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(2016) Theory matters, Dordrecht, Springer.

Avoiding poststructuralism at its root

towards a new literary theory

Dino Galetti

pp. 95-111

It might well be argued that when poststructuralist thinkers turned literary theorists away from a naïve belief in absolute truth, they predisposed literary theory to relativism. In turn, the effort to find ways to interpret texts led to some thinkers finding problems, absolute secrets, aporias, and even paralysis. Moreover, one difficulty was that theory was made the arbiter of practice, so the implication was that reading and teaching of literary works ought to be paralysed too. Of course, reading and teaching carried on—the result has rather been a dissociation of theory from practice: it has been deemed that we are "after theory'. Yet we feel theory is crucial to orientating teaching and criticism of literary works, and moreover, by leaving the difficulties of poststructuralism unsolved we run the risk of blind spots. A way thus needs to be found that facilitates the transition from poststructuralism to new theories, and allows theory to re-align with and even support practice. As our scale is limited, we will address Husserl, whose work formed a partial platform for Derrida, Levinas, Sartre, Heidegger, and thus Nancy, all of whom made contributions or have been applied to poststructuralism and literary theory. To be sure, those thinkers developed their bases into critique of Husserl's search for absolute truth. So we will also need to work out how Husserl's "phenomenology' does not impede the practice of literary criticism and teaching. We must justify practice by phenomenology. That would be a new phenomenology, merely aligned to Husserl.Consequently, the author proceeds in two ways. First, he summarizes Husserl's phenomenology as it began in 1901, from the certainty of evidence. He discusses how Husserl develops four levels of essentiality (necessary conditions for appearing): essence, essential generality, fantasy, and the Idea in the Kantian sense. Yet Husserl's work had primarily been an object of critique: the author also notes—which Husserl never did—how his levels allow for sensitive and as-yet undiscovered approaches to literary interpretation: essentiality allows for actual and ideal books, authors etc., and essential generality isolates sorts of spatiotemporal situation which teachers and theorists often use. In turn, fantasy permits the creating of the world of fiction in which both authors and readers engage, and the Idea in the Kantian sense allows for an origin "beyond' fantasy, in the author or critic.Second, the author develops a parallel phenomenology that begins by inverting Husserl's primary axiom, rather making certain evidence the guarantor of whatever is experienced, and so whatever is occurring in practice. That would no longer be a search for absolute truth, but a practical ground—whatever I can do in practice is possible. The author demonstrably parallels Husserl's four ways, and in turn takes that demonstration from teaching of literature. That will make the parallel applicable as a "literary phenomenology' that provides a permission for reading, teaching, and producing of literary works. Hence—so far only in principle—the practice of literary criticism would no longer be directly impacted upon by critique of Husserl's epistemology as developed by poststructuralism. In turn, an appreciation of an earlier theory will have been instilled and a novel literary phenomenology will have been developed to allow, if not a transition from poststructuralism, at least the beginnings of one way to proceed.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-47428-5_7

Full citation:

Galetti, D. (2016)., Avoiding poststructuralism at its root: towards a new literary theory, in M. Middeke & C. Reinfandt (eds.), Theory matters, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 95-111.

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