Who Wrote What, and Why?
When I think about literature, I instinctively think of the written word – anything that is in the form of a text. However, not everything that is written can be considered literature, and not all literature is necessarily written. For instance, “bluek” written on a piece of paper is not literature, although it is a visible word, and for many hundreds of years, literature was passed on verbally. So I go on and try to say that literature is a text that carries meaning. But then, this is not true either, because computer coding and instruction manuals could hardly be referred to as literature, yet they serve to communicate a great deal of information. Food labels and road signs contain meaning but are not literature. Nevertheless, if a story were to be written about “bluek,” or a compilation of food labels and road signs were to be recited and made into a poem, these random words would become literature. Therefore, on a very broad scale, literature is the art of language, and interpretation of literature is like studying a piece of art.
Throughout the history of literary criticism, various theories have been birthed in attempt to understand literature better. Each one of these theories view literature in a different light; subsequently, their interpretations are quite varied. My personal view on interpretation is the way a piece of literature is received and understood. I want to know the purpose of a piece. I want to know what that “take away” message is. Are there any underlying meanings to the text? What can I learn from it? As previously mentioned, literature is art. It is the dynamic, creative part of language which makes language beautiful. Similar to how art ranges from completely abstract to intricately defined, literature can likewise range from entirely ambiguous to very literal.
While some texts are explicitly clear and are to be taken at face value, others are laden with hidden meanings that are meant to be discovered, and yet others are deliberately vague and left up to the reader to decide. Some literary works have deep and profound lessons to be learned, while others are meant only for entertainment. Some express deep emotion, while others are light and superficial. As readers, I believe that our ultimate goal is to find out as much as we can about a text and glean from it the available information or knowledge that would lead us to finding the message. However, contrary to many literary theories, I think that it is extremely important not to tear the text apart and to read into selected details that would suit that specific school of study, but to understand the context in which the text is written, for a text cannot be independent of its author, the culture that surrounds the text, or the audience it is written for.
In order to fully understand a piece of art, especially in abstract cases, the best thing one could do is to ask the artist. Of course, there may be times when the artist himself may not be sure of his creation. In such cases, I would say that the audience can go ahead and interpret it however he or she may want to. However, the artist often does know what he produces, and there usually is something within that piece of art that tells a story or expresses some kind of emotion. Unfortunately, the artist is not always available for questioning, but that does not mean that things about the artist cannot be researched. I believe that it is important to know the background and basic beliefs of the artist in order to identify with his work. Without knowing who the artist is or what inspired that particular piece of art, a masterpiece could very well be viewed as meaningless or even nonsensical. One example that strikes me as most appropriate for this claim is the famous expressionist painting, The Scream, by Edvard Munch. Especially since I am not particularly fond of paintings, my instant reaction to this piece of art before I knew the reason for its creation was one of pure distaste. I thought that it was ugly and horrific, and I could not understand why anyone would want to put such a painting up for display. However, when I was given the cultural and historical context in which it was painted, I was able to see it through a whole new lens, and although I still think it rather ugly, I now have a new appreciation for the work and the message that it brings across.
Similarly with literature, authorial intent is very much the ultimate authority. For the best interpretation of a text, the author’s input would be the most logical way of finding out its meaning if it has not already been obviously stated in the text. If clarification is necessary, or if there seems to be an unintentional double meaning, the author has the right to inform his audience of his true intentions, and no one can question that. However, as it is with art, there are times when the author leaves certain details up to the reader, as those details either do not affect the final message of the text, or the author intentionally wants his readers to come up with their own interpretation. Of course, like the artist, authors are not always available for confrontation, and are often very removed from their audience, whether in terms of time, space, or both. Interestingly enough, Plato brings this up in Phaedrus. In fact, he also equates painting with writing, in that the artist or the author loses control of his work the moment it is produced on paper and is released for the world to understand it as they might. For Plato, this is a tragic possibility, as, if put in the wrong hands, that piece of work could be faced with terrible dangers (79).While Plato does have a reason for concern, I do not believe it is entirely true. Yes, people often misinterpret literature and end up with warped ideas of various works, but this is where the responsibility of the readers comes into play. This is where proper interpretation becomes a necessity, and it is up to the readers to find out about the author’s intentions.
