power and procedure among the many arts.

The more shades of criticism shone onto a work, the more shades of the work will be revealed. Interdisciplinary criticism, like literary criticism informed by the visual arts, can illuminate darker meanings than the critic with only one tool, especially when the subject is an interdisciplinary artist, like Samuel Beckett. There is a photographic quality in the work of Samuel Beckett and the tool to find it is a camera as well as a pen.

This interdisciplinary study aligns itself with Beckett’s aesthetic and critical approaches to art as well as reasserting the experimental context in which he worked. By including my own photographs (“Photographing Beckett”), I redirect critical pseudomorphosis back onto Beckett’s work, using images as a mode of textual interpretation.

In adopting a critical approach based on a logic inherent to the text, literary analysis serves the text on its own terms, rather than projecting onto it the narrative of the analyst. Pseudomorphosis in criticism, then, is not only an exercise appropriate to an author like Beckett but also an overlooked mode of interpretation that can unveil aspects of a text that the ‘neat identifications’ of strictly linguistic analyses cannot.

Beckett’s approach to criticism in his own early critical works Dante… Bruno. Vico.. Joyce and Proust informs the series of photographs created for this essay. As a critic, Beckett avoided “complete identification” between the critic’s abstract and the artist’s text. Instead of uniting critical work (the essay) and creative work (the text) relatively, he lets each side exist absolutely, allowing the critic’s ideas and the text’s to relate as wholes. Thus, the images I present do not illustrate exactly or interpret completely, but rather present a separate absolute to act as a foil for multiple interpretations of the text.

The building blocks of text and image

Far from Lessing’s original conception of poetry and painting as separate but equal, Samuel Beckett’s approach instead unites the two from the bottom up. In his unprejudiced choice of media, switching from the pure image of film and mime to immaterial words of radio plays we see exchange rather than isolation. Beckett links language inextricably with the visual, leaving painting and poetry equal, but not separate. In fact, their conceptual proximity manifests itself in material synchronicity. Literary theorists agree, the smallest coherent unit of language consists of the word. In photography, the smallest unit is a photon of light. The interdependence of words and light, the building blocks of text and image, illustrate the close relationship of texts and photographic images.

Though the association of silence with darkness seems to be a basic assumption, the alliance of words with light is a less evident one. The pairing of light and words, the building blocks of image and text, acts as a microcosm for the relationship to be established between the visual and the textual throughout the work.

Beckett shows that, regardless of his thoughts on the relationship between literature and the arts, in the world of his texts these most basic components are always found together and accompany each other in an insistent way.

The technical aspects of the 1963 play entitled Play are based on this alliance. A spotlight dictates every word spoken by the characters (“speech is provoked by a spotlight,” he writes in the note). Even the volume of speech corresponds proportionally to the strength of the illumination.

In Company, written 17 years later, the union continues: "By the voice a faint light is shed. Dark lightens while it sounds. Deepens when it ebbs. Lightens with flow back to faint full. Is whole again when it ceases." ("La voix émet une lueur. Le noir s’éclaircit le temps qu’elle parle. S’épaissit quand elle reflue. S’éclaircit quand elle revient à son fabile maximum. Se rétablit quand elle se tait.") While in Play the voice is a consequence of the light (“provoked by the light” / “extorquée par la lumière” ) and in Company the light is a consequence of the voice (“la voix émet une lueur”), the two function in unison. “The response to light is immediate,” the stage directions for Play read. Though one precedes the other in theory, the image and language act in unison, appearing to the eye and the ear simultaneously. In Company, especially in the parallel phrases of the French version (“S’épaissit quand…S’éclaircit quand…Se rétablit quand”), the voice and its light ebb and flow in unison as dancers that move seamlessly together though one leads and the other follows.

One can thus assume that because they are connected at the root through word and light, text and image are linked as well. In some cases the image generates the text, as in the careful description of a scene imagined by the author or a mysterious tableau that begs for resolution, in which case the viewer produces her own text. More commonly, the text captures an image, using words to construct, destruct, and manipulate a scene over time. In both ways, visual and verbal are company on the most basic level, and so too at levels more complex.

Failure to Represent: Ill Seeing and Ill Saying

Known by many as a ‘poet of impossibility,’ Beckett challenges the artist to express within the constraints of a faulty medium. A more appropriate title would be ‘poet of the impossible medium,’ since the burden of failure “lies not with Beckett the particular artist but with art itself.” Some critics take him for the source of impossibility in literature, as if he wrote it into existence, when in fact ‘impossibility’ originates in language itself. Beckett highlights the impossibility of complete representation which stands between him and poetry.

Realizing the arbitrary nature of the sign, Beckett reveals the whole mechanism to be a kind of linguistic magic act, convincing but logically impossible. Clever magician in one moment, skeptical heckler in the next, the narrator of the Beckett text pulls language out of a hat then mentions the trapdoor in the table. Whereas traditional narrators rely on logical progression in time and space, the Beckett narrator, like the magician, relies on sight. Beckett’s work uses visualizations to destabilize language in the same way Saussure did when he visually separated the signifier and the signified.

Beckett’s distrust of language likens his aesthetic to a visual and specifically photographic sensibility. The photograph is dual in that it is both signifier and signified. The photograph is also contradictory in that the signified is absent in the face of the signifier. “The magic power of images,” Vilém Flusser writes in his book on photography, “lies in their superficial nature and the dialectic inherent in them.” Photographs, more than any other pictorial form, challenge the conventional notion of representation most clearly for they do so both on the surface of the image and in the problematic relationship to a ‘real life’ subject. “The willingness to display the struggle,” McMillan writes, “is itself a form of honesty that Beckett has admired in contemporary visual artists and that places him in their tradition.” Photography embodies the struggle between an image and its referent, the signifier and signified, the same struggle that occurs in Beckett’s work.

The presence of a sign without a referent makes photography hinge on the question of absence. Flusser reminds viewers, “it is wrong to look for ‘frozen events’ in images,” because the event doesn’t exist there. Roland Barthes addresses the centrality of absence in La Chambre claire, which has since influenced its centrality in much of contemporary photographic theory. Showing photographs to someone, we usually say something like, “Look, this is my brother,” or “See, here I am,” speaking of the referent in present tense. For Barthes this intimacy highlights absence; the initial “Here it is” inevitably changes to “That has been.”

Beckett’s texts too function by a logic of absence. He once suggested that if he were to write a critical piece on his own texts, he would start with a quotation from Democritus, “Nothing is more real than nothing.” Rightly so, nothing is more present than absence when addressing the link between signifier and signified in Beckett’s prose. For example, in Worstward Ho the text contains words whose referents, according to the narrator, do not even properly exist.

"It stands. What? Yes. Say it stands. Had to up in the end and stand. Say bones. No bones but say bones. Say ground. No ground but say ground."

Beckett’s narrator presents a schism between the reality from which the words are drawn and their linguistic existence. There is no ground but you must still say it. The narrator says, “It stands,” without knowing what “it” signifies, if it signifies anything. He then asks, “What?” to which no answer can be given. Language exists as if in its own dimension, where not even the simplest pronoun has a referent. Similarly, though the reader understands the referent of the words “bones” and “ground” more clearly than “it,” he may as well not, since there are “no bones” and “no ground” present anyway. To “say bones” does not conjure physical bones into material presence. Rather, the word “bones” begins to exist of its own accord, separate from its absent referent.

The repeated “say,” sounds like the French “c’est,” which reinforces the finality of the signifier as signified: the signifier “is.” “No bones, but it is bones,” the phrase would read. Even though there are no physical bones as referent, the word “bones” as sign is present. Language, therefore, like a photograph, can present a sign without signifying any referent at all.

In the first act of Happy Days Winnie is buried up to her waist in sand. In the second, the sand is up to her neck. “And should one day the earth cover my breasts, then I shall never have seen my breasts, no one ever seen my breasts,” Winnie says in Act One. The statement, “I shall never have seen my breasts,” negates all the past instances on which she has seen them. We see that Winnie uses the same philosophy of absence as in Worstward Ho. She uses a visual logic for existence so that the day her breasts cease to exist visually, they cease to exist referentially. The image dictates the logic of Beckett’s world to such an extent that the existence of a concept is denied by its physical absence, as if each play and each prose piece were a framed image with a limited and limiting visual vocabulary.

Beckett returns to Saussure’s definition of the linguistic sign as signifier and signified occupying two halves of a circle. The one hastens towards the other, but ultimately they remain physically discrete. Saussure prefaces his discussion with the reminder that it is “[anything but true] that the linking of a name and a thing is a very simple operation.” This Beckett clearly demonstrates, challenging even the reader to reevaluate his process of linking words with their referents.

Ill Seen Ill Said challenges the ability of language to signify something ‘ill seen’ in the mind. The sentences are short and the text hesitates to articulate even at the level of the word. “[W]hat is the wrong word,” the narrator repeats throughout the piece. This interjected cadence is seemingly an attempt to call to mind what anyone else would call the ‘right word.’ In replacing the silent mental search for the Flaubertian mot juste with an outwardly-spoken loss for the “wrong word,” Beckett rejects even the possibility of a right word. In questioning the ability of the medium to do what it’s expected—namely, to present one with the right word—Beckett shifts the goal of language away from representation (since the right word for what he’s trying to say doesn’t exist) and back to simply presentation.

The narrator does not apathetically deny the existence of the right word. Actually, the narrator of Ill Seen Ill Said does not settle for just any wrong word, he searches for it in all its specificity: it is the wrong word. In the French Mal Vu Mal Dit, the wrong word cadence reads, “comment mal dire.” This phrase of course resonates with the title more closely than the English, and it presents the narrator with the question not just of ‘how to say it’ (comment dire) but, by adding that modifier, how to say it in a specific way. In both versions, ‘wrong’ or ‘mal’ modifies a popular expression (‘what is the word’ or ‘comment dire’), replacing the typical modifier, ‘right’ or ‘bien,’ denoting clearly the vigilance with which one must fail. “Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” runs a line from Worstward Ho. Here every word is a wrong word and everything said, ill said. Some words, however, are just more wrong than others.

Rather than working to find the perfect signifier to express what is signified, Beckett divorces the pair. He rejects reliable signification beyond the word by questioning its very ability to signify beyond the page. Beckett’s understanding of language assumes that the visual absence of a referent within the space suggested by the text (that place where there are no bones nor ground) cancels out the signification of the word. Thus, the rules of language change constantly depending on the presence of a referent. This conception at once separates the signifier from its dependence on the signified as well as integrating the two completely, as with the trickery of a photograph’s simultaneous sign and “present” referent.

My photo series “Faire l’image” visualizes the struggle to represent using such questionable systems of signs by documenting the painstaking construction of an image. This series takes its title from Beckett’s 1959 prose piece, L’image. A sort of painting in motion described in one short unpunctuated rush, the piece ends “c’est fait j’ai fait l’image.” With l’image faite, the sentence ends, having no further goal than to make the image. The construction of images here directly parallels the construction of a text.

Let us examine the series. Beginning with a place, dark except for the dim light coming from a window, and the light from it reflected in a mirror on the right, the photographs build a scene piece by piece. With each new photograph, the light in the room grows and the space becomes more defined. The light, as we have already seen, is the voice. This opening scene with the light coming into the darkness therefore visualizes the very beginning of Company: “A voice comes to one in the dark.” “A voice,”––a light, the first photograph––“comes to one,”––a chair stands in for the “one” in the second image, then a figure, perhaps the narrator appears, but is then replaced again with a surrogate, here they are stones in the fourth image––“in the dark.” The different physical permutations of the “one in the dark” (chair, figure, stones) parallel the continual shifts of listener and speaker identity in Company. The voice, at once the narrator and the listener, comes from the one who “devises it all.” In the same way, the photographer creating the image at first only coyly shows herself, first erecting a tree (sixth), then darkly glimpsed in a mirror (seventh), always hidden in the scene. By the end, though, as in Company, the images grow more reflexive, the mirrors more reflective, and the creator presents herself fully, only slightly blurred. From the very start, the images and the text address manipulation. The presence of two windows, one real and one reflected, suggests stereoscopic vision as if the windows were two crooked eyes looking out onto the world. The artifice of this stereoscope hearkens back to the magic of perspective. Though initially convincing, the false reflection should announce itself to the viewer. The images present the typically photographic monoscopic view of art—the camera’s one-eyed lens capturing incomplete reflection mirrors the signifier’s stilted correlation with its signified. As the scenes progress, the camera appears multiplied in the mirror, the number of lights (of voices) grows, and the narrator, the deviser of it all presents herself to the eye of the camera. In the last photograph the photographer shows not her face or eyes but her hands, with which she has manipulated the scene, the text. She, like the narrator of Company takes a bow, acknowledging her deceptive work: “bow down your head till it can bow down no further. But with face upturned for good labor in vain at your fable.” The space defined, the image made, and the game played, the narrator appears again as she first presented herself in image three: “And you as you always were. / Alone.”

The visual and linguistic struggle, between the author, his work, and his words plays out in many texts. “Faire l’image” applies to more pieces than Company alone; in fact, I didn’t even conceive of the project with Company specifically in mind. Made rather in the general polymorphic vein of Beckett’s textual sensibility, the series, in its lack of linguistic specificity acts as a model through which to view multiple texts and concepts. The images are arranged as they are; it is the work of the critic and the reader to continue to improvise on this line of images.

For example, “Faire l’image” could also call to mind a play. In Endgame, Hamm verbally conjures lush natural scenes that starkly contrast the bleak two-windowed interior of the space centered around his throne-like chair. Relating these critical images to plays and films, media already rich in visuals, illuminates more than a simple rephotographing preexisting Beckett images. The chair covered with a white sheet (photograph ten) recalls Hamm’s position at the opening of Endgame, seated and draped before Clov unveils him. The photographs contain more than mere duplicate scenes; they visually weave the text of the play into the given image. Hamm’s dreams materialize piece by piece, branch by branch. “If I could sleep…” he muses to himself, “I’d go into the woods. … Nature! [Pause] There’s something dripping in my head. [Pause] A heart, a heart in my head.” The impossible work of transforming an attic into a forest by piecing together twigs and branches heightens the hopelessness of Hamm’s own voyage into a distant forest. His words appropriate the space, transforming it into a makeshift mental landscape, the scenery we might find inside a skull. Thus the likeness in image rather than language motivates the illogical narrative transition from the woods and nature to what is “in [his] head.” Here, the two combine physically to form an image than illustrates the logic Hamm’s words.

In a study of a few of the specialty artist books made to accompany Beckett texts, Judith Weschler addresses the important interpretive role of images. “Illustrations are a form of hermeneutic: concerned with interpretation, their view is partial and uncritical, unlike exegesis or practical exposition. … The imagery need not be the same as that of the text but should have the qualities of fragmentation, paradox, and irony.” Though I would disagree with her suggestion that exegesis is impartial and partiality uncritical, I certainly agree with Weschler’s understanding of images as a hermeneutic. The images I present, unlike illustrations, do not accompany Beckett’s texts. They do however feature fragmentation, paradox, and irony while at the same time acting as a form of criticism. Photographs accompany criticism here and each following three sections of this argument has a corresponding set of images to illustrate not the text but a theory of the text. The images highlight relationships, themes, and formal elements common in many of Beckett’s texts without needing to verbally name every element in the picture as it applies to each individual text.

Perception: The eye that sees but is not human

Beckett’s engagement with technology in his experimental work with radio, sound recording, television, and film, laid the groundwork for an interdisciplinary approach to the arts and facilitated a discourse around machines of reproduction (camera, tape recorder) that now dominates post-modern art theory. The use of audio/visual devices not only as equipment but also as metaphor informs plays and prose alike. Even his prose implicitly proposes theories of photography. The photographic eye, a cycloptic entity, distinctly different and “other” than the “eye of flesh,” perceives every movement of the central character from as many angles as possible.

The most literal fusion of the perceiving eye with the camera occurs in the 1965 film Film, which presents a philosophy of photography linked closely with the self-perception. Film personifies the eye as a camera angle, shot from eye-level that tracks the main character from behind and also as a character referred to in the script as “Eye” (the other character being “Object”), a fragmentation of the character’s ego. Buster Keaton, who plays Object (and Eye when finally revealed), flees the vision of the camera Eye, as well as every other eye he encounters (neighbors, pets, anthropomorphosed envelopes, and eyes reproduced in photographs) in an attempt to escape perception. As the viewer sees only the frames viewed by the Eye, that is, the camera (in addition to a few point-of-view shots from Object’s perspective), he never sees the face of the fleeing Keaton until the end of the film. When the camera Eye finally corners the Object into a head-on view, the audience sees for the first time that Keaton wears an eye patch, which morphs him into a physical embodiment of the monoscopic camera. In the clear almost heavy-handed gesture of giving Object only one eye, Beckett addresses perception and self-perception as inextricably linked with the lens of the camera itself.

The perceiving eye in Beckett though is usually divorced from a specific human seer and photography perceives space distinctly different than human eyes do. One crucial difference between human lenses and a photographic lens is stereoscopic and monoscopic vision––two lenses versus one. The parallax between our two eyes allows us to perceive the world in three dimensions, whereas Keaton, like the camera, sees only in two. Despite the fact that the camera’s optics and aspect ratio derive from human vision, the photographer’s one lens is not equivalent to our two. The classical tradition in visual representation, attempts to overcome the difference by using perspective to trick the eye into seeing stereoscopically. Trained for centuries in the tradition established by Renaissance painters, most viewers see photographs too as a “transparent plane, a ‘window’ leading beyond the painting” rather than a world of signs on paper. The dominance of perspective and of realistic representation in the visual arts recalls the linguistic act of simply associating a word with its referent, without accounting for the complexity of the signifier-signified relationship.

While one could at first see the eye as belonging to the gaze of the audience, more closely examined, these scenarios present instead the eye of an outside perceiver, or sometimes the duplicated eye of the character himself. Even though the plays frequently toy with the idea of the traversed fourth wall, the eyes of the audience can be eliminated from this discussion since they are always plural, stereoscopic, while the eye of the camera-entity is singular. Clov in Endgame peers out at the audience through his magnifier and describes seeing “multitudes [plural] in transports of joy.” Winnie too speaks of perceiving eyes: “Someone is looking at me still. … Eyes on my eyes.” These lines refer to the audience, but the eye described in prose like Ill Seen Ill Said does not view the protagonist from human heights or with human parallax. The singular eye sees the character everywhere she goes, from near and far and all different angles. The eye is always singular, like the monoscopic camera eye that identifies perspective in art.

In her critical work on Beckett, The Broken Window, Jane Alison Hale indirectly discusses the mobility of the camera, opposing it to the stability of Renaissance painting: "In [Beckett’s] works, human beings no longer occupy a stable and privileged point in space and time from which they may visually organize, give meaning to, and institute relationships with other beings and objects. Instead, they find themselves drifting in and out of vague, undefined fields of vision in which the objects of their gaze appear, disintegrate, combine, separate, approach, and fade away in unpredictable fashion." Though she does not address the camera itself, her language infers it: while “human beings no longer occupy a stable” viewpoint, they “[drift] in and out of [a separate perceiver’s]…fields of vision.” She narrates here Beckett’s break with the perspective of the classical narrator (the stable and privileged) to favor a more camera-oriented narrative in which the characters become objects in the photographer’s frame. I propose to define the “vague undefined field of vision” as being that of the photograph, which delimits space like the classical painting but utilizes perspective in a new way. Examining any photographer’s contact sheets show that, while always photographing the same object, he displaces himself around it, capturing it from as many different angles as possible. Even though the photographer usually chooses only one image to print, his process mirrors that of the eye in Beckett’s texts focusing, losing the object, and refocusing from another angle.

This second series “Ill Seeing,” initially a photographic imagining of Ill Seen Ill Said, shows in images the varying angles of an object presented by the eye to the reader. The montage quality of the series, shifting from close shot (1) to wide shot (2), to medium (3), then point-of-view (4) closely resembles the fragmentary views presented in the text. “Close-up then,” the text reads, using a photographer’s vocabulary, as the narrator focuses on an object hanging on the wall (see first image in “Ill Seeing,” perhaps). Then like the varied shots presented by the photographer after shooting what seems essential to the scene from all the possible angles, the text indicates something like a flipping through a pile of photographs: “And the eye go from one to the other. Back and forth. … In the shack. Over the stones. In the pastures. The haze. At the tomb. And back. And the rest.” The jarring transition between the second to the third photo in the series, as well as between the last two images, a jump from bright to dark, outside to inside, landscape to portrait, and vise versa, draws its erratic logic from the prose. The mechanical focusing, the implementing of various angles, and the arrangement of sometimes incongruous shots, all traits specifically native to taking photographs and presenting them in newspapers, books, or galleries, overtakes the prose to pseudomorphically replace the human narrator with the all-seeing camera eye.

Duplication: Company in the reproduction of self

If the camera represents an all-seeing third party, the photograph represents the fragmented self. The camera, in its ability to visually duplicate one’s image into a two-dimensional surrogate self, facilitates the contemplation of self-perception. Beckett’s pioneering use of the tape recorder in Krapp’s Last Tape to allow Krapp to interact with past versions of himself, informs the use of photography as a paradigm for (self-) perception. Photography and sound Recording, like light and words, represent two sides of one issue in Beckett’s interdisciplinary aesthetic. Like Krapp’s old bands of tape that duplicate him in time and serve as material surrogates for his younger self, photographs too are surrogate memories and incarnations of the self, reproduced and fragmented. Photographs serve as an excellent way of visualizing the duplication and fragmentation in Beckett’s narrative voices.

The fragmentation of selves and multiplication of voices occurs frequently throughout Beckett’s work. The most well-known example of polymorphous narrators occurs in The Unnamable in which the narrators (or characters, depending on whether they decide to say “I” or not) have different names and different situations (I, Basil, Mahood, Worm), but they all fracture from the same voice just as an image can be distorted and reprinted many times from the same negative. In Endgame, Hamm the master narrator tells himself stories, proliferates words, in order to feel less alone: “Then babble, babble, words, like the solitary child who turns himself into children, two, three, so as to be together, and whisper together, in the dark.” This single sentence dictates the theme Beckett returned to over twenty years later in the writing of Company, which centers on the mirror-like duplication of narrators and characters.

The narrator of Company, tells of a scene with listener and speaker, both duplications, fragmentations, and creations of the narrator himself. He refers to the speaker as the, “Devised deviser devising it all for company” Not only then does the speaker imagine a listener for company, but the narrator suggests that the speaker himself is a figment devised to accompany the narrator. Thus, though Company narrates a story of a little boy, a listener, a reader, and other passing figures, each of them is only just a picture from a different angle of the one object of the piece—the narrator. Though he remains largely hidden, each of the duplications reflects his image back at the reader, as in a camera’s interior mirror or a photographic negative. He describes the hearer as a mirror image of the speaker, both therefore mirror images of himself: “feeling the need for company again he tells himself to call the hearer M at least. For readier reference. Himself some other character. W. Devising it all himself included for company.” If one is on his back in the dark, say W, looking up into the black, he devises not company but a mirror. Looking up, he sees not W, himself, nor someone new, but M, a “listener,” who is really just a vertical mirrored image of W. The visual mirror applied to text illustrates once more the prevalence visual duplication in addition to linguistic fragmentation.

The photograph “Self-Socializing” explores this theme. Like the narrator of Company, who creates voices and characters in a world of fable only to find himself in the end “Alone,” this series exploits the role of photography in Beckett’s work in duplicating the self both for immediate comfort and to heighten a sense of solitude. Though “Self-Socializing” is populated in the manner of a cocktail hour, and lit with afternoon sunlight, certain images present in the room reaffirm the underscoring solitude of the subject. The caged unicorn, the turned off light fixtures, the camera on the wall, and Keaton’s face covered by his hands in a still of Film on the television, all point to lone activities and the entrapment of company. Only in the back of the frame, partially hidden by an arm but emerging from behind a door, does one see the true subject, alone, bewildered by the company she has created. Like the narrator of Company who only appears veiled in his devised reproductions, the photographer, not physically present in her duplicates, resembles them and hides behind their company. “How better in the end labor lost and silence,” she thinks, walking towards the scene.

Negation: The philosophy of ripping up pictures

Once duplicated into physical existence, the vision of the self, already fractured into multiple personalities, often ends in pieces. Of the few Beckett characters that encounter physical photographs, the majority of them tear the photos to bits in an attempt to undo representation and perhaps reject self-contemplation. In an act that destroys the imperfect signifier, the photograph, Beckett’s characters attempt to reinstate the unity of the sign, leaving the referent’s body itself, the object of the torn photograph, both signified and sole signifier. Whether intended to destroy the dangerously convincing artifice or its simultaneous announcement of absence, the characters with photographs place disproportionately great worth on the photographic power to signify. The failure of signs, the perception of self, and the loneliness of the duplicate all implicate themselves in the character’s destructive frustration.

Keaton’s Object character in Film tears up photographs of himself from different periods in his life, childhood to present, in his continued attempt to escape perception of others and avoid his own perception of himself. Krapp’s stopping and fast-forwarding of his tapes functions in a similar way: instead of destroying the image physically he destroys the voice temporally by scrambling the sound. Prose too accounts for episodes of photograph shredding. In Malone Dies, Moll flirtatiously gives a picture to Macmann, her love interest. “In the end Macmann tore up his photograph and threw the bits in the air, one windy day. Then they scattered, though all subjected to the same conditions, as though with alacrity.” The photograph of Moll is all the more dear to Macmann after she has died. He scatters her image as if it were the ashen remains of her body, yet the pieces fly away “with alacrity” and he is almost joyful to have done so. Often, characters react strongly to the represented presence of an absent object.

On the other hand, Beckett’s texts and characters commonly reject any mimetic representation, especially one that stresses absence in the first place. The set of Endgame, for example, contains a framed picture, face turned to the wall. If Endgame can speak for Beckett’s texts in general, the rejection of a representational image points only to the pain of knowing its absence. Beckett magnifies the absence of the referent seen in photography to a global scale in the play. Trapped in a building set in the middle of a wasteland which Clov describes as “Zero,” the characters witness even in the course of the play a gradual dying out of things, of referents. Hamm runs out of painkillers; Nagg has no more biscuits; Clov exterminates a flea and attempts to kill a rat. The world of these characters multiplies tenfold the absence felt in the photograph. Since everything is already absent—bicycles, forests, Turkish delight—one more reminder of absence only makes the room more barren.

A kind of ceremony accompanies all the examples of defacing pictures, as if they were made only to be destroyed. Keaton sits down to look at photographs he withdraws from a folder and one by one rips them in half twice. Krapp sits down at his desk to listen to his tapes, knowing he’ll have to stop them at certain moments. Clov never mentions the reversed picture on the wall and we assume its reversed status is normal. Macmann attends the scattering of Moll’s image with a poetic sensibility and an almost religious duty. The regularity with which characters destroy photographic signs testifies to their power to represent clearly and also the pain of their distance from the true referent.

“The Last Autoportrait,” my series of twelve photographs, examines the ritual nature of duplication, recognition, trickery, and destruction in Beckett as an example of the cycle of creation and destruction that all signs are put through in his work.

