CRITICAL TERMS
JOUISSANCE
French term derived
from the verb jouir, which means to enjoy or to take pleasure, and also
to have the right to something. In contrast to a similar term, plaisir,
it denotes an extreme form of pleasure: ecstatic or orgasmic bliss that transcends
or even shatters one’s everyday experience of the world. The term is most frequently
employed by psychoanalytic theorists, and is most influentially defined by
Jacques Lacan, for whom it denotes the ecstatic moment of opening to the Other that
disrupts the illusion of being in control of oneself: it is, he claims, ‘what
serves no purpose’ (Lacan 1998: 3) in that it breaks open imaginary identity
and social convention. The term is also crucial to the work of feminist
theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray who deploy it as a means to
disturb the rules of patriarchal discourse. It is related to literature by
Roland Barthes, whose The Pleasure of the Text explores the way in which
jouissance is produced at those moments in reading where literal meaning
collapses to give rise to bliss.
LANGUE AND PAROLE
Langue and parole are
two terms introduced to critical theory within Ferdinand de Saussure’s
synchronic approach to semiotic analysis. Departing from the traditional
diachronic, or historical, analysis of language structures, Saussure’s model
separates language into passive and active elements, the langue and parole.
Deriving from the French la langue meaning tongue, langue refers
to a language in its entirety, at any one point in time, and includes the rules
and conventions of its use – rules which pre-exist individual users. It is this
determining element of langue’s characteristic that marks its active nature.
In contrast, parole, translated from the French la parole,
meaning speech or word, refers to individual utterances of written or spoken
language that passively adhere to the rules of the langue. Whilst
Saussurean investigation focuses upon the langue of societal
communication, any understanding of it is inevitably enhanced by analyses of parole.
For example, analysis into English parole would reveal that whilst it is
appropriate to pronounce ‘the ball is red’ announcing that ‘the red is ball’
contravenes the rules of the langue and is subsequently nonsensical. Ultimately,
the distinction between langue and parole is a distinction
between code and message, structure and performance. To be understood, the
latter must observe the dictates of the former.
LOGOCENTRISM
A term emerging from the
deconstructive philosophy of Jacques Derrida,
it is derived from the Greek logos, meaning ‘word’ (but also sometimes ‘thought’
or ‘reason’). Derrida attacks what he identifies as the logocentrism of Western
philosophy: its search for a foundation to all knowledge in a logic or reason
or truth which is selfevident and self-confirming. In particular he criticizes
the emphasis on presence within Western philosophy: for example, the belief in
self-presence as the essence of being and the foundation of knowledge; the
argued transparency or presence to mind of a meaning, intention or idea; and
the alleged immediacy of the voice. This last example of logocentric thinking, according
to Derrida, results in phonocentrism: the privileging of speech over writing,
which is seen as secondary, merely the representation of speech and thought. In
Of Grammatology (1997) and elsewhere, Derrida tackles this
phonocentrism, opposing to it his own ‘graphocentrism’ and desire for a
‘science of writing’ which figures writing as originating rather than
merely representing
meaning, as primary rather than secondary. This ‘primary writing’ is not,
however, present and transparent to itself in the way that speech has traditionally
been figured as being, but is a product of difference and the trace. Derrida
also sets out to reveal the dependence of presence upon its opposite, absence,
in this way demonstrating that there is no such thing as pure presence or an
absolute origin or foundation. So anything which is brought forward as an example
of pure presence or meaning-initself can be revealed to be a product or effect
of something else, or to owe its meaning to its relation with some other (absent)
word or thing.
Feminist critics such
as Hélène Cixous have put their own slant upon this Derridean idea of
logocentrism by attacking what they regard as the phallogocentrism of Western
culture – so they are interpreting the focus on reason, logic and presence
which Derrida has identified as a peculiarly masculinist obsession and one designed
to perpetuate patriarchal dominance.
METANARRATIVE
This term is used in
two distinct ways. In narratology it was coined by Gérard Genette in his highly
influential Narrative Discourse to refer to embedded narratives, i.e. to
stories within stories. These embedded narratives often form the main part of
the text but are framed by another story (known as a frame narrative). Well-known
examples of the use of metanarrative as a structuring device include Geoffrey
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales where each tale is a metanarrative within
the frame narrative of the pilgrims’ journey to Canterbury; Henry James’ The
Turn of the Screw where acquaintances are gathered together for Christmas
and are told the story that becomes the longer metanarrative; Joseph Conrad’s Heart
of Darkness where the narrator Marlow and his fellow sailors are reciting
tales to pass the time and Marlow recounts the story of his search for Kurtz
which again forms a much longer narrative.
