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the Use of History in Literary Criticism

the Use of History in Literary Criticism. Literary History, New Criticism and New Historicism. Outline. Starting Questions Historical Methods Literary History – another example of traditional historicism New Historicism & Foucault References Next Few Weeks. Questions (1).

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the Use of History in Literary Criticism

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  1. the Use of History in Literary Criticism Literary History, New Criticism and New Historicism

  2. Outline • Starting Questions • Historical Methods • Literary History – another example of traditional historicism • New Historicism & Foucault • References • Next Few Weeks

  3. Questions (1) • What do the following statements mean? • There is nothing outside the text/ideology/discourse. Is there a position outside the dominant hegemony? • Politics is pervasive (implying power relations), 任何事情都是政治的， • Language is constructive (but not reflective) of reality, 語言為建構， • Truth is provisional (or contingent, no universal, non-changing truth), 真理是臨時建構， • Meaning is contingent (context is important determinant of meanings), 意義是因時／地制定的， • Universal human nature is a myth 人性的普遍性是虛構的.

  4. Questions (2) • What’s the difference between seeing a novel as a work or a text? • How do we examine 'the textuality of history, the historicity of texts‘?

  5. Two different views of a literary work • A work: Autonomous, unified in meaning; the meaning remains stable and can be transmitted through time and space;  New Criticism or Formalism • A text: textualized, interacting with the other texts around it in the historical context(s) it is written and read.  New Historicism & Post-structuralism

  6. Context as Con-texts • Traditional view World Work: symbols, Characters, Allegory, etc.

  7. Context as Con-texts Episteme • N-H view

  8. Historical methods • not just used by historians and fiction writers. • They are ways of knowing/representing our past. History has never been so prevalent and yet so easily forgotten as it is nowadays.

  9. Historical methods • History as a broad field: Ref. WWW-VL: HISTORY: METHODOLOGIES http://vlib.iue.it/history/methods/methodologies.html • Studying history as ‘text’: (Textbook 1: pp. 94-) • Generalization; • Authoritative/neutral tone • Tense –Simple past • Collection and Interpretation of “facts.”  how?

  10. Historical methods (2)—SELECTION OF “FACTS” 1. The solid lines indicate supposed empirical methods, and the dotted lines shows inference according normal historical practice. (Berkhofer 141)

  11. Historical methods (3)—> Grand Narrative(s) or History (Berkhofer 146)

  12. Historical methods (3)—> e.g. Grand Narrative(s) or History • E.g. 1 Textbook 1 p. 97 Mid-Victorian Britain • Great Past (the Victorian Age)  Great Story (of economic growth and progress) • Underlying assumption, or philosophy? • E.g. 2. Textbook 1 p. 98 Tyllyard’s The Elizabethan World Picture a homologous view of “the order”

  13. Historical methods (4)—> History as Narrative • life with plentiful events  evidence  fact  synthesized into ‘Story’ or, according to Hayden White,  organized into a chronicle  Story within beginning, middle and end; Or motifs (inaugural, terminating, transitional)

  14. Q & A (1) • What are the historical methods used by historiography and/or historical novel/film and how can they be critiqued? •  credibility (‘facts & evidence,’ authoritative & neutral tone and the past tense);  subjective selection •  embodiment (witness account, the use of narrative and other techniques)  subjective (biased) and eliminating gaps •  totalization (generalizations of a period, a people or a society)  excluding and erasing individual differences and exceptions.

  15. Literary History • p. 104 – periodization 歷史斷代 • segmenting the flow of history into some big chunks. (classification as a way of knowing the past, but . . . ) • homogenizing and totalization (one period is seen to have a set of characteristics) (e.g. p. 108-109; 111; Neo-Classical poetry, Romantic Poetry, Victorian Novel and Poetry 唐詩、宋詞、元曲、明小說) Aren’t there exceptions to these generalizations? e.g. Jane Austin, 19th century ‘poetess’ • Forming a Canon 典律

  16. New Historicism • History is brought back to literary studies and literature de-centered. Both are in a network of text. • The assumptions of history – influenced by Michel Foucault.