In a setting that resembles Krapp’s desk, lit with a single light in general darkness, I examine old self-portraits one by one. I order them, recognize myself in them, realize the absence of the different periods of my life in which they were taken, and then tear them up, and put them back into their envelope. Though the destruction of signifiers results from a desire to remove the duality and reinstate the purity of the sign, scenes of destruction always come as signs in a language. Like writing, “Say bones but no bones,” the revelation of absence and falsehood in words and photographs comes only after their initial meaning has been automatically inferred. Because he is always serving a faulty system of signs, the artist’s attempt to expose that system only works because of the systematic nature of a visual or written language. Attempting to suggest through language that words are without referents or through pictures that photographs do not show what they seem is as ironic as suggesting through a series of self-portraits that all self-portraits should be ritually destroyed.

Samuel Beckett: Advocate for Interdisciplinary Criticism

Judith Weschler proposes, “Perhaps illustration is the kind of interpretation¬––without criticism or verbal commentary––that Beckett could countenance.” Even though this statement highlights her misconception about the visual’s lack of critical power, it signals an important move towards interpretation of Beckett’s work in a non-verbal medium.

Though Beckett was known to encourage readers’ varied interpretations, saying, “If that’s what you believe, good for you,” when confronted with the supposedly objective word of the critic, pinning down the absolutes of meaning, he rejects explication. Perhaps one of the most remembered encounters between author and critic was between Beckett and Theodor Adorno at Frankfurt in 1961. They met in a café to lunch along with their German publisher Siegried Unseld, whose publishing house, Suhrkamp, was being honored that night. Speaking about an essay on Endgame he was to present that evening at the reception, Adorno explained to Beckett his theory about the etymology of names in the play, particularly “the derivation of ‘Hamm’ from ‘Hamlet.’” Beckett replied simply, “Sorry, Professor, but I never thought of Hamlet when I invented this name.” Somewhat uncharacteristic for the reader-response-friendly Beckett, this comment prompted Adorno to defend his view even more, leading to an unpleasant disagreement. An angered Beckett scoffed quietly to Unseld that night when Adorno read this part of his paper to the audience. “This is the progress of science that professors can proceed with their errors!”

This story is more than just another anecdote about the stereotyped debate between the self-serving critic and the proud writer, the mythology that separates the critical from the creative arts in the first place. Beckett refutes Adorno not as a writer, but as a critic himself, a skill he had refined over his years as a literature student at Trinity and throughout his early career as a reviewer. Of course Adorno could accuse Beckett of committing an “intentional fallacy” by suggesting what he “thought of” (or didn’t) while writing is important. Beckett, though, only rejects this one bit, without commenting on the rest of the essay’s discussion of “loss of meaning, identity, decline, and decay.” Because not all of Adorno’s interpretations irritated him, we know it wasn’t just a personal grudge, but that Beckett just disapproved of this certain method of reading. Regardless of the name’s origin, biblical, culinary, or Shakespearean, Adorno’s unwillingness to accept an alternate theory (and he didn’t; the reprinted essay retains the Hamlet etymology and has since been picked up by Harold Bloom) was the real problem. His overidentification of the text with a specific idea closes it down to a simple one-to-one equation: Hamm = Hamlet.

Adorno’s approach represents an entirely different discipline than that practiced by the various individual readers that tracked down Beckett himself to test out their own undergraduate theories. Notably, Beckett classifies Adorno’s mode of criticism as a “science” in which “errors” are corrected and “progress” made. Not to say that schools of criticism and theory don’t come and go, building upon one another in a semblance of progression. By seeing criticism as a “science” Beckett both compliments and insults the discipline, showing his faith in its potential credibility, yet thinking of it in terms of stale data and incorrect numbers. But, as Beckett knew from his own aphoristic opening lines, criticism is more an art of interpretation than a science of unlocking meaning. Beckett’s early critical commentary foresees the introduction of an artistic, especially visual, sensibility to criticism. Visual reinterpretations promote resemblance based on the whole rather than the part, thus addressing Beckett’s rejection of direct correlation and feeling for the ineffectiveness of verbal equations. The direct but fragmented correlation between the first three letters of Hamm and Hamlet robs each text of its independent whole, reducing each to a positivist critic’s relative amputations. A visual interpretation of Hamm as Hamlet, however, could be much less limiting.

“The danger is in the neatness of identifications.” The opening line of Beckett’s first published work (a work of criticism as it happens) exemplifies his multifaceted/creative approach to criticism. The first line of Proust reads, “The Proustian equation is never simple.” As if a foreword warning the reader of the impossible nature of the endeavor at hand, the fundamental problem of written criticism, these two first sentences champion (broad) understanding over precise semiotic equations. Adorno’s “Hamm = Hamlet” equation, for instance, is neat and simple, and therefore contradictory to Beckett’s own critical ideal. In these two early essays, a young Beckett searches for a mode of criticism that will not close down the text into an equation or dictionary definition. He looks for a way around the literal correspondence between the words of the critic and those of the artist.

The opening paragraph of “Dante…Bruno.Vico..Joyce” elaborates on the problem of ‘neat’ identifications: “[Vico] insisted on complete identification between the philosophical abstraction and the empirical illustration, thereby annulling the absolutism of each conception—hoisting the real unjustifiably clear of its dimensional limits, temporalizing that which is extratemporal. And now here am I, with my handful of abstractions…” Beckett recognizes here the parallel between Vico’s problematic philosophical identifications and his own forthcoming critical identifications. Beckett’s “And now here am I” underscores the irony of his own potential failure. The danger of ‘neat’ or complete identification is equally present to both philosopher and critic. The critic arrives at the text, with his “handful of abstractions,” ready to pin them to various episodes of the book, to create “complete identification” between text and abstraction.

In "Dante…Bruno.Vico..Joyce," Beckett does not pair his abstractions with “empirical illustrations” from Finnegans Wake, the subject of his essay. Instead, he refuses the direct identification typical of criticism, in favor of a broader view, thus preserving the “absolutism” (or integrity) of Joyce’s conceptions, Vico’s, and his own. “These two aspects of Vico have their reverberations, their reapplications—without, however, receiving the faintest explicit illustration—in Work in Progress.” Though he does, of course, give textual evidence for his findings, Beckett’s claim against “explicit illustration,” acts more as a reader’s guide to interpreting the essay, rather than a restriction on close reading. Instead of arranging piecemeal identifications, the critic rather relates the text in its entirety to the abstraction in its entirety. By keeping the text theoretically whole and in context, he refrains from “hoisting the real unjustifiably clear of its dimensional limits.” In other words, Beckett insists on the supremacy and the materiality of the text. The text is and is only the text, no gloss included, no assumptions made. The ‘absolute’ text lies outside critical commentary and (especially in the case of Finnegans Wake criticism) decoding. In a similar way, the critic’s own work, his ideas, retains its own ‘absolute.’ Rather than always playing backup to the subject of his study, the critic can create his own tune. Though the young Beckett was accused of ripping off his style from Joyce, his early essays have been remembered and revered more for their own distinct tone than for their canonization of Joyce or Proust.

Later in his career, Beckett finds the answer in images. Images, which are at once a reality in themselves and an indefinable abstraction, present the reader with a thousand more meanings than a set of words ever could. By introducing into his texts an extremely photographic set of images, Beckett suggests the critics too grab onto images more than just words as a way of understanding through pseudomorphic methods.

Predictably, Adorno, like Lessing before him, hated the idea of pseudomorphosis. “The moment one art imitates another,” Adorno writes, “it becomes more distant from it by repudiating the constraint of its own material, and falls into syncretism, in the vague notion of an undialectical continuum of arts in general.” Samuel Beckett, whose constant back-and-forth between drama, fiction, and television sets him against Adorno’s aesthetic preferences in the first place, gives one the sense that he simply wanted to express his ideas, which were conceived outside of any artistic discipline, with whatever medium best presented itself to him at the time. Rightly so, the same motifs recur throughout his work regardless of medium. Indeed, Beckett’s view of the arts seems to have been precisely as an “undialectical continuum,” with each art as imperfect and flexible as the next.

Photographs present a playing field for ideas and associations, a contained set of relationships onto which power dynamics can be mapped, a representation of reality, and yet a mere staging of a scene presented into the black box of the camera as a if a reenactment of a play in a space devoid of set; photography announces itself as significant play. Significant in its reference to a specific body’s reflection of light; play in its ability to convince the viewer to identify the subject as a surrogate for another. Beckett, an avid chess player, would have appreciated Flusser’s likening of the photograph to the black and white game: “a photograph is not a tool like a machine; it is a plaything like a playing card or chess-piece.” That is, a photograph can be used within a greater system of play to achieve an end. The photograph has no one single use, like the camera’s mechanical function to record light on film. Though the product of a machine, the photograph releases itself of empirical utility to play for whatever game chooses it. Beckett recognized early in his career the photograph’s potential play in visualizing texts when he asked that the cover of his novel Murphy bear a picture of two monkeys playing chess, with the caption, “What! You are giving up your Queen? Sheer madness!” Though no edition ever donned the image (though one should!), the photograph, which Beckett had seen in a journal as part of an advertisement, illustrates his awareness of the polysemous and flexible nature of what is often seen as a singular expression of a particular event. The institutionally white setting of the photograph suggests the mental hospital where Murphy works, and these two monkeys are undoubtedly Murphy and the patient Mr. Endon playing their habitual game of chess. Photography is no mode of illustration; it is instead a way of reconsidering relationships from a distance. Anthropomorphosing the monkeys into characters, the viewer simultaneously narrativizes the image into a story, attempting to fit it onto the novel as implausibly as the words “Sheer madness!” fit into a chimpanzee’s open mouth.

Photographs are of a reductive nature. From a greater whole they single out details, frame out the inessential, and illuminate necessities. In this same vein the critic concentrates the text into its most essential features projected onto a simple rectangles, pages or books, like those of the photograph. Overall, the practice of pairing photography with criticism opens possibilities of reading not present in linguistic analysis alone. In addressing Samuel Beckett’s textual images with an interdisciplinary approach similar to his own, the true nature of the work comes to light. This lies not in the specificity of linguistic connotation (Hamm=Hamlet) but in the more open and elusive relationship between textual and visual understanding where one image dramatizes a multiplicity of interpretations.

Afterword: The Critical Arts

Beckett’s work functions as mediator between the linguistic and the visual. In as much as he incorporated a visual approach into his written work, he served as a go-between for painting and poetry. Now, as the subject of many studies both critical and creative, Beckett’s work is a literal meeting-ground for critics and visual artists.

The beginning of an exchange of techniques in the arts, occurring in the mid to late twentieth century, when theory and photography came to incorporate aspects of the poetic language and painterly construction, coincides with Beckett’s own career and explorations. Though he could not be said to have single-handedly ushered in an era, his work was part of the movement towards dissolving the distinctions between the arts and the rules of how they had to function. His work itself reflects not the transfer of power to theory and photography, but rather the exchange of power between the different arts.

In a way, Beckett’s pseudomorphic approach reinstates the equality of the many arts after they had been sundered and ranked by the Renaissance writers, rephrasing Horace’s Ut pictura poesis as through a crystal, refracting the one statement into its many transformations as it applies to all the arts independently.

Today photographers like Jeff Wall join painters as pure creators. Theorists like Derrida present arguments as lively and poetic as the narratives commented upon. But regardless of how indecipherable they have come to appear, photography won’t become painting any sooner than criticism will replace literature. Though criticism and photography are not ‘poetry and painting,’ that canonized and mythologized pair, they are a form of art: imaginative, innovative, aesthetic. Because photography and theory as arts project an order onto preexisting elements, rather than constructing the elements themselves, I propose to call them the critical arts. Photography, no matter how painterly, always retains a special relationship to reality. Criticism, too, maintains its dependence on analytical thought derived from philosophy even though some modern theorists challenge it. Though they may appear under the guise of creative arts, for all intents and purposes these progeny will always retain the difference that led to their very birth.

Though photography is not one of the traditional visual accompaniments to criticism, it functions in a similar way. It carries the organizations of the graphed plot, web of characters, and map of diegetic location. Like these previously acceptable visual components of literary analysis, a photograph can do the same work and better in some instances. Photography’s flat rectangle, like that of the chart, orders contents into binaries and other logical groupings: hierarchies are displayed through gaze and composition, relationships established spatially in the frame. Like a map, a photograph can suggest setting through either a display of photographed locations or through a show of situations related to the story. Both contextualize the diegetic space. Though photographs made to accompany this essay do not compare in renown to those of masters so often used to illustrate theory’s ideas, but they do act as a demonstration of principles of photography that can be applied to literature and as an embodiment of the theory of pseudomorphosis. Photographs rightly accompany criticism not only in this specific context but also more broadly, in light of the movement towards embracing “graphs, maps, and trees” in studying literature.

I certainly do not feel compelled to remain within the borders of the literal because Beckett himself had no special relationship with photography; it was rather painting and film that inspired him. Numerous paintings are referenced in detail in his work and, when he was younger, he famously wrote to Sergei Eisenstein inquiring if he might be taken on as an apprentice of film. Regardless of biography, his thoughts, words, and images are of the same sensitive and dubious material as the photograph. And, as we have seen in the reverse logic of photographs, perhaps the absence of a specific medium may in fact point to its very presence.

All photographs present the viewer with, if not a narrative then at least the desire to create a narrative. As such, photography is a critical method. Editing, framing, focusing, and ordering are all abilities of the critic. The photograph, says Stephen Shore, is more than simple illustration and more even than creation: “an illustration is aiming the camera at the direction of some content, while the photograph is making sense of it.” Thus the photographer, like the critic, translates information, life or literature, into, if not a more comprehensible language, then at least an understandable gestalt.

By opening criticism to visual language one can curtail overly simple verbal equations. The task of translating the work from one medium to another (from text to image in my case) allows the piece to maintain total control over the reader in one medium, while inviting exploration and critique in another. Addressing the text in what Beckett calls “the absolutism of its conception,” offers critics an alternative to reductionist readings.

This approach seems to falsely assume the text itself is in danger of being destroyed by critics and deserves its status as untouchable––certainly not. In fact, the most written-about texts, Beckett’s included, continue to generate new discourse of their own accord. I only present a form of criticism more suited to an aesthetic akin to the text, suggesting by the way that perhaps the reader ought to engage the text with a mentality similar to the one with which it was written. This conceptual--rather than historic—recontextualization multiplies meaning and allows the text continued life. As critics, we want to reframe. As photographers, we dissect only with a lens.

Language as Answer and Question: the Dialogue between the I’s of Beckett and Joyce

2006-12-15T09:46:00.000-05:00

James Joyce and Samuel Beckett: pitted against each other by critics and historians alike, this literary couple gave birth to new forms of literature, alone and in collaboration, which continue to influence new generations of writers and critics. Though friendship seems to have less to do with literary movements than politics or painting, for instance, Joyce and Beckett are a particularly significant pair. Not only were they of different generations, but the relationship between their works illustrates an aesthetic movement from the high modernism between the wars to the less definable movements of post-modernism to come only after World War II. The importance of Joyce to Beckett’s work has been argued—“their only similarity is that they are both Dubliners” one critic suggests—though such an argument is long since disproved. Instead, the exact relationship between their works should be examined. Barbard Gluck concludes in her book on the subject, “Beckett is seeking an answer to the problems posed by Joyce’s works,” yet others still suggest he simply parrots his elder's prose.

There is no denying the powerful effect Joyce had on Beckett, both as a writer and a friend. Beckett described his first meeting with Joyce as “exhausting,” and Joyce himself made special efforts to get Beckett the best doctors in Paris after he was stabbed on the street. In a way, one can trace everything back to Joyce: he commissioned Beckett’s first published writing in the Exagmination of Work in Progress, perhaps gave him the idea to become a writer by trade, and had a hand in saving Beckett’s life when Beckett was only 32. But if Joyce’s role was that of a literary father figure, Beckett then could only be a kind of son. Indeed, Peggy Guggenheim thought so: “Joyce loved [Beckett] as a son.” But young love does not last forever: in its standard course, growth begins with infantile imitation, and necessarily continues to adolescent revolt. In the end, Beckett is certainly an independent entity, who defined himself by his difference from Joyce, but retains nevertheless a few surprising likenesses. Beckett’s later work holds traces of Joyce’s masterpieces, as many as thirty years after Joyce died.

Before he had even thought of writing, Samuel Beckett was reading James Joyce. At 21, in the last few months of his own years at Trinity College Dublin, he discovered the most influential author of his then-nonexistent career. Having already read Pomes Penyeach, Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, Beckett was ready, in 1927 to meet one of his favorite authors. Both Irishmen in Paris, Joyce in order to write and Beckett in order to teach (Lecteur in English at the École Normale Superièure), they were introduced by a mutual friend. After this first meeting, the two met on a regular basis for many years: Joyce had Beckett over for dinner, they went on long walks down the Seine and onto the Isle of Swans (L’Allé des Cynes), Beckett read to Joyce to help with research for Finnegans Wake, and Joyce occasionally dictated to him. Though their personal relationship suffered when Beckett rejected the advances of Joyce’s daughter Lucia, and the regularity of his visits decreased (upon Joyce's suggestion), they remained friends and certainly their literary relationship too holds strong.

The writing of Dante…Bruno, Vico..Joyce, begins simultaneously the literary career of Samuel Beckett and the literary relationship of Beckett and Joyce. This congratulatory and wryly written piece addresses Joyce’s readers as potentially lazy and uninterested. As far as reading Joyce goes, Beckett took the opposite approach: not only did he interest himself in the work, he responded to it with his own creation, a response even more flattering than praise.

Beckett’s early writing career mirrors almost perfectly that of his admired role model: an attempted novel goes unpublished (Beckett’s Dream of Fair to Middling Women to Joyce’s Stephen Hero) and is thus turned into a collection of interrelated short stories that take place in Dublin (Beckett’s More Pricks Than Kicks to Joyce’s Dubliners). Extraordinary formal correlations between More Pricks Than Kicks and Dubliners exist. As Gluck notes, both collections begin with paralysis: "
'Dante and the Lobster' opens with Belacqua puzzling over the moon passage in The Divine Comedy. So impenetrable is the poetry that he is 'stuck in the first of the canti,' 'so bogged that he [can] move neither backward nor forward.' This image of paralysis…recalls the initial page of Dubliners and, indeed, the entire theme of that book."

Though thematic elements and the general organization can be seen as derivative, and Beckett even makes an homage to Ulysses in "Dante and the Lobster" (see Belaqua eating a gorgonzola sandwich like Leopold Bloom’s in “Lestrogonians”), the language of the young Beckett is much livelier and more satirical than Joyce’s was at his age (a mere comparison of titles can prove this point). From the very start, Joyce had a much more reverential approach to language than Beckett, who saw language not only as playful (surely influenced by Joyce’s writing of the Wake) but as a hurdle to overcome.

One more significant morsel of Joyce to be found in More Pricks Than Kicks and to continue in a later form, is “The Smeraldina’s Billet Doux.” A letter from Belaqua’s German girlfriend, ‘the Smeraldina,’ this epistle resembles Milly Bloom’s letter, Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, and, later, Anna Livia Plurabelle’s monologue. Following the female monologue that Joyce developed throughout his work, Beckett too tried his hand at the “feminine letter” in his early days and later in his career. Complete with spelling errors and occasional lack or misuse of punctuation, Smeraldina’s letter follows closely on Molly’s. “My body needs you so terrible, my hands and lips and breasts and everything els on me,” she writes. Following Molly’s lead, Smeraldina briefly maps her body in words. Likewise, she too thinks often about physical desire: she thinks about finding another sexual partner (“sometimes I find it very hard to keep my promise but I have kept it up till now”), she can’t resist the temptation to flirt (“a man…asked me to go out with him to dance on Saturday evening, I sopose I will go. … A flirt is very amuseing”), and she finds the female body attractive (“I met a new girl, very beautiful, pitch black hairs and very pale”). Yet another parallel to the Blooms, Smeraldina writes to Belaqua that although they haven’t had sex for some time, she still loves him: “Is he the man I have always been looking for? Yes! but then why cant he give that what I have been longing for for the last 6 months?” Besides having the same sexual desires so frequently used to stereotype Molly, Smeraldina thinks in a similar way, connecting seemingly disparate thoughts, and returning to discussions of her dreams. In what seems more than a coincidence, her letter closes with a remembrance of coitus on a hill, signaling Molly’s own famous ending: "you will be by me and will feel that marvelous pain again that we did in the dark mountains and the big black lake blow and will walk in the fields covered with cowslips and Flieder and will hold once more in your arms..."

Point-by-point, Beckett reconstructs Howth head: the lovers on a mountain (which recalls Molly’s “flower of the mountain”), the water below (the Blooms’ Dublin Bay), the sexual suspense, the cowslips (taken from Bloom’s recollection rather than Molly’s of a the goat “dropping currants”), the flowers (Flieder in German is lilac, though sounds like English ‘flower’; the Blooms roll around in rhododendrons, and again references Molly’s name for herself). Thus, one can see “The Smeraldina’s Billet Doux” as one of Beckett’s first take-offs on Joyce’s work.

However, there is a crucial difference: while one is tempted to take Molly for the sometimes flighty but generally complex character she is, Smeraldina’s broken English and over-sentimentality set up the “Billet Doux” as satire. She starts, “BEL BEL my own bloved, allways and forever mine!! Your letter is soked with tears death is the onely thing. I had been crying bitterly, tears! tears! tears!” Such straightforward expression of romantic sorrow can only be parody. Smeraldina’s repetition of words and exclamation points gives her letter an over-the-top quality from the start. Also, though the reader clearly sees “bloved” to be a vernacularized “beloved”, the humor in reading such a flat, “blah,” one-syllable word, like ‘bloved’ for the three-syllable lilting ‘beloved’ adds to the overzealous capitalizations and exclamations. Beckett carries this tongue-in-cheek style throughout the early stories, already clearly expressing the rift between the words and the intentions that will characterize his later mistrust of words.

As shown in the short examination of the end of Smeraldina’s letter and the end of Molly’s soliloquy, the more similar the basic narrative structure and components are, the comparison becomes the easier and more fruitful. In comparing Joyce’s work with that of Beckett’s that follows, one studies primarily how Beckett appropriated or rejected Joyce’s method. Certainly it is no longer a question of similarity and influence (as for that, the answer is yes), but a question of difference. It is then through the changed response of Beckett that one can return to the work of Joyce, seeing in them what a contemporary reader and close friend would have seen. To continue a concentration on the female monologue, an important element of Joyce’s work, one can examine a much later work of Beckett’s, the 1972 play Not I, again in relation to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. Like in “The Smeraldina’s Billet Doux” Beckett retains certain elements of Joyce’s piece, but discards others. These slight differences reveal to the reader the main points of the great Joyce-Beckett divide.

The present understanding of the differences between Joyce and Beckett roughly generalize Joyce as the unifier and Beckett as the deconstructor. Likewise, most critics agree Beckett’s choice to write in French, starting tentatively in the late thirties and then taking hold in the mid-forties, was a response to his inability to shake Joyce’s style; it was an attempt “to escape…a relation of permanent belatedness to a precursor who saw Beckett as his son.” While “permanent belatedness” is perhaps not the appropriate term to describe a bitingly satirical take-off on Molly Bloom, it is true that Beckett’s earlier works seem closer to those of Joyce. Once he starting working in drama (first with En Attendant Godot in 1952), the divide seemed clear. The open-endedness of the plays (the curtain closes on Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days at moments of climax right before one of the characters makes a decision) were said to be “his response to ‘the overdetermined closure’…of Ulysses’ ‘yes I said yes I will Yes.’” Beckett represents for the critics an opening of closure, and an escape into French from the literary tyranny of father Joyce.

While the comparison of More Pricks Than Kicks with Dubliners would be (and has been) a fruitful work, in choosing later texts, Not I and Ulysses, one can more appropriately judge the whole of an author’s work with the later writing. In comparing the “Penelope” episode of Ulysses to Beckett’s short play Not I, one may demonstrate two opposed understanding of the function of language: one as an Answer to the problem of divide, the other as a reassertion of the Question of divide.

While stream-of-consciousness fiction is not to be confused with a dramatic monologue, in this instance, given the theatricality of the Joycean fiction and the lack of performance allowed to Beckettian drama, the two monologues can be fairly considered side-by-side. Form, content, audience, and language resemble each other so much in nature that the differences in the texts are much subtler and more telling.

First, to bridge the gap of genre, one must examine the performative aspects of Penelope to appropriately compare it to its theatrical counterpart. Despite the experimentation with the play ‘format’ in the Circe chapter of Ulysses, which in no way lends itself to actual theatrical performance (what with speaking gongs, ridiculous costume changes, and stage directions that give more can be physically presented), Penelope is the real dramatic piece of Ulysses. Not only does every word belong to Molly, but the words demand recitation in order to simply understand how to punctuate the phrases. Though the lack of punctuation is one aspect that would be missing to the viewer in a dramatization, this detail would only reinforce the reader’s understanding of the text as necessarily and unconditionally recited. Her songs as well are distracting as printed words (“loves sweet ssooooooong”) but moving when recited. Likewise, the nature of Molly’s vernacular is certainly one of spoken word. Instead of the silence of wandering thought, Molly fills moments of interrupted reflection with “well”s and “O”s and “yes”es. Her ‘soliloquy’ as it is so often called, could only be the enunciations in real time that one would expect of a drama.

Last of all one must not forget that Molly Bloom is a performer by trade, Madam Marion, always ready to put on a costume, take the stage, and open her mouth to the public. Likewise, she makes constant references to her own daily performances and costuming: she “[hops] around” “in [her] skin” for the student across the street who “used to be there the whole time watching with the lights out” ; she devises a scene with which to win Bloom back where she will “go about rather gay not too much singing a bit now and then…[she’ll] put on [her] best shift and drawer to let him have a good eyeful” ; and her final Yes is heightened only by the dramatic pause she has crafted for it, as she doesn’t answer at first, “only looked out over the sea and the sky” as if she had written her own stage directions as was waiting for her cue. Molly’s theatrical persona makes her all the more apt for comparison to Beckett’s play.

The form of the female monologue changed in Beckett from epistle, in “The Smeraldina’s Billet Doux”, to drama, in both Happy Days and the later, shorter, Not I, just as Molly Bloom’s chapter changed in Joyce’s drafts from a series of letters to its present dramatic soliloquy form.

