Komparatistik : Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft ; 2017
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It may indeed seem that while the late 1970s and early 1980s were the period when theory was successfully established in western academic discourse, we have now entered an era "after theory" in which not only 'cultural theory' has come to an end but also a specific culture of theory has vanished from our seminars, departments, and universities: a culture of reflection, abstraction, and self-referentiality that had been at the heart of the humanities from the very beginning. And yet, theory is not so easily abolished but rather stored and maintained within each individual reading of a literary text in spite of empirical trends such as DH or pessimistic manifestos. Therefore, in what follows, Nicolas Pethes is interested in an additional aspect of the textual resistance of theory against the institutional resistance to theory: the relation between theory and practice, that is: the question whether acting is also one of the many languages of theory.
In recent years, the interest in theory which has once been a moving force of academic research in the field of literary studies appears to have decreased. The status of theory, its relevance and appropriateness for the understanding of literature have been put into doubt. Faced with this observation, some critics have even suggested that we have now entered into a new era of research which can retrospectively be identified as the era "after theory". Against the background of such pronouncements and to a certain extent in opposition to them, the investigations proposed here wish to uphold the idea of the utility and indeed the need for theoretical approaches to literature. To appreciate the status of theory and its possible contribution to a deepened understanding of literature, it is useful not to focus exclusively on the distinction or supposed divide between literature and theory. Instead we should pay attention to what links and unites them. This common ground or common denominator of literature and theory consists in the dimension of language. Furnishing, so to speak, the intellectual material from which both domains of articulation are formed, language constitutes at once the key element of literature and a principal concern of theory.
In Carl Barks' 1963 comic strip "The Invisible Intruder", the bed becomes the main theme of the story. We get to know how Uncle Scrooge became a creative and successful entrepreneur. Since his parents were too poor to provide a proper sleeping place for their son, Scrooge had to sleep in a cabinet drawer. Therefore, Scrooge's only aim was to buy himself a bed. His capitalist creativity is, as he himself admits, driven by the "desire for a better bed." With the economic growth of his company, his bed becomes bigger too. But in the end, he throws out his enormous mattress because it is too sensitive to the vibrations caused by the money rammer in the money bin; and moreover, the investigation into the cause of the vibrations became far too expensive. Eventually, Scrooge is returning to his childhood bed: the cabinet drawer. What is striking about this story is not the idea that objects of everyday culture play a leading role within a narrative; it is the fact that the usual cultural function of furniture is altered in a significant way. The misapplication of the drawer draws attention to the object of everyday culture as signifier of the everyday experience in capitalist societies. The function of the bed is no longer defined by criteria of good sleep but of economic calculation. The bed thereby becomes an agency within the narrative that questions the stability of the cultural and linguistic semantics of the everyday. In the following, I will press the point that the representation of the bed in literary texts from Homer to Kafka can be read as an implicit linguistic theory of cultural signification.
"The golden age of cultural theory is long past" - with this statement, Terry Eagleton begins his puzzling reflections on the era "After Theory" - that's the title of his book, first published in 2001. If the invasion of literary and cultural theory has come to an end, as Eagleton suggests, theory will probably become a simple object of the history of ideas. But what theoretical implications accompany the discourse of a possible and even probable end of theory? In this so-called era after theory, literary criticism quickly decided to take new steps: the Anglo-American tradition of "Cultural Studies" attempted to replace the theoretical impact of French theory with a more empirical approach to literary texts. At the same time, good old philology raised its hand to oppose the topographical turn of cultural studies as well as the deconstructive turn against all forms of presence. [...] For Foucault, philology is nothing more than a part of the historical discourse of the nineteenth century, an old-fashioned term that lacks any impact on contemporary problems. For this and other reasons, Foucault showed little interest in more recent models of philology. But maybe instead of subscribing too easily to the notion that we live in an era after theory, where problems of literary theory are replaced by concepts of discourse and culture that no longer pay any attention to literature, what is called for is an investigation of the impact of philological understanding in the humanities.
The rise of the New Historicism or Cultural Poetics in the nineteen-eighties introduced a new school of cultural theory and inaugurated the end of the so-called New Criticism in English studies at American universities and beyond. As a founding member of the movement Stephen Greenblatt is closely associated with the New Historicism, which emerged in the 1980s. [...] What, then, are the key terms and principal aims of Greenblatt's innovative approach? The contextualization of poetic texts within cultural and political history as well as within an intellectual network of different discourses seemed vital and productive. [...] New Historicists operate by fusing two key issues in criticism since the 1960s: the 'linguistic turn' of post-structuralist and deconstructive criticism, and a return to historical readings. [...] Moreover, Stephen Greenblatt, proves to be very language-oriented in his studies. [...] In the following, Annette Simonis' contribution investigates on which levels and in what different respects Greenblatt focuses on (poetic) language and script as key elements and the foundation stone of modern cultures in his recent book "The Swerve. How the World Became Modern" (2011). Moreover, it explores in how far Greenblatt, in the wake of a recent material turn in the studies of culture, considers the process of writing itself as a crucial component in the analysis of cultural development, which he therefore closely examines in its particular material and aesthetic dimensions. As will become evident, the author is fascinated by Renaissance book culture serving simultaneously as a vehicle of intellectual ideas and a medium of art. It seems rewarding in many respects to analyze more closely Greenblatt's recent publication on the Renaissance. On the one hand the work indicates a careful reorientation in new historicist methodology, reflected in the author's attitude towards the texts themselves, which now takes into consideration the material basics and environments of writing as a cultural technique sui generis; on the other the book testifies Greenblatt's surprising accomplishments as an essayist and storyteller, as he elegantly moves on the borderline between fiction and non-fiction.