Some authors leave behind journals or letters that explain their works, while others do not even reveal their identity. Once again, this is where the personal philosophies and worldviews of the authors become extremely important in trying to understand their work, as is the culture of the time, and the audience it is written for. If nothing can be found about the author, no one knows anything about the culture surrounding that piece of work, and the text itself does not reveal anything about its setting, then the interpretation of that text would always be found wanting. Even though such texts may still contain valuable messages, it cannot ever be as fully understood as compared to a text with complete authorial and cultural background.
As I became increasingly familiar with the different literary theories, I found myself rather frustrated that although many of these theories have got interesting ways of looking at literature, possess some very good concepts, and occasionally do contribute to the overall experience of a text, their ways of looking at literature are often extreme, biased, and therefore incomplete. I will first be looking at Psychoanalysis, Marxism, Feminism, and Gender Studies. Although each of these schools of criticisms are very distinct in their characteristics and focus on very specific areas of a text, they all share something in common, which is the very fact that they are exceptionally focused on applying their ideas to a text.
In Psychoanalysis, we are introduced to the concept of the unconscious. While Sigmund Freud himself seems to be fixated with unconscious sexual fixations, Jacques Lacan incorporates Freud’s theory of the unconscious and Ferdinand Saussure’s theory of the sign and signifier, in which he claims in The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious that “the whole structure of language” can be found “in the unconscious” (1169). While Lacan seems to have a more reasonable interpretation of the unconscious as he does not agree with Freud regarding infantile sexual theories, he does not deny the centrality of the phallus, and goes as far as to say, in The Signification of the Phallus, that the phallus is equivalent to the signifier in language (1188). This interpretation is foreign to me, as I cannot comprehend how a theory as complicated as this could even possibly have come into existence based off of the male reproductive organ, much less understand how it relates to the study of literature. What I do know about psychoanalytic theory, however, is that almost everything revolves around this theory of the unconscious and the symbolisms that can be found throughout the text, whether phallic or yonic. Psychoanalysts attempt to dig into the minds of the characters, make extensive assumptions on the author’s sexuality according to his history, and, based on how the characters interact with one another and different symbolisms, come to conclusions that somehow depict every character, or at least a majority of characters, to be somehow sexually perverted or mentally disturbed.
In Marxism, everything is about the economical status which determines a person’s social class. Marxists believe that the economy is the foundation that holds everything together. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels give an extensive description of how the bourgeoisie succeeded in bringing their world to such heights through their economical monopoly, and how literature was eventually unified along with everything else (660). To this point, I cannot tell if Marxism agrees or disagrees with communism, but it is certain that critics aim to identify the proletariats and bourgeoisies in a text, and then critically analyze the different voices and actions of the characters, attributing the ways they think and act to their economic standings in society. Although Marxist critics put much emphasis on historical context, it is not because they seek to understand the text better, but, as Bruce Robbins in his article “They don’t count much, do they?” The Unfinished History of The Turn of the Screw” puts it, “to change that context—to have an effect on history (376). Marxism does not care much for the message of a text, but concentrates mainly on analyzing the social constructs that can be found in the text.
I will proceed to look at Feminism and Gender Studies together. Although they are very different theories, the way that Feminists and Gender Studies Critics look at literature is very similar. Feminists view literary texts in light of how the text applies to women, while Gender Studies critics look for the elements in a text that could possibly reflect on anything that might include gender issues. While I am tempted to say that both these fields of literary study have the tendency of taking things too personally and often read far too much into things, I believe that Feminism does at times have very valid things to say. For instance, women like Mary Wollstonecraft who in, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was willing to speak up against being taught to conform to the ways society expected women to behave (496), had justifiable reasons for saying the things she did. However, especially now that women’s rights is not particularly an issue anymore, I find that many feminists tend to stray more towards being nothing more than hostile and petty—trying to nitpick and bring up issues that do not even exist, much less be found in literary texts. Similarly with Gender Studies, the issues that are brought up often never even occurred to the author, but due to the critics’ oversensitivity or some other strange reason, every other person in a narrative is suddenly in a homosexual relationship.