To begin with the general likenesses, one must start with the most obvious—the female character. Molly Bloom finds her counterpart in the protagonist Beckett gives no other name than “Mouth” (mentioned in the stage directions alone), whom the audience perceives lit only on the mouth. This character, like Molly in her soliloquy, can act on the world only in language. Both are immobilized, mouth on stage and Molly in bed. Like the scene of Penelope, one gets a sense that Mouth too speaks during the night, not only from the black of a theatre, but because of her numerous mentions of “moonbeams”. And though Bloom is asleep by the time she starts her monologue, she is directing her words towards him, just as so many of his own worded thoughts were directed towards her. Mouth finds her version of the sleeping Leopold Bloom in the Auditor, an unidentified listener that says nothing, but “a simple sideways raising of arms” is a “gesture of helpless compassion.” Likewise, both Mouth and Molly spend their time reminiscing about childhood, young loves, transgressions, and focusing on a key scene in the wilderness (Molly’s Howth head is later Mouth’s Croker’s Acres). Mouth, too is a stream-of-consciousness speaker, the writing style thought of as “feminine” by Joyce and some critics, and describes herself as one—“and now this stream,” “stream of words.” Perhaps most importantly, Beckett takes from Joyce the form of infinity associated with Molly. While Molly’s monologue famously has eight sentences, which becomes infinity when the number is inclined to Molly’s own position, has little clear movement forward, and begins and ends with Yes, which one could read as circling back upon itself to form a never-ending reading, Beckett’s piece too has an initial lack of forward movement or organization as well as an infinite form: Mouth begins her monologue by a 10 second fade in from “unintelligible” ad-libbed mumbling before the curtain even rises, then leads, more and more intelligibly into her first words. She ends the same way, as if continuing to speak always, only growing more distant from the audience. From style to character to content and form, these two pieces beg for comparison.

The main difference, like in More Pricks Than Kicks, comes at the level of the word. While in Molly’s case an infinity of words establishes her as an appropriate conclusion to an entire novel, a kind of index of infinite information and feeling, Mouth is much more wary of her words. Molly admires and feels comfortable with her own body and the body of her text. Mouth, however, disembodied, feels no physical pleasure, uses her body awkwardly, and finds her text problematic. Though Mouth is no longer the shallow romantic that Smeraldina was, she, like Smeraldina has linguistic difficulties.

The comparison of the word to the body leads back to the Cartesian dilemma of the separation of mind and body—here, the separation of consciousness and word.

Molly’s confessional, tell-all style reveals to the reader a body that has remained mysterious throughout the novel. The long-awaited return to Penelope is more important to the reader than it is to Bloom, who does not even interact with her, save for a kiss on the rump. After suffering the complicated system of narrative and disembodied voices employed in Ulysses, Molly’s soliloquy is the reader’s homecoming to clarity of voice and singularity of body, especially after the lack of either in the previous two episodes. Generally, Molly is seen as a key to the rest of the novel; Joyce called ‘Penelope’ the “clou of the book,” that is, both the best part and the nail that holds everything together (as the saying goes, ‘sans le clou, l'édifice s'écroule’). Thus, Molly is both a support for narrative and a triumph for language. While she is generally seen as an affirming voice because of her wealth of ‘yes’es, Molly’s bodily presence has also been seen in key to affirmation. Van Boheemen-Saaf suggests, “Joyce is, apparently, trying to reduce the gap between culture and nature, matter and language, body and mind.” Rightly so, as it is this unity that Beckett later reproblematizes in Not I. Though Van Boheemen-Saaf sees this gap and “anxiety about being a body” as problematic in the contemporary culture of the time, it seems more likely in Joyce, that the division between matter and language is closer to home: throughout Ulysses Joyce systematically separates the matter of Dublin and the bodies of his characters from the language he uses to describe them. The most remarkable example is the ‘Oxen of the Sun’ chapter which, through paralleling the embryonic development of Stephen Dedalus through language, the language becomes more central than immediate plot, which can only occasionally struggle through the style. In his own way, Joyce dematerializes the body to rematerialize the word. But then in ending with ‘Penelope,’ whose clear voice and present body act as a bridge between consciousness and word, Joyce re-empowers character and plot in its fusion with language. If Joyce is bridging the gap with Molly Bloom, it is only because the rest of the novel called for bridging.

Molly’s task is a heroic one—not only to solve the Cartesian dilemma for Joyce, but to resolve his entire novel. Among Joyce’s marginalia one finds the phrase “odyss of pen” supposedly shorthand for The Odyssey of Penelope, or the Odyssey of the Pen—of Writing. Molly triumphs over the rest of the novel because she enacts its true resolution—not because she is the point on the triangle of Stephen-Bloom-Molly—she resolves the problem of divide between language and action by acting only through language. Molly moves very little during her soliloquy, aside from the stream of blood from one “hole” and the stream of words from the mouth, she acts only in her language of the past and the future.

But is the removal of one element of a dichotomy equivalent to solution? It seems Joyce’s fireworks ending could only be a temporary solution to the problem of mind and body. Perhaps Joyce has no such issues with his writing. While to the reader the plot lies beneath, to Joyce there is nothing but the word. This makes ‘Penelope’ an especially important episode, since a character devotes herself exclusively to language with little to no coinciding temporal plot. For this the reader is thankful, and revels in the sheer materiality, uninhibited by action, of Molly’s text. Though the identity of “he” can be questioned, the reader always knows exactly who the speaking “I” is, ending the novel in a confirmation, not “of life,” but of the word.

Beckett himself acknowledged the Joyce’s achievement over language: “[it] was, epic, heroic, what he achieved. But I realized that I couldn’t go down that same road.” Beckett of course did not mean he would go down the road of failure—but his words would. In a more mature and subtle response to Molly’s monologue, over 50 years after it was written, Not I presents a rejection of Joyce’s cure-all of narrative voice. Whereas the “I” for Joyce and the modernists was the triumph of art over dehumanizing forces of culture, Beckett’s generation could no longer afford such a false triumph. Instead, Beckett presents a woman who cannot say “I” even though she is the subject of her ramblings. Rather than attempt to solve a problem of literature, as Joyce does, Beckett simply presents a problem of literature, leaving the spectator to perhaps find the solution himself, rather than puzzling over an incomplete one presented by the author.

Though Mouth’s monologue speaks of pastoral beauty, childhood, God, sex, and the body, the difference between Not I and ‘Penelope’ lies in the words, not the content. Every time Mouth attempts to say “I” (four times in all) she cannot; “what?..who?..no!..she!..” is rather what comes out. These four refusals divide the play into 5 pieces to mirror Molly’s 8-part monologue of Yeses. This is paired with the inability to feel, another inversion of Molly: “she might do well to…groan…on and off.” Mouth thinks of her sexual encounters and displays the lack of sexual theatricality given to Molly: “writhe she could not… …could not bring herself…some flaw in her make-up… …or the machine…more likely the machine…so far disconnected…never got the message…or powerless to respond…like numbed…” Mouth thinks of her body as a machine, and the its connection to her mind as faulty or nonexistent. While Molly talks from her body, describing how things feel (not to mention how sexual things feel: “his tongue is too flat or I don’t know…” ), Mouth can only talk of her body. Not I illustrates clearly in both form and content the disconnection between matter and language, body and mind. Not only are these two pieces of the self disconnected, but they are so permanently. “Nowhere in the play is it implied that the ‘I’ is willing to return purified, saved, deified. The ‘I’ is abject. Subjectivity is challenged altogether. The ‘I’ is negated altogether, subjectivity is destabilized…” The problematic is complete in Not I. Joyce’s unifying “I” is no longer possible, not even at the end. Beckett’s move towards a view of language as less able-bodied than Joyce’s is perhaps a delayed response to the conflict of linguistic technique and content as so easily resolved with the introduction of monologue.

To Beckett Joyce admitted that perhaps Ulysses had been a little over-formulated. Taking the words of the master as truth, Beckett embarked on a career that became impossible to formulate. While Joyce wrote for the English canon (Finnegans Wake is mostly English), Beckett became unclassifiable—he belonged to both the French and the English canons. With the same insistence that Joyce saw language as the penultimate resolution (of problems, of other languages, of influence) did Beckett see language as standing between the consciousness and its expression.

“I am not interested in a ‘unification’ of the historical chaos any more than I am in the ‘clarification’ of individual chaos,” writes Beckett still early in his writing career. Having witnessed first-hand the extraordinary capacity of words to signify all in Joyce’s composition of Finnegans Wake, Beckett nevertheless had to see beyond words. Just as the “I” of Not I can be seen vaguely beyond the surface of the text, Beckett found that all meaning was to be found not in the material body and the material word, but slightly beyond the word, hidden by behind the word. Beckett said of Joyce, “He never rebelled, he was detached, he accepted everything. For him, there was absolutely no difference between a bomb falling and a leaf falling.” Perhaps Joyce’s confidence in the power of language was associated with his inability to see language from a critical distance. To accept everything is precisely what Joyce does—and what Molly Bloom’s soliloquy achieves for the language of Ulysses. One of the reasons readers love Joyce is his excessive language that one can get lost in. Though Finnegans Wake and Ulysses both extended themselves beyond the plot and into the significations of world and literary history, they are at once trapped on the page as Molly Bloom is trapped at the end of Ulysses.

In actuality, words are much more complicated and unreliable than Joyce leads us to believe: they exist completely within themselves in time and space. After reading ‘Penelope’ one feels satisfied; very few rebel from her language to return to the chaos of earlier chapters. One has said ‘I’ in enunciating her words, and one has said ‘Yes.’ Questions have been answered, problems have been solved, and the book is closed. But after seeing a piece like Not I, one cannot help but draw conclusions after the curtain has fallen—Who? What? Why? And Where is ‘I’? Where am I? the viewer asks herself. Beckett’s challenge of language is a challenge to understanding; rather than making the viewer work for obscure literary references, Beckett makes the viewer work for an understanding of herself that extends beyond the moment of the word. Aptly, Joyce sees the falling of the last leaf in a book as simply a falling: a completion. Having admired this heroic achievement, Beckett could only ask himself—What happens afterwards? and What happens beyond? Though his works do not answer these questions, they do at least ask them. Certainly one must be able to decipher between a falling bomb and a falling leaf—though they fall at the same speed--32 feet per second per second--what matters is what happens after the fall.

Beckett concerned himself not only with what happened in Joyce, but what happened after Joyce. While carrying on the Joycean tradition in clever puns and homages to Molly Bloom, Beckett’s work can only be described as the aftershock of the fall of Finnegans Wake coupled with the shock of the failure of language within literature. “The danger is in the neatness of identifications,” Beckett began his first work on Joyce. He continued to question the ability of words to make things clearer, concluding at the end of his career that the answer lies in the question. “What is the word?” his last work asks; and answers: “What is the word.” Though Joyce developed in Beckett a love for language, Beckett himself rebelled, finding language to be more faulty and porous than Joyce could have imagined.

Photography and Death in À la recherche du temps perdu: A Reading in Inversion

2006-12-14T21:32:00.000-05:00

Throughout his novel, Proust develops the unlikely resemblance between the narrator’s time-bending vocation as a writer and the instantaneous work of the photographer. Challenging the notion of any fixed reality, the narrator travels in time and space, expanding important moments into eternities and compressing forgotten years into a passing phrase. Unlike the subjective memory, the objective camera captures time and space with mechanical precision and disregard. The two perceptions are at odds: while the photographer concerns himself with only one subject for a fraction of a second within a narrow field of vision, the narrator concerns himself with a multiplicity of sensations traveled over an expanse of time within a vast and shifting space.

This apparent difference in process of the writer and the photographer is another example of the perfect inversion, propagated throughout Proust’s narrative. The photographer himself (Saint-Loup) is an invert, who makes inversions of his subject on film, which he then inverts again onto paper, bringing the subject through inversion back to her proper representation. The narrator alerts the reader to the necessity of reading inversion through inversion, like the photographer printing his positive from the negative: “particularités (comme l’inversion) peuvent faire que le lecteur a besoin de lire d’une certaine façon pour bien lire” (218, Le Temps retrouvé). Thus, the metaphor of the camera, full of mirrors and backwards images, reveals itself as the perfect framework for understanding the narrator’s and Proust’s literary work. The camera performs the double-function the narrator wishes to achieve in his work: simultaneous presence and absence, objective distance and subjective sensitivity, and a representation of reality as both material and a sign for the immaterial.
Moreover, his vocation, like the photographer’s, deals explicitly with death and remembrance. The narrator’s feeling that his work exists only at the price of the suffering (“au prix des souffrances”) and eventual death of others, mirrors the conception of photography as “an inventory of mortality” and “a catastrophe which has already occurred” according to Sontag and Barthes (213, Le Temps retrouvé,; 24, Sontag; 96, Barthes). In early twentieth-century Proust and late twentieth-century theory, both the photographer and the writer condemn loved ones to death in their desire to make impressions of the world and understand signs developed over time.

From the format of the camera to the development of the film and viewing of the image, photography mirrors the movement of text from the impressions taken by a detached artist, to their later recovery and postponed understanding. Through photography the narrator comes to understand the death of his grand’mère, and through the metaphor of photography he comes to understand the deadly goals of his work.

1. L’objectif
L’ouvrage de l’écrivain n’est qu’une espèce d’instrument optique qu’il offre au lecteur afin de lui permettre de discerner ce que sans ce livre il n’eût peut-être pas vu en soi-même. (218, Le Temps Retrouvé)

The narrator envisions his book as a sort of optical instrument that allows one to see one’s surroundings (and eventually oneself) in an unfamiliar way. The ideal perspective of the novel is quite different than that of the fragmentary perceptions committed to paper (like the steeples of Martinville section). Unlike the highly sensory, subjective fragments, the work as a whole should exhibit a more detached and objective viewpoint, as if transmitted through an optical instrument rather than human eyes. The narrator thus distances himself and readers by presenting his perceptions through the objective objectif of the metaphorical camera. This critical distance enables the artist not just to see, but to discern, as Proust writes. Unlike the paintings of Elstir, in which the boundaries between objects are barely discernable, through the lens of a camera, things are clearer; one does not just perceive—one discerns. Discernement gives a relative and quantifiable perception: one discerns the subject from its surroundings, contemplates its value, and sees it in its place in comparison to other objects. In this way the narrator’s goal for his writing corresponds less with the confused sensuality present involuntary memories, and more with the attempt to bring a subject into objective optical focus.

2. L’appareil
“…bien que la chose représentée eût une valeur esthétique, elle trouvait que la vulgarité, l’utilité prenaient trop vite leur place dans le mode mécanique de représentation, la photographie.” (53, Du côté de chez Swann)

Ever since his childhood in Combray, the narrator has been warned of the vulgar dangers of photography. The dehumanizing nature of photography convinces the narrator’s mother and grand’mère to remove all the photographs they can from his bedroom to be replaced with either photographs of paintings of the same monument or landscape, or, better yet, engravings of the subject. While the two matrons do their best to protect the young narrator from the mechanical aesthetic of representation, he is not at all bothered by the process and interests himself at this age much more in the subject than the process. “[C’]était certainement beaucoup moins exacte que celle que m’eussent donnée de simples photographies,” he complains (Du côté de chez Swann, 54). The young narrator’s preference for exact and simple photographs over artists’ interpretations foresees his interest as a writer both to portray the subject itself in its entirely and to discover the origin of certain feelings (the memory of Venice, for instance). The narrator’s interest in the outside world, a world beyond the purely aesthetic world of Swann’s collections, and not a penchant for the realist methods his mother scorns, drives his early preference for photographs.

Though perhaps mother and grand’mère shelter the narrator at his early age from a much more grave aspect of the camera: its connection with the reality of death. Sontag points out the correlation between mechanical nature of photography and mortal violence as displayed in the very terms used by photographers: one loads, aims, and shoots (this linguistic analogy works just as well in French: on charge, on vise, et on tire). Thus, the mechanics of the camera verbally link it to those of the firearm. “All photographs are memento mori,” she writes. “To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt” (Sontag, 15). One would hardly want to confront a boy with time’s relentless melt at such an age. Not only is the narrator young enough to be negatively impacted by thoughts of melting time and impending mortality, also the grand’mère is old enough to not want to confront it herself. Ironically, for the narrator, his grand’mère dies in a photograph, and this photograph finalizes the tie in the narrator’s mind between death and photography. But for now, she contents herself with replacing time’s relentless melt with a suspension of time—in place of photographs of monuments in their present condition, she attempts to find antique prints of them in a former state (“…ayant encore un intérêt au delà d’elles-mêmes, par exemple celles qui représentent un chef-d’oeuvre dans un état où nous ne pouvons plus le voir aujourd’hui” 54, Du côté de chez Swann). She thus attempts to stop time for her young grandson and herself, so as not to be assaulted with the finality of the future and the hostility of the camera.

3. Le plan de film
“Je venais d’apercevoir, dans ma mémoire, penché sur ma fatigue, le visage tendre, préoccupé et déçu de ma grand-mère…je retrouvais dans un souvenir involontaire et complet la réalité vivante.” (153, Sodome et Gomorrhe)

One speaks in photography of the latent image. The image registered on the film at the time the photograph is taken remains latent, hidden, until the time of chemical development. In perfect correspondence, a memory can lie latent for many years after its initial impression, before it is finally brought to light. The narrator’s involuntary, previously latent, memory of his grandmère comforting him reveals itself as he bends over to take off his shoes. At this point the development of the latent memory begins—more potent in the French is the introduction of the révélateur to the film, making it reveal. This memory begins to reveal itself and the narrator sees his grandmère’s face, “tendre, préoccupé et déçu.” Though the narrator has now determined what memory addresses him, it is still only a screen memory. The révélation must continue in order to fix and recontextualize this image. Finally, the narrator sees his grandmère’s preoccupation and disappointment as a screen memory, covering the a feeling of absence that reminds him of her photograph session with Saint-Loup—another more literal screen memory as the flat photograph itself shows only the surface of things which one must further read. Barthes reinforces the idea of photograph as screen memory when he remarks that the photograph “actually blocks memory, quickly becomes a counter-memory” (91, Barthes). This counter-memory of the narrator’s grandmère as alive and coquettishly posing for a picture finally gives way to the sudden realization of her death. The latent impression then, once revealed, must be transformed into meaning and understanding.

4. Le tirage
“Seule l’impression, si chétive qu’en semble la matière, si insaisissable la trace, est un critérium de vérité, et a cause de cela mérite seule d’être appréhendée par l’esprit, car elle est seule capable, s’il sait en dégager cette vérité, de l’amener à une plus grande perfection et de lui donner une pure joie…Ne vient de nous-même que ce que nous tirons de l’obscurité qui est en nous et que ne connaissent pas les autres.” (186-7, Le Temps retrouvé)

The film révélé presents itself as a negative, a clear but inverse depiction of the impression of reality. Bright familiar faces appear dark and undecipherable; oftentimes the delicate face of the negative cannot be read. Only by projecting light through the surface of the negative, enlarging and inversing the image onto a piece of photographic paper, is the subject truly identifiable. This is the act of printing, agrandissement or tirage. Just as a negative brought to light brings about recognition of and identification with the subject, the writer’s impression too must be illuminated, and the memory reveals the viewer to himself. The fragile negative (l’impression chétive), which has been developed from direct contact in latent form with the light of reality, contains a truth that must be apprehended. This critérium de vérité, only a trace on the negative, is enlarged—amené à une plus grande perfection—by the photographer and by the writer into the familiar form of the subject. Not only does the artist enlarge truth, he also brings darkness to light. The phrase “tirer de l’obscurité” describes the photographic act of inverting the darkness of the negative to a lightness of paper (le tirage), as well as the writer’s act of intellectually pursuing obscure impressions in order to fully recognize them and drag them out of the dark and into the light (les tirer de l’obscurité). The tirage, a somewhat mechanical process for both photographer and writer conducted by the mind (l’esprit) must be executed with scientific exactitude. In this sense, the work of the writer, like the photographer, is the translation of dark impression into clear image (traduction: both to translate into language and to make something pass from one state to another; 197, Le Temps retrouvé). Only with active concentration can a mere impression transform into an object in itself; only with the help of the mind can feeling be put into words to form the novel. The tirage is thus equated with the writing itself, bringing the obscure to light by transmitting the darkness of ink or silver onto white paper in order to give oneself pure joy.

5. L’image
“Cette impression douloureuse et actuellement incompréhensible…ce ne pourrait être que d’elle, si particulière, si spontanée, qui n’avait été ni tracée par mon intelligence, ni infléchie ni atténuée par ma pusillanimité, mais que la mort elle-même, la brusque révélation de la mort, avait comme la foudre creusée en moi, selon un graphique surnaturel, inhumain, comme un double et mystérieux sillon.” (156, Sodome et Gomorrhe)

Due to the long process involved in the development, fixing, and drying of the photograph, one can only view the final image after the elapse of time. Coupled with memory, the photograph presents itself as an ambivalent body: while making past present, it affirms the absence of the past; it is both familiar and totally alien; and the subject is at once the mortal flesh-and-bone referent and the immortal sign. This complex relationship with the past typifies the narrator’s relationship to the death of his grandmère and the guilt associated with his own work.

The reading of the photograph is the final step to understanding the work of the writer and the photographer. The photograph, a clear but limited presentation of things past, becomes both an object to cherish as a relic of reality (the narrator has the photograph of his grandmother with him), and a mirror with which to reveal one’s own emotional relation to the subject. While one may delight in the beauty of a photograph or the style of a sentence, these formal aspects only prove to reveal the reader to himself: “En réalité, chaque lecteur est quand il lit le proper lecteur de soi-même” (217, Le temps Retrouvé). The changing of the perspective of a book from an outsider’s objective view of a (real or fictional) world to a mirror of one’s own subjective understanding, parallels the movement of the photograph from being possessed by the objective camera and the uninterested photographer to being fully owned by the viewer. In reading the photograph, the viewer enters into it, replacing the camera with his self, and the objectif with his loving subjective gaze. The narrator demonstrates the correlation between “The camera’s twin capacities” and the dual capacity of his own writing “to subjectivize reality and to objectify it” (178, Sontag). This is only one of the double and mysterious rifts presented by the photograph. While the comprehension of a photograph as objective reality lends it power, only to the extent that the viewer sees himself within the photograph can it gain true affective power.

The narrator sees himself present in the photograph of his grandmère only after fully recognizing her absence in his life. The narrator uses the photograph as an object for mourning: “je souffris toute la journée en restant devant la photographie de ma grand-mère. Elle me torturait” (174, Sodome et Gomorrhe). The narrator takes time to execute this deferred mourning, and the presence in the photograph attests to no more than an absence. The “that-has-been” of Barthes is for the narrator a key to understanding her death. The coinciding vision of her (that) coupled with the inevitable past tense of the photograph (has-been) provide the narrator with a sense of painful absence; it is the simultaneous possibility and impossibility of presence with which his grandmère’s memory tortures him. When the directeur pays the narrator a visit and reveals to him that she had been hiding her illness, the power of the photograph is reinforced. The narrator finally sees the suffering in her face as not just a result of his jeers, but as a material sickness destroying her body. The presence of this sickness is what prevents the narrator’s mother from ever looking at this photo—she sees it rather as a testament of fatal illness: “moins une photographie de sa mere que de la maladie de celle-ci” (176, Sodome et Gomorrhe). However, a few days later, the narrator’s vision shifts.

The photograph provides a framework for perspectival change: at one moment one sees the subject, sitting before one’s eyes in flesh and blood yet gone forever; the next moment, looking deeper into the photograph and even beyond it, one sees a network of meaning to which the self connects and through which suffering is dispersed. “Quelques jours plus tard la photographie qu’avait faite Saint-Loup m’était douce à regarder,” the narrator writes (176, Sodome et Gomorrhe). The change from objective to subjective, from third-person to first-person utterance, understanding is accomplished: “c’était avant tout abroger ses plus chères illusions, cesser de croire à l’objectivité de ce qu’on a élaboré soi-même, et au lieu de se bercer une centièmee fois de ces mots: “Elle était bien gentile”, lire au travers: “J’avais du plaisir à l’embrasser.” (203, Le Temps retrouvé). In ceasing to believe in the illusion of the flat objectivity of torture and of absence, one reads beyond the material to see one’s own reflection and position in the reality. By ceasing to see in terms of the referent alone (Elle était bien gentille, or Elle était malade) in which the referent is the subject and the viewer the object, one must invert the relation between the viewer and the subject, turning the viewer into the grammatical and photographic subject and the sitter into the object (J’avais du plaisir à l’embrasser). The narrator here demonstrates his understanding of grievance, as well as how the Proustian reader must perform a process of inversions in order to read well (bien lire).

Once grievance passes and perspective shifts, vast understanding becomes possible. “Les idées sont des succédanés des chagrins,” the narrator writes, “au moment où ceux-ci se changent en idées, ils perdent une partie de leur action nocive sur notre Coeur, et meme, au premier instant, la transformation elle-même degage subitement de la joie” (213, Le Temps retrouvé). Though his grandmère remains dear, the narrator now sees her as occupying a place in his life and his work, relative to others. Grandmère becomes connected with Albertine throughout Le temps retrouvé, and the two of them together become signs which the narrator can use to communicate patterns and sentiments that span across his life. Though they still exist as characters, they, the narrator’s hieroglyphics, represent more than material objects: they take their places as signs of death (185, Le Temps retrouvé).

Albertine, grandmère, and all the characters, places, and memories present throughout the Recherche in the end transform into a photographic state. At once referents and signs, present and absent, objectively and subjectively viewed, they are Proust’s photographic accomplishment of what Barthes calls “the unheard-of identification of reality (‘that-has-been’) with truth (‘there-she-is!’)” (113, Barthes). Proust’s truth is photographic, rather than painterly, as he presents to his reader the depth of signification present in reality itself.

Though pain cannot be completely dispersed, it can be transferred like a family photograph—from the dead to the living and finally into the work. The reader finds himself, like the narrator before him, confronted with a gallery of sorrow, which he, in turn, must translate into meaning and invert into joy within his own subjective mind.

The thought that photography, being a realistic medium bound in time and space, could be contrary to the project of Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu suggests that one has not chosen a clear lens through which to read. But even Barthes and Sontag agree that there is “nothing Proustian in a photograph” and “nothing…more unlike the self-sacrificial travail of an artist like Proust than the effortlessness of picture-taking” (82, Barthes; 163-4, Sontag). Certainly realism does not inhibit mystery, as Sontag herself writes, “all that photography’s program of realism actually implies is the belief that reality is hidden. And, being hidden, is something to be unveiled” (120-1, Sontag). The Recherche is a project of unveiling, revealing, and inverting to be preformed by the reader as by a careful photographer. From camera to photograph, from impression and reinterpretation, and every step along the way, the reader must follow Proust’s mirrored path carefully in order to understand the key to reading à l’envers.

Critical Wars

2006-12-10T09:51:00.000-05:00

What Samuel Beckett’s Territorial Readers Teach Us About Politics and Discourse

When one’s political leader declares war on correct pronunciation, when the burning of books is a regime’s first order of business, and when conventions of beauty are exploited to sell hate and ignorance, the temptation to sequester literature away from the burly grip of politics, history, and economics is overwhelming. Though some may dismiss literature as useless for political change in the first place, and others may attempt to dismiss politics from the sacred domain of literature, we are nevertheless confronted with politically engaged texts and critics. Many texts, especially plays, can be classified as didactic: simply diatribe disguised as drama or valid political points. Other times, critics with an agenda can appropriate otherwise nonpartisan texts to support their cause. The naming and claiming of literature result in a multiplication of genres and critical schools. Thus, political drama and ideology-driven critics emerge to place literature among the ranks of speeches, manifestos, and organized protests, leaving formal elements and different connotations largely unexplored. Likewise, a reader trained to see only form to the exclusion of biography and history (one trained by the New Critics no doubt) uproots the text from its native ground—an equally tyrannical act of appropriation. The desire to make signify is at once a desire to stop signification. Each successive critic attempts to make his commentary the last of them, to nullify the ideas of his predecessors, and establish his (if temporary) reign of truth. As if to admit the value of another interpretations were to be hung in the public square There is a mutual movement between writers and readers to delineate territories of interpretation and their borders are guarded by armed critics.