‘Metanarrative’ is
used in a different way by the French critic Jean-François Lyotard in The
Postmodern Condition. He characterizes postmodernism as ‘an incredulity towards
metanarratives’ (Lyotard 1984: xxiv), by which he means that it challenges and
interrogates the dominant ‘stories’ (or totalizing discourses) that are used to
uphold Western modernity. Such ‘stories’ are those that seek to provide a
‘total’ or overarching explanation for the way things are, and include
Christianity, liberal humanism and Marxism. Lyotard argues that these
metanarratives are deceptive in that they restrict heterogeneity, and that postmodern
criticism should actively refuse the homogenization they impose upon language
and identity.
METAPHYSICS
A branch of
philosophical enquiry which is primarily concerned with first principles, in
particular those concerning the question of existence. Metaphysics represents a
search for foundations and origins within philosophy. It centres on the
question of ‘what is’ and seeks to discover an encompassing solution to the problem
of the nature of existence. In this sense it has much in common with the notion
of ontology, a philosophical system that is also concerned with existence (Being)
and what exists (beings). Metaphysics therefore claims that reality has its own
independence, separate from our consciousness. In other words, everything that
is to be found in nature already has a pre-given existence. Metaphysical philosophy
attempts to explain all that is to
be found in nature
within one broad theory of reality. Metaphysical questions have been crucial aspects
of philosophy since the time of Aristotle. However, the twentieth century has
witnessed sustained attacks on the principles of metaphysics. The philosophy of
Martin Heidegger attempted the socalled ‘destruction’ of metaphysics, whilst the
rise of poststructuralism and postmodernism resulted in scepticism concerning totalizing
philosophies of origins and foundations. The strategies of Jacques Derrida, for
example, have attempted a radical undermining of metaphysical principles in
order to question such notions of origins and foundations.
MIMESIS
A concept originally
developed by Aristotle within the context of theatrical tragedy, mimesis is
essentially concerned with how art imitates reality. Such imitation involves
the display or presentation of action rather than the imaginative concept of
action, which is termed diegesis. In other words, to imitate an action and
present it as real is mimetic, whereas the imagination of an action is
diegetic. According to Aristotle, mimesis involves the representation of
reality, in particular with regards to human emotions rather than human
intellect. Aristotle was particularly concerned with how the concept of mimesis
functions in tragedy and sought to show how drama was an imitation of reality.
Mimesis is the
subject of a comprehensive study by Erich Auerbach, which is primarily
concerned with how reality is imitated in Western literature. Despite being 50
years old, this work remains one of the most important studies written on mimesis.
MIRROR STAGE
Concept associated
with the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, which provides an account of the
imaginary component of subjectivity. It is concerned with the beginning of
subjectivity, the moment at which the child first misrecognizes itself as the
image in the mirror, and the subsequent way in which this misrecognition is
negotiated. The child, typically between the ages of 9 and 12 months ‘still
sunk in his motor incapacity and nursling dependence’ (Lacan 1977: 2), is lured
into an identification with a unified bodily image. It is at this moment that
the child, previously an uncoordinated assemblage of limbs and organs, is
compelled to conceive itself as a unified being. However, the primal unity that
the mirror stage theory elucidates is the product of a split between the viewer
and the reflected image. The foundational moment of human subjectivity is, for
Lacan, a precarious negotiation of this necessary division between spectator
and image. The identification
with the image is
what provides the subject with the minimal coordinates of a unified identity,
but this unity is founded upon a primary division of which, crucially, the subject
is aware. Consequently, the moment at which the mirror stage bestows a concept of
the self as a unified and autonomous subject, it also threatens to undercut
this achievement via the uncomfortable awareness that such autonomy is
illusory: that it is premised upon an act of identification with something
external to the core of the self, namely the image. Lacan’s theory of the mirror
stage has been influential, in that the continual renegotiation of the
boundaries of the subject and the unconscious symptoms of the division between
spectator and image can provide an account of the problematic and unstable
nature of identity that has applications in fields as diverse as political
theory and the study of literature and art.
