As I was reading an article for the dreaded postcolonial theory class yesterday, I finally put together exactly why I dislike literary theory so much. If you look back over my previous few posts, the basic elements of the conclusion are there, but they hadn't coalesced into something solid and definable up to this point.
Let me begin by explaining that I like stories. I always have. As I child I read voraciously. I watched movies and memorized every line. I listened for hours to the sea yarns of the retired sailor who lived next door to my parent's house. I walked a mile down the dirt rode my grandparent's lived on to hear their ancient neighbor share tales of my father's boyhood. Whether it was written, visual, or oral, any story was good enough for me. I was never very good at making up my own stories. My little brother was much better at that than I. But I consumed stories like most children eat birthday cake, diving right in and getting frosting on my nose. And I would retell them, complete with accents and voice changes. Sometimes I would change them up a bit, embellish them for the amusement, or fear, of my often diminutive audience members. If I think hard enough, I can probably recall almost every story I've ever known.
My love of stories is what got me into the study of English literature, and for a time, my academic pursuits did give me greater and richer understanding of literary works. But after a certain point - I can't say exactly when I reached that point - the study of literature gave way to the study of theory about literature. Oh to be sure, I still read the occasional novel or short story as part of a class, but these texts are almost always in the service of a particular literary theory. And now, perhaps, you begin to see my problem.
If you read a piece of literary criticism written within the past twenty years, you will inevitably find a virtual catalog of principle criticism on the specific literary work under discussion. In the profession, we call this "situating our work within the critical discourse" or "negotiating a space for our argument." But whatever one calls it, the practice is intended to show how one's own approach to a literary text fits into, responds to, or otherwise takes into consideration the other bits of literary criticism on that text. This makes perfect sense, right? For one thing, you don't want to go repeating something someone else has already said, so you have to show how your idea is different. And for another thing, you have to sort of establish your authority by making it clear that you are familiar with the accepted scholarly opinions on the subject. However, this approach indicates to me a critical shift in focus. The literary text itself is no longer, if it ever was, the real object of attention. The other criticism is, and the literary text has been relegated to the status of evidence or tool that one uses to enter into academic discourse.
I remember the Intro to Grad Studies course my university made me take, regardless of the fact that I already had a masters degree and didn't need to be "introduced" to graduate studies. However, the course was useful in introducing me to the program's faculty and its specific vision of graduate studies. At one point, we were discussing the role of theory. One student referred to theory as a lens through which to view literature and claimed it is one of the most useful tools in the literary scholars toolkit, and another debated this metaphor. She didn't like to think of theory as some separate object that gets applied to literary study like some sort of cyborg implant, and I agreed with this view. I tend to think that everything we encounter becomes part of us, shapes how we see things. It doesn't matter whether its Foucault's The Order of Things or Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, once you've read a text, it affects how you will perceive the next text you read. At the time, I didn't understand why the academy separates these things into distinct fields, but it does, and the metaphor of the lens persists.
My objection to the "lens" view of theory is that it has enabled the displacement of literature that I find so distasteful in the liberal arts. The first step is a recognition of literary theory as a distinct object of study. It is immaterial whether one calls it a tool , a discourse, or a philosophy, once theory has become separated from the pursuit of literary study, it develops a life of its own. The second step is when the new object acquires an aura of supreme intellectualism. Any fool can write a story, but only a genius can tease out profound meaning from that story. Scholars are complicit in this move because it appeals to their own egos. They, we, are part of a specialized and elite group that sees far beyond the petty glances of the uninitiated. The third step is the complete discrediting of literature. Since an understanding of theory is now the primary goal of the academic, literature has been devalued as simply the raw material for the application, production, and testing of theory. From the theory as tool or lens to understand literature, we have shifted to seeing the literary text as tool or lens to understand theory. This attitude has allowed literature to be reduced to only one of a plethora of "texts" that can be read. One can read a tree or an advertisement or a body with every bit as successful results. The hegemony of great works of literature has been thrown down, and the author has been recast as the lifeless puppet ventriloquizing the concepts of discourse. To apply another metaphor, literature is the ground over which academics fight battles, but the war is about the value of particular theories. The object to be conquered or understood is theory, and one bit of ground is as good as another.
I will not accept this. I like stories.
My posts are mostly long, rambling attempts to deal with thoughts about my life and my world. If you are interested in coming along on my stream of consciousness, maybe we will eventually get somewhere...but maybe not.