One such disputed territory is that of the work of Samuel Beckett. Claimed at once as a mouthpiece for theatre of the absurd, the nouveau roman, existentialism, nihilism, formalism, ahistoricism, and even Holocaust drama, Beckett’s words are no longer his own. Other critics simply divide into the camps of “engaged” or “indifferent,” not just to fight for their own interpretations but more to ward off the others’. Deirdre Bair, the first of Beckett’s biographers addresses this feeling even in the 1978 when she writes in her introduction, “I felt that critics tended to try so hard to place Beckett in whatever particular theory or system they espoused… It seemed to me that many of the leading Beckett interpreters substituted their own brilliant intellectual gymnastics for what should have been solid, responsible scholarship; that they created studies that told more about the quality of the authors’ minds than about Beckett’s writings.” Since then, Beckett has been a favorite of readers and critics alike, consistently generating each year more articles, conferences, and theses.

But why Beckett? The need to comment upon his often enigmatic works lies with the desire to comprehend what seems inexplicable and cruel. It is perhaps even from the same place from which arises the frustrated desire to comprehend global injustice. While for many, events like the holocaust can never be explained, art presents itself as an alternative method of approaching and understanding the world. Though one alone cannot comprehend the meaning of a complex international system of people and goods, one can very safely posit the meaning of a novel or play. This small triumph for aesthetic understanding we use as kindling for a global understanding. Thus, when dealing with the evaluation of complex, contradictory, or simply ambiguous works of art, not only does one feel more pressed to understand, but the outcome of this approach to literature will most likely parallel the reader’s approach to other aspects of his life, thus revealing a world view.

For instance, Beckett’s play Endgame, ends in a customary tableau: the abused son, Clov, stands silent and still in the doorway with his suitcase and traveling hat as his controlling father calls to him. “Do you think he actually leaves?” one spectator asks another after the curtain falls. Though speculations of this kind do little for the text (this is the equivalent of asking what Molly Bloom will say after her final “Yes”), they do allow the spectators to see where they stand in a general way. To answer, “No, Clov doesn’t leave, he can’t,” is to admit a general realism, even pessimism, not only towards the play but towards one’s own lived experience. Perhaps a feeling of guilt even arises in the spectator about his own obeisance before power. Then to answer, “Yes, of course he’ll leave,” is a gesture of hope and optimism (even blind optimism perhaps). Even more, each of these answers has a wealth of textual evidence to support it. Though the play itself takes no “sides” to the argument (if Clov were going to leave, he would have left on stage); as Beckett himself said to a friend after hearing his interpretation, “Well…if you think that’s what my play’s about, I expect that’s what it’s about.”

Like the so many coins and bills, Beckett’s words are valid currency across the world, though only after exchanging his money into the critics’ own tender can his words weigh into the debate.

Who determines the bounds of these territories of meaning and to what nations do these colonies belong? Like Beckett himself, born in Ireland to live in France, the critics are a multilingual, international mix. As Beckett skillfully balances his oeuvre between two languages, his critics too will comment on the same subjects with different words. While America, heavily influenced by their own New Critics and relatively distanced from the war, declares a state of formal purity and apolitical aesthetics, France, under the reign of existentialism, the Thêatre de l’Absurde, and guilt of complicity in war, forms the post-Auschwitz colony of Beckett as hopeless cynic.

The real problem is not the war: like Beckett’s work, language lies beneath all conflict as the real problematic. The way one makes sense of words, phrases, and linguistic situations determines the words one uses to respond. In the sense that when one reads the word “tree,” one imagines a tree and nothing else, Beckett’s words trick readers and audience into assuming a one-to-one correlation between signifier and signified or between stage presentations and a metaphor for life. However, minimalist and obscure language paired with silence opens the realm of imagined signification; in the stunted references and long stage silences, readers and audience force themselves fill in the blanks and resolve the inconsistencies. Leaving the theatre, they are all convinced of their own readings, having had to sit for as much as two hours in weaving in their minds the correspondence signified by incomprehensible situations. But Beckett challenges the audience: he puts the words into question so viewers can no longer depend on a steady signifier from which to find themselves a signified. It takes a leap of faith for each of these viewers to find their signified, so when it is at last grasped, they hold onto it as if it were a part of themselves, arguing it to the death against any other ridiculous suggestion.

Like Joyce before him, Beckett draws attention to the surface of the word, though his is as unreliable as Joyce’s was all-encompassing. “Is there any reason why that terrible materiality of the word surface should not be capable of being dissolved?” Beckett writes to a friend. For Beckett and for his work, the word is a problem, a “terrible materiality” that can and must name, exercise ownership, and establish hierarchies of power, grammatical and political alike. It is the word surface to which critics cling and around which critical wars are fought.

Critics almost unanimously agree to cite the 1982 play, Catastrophe as Beckett’s most political work. Depressingly literalist as usual, most of these critics single out Catastrophe, an no other plays, as political not for its content but for its dedication to Václav Havel, the then-imprisoned playwright and future president of Czechoslovakia who had been forbidden to write because he had been one among others to stand up against abuses of human rights. For those seeing or reading the play out of context, the three words of paratext “For Václav Havel” are enough to launch the interpretations of this play before it is even performed, leaving its categorization as a “political drama” almost certain. But for Beckett this was a political gesture: among other playwrights, including Arthur Miller, Beckett was asked by the International Association for the Defense of Artists to write a piece to be performed at the Avignon Festival that year in “A Night for Václav Havel.” While nearly all of Beckett’s plays contain at least one instance of a character being oppressed or controlled in some way by another character, because none of them bear such dedications or even allusions to historical figures outside of literature, any other arguments for political engagement seem a stretch. But, curiously enough, some critics even see Catastrophe as only barely political, the dedication as an afterthought. It has been interpreted as a commentary on the nature of theatre, the difficulty of achieving an artistic vision, and the fear of public exposure.

Catastrophe enacts a rehearsal for the last scene of a play, which consists of the lights rising on the Protagonist, who is standing on a short pedestal, hands joined before his chest, then fading out to leave a light shining only on his bowed head. The Director, his female Assistant, and the unseen lighting technician (Luke) adjust and light the Protagonist as if he were a prop: they never address or consult him, and freely adjust his costume and position his body. The Protagonist’s only movement is at the end of the play when he to “raises his head” and “fixes the audience” after the Director has vehemently rejected the Assistant’s suggestion to have him “show his face…just an instant.” With this gesture, the Protagonist halts the “storm of applause” and the play ends.

The play can be read as the proletariat challenge to power. The Director is clearly portrayed as something of a caricature: wearing a “Fur coat,” a “Fur toque,” smoking a cigar, carrying a “chronometer” (a very expensive watch!) and getting ready to attend his “caucus,” he is doubtless an upper-class political entity who exists to be served and hated by those below him. Though his Assistant dutifully lights and relights his cigar the three times he calls “Light,” she nevertheless quietly usurps his director’s chair after he exits—but not before “vigorously” wiping it off with a rag . The Director and the Assistant form yet another of Beckett’s codependent couples which to illustrate power play (though barely a power struggle). The Protagonist adds one more link to the chain of masters and slaves, for the Assistant manipulates the Protagonist and the Director manipulates her. One can easily read Marxist concerns here: an alienation of the worker from his product—that is, the actor, the Protagonist, from the play which he has no say in—as well as the exploitation and dehumanization of the worker by his controller—the Director asks to “hide the face” of the Protagonist, calls the hands “Two claws,” doesn’t care if he shivers (“Bless his heart”), asks for “more nudity,” and continually asks to “whiten all flesh,” all of which attempt to rid him of his humanity. The Assistant even suggests at one point that they gag him. This certainly recalls the treatment of prisoners of war and concentration camp victims. But the final joining of the Assistant and the Protagonist in the action raising the head suggests the confrontation of the oppressors by the oppressed. Thus, Beckett’s most political play enacts a something of a worker revolt.

But there is another kind of revolt as well—the revolt of the imprisoned artist. One cannot ignore the reflexive nature of this piece. The very staging of Catastrophe points to its subject not only as the theatre, but as the present-day theatre, even as the play (Beckett’s play) itself. The audience witnesses not a representation of the rehearsal of a scene, but the rehearsal of the scene itself, taking place in that theatre, on that stage, before their eyes. Catastrophe is the playing-out of what happens when art and politics meet.

The Director presents a degree of fascist aesthetic: he forms his Protagonist to perfection in an attempt to achieve his ‘vision.’ This interpretation of the Director as a fascist force is reinforced by multiple productions: the 2000 Ohio Wesleyan production of Catastrophe even costumes the Director and his Assistant in what look to be SS uniforms, and the 2006 Barbican Theatre, London production had the Assistant marching to and fro, as a soldier, turning only on 90-degree angles. Beckett mocks the fascist aesthetic and its creator: what should be an inhumanly strong and rosy-complexioned character is presented as weakened, whitened, and dehumanized—the true state of those represented politically or artistically by fascist forces. In a reversal of imagery, the Director represents a catastrophe rather than a victory. Success, in this character’s world as in many totalitarian regimes, lies not only in the glorification of the chosen race or class, but even more in the humiliation and degradation of others.

Beckett would be one keen on refuting this aesthetic: it was the rise of Hitler in 1930s Germany that prevented a young Sam Beckett from seeing some of his favorite works of art, and endangered the freedom of those artists. In 1936 Beckett left for Germany to visit family, vacation, and improve his German. Only a month after he arrived, the government issued a directive for gallery owners to remove any ‘decadent’ modern art (it would later be confiscated and sold or destroyed). So Beckett went through galleries to see many emptied walls—the paintings he most wanted to see had been put in the cellars. While visiting and noticing rising power of the Nazi regime over art and consciousness, he wrote, “the expressions ‘historical necessity’ and ‘Germanic destiny’ start the vomit moving upwards.”

While the Director displays the negative impact of politics, the Protagonist demonstrates the political power of the artist to confront tyranny by rejecting his orders. He commends Havel and other for standing up to abuse, giving him the title of “Protagonist” and thus Hero.

Catastrophe plays out the politics of artistic reception and misinterpretation. The Director’s play doesn’t seem so far off from some of Beckett’s later works. The single body, on stage, under a single light source, uttering nothing or near-nothing, recalls such pieces as Not I, That Time, or Breath, a play without any actors at all. But, like the Protagonist, the Playwright too can be manipulated. In the alteration of costumes, makeup, lighting, and music, politically interested or indifferent directors can position Beckett however they want, using the body of his text as their Protagonist. In line with the Director of Catastrophe, many directors and readers reframe the body of Beckett as dehumanized or hopeless. The long-time European trend, for example, was to see Beckett’s work as the expression of the world as absurd, Godless, and hopeless—one irrevocably broken by the atrocities of war. In America, we see him as the formal perfectionist with some existential overtones.

One interesting staging of Catastrophe is the 2001 film directed by David Mamet, who displays in production a typical American interpretation. Mamet removes context, history, and politics from this production. He humanizes the barbaric Director (played by politically active Harold Pinter), taking away his furs as well as the cigar. The Assistant shows little disgust towards him, as Mamet robs her of the chance to wipe off his chair before he sits down. Likewise, the Protagonist’s raised head interrupts no storm of applause; the lonely claps of the Assistant continue well into the credits.

The interpretations that sympathize with the Director in his attempt to achieve an artistic ‘vision’ are no doubt products of formalist approaches. The Director’s desire to perfectly craft his work, to get the hands and the head in the right position, is an allegory for the artist. Such interpretations, in limiting themselves to the text, do not impose any ulterior political message, but by disregarding the political context and the paratext, they censor Catastrophe in another way—they impose political indifference. Though Samuel Beckett was known to accept almost any interpretation of his works, answering ‘I don’t know’ to questions like ‘Does Clov leave?’, the theme of Catastrophe seemed clear to him. When he heard that a critic called the ending “ambiguous,” he responded angrily, “There’s no ambiguity there at all. He’s saying: You bastards, you haven’t finished me yet!”

In the end, the play can tell us as much about the world we live in as the critical response to it. France, still under the grip of Sartre and of Nazi complicity, interpret Beckett with guilt: Everything is meaningless, We have failed, This is the end. America, much more distant from European history and run by New Critics even in the war years, takes claim of the words in Beckett, as we have no little claim over him socially or politically (Beckett only visited America once): A formal genius presents patterns of repetition and metalinguistic irony, Biography and History should be left outside the text. But Godot remains a favorite for high school students (perhaps because their search for meaning in their young lives coincides with the search in the play), as well as a rally for freedom chanted at the fall of communist Czechoslovakia (“Godot has arrived!” the people called), and Beckett’s name remains anthologized in studies and collections on atheism and Catholicism, nihilism and myth.
The Director and the Assistant of Catastrophe like so many readers, judging Beckett’s work from a critical distance, changing its context, and turning it into a symbol of which it is unaware. While this kind of critical primping may incite enthusiastic response (the brief applause of Catastrophe), while the body of the text is dominated. But the humanity of Beckett’s text keeps it alive, ever addressing new audiences who, in turn, provide new readings for new politics.

The forces that so many critics see as so many causes act really on one and the same plane. What appears to some at Beckett’s political activism is simply a concern for humanity. Likewise, a seeming disregard for history is an exploration of subjectivity. A.J. Leventhal, a friend, says, “Beckett, unlike many of the avant garde writers in France, is not engagé, is not committed to any political partisanship. He has no national axe to grind. … Beckett’s involvement is in humanity and its pain, in its hope as in its anguish, in its comedy as in its seeming futility.” What viewers and critics see as so many conflicting approaches is really one response to one world—though it happens to be that criticism, like politics, the economy, and education, has sectioned itself off from other aspects of the world in seeing itself as a discipline apart. Beckett saw everything as linked and interrelatable. When asked at a party why he wrote about distress, and if it was because he had an unhappy childhood, Beckett left immediately, unable to understand how someone could be so cut off from reality: “I left the party as soon as possible and got into a taxi. On the glass partition between me and the driver were three signs: one asked for help for the blind, another help for orphans, and the third for relief for the war refugees. One does not have to look for distress. It is screaming at you even in the taxis of London.” Beckett did not identify a difference between these three causes.

“The danger is in the neatness of identifications,” Beckett began his essay on Joyce’s then Work in Progress. Indeed, the identification of Beckett has become a dangerous business that has come serve as a paradigm for all literary reception. Whether we interpret for political or formalist causes, in the end, no reader or critic engaged in discourse can dismiss themselves from politics, as they are in the business of words. Even the followers of the flamboyantly uninterested l’art pour l’art movement fly their colors with every argument for pure indifference. Literary studies, which for so long has tried to declare itself as free from the market and outside of history, is even more fervently politically interested than the texts it presumes to study. Ideas are a currency, exchanged by critics, accumulated by nations, and enforced by institutions. Even in order to vie for humanity, one must enter into this political and economic domain.

The role of the critic today is to continue this exchange in order to keep the world market of ideas alive. Even though the author never intended for such loud dispute, he certainly demands a self-questioning. The critic dramatizes this self-questioning by splitting the response to one work into many critical players that enact a critical politics, whether they argue for or against politics in literature. Of course, this seems a bunch of meaningless play in the long run, but so does Waiting for Godot. Like the tireless Didi and Gogo, critics too must continue the exchange, arguing over words, meanings, origins, and titles in what would normally be meaningless politics.

Afterword
by Two Critics Discussing their Last Articles, Agreeing on Something, and Preparing for their Next Articles

Vladmir: Moron!
Estragon: Vermin!
V: Abortion!
E: Morpion!
V: Sewer-rat!
E: Curate!
V: Cretin!
E [with finality.]: Crritic!
V: Oh! [He wilts, vanquished, and turns away.]
E: Now let’s make up.
V: Gogo!
E: Didi!
V: Your hand!
E: Take it!
V: Come to my arms!
E: Your arms?
V: My breast!
E: Off we go! [They embrace. They separate. Silence.]
V: How time flies when one has fun! [Silence.]
E: What do we do now?
V: While waiting.
E: While waiting. [Silence.]
V: We could do our exercises.
E: Our movements.
V: Our elevations.
E: Our relaxations.
V: Our elongations.
E: Our relaxations.
V: To warm us up.
E: To calm us down.
V: Off we go.

A Defense of Reading

2006-10-20T16:57:00.000-05:00

In the age of Poetry Defended, where narrative dominates the public sphere, anyone with a computer can be an internationally acclaimed poet, millions of escapists worldwide stop their days for televised fiction, books take nations by storm, and artists are pop icons. Poetry plays an integral part in life and Poets have become the puppet masters of our enjoyment. The Cult of the Creation and Creator is upon us. Fiction is our common language and we connect fictionally when impossible otherwise. Though the deep-rooted hostility of French-American stereotype-hurling continues, for example, the French still love “Friends,” and America is on a first-name basis with “Amélie.” So while political and social dissent is very real and sometimes fruitful, the interpretive dissent of the Critical Reader, whose true function this essay will explore, is regarded as fruitless by both the Poet and the Activist. To the Poet, the Reader’s extension of his (the Poet’s) creative world is a rebellious and presumptuous deconstruction, an appropriation of meaning as dangerous to his world as nuclear testing is to ours. To the Activist, the Reader’s sincere concerns for fiction are trivial as compared to “real life” problems (like nuclear testing), and he hopes any Critical discussion will further his causes. The Critical Reader disrupts the peace of simple viewing, usually accepted as an affirmation of communication, by insisting on a philosophical mistrust of forms, extending the chain of signifiers beyond the one link, beyond the literal reading of text as reality role-playing.

Society has rather come full circle since the Philosopher banished the Poets from his Republic. The Poet has now become the Philosopher King, leading the perceiving world towards the blinding light of ideal forms as distributed by cable networks across the universe, while the position of the Critical Reader, Philosopher-like in her questioning of forms, is degraded to the former inferiority of the Poet. Because the Critical Reader does more than just watch and because she directs her critical activity at something other than the physical forms of this world, she is taken for a threat to artistic pleasure and social productivity.

So here develops a Defense of the Poet-Philosopher, the Critical Reader. Since I will be arguing for a personally rewarding approach to reading, I begin with the personal offense that instigates my reaction. Artists of every kind, the modern-day Poets, surround me still: I listen attentively each week to my father’s latest poem; I wake up each morning next to a writer and go to bed each night telling him my response to his latest work. I met this writer in high school, a boarding school for the arts, where the relationship of scholarship to art took a foreground, but every student, brilliant or otherwise, was first and foremost an artist, a Poet. Scholarship was immediately distinguished from artistry and the Poet arose tacitly as the true identity of the student. Thus, in that environment, to not be a Poet was to not have an identity, and those who did not express themselves through art had nothing to express. In choosing not to receive a B.F.A or B.M., I made up part of the minority of the graduating class; while a standard decision for many students elsewhere, it was a questionable one for a Poet. And while my bedmate is now first and foremost a Poet, I am first and foremost a Reader, a scholar to them. I thus find myself defending on a daily basis ‘soulless’ Poetics against the attacks of Poetry.

Critical Reading does not engage a representation of reality – neither the Poet’s fictional reality nor the Activist’s global reality – but rather culminates in the presentation of an experience, in which an equal exchange takes place between the Reader and another element, whether it be Text, Author, second Reader, or ‘Reality’.

I propose to outline just what I mean by Critical Reading in first discussing what it is not, in this way refuting the arguments of the Poet and the Activist, both of whom use these cursory definitions as their bases for superiority.

Critical Reading is not service to the Poet. The Poet often sees Reading as the entrance of the Reader into his created world in which she must always defer to him for meaning as to God the Creator; he is a (Biblical) “good” and (Kantian) “purposive” creator. Thus, the Poet is above the Reader in the sense that he is a creator and a leader (a master), while the Reader is simply a thoughtless onlooker to be coerced into following the Poet along his path through his world (like a slave). Though today creative fiction’s most popular manifestation is the television series, Critical Reading demands more than mindless observation. It demands thoughtful experience and a reinterpretation of that experience, whether in thought or action (as in critical writing), and one cannot form a true reinterpretation when an overly conscious search for the “approved” interpretation (i.e. the intention) eclipses any desire for an experiential reaction to the text in and of itself. Wimsatt and Beardsley’s Intentional Fallacy has been widely accepted as a valid accusation towards those who practice submission to authorial authority. The Critical Reader is not in a master-slave relationship with the Poet. Nor is the Critical Reader slave to the self-chosen advocates of the Poet, namely teachers with concrete answers and prevalent critical trends. Nothing stands between the Critical Reader and the text to filter or otherwise mediate her experience.

However, rebellious refutation of authority does not allow for the egotistical projection of self onto the text. So Critical Reading is not simply self-service either; it is not a reader-response to mock reality. The Activist sees Reading fiction as faulty in two ways: first, he assumes the Reader believes the text to be a representation of real events and that she responds to it as such, thus transferring onto fiction the awareness and response energy that should be directed at global reality; secondly, he assumes that, if not reading for the intentions of the author (which may be morally or socially progressive and therefore appealing to the Activist), the Reader must be reading for her own intentions, thus individualistically isolating herself from the opinions and needs of other ‘real life’ individuals and citizens.

To address the first assumption, I maintain that the Critical Reader does not confuse the world of the text for the global world. Though one may be inspired by or draw on the other, and though an author’s biographical details, not to mention his representational skills, may make it tempting to read fiction as non-fiction, a text is an object in and of itself, a presentation of something unique, rather than a representation of reality. It is thus that Plato’s accusation that Poetry is an art twice removed from ideal reality can be refuted: Poetry is physically a part of reality, not a representation of it in words. Were the Activist to step into an English class’s discussion of, say, Ulysses, he would be appalled at the level of emotion with which the students argue over the likeability of the fictional character Stephen Dedalus as if he were a Yale underclassman being considered for acceptance into their a cappella group. Being standard Readers rather than Critical Readers, they confuse fiction and reality, leaving themselves vulnerable to the accusation of the Activist.

To address the second assumption, that Reading is a solipsistic ego-projection that closes the Reader off from experience, all I can do is discourage this approach to Reading in favor of a movement towards the dissolution of ego and a meaningful relationship to the text, in which the Reader meets the text halfway, so to speak. I must admit, however, that a phase of egocentric reading is inescapable, especially in the years of young adulthood, and must be experienced. As a high school senior I executed a brilliant (so I thought) analysis of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, in which Ivan, the cold intellectual, was the true hero, rather than the romanticist Alyosha. Now rereading my Reading, it is clear my position as an “intellectual” surrounded by Poets led me to identify with and therefore heroize Ivan, reading into The Brothers K’ what I thought should have been the situation at this boarding school. “As the rebel, the middle child, the dynamic antithesis, and necessary evil, Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov illustrates through contrary action a weightier, tempered version of the novel’s joyful truth,” I wrote, unknowingly referring to myself as the “rebel” and this time in my reading life as a “middle” time, a “necessary evil” (if we dare qualify with such moral language) in a movement towards Critical Reading. In reading for the ego, one not only ignores large parts of the text that don’t seem to apply directly to the self, but no meaningful relation is created. Like reading for authorial intention, reading for individual intention is a one-way exchange in which one takes all rather than giving all, respectively.

Critical Reading is a personal relation with and a reinterpretation of a text and deserves to be practiced by everyone, not solely a limited number of published Literary Critics. Intentional concerns (either for the self or other) and confusion of text for reality (or an imitation of reality) inhibits a Reader from being a Critical Reader. That is, failing prevents her from exercising a careful evaluation, a comprehensive understanding of a text that can be made available to her in the experience of reading. I am not defending here the authority of Theory, so the process of Critical Reading will not be outlined to facilitate instruction; rather I maintain the process can only be known first hand in the feeling of deep understanding and corollary experience of an otherwise foreign idea. In my experience, this relation can occur between the Reader and the Text, the Author, or another Reader (or Readers). I see myself as having succeeded in Critical Reading on only a number of occasions that I can count on my fingers. The Death of Ivan Ilych I read alone as a high school junior, one spring morning in the woods; a few hours later I was cold and sobbing, walking to the cafeteria, where, upon arrival, my state was questioned – I had just experienced a short story. Reading Kafka’s short stories and aphorisms aloud, late at night surrounded by empty summer camp cabins, passing the book from myself to another, I experienced the relationship of Text to two Readers. Samuel Beckett’s writing, life, and biography occupied almost a year of Critical Reading, in which I walked through his neighborhoods, saw plays, wrote about the texts on multiple occasions, followed a course on the play “Happy Days,” and discussed his work with others. This I feel is a great example of Critical Reading that amounted not to author-worship, but to the discovery and deep exploration of a textual world that connected the Critical Reader with not only the Text, but also the Author, the City, the Institution, the Medium, and other Readers.

Because informal personal research and experience cannot occupy the lives of all Critical Readers, I propose that Critical Reading be introduced to the classroom as well. Investment of a text with an emotional value attached to the experience of reading it must not prevent us from bringing that text to the classroom, known to some as the dissecting tray. Rather, it is specifically those emotionally-charged texts that need to be brought into the classroom in order to facilitate Critical experience. Though Critical Reading is a detailed and unbiased examination of Poetry, it more importantly refers to another meaning of Critical: the essential. Critical Reading essentializes Text through experience, which is then reinterpreted by the Reader and shared with other Readers, Critics, and Discourses.

Reading, like Poetry, is a creative art. Just as the artist perceives and reinterprets the world around him, to the delight of others, the Reader perceives and reinterprets a textual world. So why is the Reader necessarily a failed poet, as the Poet was a failed philosopher, conjuring forms twice removed? The Critical Reader is rather a creator in her own right, the missing link between Poet and Philosopher, experiencing and reinterpreting objects in reality, Poetry itself.

Filiation, Transmission, Répétition : l’historique dans Hamlet et Les Séquestrés d’Altona

2006-05-02T10:22:00.000-05:00

Tous ces termes impliquent l’ordre : un ordre chronologique entre point A et point B, entre l’originale et puis la copie, entre la cause et puis l’effet, entre celui qui lance et alors celui qui attrape. Dans cet ordre, le point d’origine tient le pouvoir sur le point destinataire. Le père a le pouvoir sur le fils, dieu sur l’homme, le fondateur sur la variation, l’histoire sur le présent, etcetera. En gros, la cause gouverne l’effet. Cet ordre est seulement l’ordre accepté – celui de la logique et de l’histoire, les deux faits que le monde ne conteste pas.

La filiation suppose l’ordre parental, où les parents règnent sur les enfants dans une position supérieure du pouvoir et de la chronologie. La transmission aussi présume un transfert entre deux. Dans l’ordre de qui transmet à qui, l’originaire a la position première. Celui qui est au côté de l’histoire prend toujours le pouvoir dans cette logique des dispositions. Pareille avec la répétition, l’acte qui consiste des multiples occurrences d’une seule chose, la première occurrence est vue comme cause et modèle des autres, l’originaire catalytique.