NEGATIVE DIALECTICS
A method of critical
analysis developed by German theoretician Theodor W. Adorno in order to decode
the expanding world of multinational capitalism. Along with his colleague Max
Horkheimer, Adorno produced a critique of reason in The Dialectic of
Enlightenment (first published 1947), drawing both on their experience of German
fascism and American commodity capitalism. The mode of thought seen in embryonic
form in this book is further developed in Adorno’s posthumously published Negative
Dialectics (1970). Adorno attempted to bridge the gap
between aesthetics
and deterministic Marxist thinking by harnessing the work of the influential
cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, after working with him at the Frankfurt
School. Drawing on Karl Marx’s materialist adaptation of Hegel’s dialectic, Adorno
sought to develop dialectical analysis for the demands of the unregulated growth
of global capitalism. Essentially his method works backwards through the dialectical
process of synthesis, attempting to unearth the contradiction at the core of dialectical
production. He set out to detail the tools and methodologies necessary for interrogating
the authoritarian ideologies that had been crucial not only for instigating conflict
but for resisting cultural change (for example, nationalist rejections of
anything alien or other). These tools included the ‘dialectics of disassembly’,
a demystifying procedure that traces the patterns of history behind superficial
cultural phenomena, and the concept of non-identity, the shadow of what
identity excludes in its formative process. Adorno used these strategies to
critique the capitalist exchange values that artificially organize and
configure identity. Adorno’s technique remains central to the practice of
modern philosophy and cultural theory. His work opened the way for analyses of
globalization, neoliberalization and consumerization, and brings to bear a
heavy influence on the work of contemporary critics of capitalism such as
Fredric Jameson and Pierre Bourdieu.
OEDIPUS COMPLEX
A controversial
theory advanced by Sigmund Freud, for whom the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus
held unacknowledged truths about the family unit. In the story, not knowing his
real parents, Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. Horrified when
he discovers the truth, he blinds himself. Freud’s The Interpretation of
Dreams (1900) claimed that the myth confirmed an insight he had gained in
his work with children: that a little boy’s first sexual wish is directed at
his mother, and his first murderous wish is aimed at his father as rival. This
‘Oedipus complex’ is (usually) resolved because the boy fears as well as hates
his father, whom he invests with the power of castration. He internalizes his father’s
authority which becomes his superego or conscience (Oedipus punishes himself),
represses his original wishes and finds other sexual objects. Pushed into the unconscious,
the repressed wishes return to disrupt conscious existence in the form of slips
of the tongue, double meanings and symptoms. They are also released in dreams,
which Freud calls the ‘royal road’ to the unconscious. Initially Freud thought
that girls desire their fathers and hate their mothers. He later reconsidered:
the female infant also finds her first sexual object in her mother, later
transferring affection to her father. Freud has attracted feminist criticism
for his argument that women are already ‘castrated’ and therefore never acquire
a full superego. Freud’s theory describes civilization beginning when an
illegitimate urge is subjected to the rule of law. For Freud’s reinterpreter
Jacques Lacan, this takes the form of internalizing a language, and the name of
the Father as symbol of Law, by a subject whose desire nonetheless persists in
the unconscious. We may not want our mothers all our lives, but we never stop wanting
something that language cannot give. The Oedipus complex thus generates an
account of subjectivity as a site of perpetual conflict between desire and law.
ORIENTALISM
This term refers to
the ways in which the West has represented, or rather misrepresented, the East
throughout history. In his ground-breaking work, Orientalism (1978),
Edward W. Said describes Orientalism as the construction of a ‘system of
knowledge’ about the East by and for the West. This knowledge was compiled
by a range of European travellers, explorers, colonialists, archivists, writers
and novelists over centuries. For major theorists working in the field, Orientalism
rests on the idea that, in the process of misrepresentation, the West has fundamentally
constructed the East in order to define itself. European culture plays a significant
role in this process. Just as the history of English literature, for example,
has always been bound up in defining the concept of nationhood, in representing
what it means to be British or rather English, so for commentators such as Said
it has defined the Orient (and the rest of the world). In the nineteenth-century
English novel, in particular, the East is frequently described as a distinctly
different, irrational and ‘other’ space to England. The Orient is portrayed as
a place of mystery, enchantment, adventure and colour, but also one of sex, sensuality
and some danger for Europeans. As Said puts it, ‘the Orient was almost a European
invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting
memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences’. He goes on to argue that the
West identified itself as the complete antithesis of these representations. The
resulting conflict between a familiar, rational Europe, and a strange, irrational
Orient is crucial to the development of Western notions about its identity. Said
maintains that Orientalism is ‘a collective notion identifying “us” Europeans as
against all “those” non-Europeans’. It is this tension, he concludes, that
underpins the continued sense of opposition between East and West throughout
the modern world. Since Said’s intervention, critical theory has increasingly
questioned Western assumptions about the East. Orientalism is now also explored
as a crucial but complex feature of the relationship between Western culture
and imperialism. It has become a key concept in literary, cultural and
postcolonial studies.
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