Teaching literary theory without opaqueness.

Abstract

Theory is usually rendered obscure by its own discourses. Classroom experience and empirical observation show that abstract teaching of literary theory generates confusion in students' minds, and the best way to elucidate any literary theory is to dwell less on its abstractness and more on the procedures and steps needed to apply it to a literary text. In such a heuristic approach to theory teaching, different theories are simplified and combined into a strategy for the interpretation of texts. The heuristic method means that literary theory is something that must be applied, not passively learned about.

Introduction

Theory is the bugbear for most of the students I have come in contact with in various universities and countries throughout my career as a university professor. The fear of theory seems global. Why is this? Simply, it is because theory deals with abstractions, and it is often obscured by its own discourses.

As a university professor whose aim is to inform students and elucidate what might appear to be intricate and opaque, I suggest that we approach theory in a pragmatic way. A successful teacher of introduction to theory class approaches his/her theory courses with the class level in mind. In the domain of literary theory there is no denying that the discourses of luminaries such as Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Bloom, De Man, Bhabha, Baudrillard, Macluhan, Christiva, among others, seem to defy understanding. The fact that professional readers and critics find such discourses alienating, ambiguous, farfetched, redundant or irrelevant should be made clear to the learners, who in turn should be encouraged to contribute their opinions on the theories they study. An example of open resistance to literary theory is Ray S. Hymowitz who attacks feminism and sees it as "mired in self-righteous sentimentalism, multicultural nonjudgmentalism, and internationalist utopianism." For him, "feminism has lost the language to make the universalist moral claims of equal dignity and individual freedom that once rendered it so compelling. No wonder that most Americans are paying feminists no mind." (24)

In another article, Mark Goldblatt denounces deconstruction and declares Jacque Derrida, its main proponent, as a fraud accusing professors and academicians who embrace deconstruction of dilettantism. He asserts that when Derrida was awarded an honorary degree from Cambridge University in 1992, twenty of the world's most-prominent philosophers--including W. V. Quine and Ruth Barcan Marcus--signed a letter of protest that is worth quoting at length:

   Derrida describes himself as a philosopher, and his writings do
   indeed bear some marks of writings in that discipline. Their
   influence, however, has been to a striking degree almost entirely
   outside philosophy.... In the eyes of philosophers, Derrida's work
   does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigor.... Derrida
   seems to us to have come close to making a career out of what we
   regard as translating into the academic sphere tricks and gimmicks
   similar to those of the Dadaists.... Many French philosophers see
   in Derrida only cause for embarrassment, his antics having
   contributed significantly to the widespread impression that
   contemporary French philosophy is little more than an object
   of ridicule. (17)

In "Bloomin' Genius" Joseph Epstein attacks the snobbery, shortsightedness and single mindedness of Harold Bloom, a renowned literary critic and theoretician. Epstein derogatively writes: " Proust says that in art, medicine, and fashion, there have to be new names, by which he meant that new names will arise whether they are worthy or not of being known. The same principle operates in literary criticism, where the name that has now popped up is that of Harold Bloom. But his is a reputation much in need of puncturing, if only to release the bloat and if literary criticism is once again to be taken--and is to take itself--seriously." (37)

The significance of the above passages is to show the students the widespread disappointment with theory and the various discourses it promulgates. With this comes the awareness that theory is not sacred, or beyond criticism and even complete rejection. Indeed, Voltaire a few hundred years ago eloquently and succinctly suggested that "Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one." (Gert 258) Thus, once teachers and students learn to approach theory with a skeptical vision, an easy and relaxed attitude is created in the classroom.

Theory in practice

To explain theory, I usually begin my classes by presenting it in an informal and student-friendly way. How informal is informal depends on the background knowledge and discretion of the lecturer. Before getting into the abstractions of any specific theory or group of theories, I suggest the following:

1. Ask students, individually or in small groups, to list theories they know. You may help them by giving examples and clues. Examples of theories that students may come up with are gravity, relativity, big bang, evolution, conspiracy, Ptolemaic, postcolonial, feminist, deconstruction, Freudian, Marxist, etc. The main purpose here is to make students associate with theory as a concept. Many learners may not know what Marxism is, but almost all of us roughly know what gravity is.

2. Start from the simple and familiar and move to the less familiar. Take the theory of gravity and ask students about the basic assumption of this theory. The most likely answer is that gravity is the force that pulls objects down to the ground.

3. Ask the students if this theory is still valid, and whether we can think of alternative assumptions as to why objects hit the ground, etc. So far, a theory like gravity might generate less argument and debate about its basic assumptions than other theories.

