Assignment 6

1. Quote:

“These, then, are some of the main ways in which readers and critics engage with literary texts and begin to put forward accounts of what they mean. So, where does it leave us? The situation is this. We will always need these ten elements of interpretation. Literary criticism can never grow out of them, and they can never be superseded. It's impossible to do English without them. It always was, and it always will be.

And yet, equally, they are never enough. What, then, is missing? Well, they mostly look inwards into the text itself, and we also need to look outwards. This necessary looking outwards from the text is why we have and why we need literary theory. The text principles do not contain much that would focus us on the cultural contexts and co-texts of a literary work. Theory can help us especially in considering four major aspects of the relationship between literature and the world beyond, these being firstly, literature and history, secondly, literature and language, thirdly, literature and gender, and finally, literature and psychoanalysis”

Paraphrase:

The author Peter Barry argues that the ten traditional ways that are used when interpreting a text are very essential for literary criticism, that they are irreplaceable, and absolutely necessary tools when working with the English language and doing literary criticism. Despite their importance Barry however argues that they still are not enough because they do not to give the reader all the information that he or she needs to do a thorough interpretation. According to Barry the traditional methods used in interpretation only tend to look at the text itself without taking surrounding factors into consideration, while literary theory looks at the world outside the text and takes into consideration how elements like time and norms in society effect the text, which he uses as an argument to why literary theory is so important. Further Barry states that literary theory can be especially useful when examining the connection between the four areas: literature and history, literature and language, literature and gender, and literature and psychoanalysis.

Quote:

“The process of deconstructing a text often involves fixing on what looks like an incidental detail - such as a particular word, or a particular metaphor - and then bringing it in from the margin of the text to the centre. In this way the text is 'de-centred' by the reading process, and the overall effect is often perverse, obsessive, manic, or even apparently malevolent towards author and text, reader and literature. If we think of the text as a cat, then old-style close reading involves stroking the cat so that it purrs and curls in upon itself contentedly feeling good. Deconstructive reading is like stroking the cat the wrong way, against the grain of the textual fur, so that the cat bristles and hisses, and the whole situation becomes less predictable. The close-reader aims to show a unity of purpose within the text: the text knows what it wants to do, and having directed all its means towards this end, it is at peace with itself. By contrast, the deconstructor aims to show that the text is at war with itself, and that it is characterised by disunity rather than unity. So the deconstructor looks for such things as, firstly, contradictions, secondly, linguistic quirks and aporia, thirdly, shifts or breaks (in tone, viewpoint, tense, person, attitude, etc.), and finally, absences or omissions.”

Paraphrase:

According to Barry the term “deconstructing a text” has to do with focusing on individual words or metaphors in the text. These word or metaphors should then be lifted it form the text itself so they get the readers full attention and instead give the text as a unity less focus. According to Barry this way of reading a text is the opposite of the traditional “close reading”, which often can seem to be offensive towards the author, the reader and the text. Further Barry exemplifies this kind of approach by comparing the text with a cat, where the traditional ways of interpreting a text is to stroke a cat with the fur, which makes the cat content, and where “deconstructive reading” is to stroke the cat against the fur, which makes the cat irritated but which also can give unexpected situations. Barry continues to explain the difference between “deconstructive reading” and the traditional ways of interpreting a text by explaining that “close reading” focuses on the whole text and tries to show the overall meaning that the text is trying to convey while “deconstructive reading” is focusing on contradictions and disagreements within the text. To find these tensions within the text “deconstructive reading” looks for tings that seems to be misplaced like “contradictions”, “linguistic quirks and aporia”. “shift or breaks (in tone, viewpoint, tense, person, attitude, etc.)” and “absence or omissions”.

2. Firstly I think terms like “Close-reading”, “literary theory”, “deconstructive reading”, “deconstruct”, “literary criticism” should be quoted directly since they are so important terms in the article.

Further I think quotes like the three following are good to quote directly since they give good and striking explanations that are hard to do better when paraphrasing.

“Deconstructive reading is a kind of dowsing tool which is designed to pick up that counter-current that runs beneath the linguistic surface.”

“By contrast, the deconstructor aims to show that the text is at war with itself, and that it is characterised by disunity rather than unity.”

“Language seems to have a natural tendency to undermine and contradict itself, to be one thing on the surface and another ting underneath”

I also think that the authors own opinions in the end of the article should be quoted directly.

“Literary theory often intensifies the difficulties of reading, and constantly throws up more problems than it is capable of solving. So why do it? Two reasons come at once to mind. Firstly, the complexities it gets itself knotted up in really are there. And secondly, trying to unravel them is enlightening, and sometimes even fun.”

3. I think Peter Barry’s article Tackling Textuality - With Theory is a very well written and convincing article. The thesis statement of this article is clearly stated and Barry has many convincing arguments to support his claim. I thought the article was quite long but it was pedagogical of Barry to, in the beginning of the article, present what he was going to discuss in the text. It was also very good that Barry guided the reader through the text by thoroughly explain the elements that are included in close reading and after that compare them with literary theory. To make it even easier to understand for the reader Barry also used poems to exemplify literary theory, which was very good. Despite the fact that I thought the article was to long, it was convincing and I agree with Barry that literary theory is something good to use as a complement to ‘close reading’ when studying texts.