Textual Analysis and Textual Theory

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TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND TEXTUAL THEORY Session One Søren Hattesen Balle English Department of Culture and Identity

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Textual Analysis and Textual Theory. Session One Søren Hattesen Balle English Department of Culture and Identity. Agenda. Introduction : the course , the website, the summary assignment Introduction : today’s session Presentation : text , context , theory - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Transcript of Textual Analysis and Textual Theory

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TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND TEXTUAL THEORY

Session One

Søren Hattesen BalleEnglish

Department of Culture and Identity

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Agenda Introduction: the course, the

website, the summary assignment Introduction: today’s session Presentation: text, context, theory Class room discussion: William

Carlos Williams, ”This Is Just to Say” as literary text, as literary theory, and in context

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Introduction: the course, the website, the summary assignment

http://soerenballe.wordpress.com/ Forms of work, evaluation, and exam Preparation, attendance, assignments,

written sit-down exam Study guidelines Talking and writing about ”Text”: WHY?

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Study guidelines Duration of course: one semester (9 sessions) Credits: 5 ETCS Evaluation: 5-hour written exam at the

university and with the participation of an external examiner (2 grades: one for content and one for written proficiency)

Exam date: week 22 or 23 See also:

http://magenta.ruc.dk/upload/application/pdf/eb84bd20/Study%20Guidelines%20october%202009.pdf (especially pp. 11-12)

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Study guidelines Course content and aims:

Introduction to the reading and understanding of British, American and Postcolonial literary and non-literary texts in a historical and theoretical perspective

Introduction to relevant literary terms, concepts and methods

Introduction to relevant literary theoretical and methodological approaches

Competence in the analysis and contextualizing of literary and non-literary texts (’close reading’, textual genre, cultural period, author’s universe, etc.)

Competence in written proficiency

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”Text” Human beings are literary animals:

Narrative, metaphor: we make sense by telling stories and using analogies

Anything produced by a human being in any medium can be read as a (literary) text: Writing, speech, music, image, video,

sculpture, installation Everyday objects: clothes, holidays, gestures,

etc.

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”Text” How to distinguish between texts in the broad

the sense of term and literary texts in the restricted sense of the term: What is literature? What is ”literariness”? The lability of literature as a category vs. the

stability of ”literariness” as a function What determines that a text is read as a literary text:

The literary as a distinctive feature about certain texts Literature as an institution Literature as anti-institutional → the paradox of

literature

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”Text” How to make sense of (literary) texts: What determines the meaning of a

(literary) text? The author, the text, the code, the

context, the reader? The limits of interpretation: e.g. ’the

intentional fallacy’ and ’the affective fallacy’ (W. Wimsatt & M. Beardsley)

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”Context” Why is context important for the production

of meaning in (literary) texts? To read and interpret (literary) texts is

somehow to put them in a context To make sense of a (literary) text is to

naturalize or familiarize it Cf. J. Culler’s definition of the literary text:

”The fictionality of literature separates language from other contexts in which it might be used and leaves the work’s relation to the world open to interpretation” (32)

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”Context” Is there more than one context? How do we decide which context is the correct

one? How do we decide the relevance of context? Cf. J. Culler: ”..if we say that meaning is context-

bound, then we must add that context is boundless: there is no determining in advance what might count as relevant, what enlarging of context might be able to shift what we regard as the meaning of a text. Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless” (67)

Is the text its own context? (Cf. New Criticism and Culler, p. 24)

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”Context” Which contexts (of interpretation) are there: Cf. G. Genette’s typology of transtexts: Mirror textuality: segment(s) within text = model of the whole text Intertextuality: ”a relation of co-presence between two or more texts [..]

the literal presence of one text within another”, e.g., quotation, allusion, plagiarism, etc.

Paratextuality: the threshold of the text, the framing elements inside and outside the text: The peritext: title, forewords, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, notes, epilogues; the epitext: public and private announcements by author and publisher, correspondences, diaries, confidences, interviews.

Metatextuality: the transtextual relationship between commentary and the text that is commented upon. Literary criticism, reviews.

Hypertextuality: a later text is superimposed upon an earlier one (imitation, pastiche, parody, emulation, simulation, etc.)

Architextuality: the relationship of inclusion which links the text to, for instance, the genre it represents.

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”Context”

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”Context” The circumstances surrounding the

production of a text are important for our understanding of that text.

A text informs us of the circumstances surrounding its production.

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”Theory” ’Theory’ is not always ’literary theory’ Cf. J. Culler: since the 1960s ’theory’ has become

associated with the import of theoretical writings from fields of study outside literary studies

What is ’theory’: theory is the questioning of taken-for-granted or common-sense assumptions about texts, reading, representation, the author, meaning, etc.

Cf. Derrida’s questioning of ’writing’ as supplement and the relations between presence and absence in representation

Theory is ’speculative’ and ’complex’ What is the relationship between text and theory?

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W.C. Williams, ”This Is Just to Say”

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probably saving for breakfast

Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

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”This Is Just to Say” List reasons why you consider “This Is Just to

Say” to be literature. Conversely, can you think of any reasons why

“This Is Just to Say” should not be regarded as literature?

Is “This Is Just to Say” poetry? Can you think of a relevant context in which to

place Williams’s poem? Your choice of context may be literary, historical, cultural, social, political, or other. Justify your choice of context.

Is Williams’s poem itself a theory of poetry?