4. For the sake of convenience choose a couple of theories that were considered to be true in the past, and are discredited now. For example, point to the Ptolemaic theory of the universe, or Marxism. Show the students how such grand theories of both the universe and economy were taken to be the truth for certain groups of people. In the past scientists and scholars assumed the earth to be fiat, and the center of the universe, etc. Now, due to modern sciences, and telescopic observations and space traveling these assumptions are proven wrong. Repent the same procedure by picking theories that are still controversial, in the sense that there is no universal consensus on their validity or invalidity. Examples of this include all literary theories, the big bang theory and origin theories.

5. Make it clear to the students that theories are pure abstract assumptions that can be credited and discredited in due time by different people in different contexts. In places where Marxism was highly revered, other theories of state management were combated and discredited, and vice versa.

Once students feel at home with the general concept of theory, with the fact that theories are mere assumptions put by people like ourselves; and that these theories and their proponents can be compromised, or they might just date in time, the lecturer can proceed teaching the theories he/she has intended for the course. I choose to always make students skeptical about theories rather than the opposite. Robert Con Davis argues, insightfully, that the more skeptical learners approach a theoretical issue, the better their evaluation of what they read is, and consequently they are able to generate both positive and negative opinion with less inhibition. On the other hand, he asserts that students approaching a theoretical body of knowledge with a fixed positive or negative opinion about it lead to dogmatic perception which impedes global understanding.

Professor Martin Batsford supports Davis's argument by statistics derived from his experiments on university students in Australia, Japan and several countries in the region. Batsford observes that 90 percent of the graduate students who approached theory with no biases or prejudices and with full awareness that theory is mere assumptions that can be valid or invalid, that can be wrong or/and right; that can be modified or taken as a whole for a while, demonstrated good understanding of the theory at hand, and were able to generate creative opinions and fluent discourses. Those whom Batsford experimented with, and were opinionated about the theoretical material they were asked to learn, showed less tolerance and less understanding of other related or opposing theories related to their fields of studies. Batsford adds, that when theory becomes synonymous to belief, the learner stops reasoning, and the concept of theory loses its signification. In essence, Batsford's conclusions echo John Passmore's assumptions that, "authoritarian systems of education very commonly produce pupils who are extremely critical, but only of those who do not fully adhere to the accepted beliefs, the accepted rules, the accepted modes of action." (17)

Schemata for applying a theory

To avoid the opaqueness in the discourses of a given theory, the teacher needs to reduce it to its basic assumptions. This is not an easy task for the teacher, as it requires extensive knowledge and exposure. Imagine reducing the Whole Postcolonial theory, with all the writings of Edward Said, Hommi Bhahba, Franz Fanon and many other gurus, to a list of assumptions and guide-lines that would enable the student at the end of the lesson to go home and read a poem or any other literary text in their light! It is a difficult task that requires extensive knowledge, skill and dedication. What the theory teacher will be doing is, in fact, similar to what Robert Scholes terms as the heuristic approach to theory teaching where different theories, or different aspects of the same theory, are abridged and combined into a "strategy" for the interpretation of texts. A strategy, which is "immensely rich in its critical potential" and destined to become "a basic part of the critic's repertory, likely to endure even the excesses of its current vogue." (4)

In spite of the voices that oppose this approach and call it "ersatz theory or theoriticism" (Crews 164), or "the abandonment of theory" (Rescher 37) I see in it a great potential in producing results in the form of readings, it gives teachers something to say about a text; and it empowers students by showing them how to disclose the ideological conditions behind any cultural performance. The heuristic method--applied theory, as I like to call it--entails that literary theory is something that must be practiced, not passively learned about. In the following pages I will show briefly how a certain theory can be presented to the learners during their initial years of learning literary theory. I will choose to talk about Deconstruction by reducing it to its basic assumptions and presenting an analysis of how it generates a deconstructive literary essay.

Deconstruction

1. Assumptions The theory in spite of its complication and the incomprehensible discourses and vocalities of its main proponents, at their head Jacque Derrida, Roland Barthes, Paul De Man and Harold Bloom, can still be reduced to the following assumptions:

a. A literary text is a world on its own right. It is its own history, culture and context. In short, a text is autonomous and self-contained.

b. The reader does not need to know anything about the author or history (context) of the text in order to analyze it and make it signify.

c. The most important thing in the text is the material of the text itself, i.e. its language.

d. Literary texts are made of language, and literary language by its nature is ambiguous, metaphoric and unstable.

e. This instability of the literary idiom is bound to generate contradictions and oppositions in the literary text. This is like saying that a text might say one thing, whereas it could also signify something totally opposite or different.

f. Through close reading, a talented trained reader/critic has to search in a text for obvious or latent oppositions and expose them so that the text can read against itself, or against mainstream reading.

g. Deconstruction privileges the text with infinite number of meanings and interpretations as long as they are produced by using its basic method of falling upon the inherent contradictions in the vocabulary or narrative structure of the literary text.