Cependant, cet ordre n’est plus suivi dans les diégèses d’Hamlet et Les Séquestrés d’Altona. La hiérarchie acceptée est détruite quand les rôles familiaux s’inversent, la transmission à l’héritier est interrompue, et la répétition se fait simultanément non pas chronologiquement. Tout délégitime le mouvement chronique accepté. C’est l’habitude historique qui détermine ce qui est accepté, l’ordre inclus. Suivre l’ordre accepté c’est simplement obéir l’histoire en la répétant au présent. Mais en conséquence les deux pièces examinées ici ont des relations tendues avec l’histoire. Dans Hamlet, il s’agit d’un présent hanté par un passé récent problématique, et aussi d’un âge renaissant en rébellion contre celui d’avant. Les Séquestrés d’Altona prend comme thème dirigeant la relation troublante avec l’histoire ; pas seulement celle de l’Allemagne nazi mais aussi celle du père lâche. Les pièces donc se mettent à se rompre avec l’histoire par briser l’ordre accepté. Il est ainsi que les thèmes de la filiation refusée, la transmission rompue, et la répétition simultanée destructrice forment les idées d’appui dans chaque pièce.

La filiation parentale est l’aspect commun le plus évident dans les deux narratifs. Le terme filiation ici signifie le lien entre les parents et leurs enfants. Le but d’Hamlet fils c’est de venger le meurtre du père par tuer le beau-père. Dans Les Séquestrés d’Altona, il s’agit du Père qui essaie de revoir son fils. Cependant, la parenté dans ces deux familles est mise en question. Les fils ne croient pas dans l’ordre hiérarchique et donc questionnent le rôle du père.
Frantz soupçonne que le Père n’a pas raison et ne tient plus la révérence pour le parent qui l’en mérite normalement. Frantz tient coupable le Père, lorsque dans l’ordre accepté de la filiation, c’est le père qui doit accuser le fils. C’est ainsi que le père apprend à son fils la discipline et la responsabilité. L’ordre filiatif s’inverse dans la maison de von Gerlach. Comme le père ne tient pas coupable le fils, le fils tient coupable à la fois le père et lui-même. Quand le Père et Frantz se réunissent dans le dernier acte, c’est le Père qui se sent le coupable : « Je te demande pardon » il supplie à son fils (V, i). Frantz règne sur la maison : ses portraits sont accrochés aux murs, sa chambre est en haut de tous, et toute l’action se fait pour lui. Normalement le père, étant de la génération d’avant, signifie l’histoire et en conséquence est, dans l’ordre, le plus puissant. Pourtant, dans Les Séquestrés d’Altona c’est Frantz, le fils, qui se fait signifier l’histoire et ainsi prend le pouvoir.

Hamlet aussi a des relations antagonistes envers la filiation et son ordre accepté de pouvoir. Évidemment Hamlet ne reconnaît pas le rôle paternel de Claudius, le beau-père dont il est jaloux. Mais, même avec son propre père, il ne réussit pas parfaitement dans son rôle du fils. C’est cette relation ambiguë avec Hamlet roi qui est le plus signifiante. Hamlet n’a plus de père natal, mais ses relations avec Hamlet roi sont, selon les intentions d’Hamlet fils, celles de l’obéissance filiale. L’intrigue de la pièce consiste en Hamlet fils essayant d’agir sur les commandes de son père – essayant de jouer le rôle du fils dans l’ordre accepté. Au début il doute la fiabilité du spectre, ne le croyant pas celui de son père. C’est seulement après sa présentation de The Mousetrap qu’il se sent sûr que le spectre était vraiment celui de son père et racontait la vérité. Au premier rencontre (I, iv) Hamlet reconnaît le spectre comme père, en l’appelant ainsi, même après un premier doute sur s’il est charitable ou malveillant : « I’ll call thee Hamlet, / King, father, royal Dane. » Cependant, une fois qu’il est tout seul il doute l’identité du spectre. À la fin du soliloque de l’acte II, scène ii, il décide de monter une pièce pour avoir une preuve ; « The spirit that I have seen / May be a devil » il dit. Cette hésitation, quoiqu’un effet de l’âge de doute, expose sa méfiance du père et de l’ordre ancien qu’il impose. Aussi, ça lui prend quand même toute la pièce pour venger son meurtre, un temps diégétique d’au moins plusieurs semaines. La durée entre la reconnaissance du meurtrier et l’acte de vengeance et beaucoup trop longue par rapport à celle qui concerne Laërte, qui joue le rôle du fils idéal. Laërte attaque Hamlet, le meurtrier de son père, le moment qu’il le voit à l’enterrement d’Ophélie (la première fois qu’il le voit depuis le meurtre) et lui faire lui proposer un DUEL plus tard le jour même. Hamlet rejette l’ordre de la filiation en questionnant pas seulement le rôle du père en Claudius, mais son propre rôle du fils par rapport aux exigences d’Hamlet roi.

Refuser l’autorité du père, c’est refuser la puissance de celui d’avant. C’est refuser donc l’autorité de l’histoire. Les fils sont les deux en avant de leur époque. Hamlet incarne l’homme moderne – c’est pour ça qu’il reçoit autant de couverture des critiques modernes. Il fait partie de la renaissance : il est l’homme du doute et de la logique ; il tient un crâne comme philosophe moderne, et rejette la peur de la mort eue par ses prédécesseurs. Frantz aussi se lance dans le futur, s’adressant aux habitants du trentième siècle, les crabes, avec qui il s’identifie. Seul Frantz (selon lui) accepte la responsabilité pour le passé et donc peut le transcender.

Autre manière de comprendre le terme filiation est comme filiation d’événements historiques, ceux qui se suivent comme un fils le père. La filiation d’événements peut s’appliquer à l’ordre accepté d’une chronologie familiale. Par exemple, un fils qui prendra l’entreprise de son père fait partie de cet enchaînement. Il s’agit une chronologie future projetée par la famille, acceptée depuis longtemps. Cependant, comme la filiation familiale pourrie, la filiation d’événements prend le chemin contraire à celui que l’on attend. Voilà le destin tragique théâtral, dont le défilé d’événements est aussi inattendu qu’il est incontournable. Hamlet, malgré son destin filial d’être roi, suit la filiation tragique par mourir le moment qu’il venge la mort de son père. Pareil dans Les Séquestrés d’Altona, le destin pour Frantz d’être héritier est dominé par le destin tragique d’une double suicide l’heure que le rencontre attendu arrive. Une fois que le but de la pièce s’achève, les personnages concernés s’achèvent. Quoiqu’elles fassent partie de l’héritage théâtral des tragédies classiques, la pièce de Shakespeare et celle de Sartre respectent les aspects formels pour en faire un contenu autre. Ici encore il y a un questionnement du parentage, la relation entre ces pièces et leurs prédécesseurs qui est seulement jouée.

La filiation implique une transmission – une transmission de sang, du nom, d’héritage, et de la connaissance. Mais, comme les filiations sont mises en question, les transmissions sont interrompues. Hamlet ne reçoit pas son royaume. Frantz ne dirige pas l’Entreprise. La transmission ne se fait plus dans l’ordre hiérarchique et chronologique du destin, dans l’axe x du mouvement temporel. Au lieu de suivre ce chemin habituel, si naturel que la force de gravité, la transmission se fait à côté et à la diagonale, étant déplacée par les obstacles du temps. Le royaume de Danemark, au lieu d’être transmis dans l’axe x d’Hamlet roi à Hamlet fils, il prend l’axe y pour être transmis à son égal, le frère. Ainsi, l’historique n’avance pas, la ligne destinataire de l’axe x est interrompue par ce déplacement d’équivalent. Similairement dans Les Sequestrés, l’Entreprise est transmise à Werner, le fils cadet, frère du destinataire. Encore, un mouvement latéral qui déplace le destin de l’histoire. La transmission ne suit plus la filiation, ni familiale, ni historique.

La répétition est à la fois la source de l’ordre accepté et l’aspect qui la détruit. La répétition du passé au présent est la définition de l’ordre. La tradition, par exemple, n’est qu’une répétition du passé ; les actes qui se font si souvent à travers le temps perdent leur fonctionnement et deviennent seulement des gestes. C’est l’ordre traditionnel qui règne et la tradition contre laquelle les fils se battent. Malgré le désir de contredire la tradition et de ne pas répéter le passé, une répétition se fait. Vu que la filiation délégitimée empêche la transmission directe, une répétition familiale devrait être hors des possibilités. Mais justement, c’est dans la répétition parfaite, qui s’achève malgré les irrespects de l’ordre, que le destin tragique apparaît. Mais cette répétition, comme le fils hors de son temps et la transmission chronologique rompue, aussi dépasse la chronologique. La notion de l’originale et puis les copies n’applique plus. La répétition, comme la transmission, a lieu sur l’axe y, dans la simultanéité. Ainsi, la copie et l’originale s’engloutissent, changent de position, chaque répétition devient l’originale de tous les autres, et le dédoublement de signification fait une polysémie règne.

La répétition apparaît dans les pièces sur plusieurs niveaux. Le plus classique c’est la répétition du passé dans le destin du fils par rapport au père. Hamlet, l’opposé de son père dans ses actions précautionnées, se trouve dans la position finale de son père : mort sous les bras (les complots) de Claudius. Cette répétition de mort est chronologique comme le fils s’appelle Hamlet parce que son père s’est appelé ainsi avant. Cependant, la scène finale d’Hamlet contient des répétitions latérales synchroniques. En même temps qu’Hamlet venge la mort de son père, ses répétitions aussi prennent leur vengeance. Laërte est le double latéral d’Hamlet comme Claudius en est un d’Hamlet roi ; il est le beau-frère potentiel (frère d’Ophélie) comme Claudius est frère. Dans la dernière scène Hamlet utilise le mot « frère » deux fois pour parler de Laërte : « hurt my brother » et « brother’s wager » (V, ii). Le frère manifeste la répétition atemporelle ; quoiqu’il y en ait un qui est venu avant l’autre (l’aîné), il n’y a pas de relation causale comme celle d’entre père et fils. Les frères existent comme répétitions simultanés. Il est ainsi que Laërte blesse Hamlet et Hamlet blesse Claudius dans l’espace d’une page. Fortinbras aussi venge la mort de son père, une répétition de plus, en conquérant Danemark ; c’était Hamlet roi qui a tué Fortinbras père : « our valiant Hamlet…Did slay this Fortinbras » (I, i). Ainsi, les trois jeunes hommes se répètent comme des frères et la répétition latérale prend plus d’importance que la répétition filiale.

La mort de Frantz implose même plus la notion de la répétition temporelle. Il aussi partage le destin de la mort avec le Père. Mais les morts von Gerlach illustrent comment la répétition fait annuler l’ordre accepté chronologique. Ils se suicident simultanément, ce qui fait une répétition coïncidente d’événements. Ainsi, le fils ne répète pas le destin du père, ni le père le destin du fils. Chez von Gerlach, l’originale et le double s’annulent. Frantz suspecte qu’il ne se répète pas normalement dans son père : « je ne sais plus trop qui de nous deux a fait l’autre. … Il m’a créé à son image – à moins qu’il ne soit devenu l’image de ce qu’il créait » (II, v). Il renverse la chronologie de création et de répétition, suggérant que le fils a peut-être fait le père, la copie l’originale, la création son créateur.

Comme la voix de Frantz et sa reproduction sur le magnétophone, la répétition parfaite implique une répétition du soi, ce qui est une fragmentation simultanée polysémique plus qu’une répétition temporelle. Hamlet fils se fragmente en plusieurs personnages : Laërte, Fortinbras, Hamlet roi, le fils, le fou, le meurtrier, et l’acteur. Cette pluri-signification de son personnage ne tient pas à l’ordre temporel ; comme la métaphore, elle est hors du défilé du temps. Quoique Hamlet se présente différemment entre une scène à l’autre, changeant avec le temps, il est toujours toutes ces parties. Frantz aussi se répète en plusieurs morceaux qui s’achèvent simultanément : il est le fils préféré, le soldat mort, l’objet du désir, l’image du Père, l’image de Werner, l’avocat, l’accusé, le témoin, l’Allemagne (la France), le crabe, et la bande enregistrée. Les répétitions du soi sont les plus multiples et les plus significatives. Il s’agit d’une expansion dans tous directions qui fait exister des nombreuses notions dans un seul sujet.

Une relation troublée avec l’histoire gouverne le fonctionnement de tous ces termes – filiation, transmission, et répétition. La filiation dans Hamlet et Les Séquestrés d’Altona implique le fils qui repousse les prédécesseurs, niant l’histoire. La transmission ne se fait plus dans le chemin filial, le chemin hiérarchique, mais dans un sens latéral qui empêche la transmission temporelle. La répétition, similaire à la transmission, ne se manifeste pas dans la chronologie avec l’original et la copie, mais dans la simultanéité atemporelle et achronique. Différente que la transmission, la répétition n’arrête pas l’histoire. Elle reste fixement plurielle avec le passage du temps, faisant exister le passé et le présent en même temps dans la même forme. La répétition troublée n’est pas simplement une négation de l’histoire comme les autres. C’est la répétition et le dédoublement qui font signifier hors de la notion de l’ordre et qui forment la richesse polysémique des textes.

L’opposition en dialogue entre les deux poésies de Beckett

2006-05-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

Samuel Beckett, bilingue renommé, a commencé d’écrire en français en forme poétique quelque mois après son arrivé permanent à Paris en octobre 1937. C’était dans le poème qu’il s’est premièrement essayé à écrire dans l’autre langue, et dans le poème que les complexités et la beauté de la langue sont les plus manifestes. Il avait cinq ans quand il a commencé d’apprendre le français à l’école primaire avec Miss Ida Elsner à Foxrock dans son Irlande natal. Il continuait plus sérieusement à Trinity College dans le département des langues romanes et éventuellement, à 22 d’ans, il a reçu la position du lecteur en anglais à l’École Normale Supérieure à Paris. L’apprentissage d’une autre langue pour Beckett commençait comme intérêt académique et littéraire. Il n’a même pas commencé à écrire en anglais pour lui-même quand il faisait ses études supérieures en français à Trinity. Pour lui, l’autre langue était un luxe intellectuel, non pas la contrainte politique qui s’impose sur la plupart des écrivains d’autre langue.

Quand on lui demandait pourquoi il a décidé d’écrire en français, il répondait notoirement que le français était une langue sans style (ou moins stylisée que l’anglais). « I boost the possibility of stylelessness in French, the pure communication », il expliquait à son ami Dr. Hans Rupé en 1937. La communication pure lui laissait la possibilité de travailler avec les mots, non pas avec les expressions apprises ou les automatismes Joycean dont il avait l’inclination à faire. Il ne voulait pas être concerné par la surface des mots. « Is there any reason why that terrible materiality of the word surface should not be capable of being dissolved ? » il a écrit à un ami allemand encore en 1937. La superficialité de la surface apparaissait à Beckett dans sa langue maternelle, qui était contaminée par les expressions qui n’ont rien à voir avec un anglais sensible. L’anglais était sa langue vulgaire et le français son latin. Pour séparer le langage pratique du quotidien et le langage poétique d’écriture, Beckett a simplement appris une autre langue. Pour lui, le français était déjà la langue de la littérature, comme le latin la langue de la bible. Il avait l’intention de « cut away the excess, to strip away the color » dont sa langue maternelle imposait. Il a choisi d’écrire en français pour faire venir en avant le langage même, dans n’importe quelle langue, au moins qu’elle lui permettrait d’écrire sans souci de l’automatisme personnelle. Il voulait la communication pure dans une langue pure. Comme en anglais son écriture s’approche à la langue du dictionnaire, incluant des mots rares bien que juste, en français il se servait du dictionnaire de la quotidienne en addition de celui de Larousse, comme pour lui les deux étaient également étrangers et également purs.

Voici un choix d’artiste comme tout autre : comme choisir entre deux synonymes celui le plus adapté au contexte, écrire en français était une ouverture formelle dont le choix était si intentionnel que le son des mots dans la poésie. Ainsi, l’acte d’écrire dans l’autre langue pour Beckett signifie largement sur le niveau formel, au lieu du niveau biographique. Ce que Beckett a appelé un choix stylistique donc s’analyse dans la même façon qu’un style d’écriture ; si l’intention de l’auteur importe, le critique a ici tout autorité d’analyser ce choix dans le cadre littéraire des choix intentionnels, comme une figure de style en plus.

Alors, le choix d’écrire dans les deux langues doit être aussi intentionnel que d’écrire dans l’autre. Beckett a écrit deux versions de presque toutes ses œuvres. Depuis le milieu des années cinquante, il a fait publier toutes ses œuvres majeures dans les deux langues, et continuait à se traduire jusqu’aux dernières années de sa vie. Ainsi, l’œuvre de Beckett se produisait simultanément dans l’anglais et le français. Il donnait beaucoup de temps et d’anxiété à la traduction de ses œuvres et même déclarait que la traduction n’était pas possible. Cependant, il l’a fait et souvent a eu des résultats plus nettes que dans les versions d’avant. En traduisant, il avait toujours la version chronologiquement première en tête, mais souvent il s’est abandonné à une réécriture assez divergente. Ainsi, ses œuvres acquièrent une double existence dont l’un est aussi important que l’autre. Comme pour le bilingue la langue d’écriture se présente comme figure choisie, l’aspect double des poèmes bilingues aussi signifie sur le niveau formel des schémas poétiques.

En revenant aux poèmes d’origine français, il en a rédigé (ou traduit) certaines en sa langue maternelle. Souvent, il a transfert le style direct qu’il cherchait dans le français à la version anglaise. La comparaison et contraste de ces poèmes bilingues, de double existence, donne l’occasion de réfléchir non pas seulement sur la question de traduction, mais sur la question de ce que c’est un poème ? Est-ce une forme, une image, un événement, ou seulement une suite des mots ? Certains critiques étudient les similarités et les différences des poèmes avec l’intention de trouver le vrai texte, le texte idéal qui est, selon eux, suspendu entre les deux langues. Cependant, ce vrai texte n’est pas écrit ; il est « ailleurs » d’utiliser le terme de Bruno Clément. Ce non-text d’ailleurs n’est ainsi pas même dans le domaine des études des lettres. Alors, au lieu d’imaginer et d’analyser un texte immatériel d’ailleurs, il faut travailler avec les textes présents, qui eux-mêmes suggèrent l’acte du dialogue, échange, et balancement comme celle qui se passe dans la lecture des poèmes bilingues. Cet espace d’entre, défini dans les poèmes par un langage des paires, fait parallèle à l’espace entre les deux langues. La signification ne se présente pas comme idéal imaginaire et socratique dans le vide d’entre, mais dans le basculement de l’un vrai texte à l’autre et dans l’intégralité des deux en la valeur de l’ensemble. Comme deux mots différents qui se présentent comme paire poétique, les poèmes des deux langues font deux moitiés de l’ensemble. La signifiance se trouve dans la relation active entre deux particuliers et non pas dans un lieu statique que l’on nomme entre eux.

Les poèmes guident leur propre lecture. On ne peut pas lire le poème traduit simplement comme un supplément à l’originale, ni les deux comme faux-semblants de l’idéal. En lisant les poèmes pour le texte seul, on trouve souvent les figures de dualité. Même sans regarder les deux ensembles, ces poèmes contiennent des répétitions qui se varient, des syntaxes des paires, des images de basculement, des glissements du double sens, et des dialogues et révisions qui font croire que le but du poète n’est pas de préciser l’idéal stagnant mais de faire vivre le lecteur dans un discours. Dans ce sens, Beckett fait jouer un discours pas seulement entre les mots du poème, mais entre le poème lui-même et sa contrepartie dans l’autre langue. Ce jeu formel est l’ultime dans l’ordre ; voici un parallèle entre la partie – le mot, la version – et l’ensemble – le poème, les deux versions – qui renvoie naturellement sur un niveau métapoétique dont le bilinguisme éclaircie.

Répétition avec une variation : pareil et autre (autre et pareil)

Le premier poème de la collection, elles viennent, introduit clairement en forme et contenu la nécessité du fait qu’un seul sujet a forcément deux côtés opposés qui peuvent coexister, même se remplacer. Les mots autre et pareil dessinent la forme du poème comme basculement entre ces opposés :

"elles viennent
autres et pareilles
avec chacune c’est autre et c’est pareil
avec chacune l’absence d’amour est autre
avec chacune l’absence d’amour est pareille"

"they come
different and the same
with each it is different and the same
with each the absence of love is different
with each the absence of love is the same"

Ce paire opposant est répété trois fois dans le poème, chaque fois dans le même ordre (autre(s) et puis pareil(le)(s)). Cet ordre marque la logique du poème, le mouvement entre l’observation initiale de la différence à la compréhension finale de la similarité. Au début, les expériences (sexuelles dans ce contexte) sont forcément autres les unes aux autres, séparées par un espace de temps. Pourtant, avec le recul de temps et la répétition d’expérience, on se rend compte de la similarité des expériences et de la répétition qui se manifeste dans la vie. C’est avec pareille que finit trois des cinq lignes, le donnant une emphase. Le poème finit avec pareille qui, ainsi, est le mot définitif, la dernière conclusion.

Le mouvement du pluriel vers le singulier fait parallèle à l’ordre répété autre – pareil ; autre est l’invocateur du pluriel (une comparaison entre A et B, dont B est autre) et pareil est invocateur du singulier ou, sinon, au moins une singularité de l’apparence (paraître pareil). Reprenant le dernier mot du poème, pareille, on voit simplement la singularisation du premier mot, déjà féminin, elles. Ces deux mots font partie d’un mouvement plus vaste vers le singulier qui se manifeste ligne par ligne. Les deux premières lignes adressent au pluriel pendant que les trois dernières prennent le singulier. La répétition dans les dernières trois lignes emphase le mot chacune et, plus précisément, le une là-dedans. Il s’explose en la seule voyelle nasale du poème, mis en avant après un c dur. Le une de chacune, féminin singulier, prend lieu de la femme singulière (« avec chaque femme ») pour contraster le elles pluriel de la première ligne. Encore, après la répétition de l’expérience, un fait de recul regroupe les multiples dans un seul cadre, superposant les uns sur les autres pour former la singulière.

Le change du pluriel au singulier, en contexte, ne s’adresse pas qu’à la pluralité et la singularité des femmes, mais à la pluralité des femmes et la singularité de l’absence d’amour avec, l’absence d’amour étant le réfèrent de c’est dans la troisième ligne. Le avec qui commencent les trois dernières lignes implique, dans les lignes en singulier, une relation avec un autre - ici, le protagoniste. Ainsi, la juxtaposition entre les deux premières et trois dernières lignes, en addition de montre le mouvement philosophique entre la pluralité et singularités des femmes et les expériences avec elles, montre l’opposition des autres pluriels (elles) et le protagoniste singulier, sans pronom. Pareil peut, dans ce manière, remplacer le soi et ce qui est pareil à ou près de soi-même. L’opposition et séparation entre l’autrui et le soi, entre le dehors et le dedans, se trouve fréquemment dans les poèmes et d’autres œuvres de Beckett.

Pour se rappeler que la relation entre ces opposés n’est pas une de comparaison pour trouver le meilleur ou d’un parti pris déjà établi (comme dans la relation de l’auteur contre le monde par exemple), mais est plutôt un dialogue entre les deux côtés d’un seul sujet. Il faut seulement examiner des plus près les divisions établies en haut pour voir qu’au deuxième vu, ils traversent librement ces encadrements. Ce décadrement se fait du premier niveau, des mots individus, jusqu’au dernier, la forme du poème entier. Du début à la fin, les deux termes occupent des positions formelles ambivalentes à leur signification. Même qu’autre signifie une différence (ou une différente), le mot se lie avec la similarité. Dans la quatrième ligne, la sonorité d’autre, bien qu’elle ne soit pas exacte, continue l’assonance (à peu près) d’une voyelle et la répétition visuelle de la lettre a (avec, chacune ; et la triade absence, amour, autre). Subséquemment dans la prochaine ligne, pareille se prononce tout à fait autrement. Le mot pareil lui-même présente la différence. Il est à la fois la différence entre les lignes quatre et cinq, le seul mot qui est changé, et aussi la différence dans la ligne cinq (la triade a-a-a devient a-a-p). Pareil, malgré la signification, devient formellement autre. Les légères différences d’orthographe aussi fait des autres du mot pareil, écrit pareilles, pareil, ou pareille. Cet renversement des termes crée un basculement des plus dans le dialogue Beckettien.

Mais un pas plus loin dans le dialogue, pour détourner une conclusion confortablement fixe, on trouve un rapprochement du sens et placement spatial des mots-clefs, mettant la forme et la signification en accord de nouveau. Pendant que le mot pareil (et ses variantes) se trouve toujours, pareillement à la fin des lignes, les trois occurances d’autre se trouve au début (ligne deux), au centre (ligne trois), et à la fin (ligne quatre), différent chaque fois. Tout ça pour dire que cette relation sera toujours plus compliquée que la première ou deuxième regard, et le dialogue entre les deux continuera au-delà de la dernière conclusion.

Ce poème introduit bien l’œuvre poétique bilingue de Beckett puisque, comme la relation entre chaque langue du poème, c’est autre et c’est pareil. Le poème dans l’autre langue est autre, mais autre seulement dans sa relation avec la langue maternelle. Quand on lit les poèmes ensemble, les deux langues sont simultanément autre ; pas seulement celle de la version « traduite », mais aussi celle dont Beckett a employé pour écrire la (chronologiquement) première version. Ensemble, ils sont ainsi toutes les deux autres. Quoique la langue – les mots, les sons, et la grammaire – est autre, les significations sont en général parfaitement pareilles. Sur l’ensemble et même sur les mots individuels, la signification de la langue s’aligne pareillement avec l’autre. Parce qu’il s’agit des deux niveaux – l’ensemble et l’individu – la répétition avec une différence ne s’applique pas seulement dans la comparaison des poèmes mais aussi dans l’étude des poèmes seuls. Les structures qui gouvernent la relation entre les parties d’un poème sont celles qui gouvernent la relation entre les versions linguistiques du poème. Ce basculement entre l’autre et le pareil, par rapport à la langue et la signification, le forme et le contenu, se manifeste dans chaque poème et dans chaque paire des poèmes. Comme la comparaison entre les significations des mots individuels et l’ensemble, celle qui est entre les poèmes individuels et les versions ensemble demande un travail pareil. La lecture du près que l’on donne traditionnellement aux poèmes, incite dans l’œuvre de Beckett une lecture du loin. Chaque texte devient un élément linguistique dans l’ensemble de son œuvre, comme un seul mot dans l’ensemble d’un poème. L’œuvre complète de Samuel Beckett et une œuvre individuelle, un poème par exemple, avec son ensemble et ses mots constituants. Vice-versa, un seul poème a tout son œuvre là-dedans. C’est ainsi que l’on peut étudier les poèmes individuels de Beckett et leurs relations internes pour parler de leurs relations externes avec l’autre langue, l’autre poème, l’autre œuvre.