  17. New Historicism: principles • (textbook) 115 • Every expressive act (speech or text) is embedded in a network ofmaterial practices (production of texts or other types of productions); participate in the economy they describe. • Language as context: Every act of unmasking, critiquing, and opposition uses the tools it condemns and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes; • Literature de-centered: That literary and non-literary texts circulate inseparably; • Truth is provisional; human nature, a myth. No discourse,. . . gives access to unchanging truths, nor expresses inalterable human nature

  18. New Historicism: methods • (textbook) chap II p. 246 • Investigates three areas of concern: 1. the life of the author; 2. the social rules found within a text; 3. a reflection of a work’s historical situation in the text. • Avoiding sweeping generalization of a text or a historical period, a new historicist pays close attention to the conflicts and the apparently insignificant details in history as well as the text. (difficulty: resources not available inTaiwan) • The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800

  19. New Historicism: examples • p. 123 – an anecdote is used to interpret Twelfth Night. • [Beginning]Montrose on Midsummer Night’s Dream • The play 'creates the culture by which it is created, shapes the fantasies by which it is shaped‘ • Simon Forman’s dream • The prefaces to Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, as well as contemporary literary reviews and capitalist system, are used to explain his views on poetry.

  20. Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984) Discourse, Power and Subjectivity Image source

  21. Discourse Definition “What is an Author?” Power and Knowledge (Truth)  ‘effective history’ Power Discipline & Punish Foucault: Outline

  22. Discourse is "a group of statements which provide a language for talking about ...a particular topic at a particular historical moment." Discursive formation over time --three major procedures: Definition & Prohibition  defining statements & Rules about the “sayable” and “thinkable” Division and rejection;  subject positions; exclusion of other statements Opposition between false and true  Authority/Power of knowledge (Truth) Discursive practices (material practices) within institutions. Discourse (論述): Definition

  23. Stop and Think: Discourse, “Truth” & Power • What discourse, or its “the regime of truth,” makes the following statements valid? • Neurosis is a mental illness. • Masturbation causes sexual impotence. • Yellow is beautiful. • 一個孩子恰恰好，兩個不嫌多 • How is ‘author’related to discourses?

  24. What is an Author? The author is not a creator of his own work. He is a ‘label’ put on a group of work by and related to him. • The author function: providing to ‘his’ discourse a. Value, b. Coherence, c. Stylistic unity, d. a historical figure

  25. Literary Discourse: implications • No fixed boundaries between literature and other social practices; • The author is not the creator of his work. He serves as a label to put on a group of works related to him. (e.g. Wordsworth discourse) • Defining some subject positions (of the author, the reader, etc.) (to be discussed more later)

  26. Power and Knowledge/Truth • power – both repressive, controlling and productive -- not just top-down; it circulates, working in multiple direction like “capillary 血管movement.” -- producing “Truth”– with a discursive formation sustaining a regime of truth.

  27. Power and Knowledge/Truth (2) • Since truth is provisionally produced by power in its system, Foucault argues for production of ‘effective history’ (117) • e.g. the operation of power in a hospital –exertion of power through spatial arrangement, the doctor’s examination, the posters, pamphlets, the different examination room, registration system, pharmacy, insurance co., etc.

  28. Discipline and Punish Main purpose -- not so much the “birth of the prison”as “disciplinary technology” Or the carceral (監獄的) forms of discipline which exercise over individual a perpetual series of observation and modes of control of conduct.

  29. Discipline and Punish (2) B. Penopticon A circular building with the central control tower  control internalized.

  30. Q & A (Discourse  Power and Subjectivity) • What do you know about Foucault so far? How does his theory of discourse influence our views of history? • What does it mean to say that Foucault “historicize discourse” and “textualize history” (textbook 1: 116) • Why is history not ‘linear’ for Foucault?

  31. Foucault: traditional historicism vs. Archaelogy • Traditional Historicism – the ‘past’ as a unified entity, with coherent development and organized by fixed categories such as ‘author,’‘spirit,’‘period’ and ‘nation.’ • History as Archive: intersections of multiple discourses, with gaps and discontinuity, like book stacks in a library.  archeology: a painstaking rediscovery of struggles

  32. Foucault: “historicize discourse” • Every sentiment is in a certain discourse, and thus historically conditioned. Textbook 117 • effective history or genealogy: • knowledge as perspective, with slant and limitations; • working ‘without constants (or essence such as Reason, foundation such as God) • Working not to discover ‘ourselves,’ but to introduce discontinuity in histories as well as in us.

  33. Thick Description • To “sort out the structures [discourses] of signification” • Cultures, people and texts, all as ‘ensemble of texts.’ (121)

  34. References • Miller, Peter. Domination & Power. Routledge: 12/01/1987. • (textbook 1) Green, Keith and Jill LeBihan. Critical theory and practice : a coursebook. London New York : Routledge, 1996 : pp 91 – • Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 2nd Ed. (Bressler, Charles E. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.) • http://prezi.com/81_khbquk46g/new-historicism/

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