2. Application In my analysis of MacDiarmid's poem "From In the Fall" in an article published in The Explicator (Mansour 45), I found a very subtle contradiction in the text. If one reads the poem uncritically, one is likely to see nothing more than a plea to a god from a poet for granting him/her the talent and skill to write eternal poetry:

   Let the only consistency
   In the course of my poetry
   Be like that of the Hawthorne tree
   Which in early spring breaks
   Fresh emerald, then by nature's law
   Darkens and deepens and takes
   Tints of purple-maroon, rose-madder and straw. (Lines 1-7)

The contradiction I found in the above text is so simple, yet so obscure. It lurks insidiously inside the word "Let." To deconstruct the text, my critical mind operates in the following directions:

a. "Let" is a verb that opens the stanza.

b. "Let" in the stanza functions as a tool of commanding, though the poem sounds on the surface as a plea to a god or a muse.

c. The imperative that resides in "Let" contradicts the apparent plea that dominates the surface reading of the stanza.

d. To issue an order implies superiority. To ask implies equality or inferiority.

e. What is the poem now about in the light of this new contradiction?

f. Does the poet order god? If so, does it make sense to ask for the sublime from an inferior? Then who is the poet ordering?

g. The rest of the essay is a matter of discourse derived from the writer's background knowledge of other texts, gender, situatedness, class, ethnicity, etc.

Another example to elucidate the concept of oppositional reading essential to deconstruction is taken from my analysis, in yet unpublished paper, of Dryden's poem "Marriage a la Mode." The poem is about a female speaker who talks derogatively of the Catholic marriage bondage, and recommends that dissolution of marriage should take place automatically if either of the spouses is no longer in love with the other. The poem sounds, to a modern reader, progressive, feministic, and in touch with female oppression. The task of the critic is to go beyond such reading, as it is obvious to any reader with a fair understanding of the language. A close reading of the text reveals an opposition in the vibrations of the voice of the female persona of the poem: a female voice created by a male author. This fe-male vocality is an intriguing point to pick at in this poem. For this point to grow into a deconstructive reading, one needs a rationale to justify the reading. Rationale: significance of contradiction

a. The contrast between the genders of two vocalities brings to the mind the question of representation.

b. The male authorial voice (Dryden) invents a female voice to represent her gender

c. The female voice criticizes the catholic marriage and is short of asking for legitimizing adultery.

d. The female voice exists in a conventional patriarchal order.

e. Such order is always mainstream, self-righteous and intolerant.

f. The female voice is tactlessly subversive.

g. The patriarchy denounces such subversion

h. The male consciousness that authors the text is a known religious patriarch who does not endorse his female voice.

i. As the male author does not endorse the radical opinions of his female voice, then his female emissary is maliciously created to denigrate women in the eyes of 17th century readers.

j. Consequently what appears to be on the surface a feministic progressive text turns out to be a misogynist narrative representing women as id-driven creatures.

The teacher in the literary theory class may ask the students to think hard about any given text in order to find similar contradictions and binary oppositions that can be manipulated to produce a reading. Once contradictions are spotted, the teacher should train students and encourage them to develop a rationale for the contradiction that can sustain a plausible argument the way I have shown in the above examples.

Conclusion

Classroom experience shows that non-applied teaching of literary theory generates confusion in students' minds, and the best way to elucidate any literary theory, is to dwell less on its abstractness and dwell more on the procedures and steps taken to apply it on a literary text. The previously mentioned procedures in conjunction with deconstruction can be repeated with almost every literary theory in the field from Formalism to New Historicism. However, students should always be reminded that the more they are well read, the more interesting and well informed their critical analyses will be.

References

Batsford, Martin. Resisting Theory. Sidney: Sidney State University Press, 1992.

Crews, Fredrick. Skeptical Engagements. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Davis, Robert Con. Reorientations: Critical Theories and Pedagogies. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.

Epstein, Joseph. "Bloomin' Genius." The Hudson Review. 85, 2 (2002), 35-9.

Gert, John. "Between Science and Spirituality." Philosophy and Literature. 16, 1 (1992), 254-8.

Goldblatt, Mark. "The Philosopher as King." National Review. 3, 1 (2001), 16-8.

Hymowitz, Ray. "Beyond Feminism." City Journal. 13, 1 (2003), 22-7

MacDiarmid, Hugh. In the Fall. The Complete Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid. Ed. Michael Grieve and W. R. Aitken. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985

Mansour, Wisam. "MacDiarmid's In the Fall." The Explicator. 61, 1 (2002), 45-6.

Passmore, John. The Philosophy of Teaching. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Rescher, Nicholas. Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977.

Scholes, Robert. Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

Wisam Mansour, Fatih University, Turkey

Dr. Mansour is currently an Associate Professor of English Literature. He previously taught in various universities in Cyprus, Jordan and Turkey.