With regards to these four fields of literary studies, I find that they are entirely too specialized, which causes the criticism that comes out of them to be lopsided and lacking in interpretation. For although they delve deep into details concerning things that coincide with their perspective of literature, which might or might not be true, they miss the full picture and come away from the text with nothing more than yet another text that they successfully fit into their frame of interpretation. Many times, their interpretations seem forced upon a text, especially if there is little or no relevance to the topic. My reaction to many of these interpretations is often, “Interesting, but so what?” Although the different point of views may be fascinating, nothing changes for me. In other words, for these theories, it seems almost as though, if they fail to convince their audience that their interpretation of a text is the correct one, it is a failed interpretation. Nevertheless, this does not mean that understanding the different theories and why they come up with such interpretations have absolutely no value. On the contrary, they allow for a broader perspective and serve to enlarge my own interpretation in addition to what I learn from cultural and authorial context.
I consider New Criticism, Reader-Response Theory, and Structuralism to be of a different category from the previously mentioned theories because they feel a lot more subjective, and not as definitive. Instead of approaching literature with a specific ideology and attempting to apply that belief or perspective to that piece of literature, these theories seem more inclined to focus on what they can get out of the text.
What I like about New Criticism is that it studies every part of the text. It does not choose to harp exclusively on a single aspect while blindly ignoring everything else the text has to offer. However, I find this study of literature altogether too meticulous and impractical, as it spends too much time trying to analyze every single word. Not to mention that in New Criticism, the author and context of the text are completely removed from the study. This concept alone cripples the interpretation of the text. No amount of aesthetic appreciation that is churned out of a text could compensate for the lack of knowledge of the text’s origins especially since, considering the depth and specificity to which each word is analyzed, New Criticism is mostly only applied to short poetry which is almost never to be taken literally.
Reader-Response Theory has too wide a range to rule off as complete nonsense, but I will come clean in saying that I do not agree that readers make up a text. Although individual experiences may affect the way one understands a text, the original meaning of the text is not lost although it is otherwise interpreted. If an author writes “I see you,” but a reader, after watching the movie Avatar reads this as “I love you,” the fact that “I see you” was written to mean “I see you” does not change. One very good point that can be taken away from Reader-Response theory is Wolfgang Iser’s theory of the opposite poles. In Interaction between Text and Reader, Iser claims that all literary works comprise of the artistic and aesthetic poles which are represented by the author and the reader respectively. Because of this gap between the author and the reader, Iser states that the “actualization” of the text takes place somewhere in between (1524). I think that Iser here paints a priceless picture. No two interpretations, no matter how similar, could ever be identical. However, while a Reader-Response theorist would take this as a license to happily conclude that his interpretation is what makes the text, I see this as all the more reason for finding out more of the context so that I might come as close to the truth as possible.
I like Structuralism for the way it reveals the artistic nature of a text without hurting the text. Marcia Eaton puts it very nicely by saying in her article, “James’s Turn of the Speech-Act,” that “[i]f criticism is primarily a matter of pointing, then good criticism will primarily be a matter of good pointing” (344). Unlike the previous set of theories that in some ways expect a reader to decide if that particular interpretation is the “right” one, Structuralism only seeks to point out the linguistic elements that hold the text together, leading to a better appreciation for the text. As a literary approach, however, this theory is too much for me. While I appreciate the efforts that theorists have put into analyzing various texts, much of its interpretation is lost to me, in addition to the fact that, as formulaic as it may seem, Structuralism is a very subjective way of interpretation, and once again, the meaning of the text, as the author intended, is often lost.