Les paires poétiques

On voit dans presque tous les poèmes un système des paires toujours présent dont les deux parties forment un unité de sens, comme les deux versions inséparable travaillent sur le même champ de signification. Souvent, il présente les paires comme l’opposé de l’un à l’autre, mais un côté est différent seulement dans son proximité à l’autre. Les paires définissent la portée et l’espace du poème. Elles démarquent les extrémités entre lesquelles le poème se forme et se récite. Les deux poèmes opèrent sur les pairs lexiques, comme les deux versions qui, dans leur forme matérielle spécifique à leurs langues, définissent linguistiquement l’un côté et l’autre de la signification possible. La signification ne peut pas dépasser les extrêmes de la paire, ni inventer un espace lexical entre elle. Ce sont les paires, les deux côtés séparés et matériellement définis par les mots, qui dirigent l’interprétation.

Plus que d’avoir un mot-clef qui se répète et actionne la signification vers un thématique autour d’une seule idée, ces poèmes de Beckett ont un thématique du double. Ils introduisent la paire dans l’utilisation des deux mots qui se font parallèles dans leur construction syntaxique et s’opposent dans leur signification (mais pas forcément comme opposés parfaits).

Déjà dans elles viennent la paire présente est clairement celle d’autre et pareil. Comme dans ce poème, les paires en général sont définies comme tels par la répétition d’une partie d’une phrase ou une clause avec la variation du mot de la paire – en gros, leur position lexique comme objet, sujet, verbe les relie. Par exemple, « c’est autre et c’est pareil » met les paires, quoique opposés, dans des positions linguistiques pareilles. Elles sont aussi indiqués comme tel par un simple et qui les lie. Le poème, je suis ce cours de sable qui glisse démarque bien un vocabulaire des paires, l’interaction entre lesquelles sera examiné ci-dessous.

"je suis ce cours de sable qui glisse
entre le galet et la dune
la pluie d’été pleut sur ma vie
sur moi ma vie qui me fuit me poursuit
et finira le jour de son commencement

cher instant je te vois
dans ce rideau de brume qui recule
où je n’aurai plus à fouler ces longs seuils mouvants
et vivrai le temps d’une porte
qui s’ouvre et se referme"

"my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts"

Les paires se présentent différemment : par le simple usage de et ou and, par préposition, par temps de conjugaison, et par position linguistique (« c’est autre et c’est pareil »).

Les paires indiquées par et ou and sont les suivants : le galet – et la dune (the shingle – and the dune) ; (me) fuit (me) poursuit – et finira ; je n’aurai plus – et vivrai (I may cease – and live) ; s’ouvre – et se referme (opens – and shuts). Liées par préposition, on trouve : (sur) ma vie – (sur) moi ; (in the) sand flowing – (in the) receding mist (sable qui glisse – brume qui recule) ; (to its) beginning – (to its) end. Utiliser la même préposition pour deux mots les unit dans l’espace : ils occupent la même position par rapport au sujet ou l’objet ; donc, ils se trouvent ensemble, deux évocations, autres et pareils. Autres paires présentes dans ce poème liées par un temps ou forme verbale : (me) fuit – (me) poursuit (harrying – fleeing) ; (et) finira – (et) vivrai. Et par position linguistique : my way (is) – my peace (is) ; (et finira le) jour (de) – (et vivrai le) temps (d’).

Des onze paires identifiées, sept concernent, soit directement soit métaphoriquement, l’opposition de la vie et la mort : fuit / poursuit (les actions du vivant, ici effectuées par la vie) – finira ; live – cease ; ouvre – referme (la chronologie de la vie ou les yeux d’un être à la naissance et la mort) ; beginning – end ; fuit (la vie fuit comme le temps) – poursuit (la mort poursuit à travers la vie) ; vivrai – finira ; way – peace (way comme chemin de la vie, peace la paix finale).

L’opposition et l’intégralité de la vie et la mort est un thème classique, pas seulement chez Beckett. À la fin, la mortalité est à peu près le seul thème dont on écrit et à quoi l’on pense. L’implication de la mort dans la vie et vice-versa apparaît constamment chez lui. Il glorifie le prénatal et le post mortem comme lieux où l’on peut exister heureusement ; la vie, par contre, n’est qu’une répétition funèbre : « ma vie…finira le jour de son commencement » (« my life harrying fleeing / to its beginning to its end »), il écrit ici. Encore il fait confondre les paires strictement nommées. La vie finit en même temps qu’elle commence ; son début est sa fin – sa fin, son début. De quoi on entend une double signification : à la naissance, on meurt puisqu’on entre dans la vie qui n’est que la répétition ; à la mort, par contre, la vie commence. Comme à la fin de L’Innommable, « il faut continuer, je vais continuer » et le texte termine pendant que le narrateur continue. Beckett présente dans ses poèmes, avec un simple appariement des mots simples, un des grands thèmes de la littérature. Les narratifs des poèmes parlent vaguement de la mortalité, à travers les métaphores des cycles de la nature, par exemple. Pourtant le fait de les entrelacer avec un lexique qui incarne cet appariement inextricable est plus puissant ; les mots d’opposition et d’association sont la matière de construction pour les poèmes. Ce lexique double se dédouble dans une deuxième version du poème ; ainsi l’appariement des deux matières pour signifier cet aspect du double dans toutes choses, la vie comprise (et la poésie aussi), se fait en deux langues et entre deux langues.

Toutes les autres paires concernent le temps et l’opposition avec l’espace (sand flowing – receding mist ; jour – temps ; galet – dune ; ma vie – moi). Voici un autre thème classique.

Deux images parfaites pour incarner cette comparaison sont de la paire sable qui glisse / sand flowing – brume qui recule / receding mist. Si on prend l’image du sable glissant sur un petit echelle, on voit la sable du sablier qui mesure le temps avec l’espace. Combien de grains en reste ? et Est-il plein ou vide ? on se demande en regardant le « temps » couler du haut en bas. Pareillement, l’image de la brume reculante implique le temps – l’arrivé du jour, de la chaleur – à travers l’espace – elle recule dans le distance pendant que le temps s’écoule. La brume qui s’en va dans l’espace devient l’image de l’évanescente, l’image du temps passé.

La paire jour – temps ne s’oppose pas, mais forme une relation métonymique qui regarde le temps. Un jour, une durée précise, mesure contre le temps entier, dont il fait partie.

L’opposition du galet et la dune forme l’image orienteuse du poème entier. L’image d’érosion et son mouvement interminablement lent et circulaire, entre le galet et un grain de sable dans une dune, est typique de l’imagerie cyclique chez Beckett. Le mouvement entre les deux états est à travers le temps et l’espace. On parle souvent de l’image d’érosion dans les termes du temps que prend un galet pour se détériorer en sable. Mais on parle aussi dans les termes de l’espace que traverse la terre – les centaines de kilomètres entre les montagnes et la mer, emportées par la pluie (« la pluie d’été »). C’est aussi l’opposition entre le singulier, le seul galet, et le pluriel, les milliers de grains dont un seul galet fera partie. Ici, encore, on voit la relation inséparable entre l’ensemble et le constituant qui gouverne l’étude de l’œuvre et les poèmes simultanément. Ce mouvement de décomposition et déplacement entre le galet et la dune illustre le cycle temporel et matériel que fait la vie entre le non-être prénatal, la vie, et puis la revenir à l’état post mortem.

L’appariement de ma vie et moi indique une comparaison métaphorique fait par le narrateur qui indique encore une association entre le temps et l’espace. Dans le poème il pleut premièrement sur sa vie, et puis sur lui ; dans la réalité vécue, il pleut (sur soi) et puis on se sent comme s’il pleuvait métaphoriquement sur toute sa vie. La vie, usuellement prise comme continuum temporel qui commence et finit sur les moments précis, oppose le soi dont la pluie mouille, une forme spatiale qui existe même après que la vie s’éteint.

Cette opposition intrapoétique présente dans les deux versions (on my life / on me) se trouve doublement comme opposition interpoétique. Une version présente le côté du temps et l’autre l’espace. La plus grande différence lexique entre les deux versions c’est l’utilisation du temps en français et space en anglais. Aussi, le français ajoute la phrase « cher instant » qui s’applique à « le temps d’une porte / qui s’ouvre et se referme » que le narrateur vivra – à juste titre, un instant. L’anglais, par contre, donne une lecture spatiale : « my peace is there » il précise avec un mot spatial qui peut parallèlement faire référence à « the space of a door / that opens and shuts » qu’il vivra. L’un vivra un temps, et l’autre un espace.

Bien que le temps et l’espace s’opposent, Beckett trouve des moyens à les unir. À la deuxième lecture, on trouve un mot ou deux qui fait mêler les divisions nettes. Dans la version française, le « temps » est opposé par la vision de l’instant comme s’il existait dans l’espace (« je te vois / dans… »), et par l’utilisation du mot indistinct « où » (au lieu de « quand ») qui s’applique au temps et l’espace à la fois. Pareillement, la version anglaise, définie comme spatiale, fait référence au temps avec le mot « when », le « quand » cherché de la version française (dans le texte « où »). Ainsi, comme dans le premier poème, l’appellation d’un côté et l’autre vitement se défait en se confondant. Les paires chez Beckett, comme on a vu, sont au début autres, et puis, on se rend compte, elles sont pareilles. Le temps et l’espace, donc, pour Beckett, deviennent interchangeables comme s’ils étaient écrits dans un dictionnaire bilingue. Un tel détournement de la langue ouvre l’interprétation ; chez Beckett ce détournement devient figure. Voici les pairs lexiques, qui font parallèles à la paire linguistique et la paire anglais-français, font signifier le bilinguisme sur un niveau littéraire, non pas seulement linguistique.

Le basculement l’entre eux

Comme le mouvement éternel entre le galet et le grain du sable dans la dune, le basculement entre les deux côtés de la paire est nécessaire et naturel. C’est souvent ce mouvement qui fait le lien entre la paire. Comme les yeux qui saute de l’un page à celui d’en face, construisant un chemin méandreux d’un mot à l’autre, le basculement continuel est une conséquence de l’appariement.

Le va-et-vient entre les deux côtés est si naturel que l’inspiration et expiration du souffle, si incessant que des vagues sur le
rivage, et si contrôlé que la convulsion cardiaque dans le battement du coeur. Les forces d’érosion, du décomposition, et de l’amassement dans la construction de la dune, sont tous des forces destructrice et constructrice de la nature. C’est cette force qui guide le mouvement de la terre et des êtres.

La première strophe de je suis ce cours de sable qui glisse raconte le procédé cyclique de la nature : on suit le sable et le narrateur à travers un cours tordu. Le narrateur (je) se lie avec le cours dans mouvement de suivre le chemin du sable et aussi d’être lui-même le cours du sable. Ainsi, la vie d’un être prend le même chemin du sable sur son cours d’érosion. Comme un grain de terre qui commence en galet dans les montagnes et finit en sable dans les dunes à côté de la mer pour être enterré et éventuellement reformé en rocher souterrain, la vie prend un chemin également circulaire. Le galet serait l’équivalent de la mort, par exemple, et le sable actif et glissant, la vie. On commence et finit tous dans la non-existence, la mort du galet avant que l’on soit activé par la vie, et finalement laissé pour se transformer encore en galet. Ce cours circulaire est supporté par « la pluie d’été » qui fait référence aux saisons, un autre cycle naturel.

Ce basculement naturel est dessiné pittoresquement dans le poème Dieppe :

"Dieppe
encore le dernier reflux
le galet mort
le demi-tour puis les pas
vers les vieilles lumières"

"Dieppe
again the last ebb
the dead shingle
the turning then the steps
towards the lights of old"

Ce poème donne l’image d’un cercle qui se dessine en sens inverse. Le mouvement « vers les vielles lumières » est à la fois vers quelque chose du vivant – la lumière, le soleil, la ville – et du vieux, familier, et stagnant – les vielles « lights of old » suggèrent un passé longtemps connu. Cette opposition entre la lumière et l’âge est pareille à l’opposition du nouveau et le vieux de la première phrase « encore le dernier ». Ces oppositions ne forment pas seulement des paires intéressants, mais ils sont aussi des destinations des mouvements balançoire. Le mouvement « vers les vieilles lumières » est habituel, même circulaire ; la destination est également le point d’origine (ainsi « les vieilles »). Le « demi-tour » fait par le personnage est le mouvement clef du poème, le début d’un basculement entre point A (les lumières, la ville) et point B (le reflux et le galet, la mer) – le premier retour à point A. Pour intensifier le basculement, on a l’image du reflux au début du poème qui puis le gouverne. Comme « le dernier reflux » qui n’est sûrement pas le dernier, le personnage se dirige vers les lumières si régulièrement que la marée monte. Comme un pèlerinage à la mort, ce poème présente le silence dans l’image de la mer qui recule pour exposer le galet mort.

L’image du galet encore apparaît, une image fréquentée chez Beckett : Molloy suce des galets, les déplaçant de l’un poche à l’autre comme la nature qui les fait ambuler. Le galet est justement l’image de la mort ; non pas la mort douloureuse d’après vie, mais la mort stable et silencieuse de non-être. Le galet n’est pas mort, comme il n’a jamais vécu, mais ce qui calme, c’est qu’il n’est pas vivant.

L’imagerie et le vocabulaire de l’individu dans la nature continue dans le poème que ferais-je sans ce monde sans visage sans questions qui évoque le ciel et la mer :

"que ferais-je sans ce monde sans visage sans questions
où être ne dure qu’un instant où chaque instant
verse dans le vide dans l’oubli d’avoir été
sans cette onde où à la fin
corps et ombre ensemble s’engloutissent
que ferais-je sans ce silence gouffre des murmures
haletant furieux vers le secours ver l’amour
sans ce ciel qui s’élève
sur la poussière de ses lests

que ferais-je je ferais comme hier comme aujourd’hui
regardant par mon hublot si je ne suis pas seul
à errer et à virer loin de toute vie
dans un espace pantin
sans voix parmi les voix
enfermées avec moi"

"what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above its ballast dust

what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness"

Dans la deuxième strophe la locale de l’individu est montrée : « regardant par mon hublot » « eddying » suggère l’image de lui dans le ballast d’un bateau en surveillant le paysage aquatique pour une trace de la vie. Voilà le personnage, emporté par la marée, se balançant sur les vagues.

Encore, comme dans Dieppe, l’image de la mer destructrice s’associe à la mort – ou plutôt à la non-existence. Même dans cette locale de non-vie il y a toujours un sens de basculement, gouverné par le mouvement balançoire des vagues. Comme la crête et le creux d’une vague, les éléments du poème chicanent entre l’existence et non-existence. La première strophe est narrée comme si « ce monde » est là ; seulement il se pose la question de ce qu’il ferait sans le monde, et sans le silence. Mais, dans la deuxième strophe, il dit « je ferais comme hier comme aujourd’hui », ce qui suggère qu’il est déjà sans monde et sans silence. Le temps aussi disparaît dans ce manière dans les lignes deux et trois : « chaque instant / verse dans le vide dans l’oubli d’avoir été ». La métaphore de l’oublier est encore dans l’eau de la vague. L’instant verse / spills, comme de l’eau, dans la vide, comme le creux de la vague. La vague destructrice apparaît encore en anglais : « this wave where in the end / body and shadow together are engulfed ». Ici l’image est d’une vague qui engouffre le corps et l’ombre dans un éclaboussement. L’onde (au lieu de vague) de la version française donne plus clairement de l’image d’un basculement de haut en bas, entre l’existence du dessus et le non-existence du dessous. Beckett a clairement choisi ses mots pour leurs sons spécifiques : wave prend le son du w répété dans l’ensemble du poème (« what would I do without… ») et de la fin de shadow, pendant qu’onde résonne avec le o de corps et ombre. Encore le creux de la vague apparaît dans la disparition des voix qui tombent dedans : « silence gouffre des murmures ». Ces choses ont disparu comme dans le creux et réapparaîtront plus tard sur le crête, comme tout choses dans le mouvement cyclique de la nature.

Voici, l’espace pantin, le "convulsive space" de la nature qui gouverne le mouvement infiniment circulaire ou ondulatoire entre les opposés présents, souvent ceux d’être et non-être. Le poème se construit comme son propre lecture : l’ondulation d’une version à l’autre pour trouver que ce qui est là sur un côté disparaît sur l’autre. Ainsi le basculement continue entre les paires et entre les pages.

Glissement

Quoique les deux côtés sont si différents, avec un basculement si actif entre les paires, souvent, ils se confondent. L’onde se renverse et la vague est vue dessous de l’eau, tout en basculant entre ces visions. Au lieu de changer nettement entre A et B, comme on lirait la version anglaise et puis la version française, sans les confondre, Beckett fait glisser les paires et les sens, souvent opposés, jusqu’au point qu’ils deviennent interchangeables. Le glissement du sens et du son est simultané ; comme Beckett a écrit lui-même, « forme est contenu ». L’utilisation des jeux de mots et des allitérations est extrêmement fréquente chez lui et il s’en sert ironiquement pour relier les sens contraires des paires déjà établis.

L’allitération, utilisée sans cesse, relie les paires formellement pendant qu’ils signifient des contraires. Cependant, après une alliance formelle, l’alliance significative n’est pas loin. Comme le sable glissant, les mots commencent à se suivre comme s’il était naturel et logique. Déjà dans la ligne « je suis ce cours de sable qui glisse », le son du s fait glisser les mots tous ensemble. Surtout suis et glisse, qui partage un son voyelle aussi, se font parallèles. C’est évident, chez Beckett être n’est rien plus que glisser entre plusieurs identités. Pour glisser à l’autre version, on entend, exprimé dans une rime, la conclusion que la paix arrive avec l’arrêt du mouvement. L’approchement de peace et cease dans les lignes six et sept est si fort que l’on n’a même pas besoin du reste des lignes pour comprendre le sens. Encore, le non-être se présent comme condition désiré. Il veut arrêter de fouler les seuils, les espaces de transition qui glisse eux-mêmes (« seuils mouvants ») et construire un espace fixe et limitée dont les deux côtés sont clairement distingués. Donc, la porte, la seule image du synthétique organise le glissement dans deux seules positions différentes, ouvert et fermé, dont il n’y a pas même d’allitération (ouvre – referme, open – shut). Ainsi, l’allitération se présente également dans la relation formelle des mots et le contenu de l’ensemble du poème.

Une autre manière de rapprocher les doubles c’est le jeu de mots ou le double entendre. Donner une séquence des mots un double sens est compliqué, mais donner une séquence des mots deux sens opposés est encore plus considérable et signifiant. Le poème que ferais-je sans ce monde sans visage sans questions, déjà un chef d’œuvre d’allitération contient une telle phrase à la fin de la première strophe : « sans ce ciel qui s’élève / sur la poussière de ses lests ». En addition aux huit répétitions du son s, il y a un double entendre avec ses lests et céleste. Une lecture donne l’image du ciel paradisiaque qui transcende et contraste nettement le monde d’ici-bas qui est les lests d’en haut, les imperfections rejetées et minuscules comme la poussière. Pourtant, l’autre lecture donne l’opposé : la poussière d’ici-bas est si célestiel que le ciel au-dessus. Mais, comme les deux significations sont compressées dans un seul texte, le glissement se fait entre les significations sans limite. Le lecteur entend les deux en même temps et donc ne peut pas identifier la signification dans un sens ou l’autre. Ainsi, ce que signifie la phrase est laissé pleinement ouverte pour signifier les deux à la fois. Les lests du ciel, quoiqu’ils soient comparés à la poussière, sont forcément célestes, venant d’au-delà. Il donne à entendre également l’infériorité du monde terrestre dans la version anglaise : « this sky that soars / above its ballast dust » fait entendre doublement « sores » et « last dust ». Un ciel qui se fait mal (sore) en regardant le monde, est certainement l’opposé de l’image céleste d’un « sky that soars ». Et la dernière poussière (last dust) comme si les pouvoirs devins ont laissé le monde qui fait mal tout seul pour le bon. Dans une simple tournure de phrase, les poids terrestres glissent à l’élévation céleste et le ciel se trouve pesé par ses lestes mondaines.

Un autre glissement du sens entre opposés se fait dans hors crâne seul dedans. Un poème dont l’action principale est voir « quelque chose », celui-ci est pleine d’images de l’œil. Une phrase qui apparaît est « l’œil à l’alarme infime » qui glisse dans l’oreille à « l’œil à la larme infime ». En même temps qu’un alarme infime normalement n’évoque pas les larmes, ici il donne à entendre que l’alarme infime fait pleurer. L’image d’une larme infime est terminée par l’action d’ouvrir l’œil comme pour retenir la larme et puis clignoter pour la laisser tomber : « l’œil à l’alarme infime / s’ouvre bée se rescelle / n’y ayant plus rien ».

Ce que dédouble le nombre des glissements significatifs est le manque habituel de la ponctuation dans la poésie de Beckett. Sans ponctuation, les mots sont libres de l’intention, et peuvent s’activer et se mêler sans les limites imposés par la ponctuation. Beckett paraît écrire que pour créer le double entendre et poser la question sans réponse. L’ambiguïté règne dans une œuvre poétique sans ponctuation et sans majuscules. Ces glissements du sens unissent parfaitement l’ambiguïté de la signification et la dualité comprise dans les paires fréquentées chez Beckett.

Parfois les langues même se confondent et un glissement linguistique chatouille l’oreille du lecteur bilingue. Surtout, en lisant les poèmes côte à côte, une version commence à signifier l’autre au lieu de signifier le propre sens des mots. Parfois, Beckett utilise des cognats qui, courants dans une langue, font un peu bizarre dans l’autre. Par exemple, dans que ferais-je sans ce monde sans visage sans questions, le « vers le secours vers l’amour » est joliment sonore et simple en français. Cependant, la version anglaise devient seulement l’ombre du français : « towards succour towards love ». Quoique succour signifie la même chose que secours, succour n’est pas du tout de la langue courante et ne fait pas de sonorité non plus. Succour est seulement un appel à la version française. Pareillement, une traduction en anglais à la française se présente dans ce court poème :

"je voudrais que mon amour meure
qu’il pleuve sur le cimetière
et les ruelle où je vais
pleurant celle qui crut m’aimer"

"I would like my love to die
and the rain to be raining on the graveyard
and on me walking the streets
mourning her who thought she loved me"

La dernière ligne en anglais fait encore référence au français ; cette ligne, et surtout « her who thought », est assez maladroit en anglais. Le français, par contre est génial : les deux dernières lignes font un parallèle sonore parfait (ruelle - celle, où - crut, vais - aimer). En plus, la syntaxe « celle qui crut » est naturelle en français.

On ne dira pas que Beckett s’est mal traduit. Les poèmes devront fonctionner ensemble dès le début et donc le bravo d’une version sur l’autre n’est jamais perdu ; par contre, elle est toujours à la portée de l’œil ou l’oreille. On prendra cette maladresse de la traduction comme rappel au bilinguisme inhérent de sa poésie.
Comme une signification ne peut pas être restreinte par la simple définition d’un mot, les versions aussi ne doivent pas se restreindre à leurs propres langues et leurs propres dictionnaires. Par contre, le sens des mots peut glisser partout, dans une langue et dans l’autre.

Le dialogue autocorrectif

Le glissement du sens prépare le champ poétique pour les questions du modernisme : les mots au-delà des définitions, les significations qui s’opposent et s’accordent, et l’impossibilité de dire si une porte est ouverte ou fermée. Souvent pris par les littéraires comme le dernier moderniste, Beckett fait preuve à cette appellation avec son utilisation d’une autocorrection hyper consciente, la figure de la conscience du glissement. Ses narrateurs, toujours ayant des voix singulières et des paroles parlées, se corrigent, se font des commentaires, et se dialoguent. L’absence d’une parole certaine renforce le mouvement balançoire qui se présente simultanément en contenu variant et en forme dialogué.

Le dialogue, l’élément qui implique deux voix ou une multiplicité d’une seule, se présente comme simple question et réponse en Something there, la version anglaise de hors crâne, seul dedans. Cependant, il est seulement en anglais que cette forme de dialogue apparaît. Ce poème présente les versions les plus divergentes. Voici les deux versions :

"hors crâne seul dedans
quelque part quelquefois
comme quelque chose

crâne abri dernier
pris dans le dehors
tel Bocca dans la glace

l’œil à l’alarme infime
s’ouvre et se rescelle
n’y ayant plus rien

ainsi quelquefois
comme quelque chose
de la vie pas forcément"

"something there
where
out there
out where
outside what
the head what else
something there somewhere outside
the head

at the faint sound so brief
it is gone and the whole globe
not yet bare
the eye
opens wide
wide
till in the end
nothing more
shutters it again

so the odd time
out there
somewhere out there
like as if
as if
something
not life necessarily"

L’échange entre les deux voix dans something there, l’une qui interroge et l’autre qui répond en alternant les premiers sept lignes, écho l’échange entre les langues. L’une fait appelle à l’autre, ensemble elles forment un dialogue, mais jamais elles trouvent une réponse conclusive.

La voix qui interroge, en demandant where? et what? n’arrive pas à en tirer une réponse claire. La réponse de la première question « where » n’est pas beaucoup plus qu’une répétition de la première ligne. Le « there » de ligne un est le mot que la questionne veut faire préciser. Les réponses sont vagues : « out there » « outside ». Comme la demande à l’autre version ne fait que poser plus de questions, les réponses ici ne font que brouiller le sens. Le dernier échange, « outside / what / the head what else » est le plus confus. Ce n’est pas clair si le « what » demande de quoi est la chose dehors, ou s’il demande qu’est-ce que la chose – outside of what ? ou bien what is outside ?. La réponse est, conséquemment, également confuse : elle répond bien au deux sens de la question. Le crâne est à la fois le dedans dont le narrateur voit quelque chose dehors, et la chose dehors. Encore un glissement du sens se fait sur cet échange. Le « what else » est ainsi un renvoie ironique au clarté supposé. L’évidence suggérée par cet addendum moqueur on peut tordre pour signifier l’évidence de l’obscurité du dialogue. Le dialogue moderne ne se fait plus pour trouver la réponse idéale et socratique, mais pour rouler dans la question et l’hypothèse.

Après cette première strophe, le narrateur abandonne le dialogue en deux voix mais le continue avec une seule dans le dernière strophe. Il se répète comme pour répondre aux questions qu’il imagine se poser. On peut pratiquement insérer les trois questions de la première strophe dans la dernière pour reconstruire un dialogue interne : « so the odd time / [where] out there / [out where] somewhere out there / [what] like as if / as if / something… » Le dialogue des deux voix transforme en autocorrection avec l’enlèvement physique de l’autre voix qui est toujours impliqué même sans mots. La voix du dernière strophe précise constamment ce qu’il dit – « out there / somewhere out there » – sans être questionner par une deuxième.

Comme quand on regard l’autre version pour peut-être voir ce que l’auteur voulait dire et l’on rencontre quelque chose du complètement bizarre qui s’aligne pas même à l’autre. Ce que l’on trouve correspond vaguement à la question, mais donne trop de réponses, trop d’options. Le dialogue entre les poèmes ne précise pas ; elles dialoguent sur un sujet (le poème) mais sans donner une réponse. Beckett écrit dans l’âge où l’on a dépassé la réponse correcte ; elle se fragmente en plusieurs et ces morceaux interviennent tous.

À la recherche d’un discours : « what » is the word

Le dialogue sans conclusion devient une conclusion chez Beckett. Dans les poèmes, on voit plus précisément comment les mots, tendant pour un sens attendu, restent dans l’incertain ; les mots polysémiques forment la réponse, mais la question continue d’être demandée. La question même devient le poème, comme dans le cas de Comment dire / What is the word. Le manque de stabilité vu dans le dialogue se distille dans la forme d’une question qui devient son propre réponse. Le poème est donc un discours, autour d’un sujet, mais sans fin et sans conclusion.

Écrit dans le même style autocorrectif de Something there, Comment dire / What is the word consiste d’une tentative à former une phrase claire qui répond à toutes questions. Une phrase se construit petit à petit à travers les cinquante (version française) ou cinquante-quatre lignes (version anglaise) du poème. Il se forme, se corrigent, et se répète. L’interjection habituelle (plus qu’une fois toutes les 10 lignes) « comment dire – » / « what is the word – » interrompe le procédé des pensées pour poser la question à laquelle la voix ne peut pas répondre précisément. Les lignes de « comment dire – » forment un côté de la paire dans ce poème qui bascule entre la phrase naissante et la question sur ce qui est dit, similaire au dialogue de Something there. La phrase construite, mais jamais écrite dans son ensemble sans interruptions, est : « folie, vu tout ce ceci-ci, que de vouloir croire entrevoir, loin là là-bas à peine – (quoi) ». Toujours incomplète, la phrase manque d’un mot – celui qui est remplacé par « quoi » – qui préciserait ce qui est vu. Voici encore l’acte de perception est mise en abîme poétique. Similaire à la « quelque chose / de la vie pas forcément » vue dans hors crâne seul dedans, ce « quoi » est également ambiguë. Cependant, comme dans ce premier poème, l’important n’est pas définir l’objet du regard mais définir le regard même. C’est ce regard qui forme le discours du poème.
Voici les premières et dernières lignes de ce long poème :

"Comment dire
folie –
folie que de –
que de –
comment dire –
…
folie que de voir quoi –
entrevoir –
croire entrevoir –
vouloir croire entrevoir –
loin là là-bas à peine quoi –
folie que d’y vouloir croire entrevoir quoi –
quoi –
comment dire –

comment dire"

"What is the word
folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
…
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -

what is the word"

Le jeu de langage dans ce poème est extrêmement maîtrisé. L’allitération et l’assonance sont aussi intégrales que l’on dirait que les mots ont été choisis strictement pour leur son. Des passages comme « vouloir croire entrevoir » et « afaint afar away », quoique excessives (pourquoi ne pas dire simplement « voir » et « far » ?), révèlent dans la sonorité. Tout le poème est une série des mots sonore qui veulent dire rien du précis. En fait, c’est souvent les phrases avec le moins de précision significative qui sont linguistiquement les plus passionnantes. Par exemple, la phrase « ce ceci-ci » essaie à répondre aux demandes du précision – ce n’est pas simplement « ce » (ligne 10), ni « ceci » (ligne 12), ni même « ce ceci » (ligne 13) ou « ceci-ci » (ligne 14). Le narrateur se corrige jusqu’à ce qu’il ne puisse plus préciser. Cependant, toutes ces variations indiquent la même chose – « ce » – et cette chose n’est pas définie. Alors, pendant que le contenu (dire le signifié) reste pareil, la forme transmute dans une multiplicité de figures, utilisant tout signifiants possible. Ainsi, au lieu d’être un moyen de nommer, le poème est seulement discours. L’important n’est pas ce qui est signifié, mais comment il est signifié.

Dans ce poème, les mots signifiants sont « quoi » et « comment dire ». La répétition du « quoi », qui signifie la chose vue, fait que le mot est beaucoup plus familier au lecteur que son référent. Trois fois, le mot « quoi » reçoit sa propre ligne dans le poème. L’isolation du mot montre son autonomie ; « quoi » n’a pas besoin d’être relié avec un sens ni avec autres mots. « Quoi » devient comme l’objet cherché dans le poème. Le signifiant devient signifié, la forme devient contenu, et la langue le sujet du poème.

Dans ce poème, la question et la réponse « ensemble s’engloutissent » : les deux côtés autres du dialogue sont, à la fin, pareils. Les deux versions sont titrées et terminées avec la même phrase, celle qui est répétée huit fois dans le poème. « What is the word » le titre demande. Encore dans un glissement classique beckettien, ce titre double comme réponse, et « the word » est relevé dès le début. « Comment dire », l’expression française, demande également une réponse de sa position titulaire. Dans chacune des deux langues, cette questionne double comme réplique. En même temps que « the word » est la chose en question – le « quoi » innommable – il est également la seule chose du concret dans le poème. Ce poème, proposé comme une grande question, est dans un sens une hésitation. Les tirets après chaque ligne suggèrent une interruption, signifient que la phrase n’est pas finie. C’est seulement à la fin que les tirets disparaissent pour la dernière ligne. Cette ligne, isolée dans sa propre strophe et sans tiret, donc se lit formellement comme réponse au questionnement de la première strophe. Le what is the word [ ?] du premier partie se transforme, après une telle répétition, en what is the word. Le mot est « quoi » lui-même, le mot d’interrogation, le mot qu’il a déjà utilisé pour décrire la chose, le mot qui ne signifie que le vouloir de signifier. Pareillement, le français termine avec une réponse : « comment dire – / comment dire ». Ici, l’emphase est sur l’acte de dire. La réponse à la question comment dire ? est comment dire. La phrase cherchée, le mot raté ne se trouve pas dans la signification, mais comment on le signifie verbalement, comment il est prononcé. L’important n’est pas le contenu, mais la forme. Une fois que l’on a la forme, le comment, le contenu (la réponse de "comment dire ?") la suit naturellement. Ainsi, ce poème achève son propre but : il précise comment on dit des choses.

On bégaye, on se corrige, on rime, on ne termine pas les phrases, on le dit en deux langues : voilà comment on dit. Le but du langage chez Beckett n’est plus de signifier autre chose, mais de se signifier, de mettre en question la langue même.
Pour cette raison, le bilinguisme des poèmes n’empêche pas leur signification par doubleté. Par contre, le bilinguisme fonctionne comme figure poétique et philosophique qui montre comment marche la langue. Chez Beckett, le langage, seul à exister, est la question et la réponse. La forme et les sons dominent ; le sens vient seulement à travers la matérialité des mots, leur dualité, leurs glissements, leur imprécision. Le sens vient dans la simple utilisation des mots et dans le discours sans but autre que d’exercer la langue.

Les voix chez Beckett utilisent la langue pas pour trouver le bon mot, « the word », mais pour épuiser toutes les possibilités qui l’entourent. Il s’en sert de la langue malgré l’impossibilité de préciser avec. C’est la profondeur des mots dans leur son et multiples significations, non pas leur capacité de préciser la surface d’un objet, qui intéresse Beckett. Ainsi, le bilinguisme, l’ouverture du langage dans un double sens, devient juste une autre figure d’interpréter, un thème beckettien. C’est un aspect formel qui présente et ainsi qui signifie une bascule, une recherche, et une multiplicité où la réponse est plus vague et plus signifiante que la question. Dans son bilinguisme choisi, Beckett introduit le thème littéraire suprême, la métalinguistique.

Duplication et difference: le dualisme cartesien chez Hamlet

2006-03-30T11:13:00.000-05:00

Hamlet de William Shakespeare V, i, 158-194: “How long will a man lie i’th’ earth ere he rot?” jusqu’à “And smelt so? Pah!”

« Alas, poor Yorick » - HAMLET

La scène du fossoyeur, une des plus connues d’Hamlet, occasionne l’image célèbre d’Hamlet fils tenant le crâne de Yorick, réfléchissant sur la nature de la mort et de la vie. Cette scène illustre attire l’attention justement sur l’idée d’une dichotomie, montrée physiquement à travers l’image d’Hamlet en face de la mort, son regard fixé aux orbites vide du crâne. On voit là-dedans une répétition de forme (le crâne humain) et une différence de contenu (le crâne d’Hamlet, plein et vivant à l’opposé de celui de Yorick, vide et mort). L’idée de duplication et de différence vue dans cette image s’étend à la scène entière, et l’implication d’un dualisme corps-esprit, présenté par un basculement de contenu dans une forme fixe, s’étend à toute la pièce.

Le crâne identifiable, l’objet central, fonctionne comme synecdoque vis-à-vis du personnage de Yorick, le bouffon de la cour ; sa présence donc amène d’humour, des jeux de mots, et de franchise aux paroles des autres. De la même façon, la scène dont il fait partie illustre un grand thème de la pièce – la compréhension et acceptation de la mort. Même si elle est en aparté stylistiquement, elle fonctionne comme une synecdoque pour la totalité.

Intervenant juste après la mort d’Ophélie et juste avant son enterrement, cette scène a lieu au cimetière, local signifiant, donné que, en plus, le bain de sang final (où Gertrude, Claudius, Laërtes, et Hamlet lui-même meurent) vient dans la prochaine scène. Malgré - ou plutôt - à cause de la solennité du lieu et du point dans l’intrigue, l’humour se présente clairement comme la principale caractéristique de forme du langage. Cette scène fonctionne à la base comme relief comique typiquement placé avant ou après les scènes de mort chez Shakespeare (voir Porter de Macbeth, Fool de King Lear). Au début de l’extrait, Hamlet est déjà entré sur scène et a commencé à discuter d’abord avec Horatio et après avec le fossoyeur le sujet de la mort. Il essaie d’imaginer et légèrement raconter les histoires de chaque os et crâne lancé par le fossoyeur. La légèreté linguistique continue à travers toute la scène, jusqu’au moment où le cadavre d’Ophélie arrive, ses réflexions sur la mort deviennent physiquement insupportables, et il bat Laërte.

Quoique la forme humoristique de l’extrait, par contre, le contenu des paroles est le plus grave : le sujet est celui de la mort et, plus précisément, comment concevoir la mort corporelle chez les proches. La conversation entre Hamlet et le fossoyeur sur le procédé scientifique de la pourriture est du moins morbide dans sa précision et devient problématique quand Hamlet se rend compte que le crâne est celui de Yorick, le bouffon aimé de son enfance (un annonciateur du corps mort d’Ophélie). L’alternance entre parlant des corps comme cadavres et d’en parlant comme personnes souligne le thème du dualisme cartésien qui trouble tout l’extrait.

L’humour dirigeant de cette scène ne fonctionne pas seulement comme caractéristique formel, mais aussi comme le seul moyen possible de comprendre la mort et unir les contraires cartésiens. Il se manifeste en parole dans la forme d’ironie. Ironie, un aspect d’humour, implique un dédoublement de contenu dans une forme pareille. Cette duplication linguistique mène le spectateur à la vraie problématique, le dualisme du corps et l’esprit coincé dans un seul récipient humain. Écrit dans la naissance de l’âge de la raison, Shakespeare et ses personnages se trouvent troublés au cœur par la séparation entre le corps et l’esprit. Dans Hamlet, c’est la parole qui facilite l’acceptation des deux côtés - la mort avec la vie - en les prononçant avec l’humour, l’ironie, ou, tout simplement, avec des mots justes qui dirigent eux-mêmes le mouvement vers l’unification du dualisme.

L’humour dans cette scène n’existe qu’en relation avec la mort, et la mort n’est traitée qu’avec humour et familiarité presque vulgaire. Le sujet du monologue d’Hamlet est le bouffon mort. Le fossoyeur, l’homme le plus proche des morts est un joyeux luron, dont l’humour trahit la solennité de son travail. Hamlet, amateur de jeux de mots, n’arrête pas non plus ses habitudes en face des crânes.

De même, le fossoyeur se présente comme un bouffon dès ses premiers mots. Ses paroles sont caractérisées par l’utilisation de contresens ou l’utilisation d’un mot pour un autre, un mal à propos du langage. Tout d’abord, ça fait rire. Le mot remplacé paraît ridicule parce qu’il corrompt le sens de la phrase, sens que les spectateurs devinent facilement en replaçant eux-mêmes le mot exact.

Mais à la deuxième examination, le rire en question n’est plus un rire absurde qui se balance dans le vide du sens, mais un rire révélateur qui expose la présence d’un sens caché. Comme le bouffon de la cour qui a l’autorisation de critiquer le roi et l’empire à travers la comédie, on considère le clown le plus honnête. Les blagues et les jeux de mots apportent une véracité qui se confirme dans le rire.

Si on regarde les premiers mots du fossoyeur on trouve déjà une richesse de parole, qui continue dans le passage sur Yorick. Il demande: « Is she to be buried in a Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation? » (V, i, 1). Salvation est le contresens ici, puisqu’ils parlent de la mort possiblement suicidaire d’Ophélie (un acte de vouloir, « wilfully » commit). On entend l’écho du mot exact damnation dans son homéotéleute salvation, mais on ne rejette pas complètement ce dernier comme erreur de prononciation. Justement, Ophélie se trouve dans la vie dans une espèce d’enfer ; déjà damnée elle ne peut que se sauver. Cette phrase peut rappeler le soliloque du troisième acte quand Hamlet évoque la problématique qui existe entre la difficulté de la vie qui est « the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to » et l’inconnue de la mort où « what dreams may come…must give us pause » (III, i, 62, 66-68).

Avec telles réflexions, on voit clairement que la parole du bouffon, dès le début, importe plus de signifiance qu’une simple antiphrase. Dans ses blagues, on voit l’association des contraires, une association qui est presque incompréhensible mais qui forme tout l’univers. L’humour, régulièrement défini par l’acte de mettre ensemble deux idées ou images contraires avec une facilité de langage, n’est pas seulement la caractéristique principale de la scène, mais la clé d’accepter la mort et surmonter le dualisme.

L’ironie, un aspect de l’humour sert à concrètement lier les deux côtés – le vivant et le mort, l’esprit et le corps - à travers le langage en forme d’homonymie et polysémie. L’utilisation des homonymes et des quiproquos est fréquente dans la pièce. Polonius et Hamlet sont les plus coutumiers de cette façon de parler, bien qu’Hamlet joue ces jeux de signification avec presque tous ceux qu’il rencontre (II, ii). Cette sorte d’échange se produit entre lui et le fossoyeur. Tous les deux jouent à travers leur dialogue sur quelques mots clés de la pièce : lie, rot et hide. Ce sont tous des verbes ou noms applicables à la fois au corps (ici, le cadavre) et à l’esprit (pourri qui ment et dissimule) dans leurs deux significations.

Hamlet se rend compte que le fossoyeur présente plus qu’un humour avec ses mots. Quand l’ironie de ses homonymes et le contresens de sa rhétorique arrive à Hamlet, il avertit Horatio : « We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us » (V, i, 133-134). Déjà Hamlet donne le pouvoir à la parole, disant que s’ils se trompent du mot, ils ne seront pas seulement perdus, mais undone : défaits, annulés. Hamlet met en place l’importance fatale de la précision des mots. C’est cette même imprécision que le fossoyeur utilise pour s’amuser qui pourrisse Danemark et afflige la cour royale.

L’ironie du prononcé et le quiproquo de l’entendu se présentent dans la dialogue entre Hamlet et le fossoyeur, un échange à la fois comique et signifiant. Hamlet, toujours pensant à son père récemment mort et si rapidement oublié, commence par demander au fossoyeur, « How long will a man lie i’th’earth ere he rot ? » suggérant le lien entre la pourriture corporelle de l’individu avec la détérioration mnémonique du peuple. Hamlet lui demande : Combien de temps peut-on s’en souvenir avant de l’oublier ? Ici, il fait référence voilée à son père, le signifié de « a man ».

En même temps, comme toujours, Hamlet parle de Claudius aussi, son faux père, qui devient le deuxième signifié de « a man ». Le génie de Shakespeare et de son personnage principal réside dans le fait de constamment faire référence à plusieurs signifiés avec un seul signifiant. Hamlet lui demande également : Combien de temps peut-il mentir et tricher avant qu’il ne puisse plus, avant qu’il se perde totalement, avant qu’il ne soit plus humain? La réponse du fossoyeur éclaircie ce deuxième signifié (Claudius) : « Faith, if a be not rotten before a die », comme s’il répondait lui aussi en faisant référence à Claudius, lui qui est pourri et vivant. Cette réponse, qui souligne un signifié plus éloigné de l’interprétation littérale, correspond avec l’implication d’Hamlet (qu’il critique son faux père) et les mots clés de la pièce. On entend toujours l’écho résonnant de « Something is rotten in the state of Denmark » et la répétition de cette image de pudeur dans la confession de Claudius, « O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven » (I, iv, 90 ; III, iii, 36).

Ici, la possibilité d’être pourri avant la mort peut être interprété dans deux sens : un sens corporel et un sens moral. Mais à la fin du dialogue, on revient à la première signification, purement physique. Le fossoyeur précise qu’il parle des « pocky corses » qui étaient déjà pourris d’une maladie fatale. Ce basculement de signification du matériel vers le spirituel ou mental qui revient à la fin au corporel se répète tout au long de l’extrait.

Dans la discussion sur le tanneur, on devine encore trois significations différentes pour le mot hide: la peau d’animal, la peau du fossoyeur, et la dissimulation. On prend le mot au début (c’est-à-dire avant que le fossoyeur finisse la phrase) pour la peau d’animal avec lequel il travaille. Quand on se rend compte qu’il parle de la peau du tanneur lui-même, on ne comprend pas seulement l’ironie d’un deuxième referant, mais aussi une banalisation du corps humain, typique de cette scène («pocky corses » « whoreson dead body » [V, i, 160,166]). En traitant le corps vivant (qui est à priori lié avec l’âme) comme un hide tanné d’une bête « that wants discourse of reason », on renforce une fois de plus le thème du schisme de soi en peau et pensée (I, ii, 150). En même temps, en réfléchissant sur ce mot déjà attribué plusieurs signifiés, on comprend le signifié dissimulation. Encore une fois, à la fin du dialogue, on est convaincu que les signifiés corporels sont plus justes à la lettre. L’association des cadavres avec une corruption morale est le rapprochement des signifiances corporelles et spirituelles. Exprimé par des actes de tricher et de dissimuler en addition au fait d’être pourri, ce rapport fait référence à l’intention d’Hamlet de venger son père par le meurtre de Claudius, le roi pourri, et annonce aussi la chute de tout le pourri royaume de Danemark.

Le dédoublement du contenu corporel et moral trouvé dans ces mots individus à travers l’ironie parallèle exactement la nature du pourrissement de Danemark. La cour et les citoyens sont, comme Hamlet avertit, undone par equivocation. Leurs mots n’ont plus de sens juste ou clair, puisque derrière eux se ramassent des mensonges et des intentions mauvaises. Leurs actions ne sont pas en accord avec leurs intentions ; leurs corps pas en accord avec leurs esprits.

La répétition des doubles et désaccords visuel et linguistique amène le spectateur au cœur de la problématique métaphysique d’Hamlet, personnage et pièce : le désaccord entre l’esprit et le corps, l’intention première de l’action et l’interprétation qui en est faite. Elle trouble tout le Danemark, un peuple fasciné par l’image, influencé par les beaux discours, gouverné par un roi illégitime en qui ils ont confiance (II, ii, 359-362). Elle trouble du même la cour royale, de haut en bas. Le Roi Hamlet souffre cette disjonction cartésienne le plus, totalement disjoint de son corps, il n’est qu’un esprit qui ne peut rien faire sans un issue corporel (trouvé en Hamlet fils, son propre sang). Claudius qui s’est imposé roi et s’exprime comme un roi, n’a pas le sang proprement royal (étant le benjamin) : son corps dénonce sa position aperçue par le peuple. En mariant Claudius, Gertrude a trahi la mémoire émotionnelle de son mari pour les plaisirs du corps (« To post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets ! » [I, ii, 156-157]). Et, Hamlet fils, coincé entre la conscience d’être le roi légitime et la condition physique de ne pas l’être, exprime constamment la lutte physique-mentale en lui.

Mis dans une position similaire à celle de son père, où il sait que son corps n’a pas le pouvoir qui lui est dû, prince dans un cours où les actions faites sont voilées par les mensonges prononcés, il est ainsi très conscient de la division entre l’action et l’intention, la forme et le contenu. C’est précisément cette conscience qui lui donne la capacité de paraître fou, mais seulement quand il en a besoin pour achever ses intentions ; « I am but mad north-north-west » il explique (II, ii, 374). Quand Polonius lui demande ce qu’il lit, il répond avec encore une conscience de la relation perturbée de forme-contenu : « Words, words, words » (II, ii, 192). Cette réponse est une indication claire qu’il voit un lien cassé entre le signifiant (the word), l’état physique, et le signifié (the matter), l’état projeté. Dans ce pays, il n’assume pas que les mots qu’il lit (ni ceux qu’il entend) correspondent clairement aux signifiés qu’on y suppose liés. Plus tard, il nomme précisément le désaccord en ses propres mots. Il se dit : « My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites », se préparant à parler avec sa mère, à un moment où ses actions et ses intentions se décalent (III, ii, 388). Avec son vocabulaire et sa rhétorique Hamlet met ensemble les deux côtés du dilemme : le décalage (ou hypocrisie) corps-esprit et celui de action-intention (prononciation étant action). La langue, métonymie pour le corps, oppose l’esprit ; l’âme, métaphore pour l’intention, oppose la parole.

Quoiqu’il est conscient de ce dualisme, ce n’est que dans le moment où il parle des choses à côté quand il peut mettre les deux ensemble dans la même manière dont il les a séparés : son langage, son vocabulaire, ses mots. Après le premier acte, Hamlet essaie de se faire passer pour un fou avec sa parole mystérieuse ; cependant, la parole moins forcée chez lui est plus révélatrice. Dans la répétition sonore qui se produit en prononçant cette problématique sans la poésie des soliloques, Hamlet, avec ses interlocuteurs, explore la conscience et l’unification de la dualité présentée à travers les répétitions formelles involontaires. Au lieu d’avoir un mot divisible en multiples idées contraires ci-dessus, ici on a l’inverse : multiples mots contraires synthétisés dans une seule idée.

Dans cet extrait, c’est le fossoyeur qui introduit l’acte de lier deux contenus opposés par leurs formes similaires. Le fossoyeur lui dit : « This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester » (V, i, 174-175). Une phrase qui a l’air élémentaire en contenu – simplement la réponse à la question, C’est à qui ? - est en forme complexe et significative. L’allitération de la consonne s associe les quatre noms adressés : this same skull (signifiant celui qu’il tient), sir (Hamlet, l‘adressé), Yorick’s skull (le crâne qui était au corps d’un particulier), King’s jester (le Yorick vivant, le particulier). Séparée que par des virgules, chaque partie de la phrase a une relation avec toutes les autres. Alors, ce n’est pas seulement les multiples formes de Yorick qui sont liées ici, mais de même Hamlet lui-même (« sir ») devient double de Yorick vivant et mort.

La difficulté d’associer l’image d’un crâne vide avec la mémoire d’un bouffon jovial est amoindrie (ou au moins adressée) par une association lexicale. C’est surtout la répétition de skull entre « this same skull » et « Yorick’s skull » qui produit le connexion incontestable entre le corps et l’esprit du bouffon, en reliant les modifiants de skull : this same et Yorick’s. En plus, l’expression « Yorick’s skull » (cette révélation étant le point culminant de l’extrait) incarne parfaitement l’unification de l’esprit et le corps. On comprend à la fois une signification du contenu et de la forme. L’attribution d’un prénom au crâne connecte des actes d’un vivant aux restes d’un mort, en lui donnant un contenu. La prononciation de « Yorick’s skull » révèle un chiasme sonore k – s – s – k entre les deux mots, un trait formel à la base. Mais le chiasme affirme le contenu de la phrase, l’idée de duplication et de différence, caractérisant l’image d’Hamlet tenant le crâne. On retrouve le k – s du vivant dans le s – k du mort ; ils contiennent la même matière mise dans des formes différentes. Le rapprochement formel des signifiants livre donc un rapprochement des signifiés dans les oreilles et les esprits des personnages et, de plus, aux spectateurs.

Dans son monologue sur Yorick, qui vient juste après, Hamlet explore la possibilité que ces deux côtés soient attachés à travers la forme et le contenu. En prononçant ce problème, lui aussi, comme le fossoyeur, crée un ensemble cohérent du contenu en rapprochant les formes des dualités en question. Hamlet utilise un vocabulaire qui comporte deux ordres – le mentale et le corporel – en parlant de ces deux côtés de Yorick. Il décrit d’abord l’esprit vif de Yorick : « a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy » (V, i, 178-179). Jest et fancy sont des mots de l’imaginaire et infinite est de l’immatériel, définissant le vocabulaire de l’esprit. Ensuite Hamlet se souvient de ses actions : « He hath bore me on his back a thousand times » (V, i, 179-180). Ici le vocabulaire, comme l’action décrite, est corporel en bore et back, alors que a thousand times est un mot de précision matérielle (à l’opposé d’infinite). Sa réaction aux deux sorts de souvenirs se manifeste dans le rapprochement formel des vocabulaires : « …and now – how abhorred in my imagination it is. My gorge rises at it » (V, i, 180-181). En utilisant imagination Hamlet reprend le vocabulaire de l’esprit de Yorick (imagination étant un synonyme de fancy), en même temps que sa réaction s ‘étend hors de la réflexion quand il commence à avoir des nausées, et le vocabulaire du corps et action paraître (gorge, rises) en y pensant.

Les mots se ressemblent davantage quand on considère les retours de sonorité. La répétition du son « or », qui se présente tout au long de la première moitié du monologue, sert à connecter les vocabulaires opposés et donc les idées inverses. « Alas, poor Yorick » Hamlet commence, établissant déjà le sujet et la sonorité qui vont casser la dualité en incluant les deux côtés dans une seule phrase (V, i, 178). « Bore », « abhorred », et « gorge » font tous écho sonore à cette première phrase, mais basculent entre vocabulaires corporel et mentale. Bore et gorge, les mots physiques, entourent abhorred, le mot de l’esprit, reprenant le modèle déjà établi d’un balancement vers la signifiance mentale avant de revenir finalement au corporel. Avec le rapport sonore entre eux, construit par l’assonance, leur prononciation, l’un après l’autre, se fait plus facilement. Dans l’acte de prononcer les signifiants facilement vient l’idée que les signifiés peuvent se mettre ensemble.