I believe I have made enough of an emphasis on authorial intent and the importance of knowing the cultural context. My reason for this is really based on the fact that Biblical interpretation or exegesis is done this way. As a Christian, I am aware of the dangers that could stem from taking the Bible out of context, and many Christians have done so, often resulting in disillusionment and anger towards God. Misunderstandings within the Church – both local and universal can be attributed back to the different interpretations of the Bible. What we must realize is that the Bible is truth, but it was also written between two and four thousand years ago, not in English. For us to get to that truth, understanding the culture of the day, who wrote it, and why, are all very important because if all of these are unclear, little of the Bible would make any sense. To many people, Solomon telling his wife in the Song of Songs that her “hair is like a flock of goats” (New International Version 1984, Song of Songs 4:1) could be seen as either highly offensive or pretty funny. However, to his bride, this was probably the most romantic thing he could have said to her. In addition to that, anyone who has studied the Bible in its original languages can testify that the text often takes on a whole new meaning. Therefore, while I do not deny that the Bible can be understood without the help of concordances or a degree in theology, neither do I deny the fact that the Holy Spirit can still speak through the Word without contextual understanding, the experience is undoubtedly limited, as compared to attaining the full intention of the text. If then, my purpose of reading the Bible is to get as close to the truth as possible, it would make sense for me to make every effort to shirk off those limitations.
It is also important to note that although this approach to literature may seem close minded simply because I am basing it off of the way I view the Bible, this view of literature can be applied to any other literary text. When I read The Odyssey, by Homer, it was not by choice but for a literary class. Given a choice, I would not read it again. However, it is because of the contextual studies discussed in class, which included the culture of the time, understanding who Homer was, and what his philosophy entailed, that I gained an appreciation for this epic. While reading it, which was to me pure agony, all I could think of was how stupid Odysseus was, and how glad I was that my God is not as fickle as the Greek gods. Even though I still think that Odysseus is stupid and my opinion of the Greek gods have not changed, I have a whole new understanding of the different artistic allegories that Homer had hidden within the text which had nothing to do with my current state in life, but everything to do with being Greek and acting the way Greeks ought to act. By opening up my mind to view The Odyssey in the light of Homer’s perspective and comprehending his reasons for writing the epic, I took a step closer to the message behind the narrative – a step closer to Homer’s truth; something I never would have attained had I not been given the cultural background of the ancient Greeks and Homer himself. The Odyssey, to me, became more than a weird story written thousands of years ago about a self absorbed, grown brat who couldn’t get home because he thought too highly of himself.
This, I believe, is the purpose of interpretation. Although I cannot pinpoint a single literary theory with which I can completely identify, I do have a rather definite way of looking at literature, and that is to try to understand as much as possible about the text, not just by looking at the text. Before I took literary classes and was forced to study literature in context the way I did with The Odyssey, all I ever read were fictional narratives which, for the most part told their own story, and for that reason, I did not think it necessary to read up about the authors or their philosophies. However, as I became increasingly exposed to different genres, different time periods, and a vast variety of personalities in the history of literature, I found myself learning so much more about the fallenness of human nature, the despair that is evident in humanity, and the beauty of the Gospel. The study of literature and different literary theories has opened up my mind to a roomful of windows in which I am able to view the world no longer through a single, solitary lens, but through a collection of worldviews that has expanded my Christian worldview that I might be able to better understand those around me, and seek to present them with truth.
Works Cited
Eaton, Marcia. “James’s Turn of the Speech-Act.” British Journal of Aesthetics 23.4. (1983): 333-345. Web. 6 Apr. 2012.
Iser, Wolfgang. “Interaction between Text and Reader.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1524-1532. Print.
Lacan, Jacques. “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1169-1181. Print.
---. “The Signification of the Phallus.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1181-1189. Print.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. “The Communist Manifesto.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 657-660. Print.
New International Version 1984. Biblica, 2011. BibleGateway.com. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.
Plato. “Phaedrus.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 77-83. Print.
Robbins, Bruce. “They don’t count much, do they?” The Unfinished History of The Turn of the Screw.” The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2010. 376-389. Print.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 496-504. Print.