Après cette première moitié du monologue sur la possibilité d’un lien entre le crâne et Yorick où il se souvient du Yorick vivant, Hamlet continue avec la deuxième moitié ayant accepté le fait que Yorick est actuellement un crâne. Hamlet donc associe Yorick vivant et le crâne formellement pas seulement avec son vocabulaire, mais avec sa rhétorique en les plaçant dans le même monologue. En cette transition entre parlant de Yorick comme vivant et puis comme mort, Hamlet ne perd pas son affection primaire pour le bouffon. Le moment où il commence à parler à Yorick directement en deuxième personne, il renonce la séparation corps-esprit, parlant au crâne comme s’il avait toujours une âme. Cependant, ce n’est qu’avec de l’humour, de l’ironie, et des jeux de mots qu’il puisse accomplir ce succès. Hamlet demande au crâne : « Not one now to mock your own grinning ? Quite chop-fallen ? » (V, i, 185-186). Il joue avec les phrases qui s’appliquent à la fois aux vivants tristes et aux crânes pleine de dents mais sans mâchoires. Avec son sens d’humour, il peut attribuer une âme là où il n’a jamais pensé la voir. Il attribue même des actes au crâne de Yorick : il lui demande d’aller jouer le rôle du crâne qui apparaît à la toilette d’une femme, comme dans une danse macabre . En cette suggestion, il lie la personnalité et le métier de Yorick avec son crâne ; parce que Yorick pouvait faire rire les gens quand il était vivant, son crâne aussi donc doit avoir cette capacité. Cette légère acceptation de l’idée qui lui faisait mal avant continue jusqu’à la fin de l’extrait quand en y réfléchissant il imagine la pudeur d’Alexandre lui-même, montrant son succès de lier la vie et la mort ainsi que l’importance de l’humour jusqu’à la fin.

À la fin de cet extrait et de même de la pièce, Hamlet accepte finalement d’être une partie de la répétition des formes : à travers sa parole révélatrice et ses clowneries signifiantes, il joue le rôle du lien entre les dualités cartésiennes. Il compense le corps absent du feu roi légitime en lui vengeant et l’esprit déficient de la cour actuelle en tournant son regard vers elle-même. Il joue le fou, corps et esprit séparés, parole et signifiance divorcés ; il accepte ses ordres d’un spectre et parle sans sens. Il est le seul en Danemark qui voit l’ignorance des deux côtés problématique et la confronte.

Face au crâne, Hamlet se trouve doublé en Yorick, vivant et mort. Le fossoyeur, clown fiable, les a lié déjà en les appelant mad tous les deux, Hamlet et Yorick, plusieurs fois la scène : « young Hamlet…he that is mad », « …because a was mad », « …as mad as he » et puis « a whoreson mad fellow’s [the skull] was », « a mad rogue ! » (V, i, 144, 146, 150 ; 170, 173). Madness, normalement défini par un schisme entre l’esprit d’affligé et la réalité physique autour de lui, est donc un décalage corps-esprit.

Cependant, dans une cour si pourrie que celle d’Hamlet, la réalité perçue est voilée par mille couches des mensonges, des mots, et des jeux. Il insiste au début de la pièce qu’il ne connaît pas la semblance, seulement l’existence, lorsque tous les autres ne connaissent que cette première. En disant « Seems, madam ? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems’ » Hamlet indique la franchise initiale de ses actions (I, ii, 76). Tôt dans la pièce, il se rend compte du fait que personne va lui comprendre s’il se présente franchement, donné que leur compréhension de réalité est entachée par l’ascension injuste de Claudius à la position du roi, une séparation totale de l’état physique (la vraie histoire du meurtre) et l’état mental (l’histoire qu’ils en croient). En croyant que Claudius est le roi juste, le royaume perd complètement leur notion de réalité. N’ayant pas d’autre moyen de communiquer avec les gens si décalés, Hamlet se décale lui-même, commençant dans le deuxième acte à jouer sur ce désaccord pour accomplir ses buts.

À travers son comportement du fou, il retourne le miroir vers la cour pour les montrer comment ils sont . Seulement en répétant leur condition de décalage complet peut-il sortir de son propre dualisme.
Ce dualisme se manifeste en Hamlet dans la peur de la mort et la crainte de l’action. Cependant, après la scène du fossoyeur, il a eu l’occasion d’y réfléchir et de l’accepter. Aidé par l’humour du fossoyeur et la mémoire de Yorick, mort mais pas oublié, Hamlet est prêt à surmonter ses craintes et aplatir sa dualité. Hamlet oublie cette dualité imposée par l’intellect et montre son acceptation d’elle par l’action intentionnelle et l’affrontement de la mort. Dans l’acte final, quand il s’agit de sa vengeance et son royaume, Hamlet, ayant résolu le dualisme en lui-même, le ressoude définitivement pour tout le royaume qui en a souffert.

Il accepte la possibilité d’avoir deux composants au même moment, admettant qu’on est tous homonymes polysémiques. On se trouve, à la fois, duplications des formes et possesseurs des multiples contenus différents et parfois contraires, incluant un corps et un esprit, une capacité d’agir et une de penser. À la fin de la pièce, Hamlet est finalement prêt à accueillir son nom et son contenu dualiste en répétant l’action finale de son père homonyme, celui de mourir.

The Problem of Moralizing in Jauss and Fish

2005-04-21T00:26:00.000-05:00

The Persistence of the Individual in Social Formations and Interpretive Communities

In the final pages of the essays Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory and Interpreting the Variorum, Hans Robert Jauss and Stanley Fish each put forward a theory outlining the social influence latent in an individual’s reading of a text. Jauss proposes this influence occurs after the reading by means of a “socially formative function of literature,” through which the experience of reading has an effect on the individual’s “lived praxis” (951). Fish, on the other hand, suggests that the reader’s prior membership in an “interpretive community” determines his reading experience (989). Each proposes a different relation between the experience of reading and the rest of the reader’s experiences, either formative or affirmative. Despite the practical opposition of these theories, they operate on similar methodological grounds and can therefore move beyond questions of priority to illustrate the significance of assuming a functional relationship between reading experience and social experience.

While both theorists insist on a group’s shared influence or invention of a text, they also both highlight the role of the individual reader’s experience and continually refer to the act of reading as an “experience.” The categorization of reading as an experience not only makes it possible to causally connect it with preceding or subsequent events in one’s lived praxis, but it also establishes reading as an individual act, the experience of which can be different for everyone. The individual experience of the reader, though it would seem to contradict arguments that insist on a plurality of readers, is valid in these theories because each individual experience forms the social experience. However, the argument for the authority of the reader’s experience crumbles when both Jauss and Fish introduce examples that suggest moral, rather than social, change and influence. These textual examples (Flaubert and Milton) equate moral interpretations with correct interpretations, weakening their arguments for the experience of the reader as well as the compatibility of reading and non-reading experiences. Morality, supposedly a system of absolutes, takes away from the reader her interpretive freedom to be influenced by past experience (learned in Fish’s interpretive community), condemning her to sin and future failure in lived praxis if she misreads (Jauss’s socially formative function of literature). Jauss’s theory of socially formative literature falls short when he applies it to moral formation, as he does not take into account the singularity, subjectivity, and preformed experiential biases of the reader that form her reading. An application of Stanley Fish’s model, though, can provide Jauss with an understanding of preformed interpretive biases—the interpretive community. In combining the two theories one is left simply with a timeline that stretches the life of the individual reader or the reading society, and in which all experiences of reading and non-reading influence and are influenced by every other experience. This leaves the text precariously balanced between an individual’s past and future experiences and past and future communities, leaving moral choice too, when it is an issue, suspended between social constructs and individual interpretations. In the face of misinterpretation, the reader’s experience and her experiences, now justified in both future and past manifestations, invalidate altogether any proposition of morally right or wrong interpretation.

Jauss and Fish’s application of the term “experience” to the act of the reader is essential to their arguments and their belief in the individual reader. The “literary experience of the reader” and the “structure of the reader’s experience” are the formative terms of each essay, used almost consistently (951, 979). As Fish suggests, the experience of the reader does not need to be directed or constrained to techniques, but “to [be made to] signify; first by regarding it as evidence of an experience and then by specifying for that experience a meaning” (978). This suggestion reverberates with Jauss’s incitement to study the history of reception, which is both the evidence of an experience (book sales, reviews, court cases surrounding a text’s reception, etc.), and a way to specify meaning for an experience (analysis of these facts). The experience of the reader provides the basis of both arguments as wells as the basis for their critique.

The porous exchange between the experience of reading and other experiences suggest that one’s lived praxis and literary experiences occupy the same kind of time—a defensible argument. Overall, the classification of reading into a temporal system (an “experience”), rather than a spatial one, dismisses the persistence of a stable text over time (as Fish explains in Interpreting The Variorum) and replaces it with the action of the reader’s perception of the text. The “experience” of the text suggests a temporality connected with everyday experiences like going to the store, for instance, which might take you the same amount of time as reading a few chapters in a novel. The reading experience is subject to temporal practice (one can only read in time), a practice that reflects verbal utterance. Fish implies the connection between the act of reading and uttering in his inclusion of listening to poetry in discussions of reading it (“reading (or hearing) poetry”) (986). Reading, whether silently or aloud, implicates a speaker of some sort in order to activate the spatial text into a temporal existence. Because each text is subject to temporal reading, it is also subject to the voice of its reader, which can impose any subjective intentions it chooses. The experience of reading activates language into speech.

Reading—again like going to the store—involves a reader’s subjective relation to the world of the text, formed by previous knowledge. One will only buy wine if one has the intention to, an intention formed by the previous experience of enjoying wine or of being told to buy it. Units of the text are infused with the same bias of previous personal experience: “[Reading line 46 of Comus] is an experience that depends on a reader for whom the name Bacchus has precise and immediate associations; another reader…will not have that experience” (983). In admitting the varied and subjective nature of the reader’s “experience,” Fish introduces his understanding of the priority of an interpretive community to a literary experience. “These strategies [of interpretive communities] exist prior to the act of reading,” Fish explains in the final section of his essay (989). He goes on to suggest that these methods “for constituting [texts’] properties and assigning their intentions” are learned and can change over time (989). Mirroring the change of one’s experiences over time, interpretations are subject to change according to experiential knowledge. The individual experience of reading proposed here by Fish results in an interpretation subject to what previous experiences (either textual or lived) the reader uses to inform his utterance.

Jauss, on the other hand asserts the priority of the reading experience at the outset of his Thesis 7 in explaining the socially formative function of literature: “The literary experience of the reader…preforms his understanding of the world, and thereby also has an effect on his social behavior” (951). With the word “preforms” Jauss creates a causal relationship between the reading experience and an “understanding of the world,” suggesting that literature has just as much sway on experience as Fish proposes experience has on literature.

Regardless of the priority of read or lived experience, each theorist’s interpretation of the reader’s experience insists on its contextualization in society, rather than in a hermetically sealed, spatial interpretation possible in formalist conventions (expressly refuted by each theorist), a double assertion of the importance of the individual reader’s experience. Though Jauss states that the reader’s lived praxis is preformed by her reading experience, because the reading is an “experience” rather than study or exercise, the reader retains her interpretive authority as a member of society. The theory of the socially formative role of literature places meaning in the hands of all readers, not only of the time of publication of the text, but future readers as well, all of whom contribute to a ever-changing “literary evolution.” “The distance between the actual first perception of a work and its virtual significance…can be so great,” Jauss asserts, “that it requires a long process of reception,” in which multiple individual readers exert subjective interpretations that, when studied, form an objectively recordable reception or social influence (947). Both Fish and Jauss’s contextualization of the reader’s experience, whether socially formed or socially formative, allows for the subjectivity implied in the action of “experience” as the societal context of social formation and interpretive communities reinforces the authority of the reader’s subjective experience.

Through their textual examples, both Jauss and Fish demonstrate the similarity of the reading experience to a lived experience, in that the reader is bestowed with the free will to choose what she does, to choose an interpretation. Free indirect discourse in Madame Bovary, Jauss explains, has “the effect that the reader himself has to decide whether he should take the sentence for a true declaration or understand it as an opinion characteristic of this character” (953). Likewise in Fish’s interpretation of “Lawrence of virtuous father virtuous son,” the undetermined definition of the word “spare” leaves the reader “not with a statement, but with a responsibility, the responsibility of deciding when and how often – if at all – to indulge in ‘those delights’” (978). Surely the reader’s experience shall be like her experience at the store—she is presented with choices and decisions to make, and in the end she will go home with what she wanted. Both theorists’ use of the verb “to decide” certainly reflects an openness of interpretation that confers all authority to the reader, She who decides, She who will make the final decision.

But, as Jauss and Fish walk the reader through her potential choices, they insinuate that the interpretive authority she has been granted may have moral consequences if she doesn’t make the right choice. The texts Jauss and Fish employ are used to generate interpretations that rest heavily on moral choices, weighing down the experience of reading with ethics imposed by the author or critic. The use of literature as a means of didactic moralizing destroys the previously established validity of the reader’s experience as capable of authoritative interpretation.

At this point in their arguments, Jauss and Fish contradict their previously established understanding of the reader’s experience. Fish’s example interpretations of The Variorum all hinge on a moral issue. “Lawrence of virtuous father virtuous son” involves the decision of whether or not to indulge in “those delights,” which may or may not be sinful. “Avenge O Lord thy slaughtered saints” involves an interpretive choice the belief in a vengeful or a benevolent God. Fish only implies morality through these passages, but Jauss suggests outright that literature has a morally formative function.

“The relationship between literature and reader can actualize itself in the sensorial realm as an incitement to aesthetic perception as well as in the ethical realm as a summons to moral reflection,” Jauss declares (952). This statement suggests that it is only through the ethics or aesthetics that one might relate one’s own experiences to those relayed in the novel. And, as aesthetic experience involves a distanced appreciation rather than active experience, only ethics are left for the reader to associate experience. He uses Madame Bovary to illustrate this moral decision, the reading of which “was able to jolt the reader…out of the self-evident character of his moral judgment, and turned a predecided question of public morals back into an open problem,” as if the reader were concerned only with questions of good and evil (954).

Though Jauss’s utilization of Madame Bovary proves instructive in the practice of employing the history of reception in understanding the full impact of Flaubert’s work on his initial audiences, Flaubert’s heroine herself demonstrates the exception to Jauss’s theory, bringing back into view the experience of the reader, conditioned by non-reading experiences. At first glance, Emma Bovary seems the perfect character with which to illustrate the theory that literature can be formative of a lived praxis: she leads her live in accordance with the novels she read as a girl, and often feels her woes equal to those of a lost sailor, whom she has only read about, though chooses as her simile: “Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar some white sail in the mists of the horizon” . However, Emma’s novel reading does not bring her the kind of “moral” realizations Jauss suggests possible. Though she does not read Flaubert, she does read Walter Scott (among many others) , whose writings should give her an understanding of the equality of low and high class, as he wrote of both equally and tolerantly, which she certainly does not have. One may consider Scott’s famous line from Marmion, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!” Certainly Emma has ‘misinterpreted’ this very line perhaps by supplying a positive connotation to the phrase “a tangled web,” something to contrast her simple orderly life with Charles, and proceeds to form her lived praxis according to this line (deceiving her husband by having a lover). Likewise, when Emma thinks of the heroines of literature, she thinks mainly of their shared quality of possessing lovers , a prospect in which she must be interested before her experience of reading. Though the experience of reading does affect Emma’s lived praxis (to a fatal extent), her ‘misinterpretation’ of the texts relies on preconceived notions gained from experience, inherent in every individual’s reading, as every individual is necessarily a part of an interpretive community, according to Fish. Perhaps Emma’s “provincial education” has deprived her of the academic value of studying the history of literary reception, but even if she were to read Madame Bovary, one would be temped to say she would just find another heroine with a lover to admire (954).

In Jauss’s tracing of a moral lesson, or at least a moral question, that of “public morals,” onto Madame Bovary, he, like Emma, reverts to the authoritative experience of the individual reader (954). The passage that both the prosecuting attorney and Jauss employ focuses on Emma’s “glorification of adultery,” deemed immoral by the prosecution. However, as Jauss continues to explain, the prosecution had confused the ‘objective narrator’ with the “subjective opinion of the character, who is thereby to be characterized in her feelings that are formed according to novels” (953). But in this seemingly historical explanation Jauss reveals two important cases of an individual’s misinterpretation. First, the accusation itself arose from a misreading: “Flaubert’s accuser thereby succumbed to an [interpretive] error” (953). Second, Emma’s “immoral” feelings have been “formed according to novels,” a formation that Jauss has suggested is moral, rather than immoral.

Jauss also frames the trial through the dual interpretations of the two individual attorneys, Sénard and Pinard. The prosecuting attorney naively confuses the narrator with the main character, a ‘misinterpretation.’ The passage chosen for a demonstration of literature’s effect on society, curiously relates only to Emma, an individual. Were Pinard and Sénard to engage in an literary rather than legal dialogue, perhaps they would have chosen a passage more telling of the immorality of society, as, for example, the final state of the detestable Homais in the last lines of the novel. In referring back to Emma, they reinforce the power of the individual interpretation.

The possibility of moral misinterpretation suggests that a reading experience is both influential and influenced. Like the great social effect of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses on the Muslim community, which Viking/Penguin declared was due to a “misreading of the book,” Jauss demonstrates in his utilization of what one might call “The Flaubert Affair” that acts of misinterpretation are valuable in progressing social and literary change and, using the words of Fish, must be made to signify. However, with the questions of morality that Fish and Jauss raise they forget that the individual determines society’s reading and misreading. If misinterpretation is to be taken as morally reprehensible, the importance of the reader’s “experience” in its dialogue with her other forms of experience is overturned. But in the heart of essentially social, rather than moral, theories that are based on the authoritative experience of the reader in her community, they demonstrate that reading and misreading alike are subject to the whims of the individual and the study of the theorist. In making her experientially biased interpretive decision, the reader comes away from her reading with acts with which to preform her lived praxis which may be moral or immoral, but the morality experienced is one free from judgment that needs only to signify. If it is possible for an interpretive community or socially formative effects to be created around one individual’s subjective life experiences, then—in a synthesis of Jauss and Fish—each individual’s misreading, regardless of morality, must be studied as a historical moment in the ontogeny of literary evolution.

Troubling Binaries in Shklovsky's "Art as Technique"

2005-02-18T01:34:00.000-05:00

In his essay “Art as Technique,” Victor Shklovsky proposes the process of defamiliarization as a method of creating art and viewing reality in order to challenge the traditional understanding of poetry and imagery as quickly comprehensible. Along with this proposition of defamiliarization comes a system of binaries with which Shklovsky emphasizes the separation of the poetic from the practical in terms of imagery and perception. This system of binaries troubles Shklovsky’s argument in his attempts to reverse the direction of the causal relationship between poetic and practical and to modify the meaning of objects through imagery, both processes he deems necessary for the defamiliarizing of perception. Upon thorough examination of the many binaries throughout the essay, one discovers the troubled nature of the originating binary. Shklovsky’s inherent disregard yet seeming demand for the binary separation of art (or text) and reality troubles the rest of his separations. As thinking in binaries often proves natural, easy, and fruitful to both critics and readers, Shklovsky’s inconsistent yet required system mirrors the reader’s futile attempt to perfectly sort out a text.

Both Shklovsky’s preliminary refutations of the accepted definitions of imagery (Potebnya) and perception (Spencer, etc), and the “technique of defamiliarization” suggested in the title of the essay beckon the establishment of a system of binaries (723). In using the ideas of opposition and “defamiliarization” as the respective premise and purpose of the essay, the basal inspirations, Shklovsky’s need for binaries seems inherent in his thinking.

Through the juxtaposition and opposition of his ideas with others’, namely those of Potebnya and Spencer, Shklovsky creates the binary of self and other, promoting his ideas and their corollaries over those of the other. In beginning the essay with a quotation he plans to refute throughout the essay (“ ‘Art is thinking in images’ ”), the oppositional nature of the work takes a prominent place from the very first line (717). When Shklovsky continues the line, “This maxim…is nevertheless the starting point for the erudite philologist who is beginning to put together some kind of systematic literary theory” he indicates both his competitor and himself, both of whom are starting from the same notion, only Shklovsky provides its refutation. The refutation itself occupies the first three pages of the text, continuing until he suggests that “If we start to examine the general laws of perception, we see that as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic,” the statement that leads him to propose the technique of defamiliarization (720).

Likewise, defamiliarization itself, the subject of the essay, suggests a binary in both its name and its application. The word “defamiliarization,” not found in common dictionaries , relies on the reader’s synthesis of the generally known word “familiar” with the prefix “de-” to create its opposite. It is only through a familiarity with the opposite of Shklovsky’s definition that one can understand “defamiliarization,” starting just as the essay does by defining its opposition to a binary. Quite similarly, it is only through the familiarity of an object that one can decide it should be or can be defamiliarized. This directional movement from the broad to the precise characterizes the ideal technique of artistic perception suggested by Shklovsky, a reversal of the practical or prose perception, in which one begins with the precise and characterizes it, through perception, as broad (as with the movement from the specific signified to the general signifier in naming; see Figure 1). In the case of practical perception, one is so familiar with the object that one sees it “as though it were enveloped in a sack. …[One sees] only its silhouette” (720). Though one is looking at an object with many unique characteristics, one perceives only the simplified “silhouetted” version of an object, seeing just enough to identify it and shout out the signifier, as one would to a shadow while chained in the depths of Plato’s Cave. Shklovsky calls this perception algebraic or automatized. Only through the recognition of this abstracted, algebraic, over-familiar perception can one begin to defamiliarize, as when Tolstoy realizes he’s forgotten if he had dusted the divan (720). Instead of perceiving the specific object and attributing to it a general form (as with practical name recognition in the Cave), one perceives the specific first as a general, recognizes automatization and then (reversing the directional movement of perception) reforms the general into its specific, oftentimes in through literary writing. Shklovsky calls this act of defamiliarization poetic perception. In these two opposing perceptions Shklovsky emphasizes the separation of the poetic and the practical.

Shklovsky suggests one outline a system of binaries with the statement, “The range of poetic (artistic) work extends from the sensory to the cognitive, from poetry to prose, from the concrete to the abstract: from Cervantes’s Don Quixote…to the broad but empty Don Quixote of Turgenev; from Charlemagne to the name ‘king’…” (720). In this extensive list of pairs, presented in corresponding order (poetry, concrete, Cervantes, Charlemagne to prose, abstract, Turgenev, king) Shklovsky suggests a binary system, comprised of a world of opposing sets of two . He associates this system with the previously established binary of Shklovsky’s ideas versus the others’. By calling Turgenev’s Quixote “broad but empty,” Shklovsky expresses a clear affiliation, inserting the abovementioned “self” and its corollaries into the system. In synthesizing his statements throughout the essay one may construct the set of relations presented in Figure 1.

While most of Shklovsky’s ideas can be easily mapped onto this system, the relation between the two sides is not always strictly oppositional. However much Shklovsky may suggest their disparity to the point of accepting one and dismissing the other (as with Potebnya and Spencer), the binary system exists because of an initial relationship and interaction between the two sides (as with the cognitive origin of the word “defamiliarization”). Likewise, Shklovsky definitively determines the “purpose” of both imagery and art to be the interaction and exchange between the binary terms: “[T]he general purpose of imagery,” Shklovsky writes, “is to transfer the usual perception of an object into the sphere of a new perception—that is, to make a unique semantic modification” (725). This statement reveals a number of methods with which Shklovsky breaks with his own system. In simply using the word “transfer,” Shklovsky suggests a physical movement or exchange from one side of the binary to the other, from one sphere of perception (practical, for example) to another (poetic). The “semantic modification” suggested here refers to changing the meaning of an object. In examining Figure 1, one realizes that an object, the signified, can only be modified through perceiving it practically as a signifier. This step away from the object toward the signifier (the signified’s signified or meaning in this case) is the initial “usual perception of an object” in the semantic modification Shklovsky suggests. In this same directional step the object may be transferred into the text.

However, the transferring of object to artwork is necessarily a poetic process, one not capable of being represented in this simple system of directional binaries. The second step is to transfer this perception back onto the initial side through poetic perception. By following the circular path of perception from the signified to the signifier and back to the signified, a semantic modification occurs. Whereas simple practical signification stops at the signifier or the name of the object, defamiliarizing perception continues back to the object itself. In coming full circle, one may compare the initial practical movement with the secondary poetic movement and synthesize a new perception of the signifier in its transitional position between one and the same signified. In this way, the broad nature of the signifier is challenged, or at least recognized with every perception. An example: You see a handsome car that looks nothing like all the others on the street, perhaps one you have never seen before but would like to have. You say as it drives by, “Now that’s a car!” By referring to the important specific signified with a general signifier, you are acknowledging that this car has changed your understanding, semantically modified, of the word “car.” However, this whole process ties the system of binaries up in knots. A signified must signify itself, thereby becoming a signifier (while necessarily remaining a signified).

On the other hand, Shklovsky attests that “[an image’s] purpose is not to make us perceive meaning, but to create a special perception of the object” (723), contradicting his suggestion above that imagery produces a “semantic modification.” In this contradiction of the purpose of the image, each argument lies on either side of the binary (imagery as cognitive [“semantically modifying”] or sensory [“specially perceived”]). However, both sides come to meet and mingle in their suggestion that one attains a special or new perception of an object through imagery.

The notion of attaining a perception of an object through imagery further confuses Shklovsky’s binary system in terms of the perceiver. As “objects” (i.e. material entities one can sensorially perceive) do not exist in texts, to which Shklovsky, as a literary critic, is supposedly referring (and to which he does refer) throughout the essay, he must then be referring to one’s experience in material reality. With this conclusion, yet another binary, between the text and reality, is set up, as if only for the purpose of becoming problematic. So, as objects can be perceived only by a viewer in reality, and imagery is necessarily a function of a text and its author, the suggestion of perceiving an object through imagery implies the middleman of the artist as a go-between for the perception of reality. In both of the quotations on semantic modification and special perception, one can easily replace the words “images” or “imagery” with their creator, “the artist”; in this convoluted kind of metonym, the artist’s creations are an extension of himself, and can stand in for him. The quotations would then suggest that a ‘special or new perception of an object is attained through the artist.’ This idea may be related to Shklovsky’s political understanding of the artist as liberator, however one cannot so easily forgive his unconcerned substitution of reality for art.
The tendency to bring in conceptions of reality in an essay about art presents itself throughout the piece. Shklovsky explains automatism: “The object is in front of us and we know about it, but we do not see it—hence we cannot say anything significant about it” (721). In this sentence he refers to an undefined first person plural. One may assume he refers to readers, himself included, but the reader is neither interested in reality (as by his appellation “reader” he presumably concerns himself with the text) nor interested in “saying anything significant about [the object],” as his main function and goal is reading, rather than writing or speaking . This “we” refers to none other than the artists who both perceive reality and transfer it into words and imagery. Shklovsky’s Tolstoy fits this description perfectly: “He describes an object as if he were seeing it for the first time…” (721). Tolstoy both perceives (“sees”) the object and says something about it. Thus the technique of defamiliarization is assigned to the artist, and refamiliarization assigned to the reader so that she may modify her understanding of objects through art.

In referring so frequently to reality in an essay entitled “Art as Technique,” Shklovsky reveals to the reader his tendency to both polarize and confuse. Just as endlessly cyclical as the inescapable reliance on the signifier in the ‘stoniness of a stone’ or the ‘artfulness of an art work,’ the process of signification involved in the study of language cannot so easily separate the signified from the signifier (720, 718). With the complete separation of art and reality, which results from the opposed nature of poetic and practical perception (on which Shklovsky bases his essay’s contradictory conception), paired with the instinctive relation of art with reality (based on his notion of the artist’s role in society), Shklovsky negatively demonstrates through his problematic binaries the impossibility of absolute classification in language. Like the author, the reader must surrender her conceptions of binaries if she is to consent to Shklovsky’s tacit understanding of the inextricable link between art and reality.