Dekonstrukcja

DECONSTRUCTION HANDOUT

DECONSTRUCTION represented by Jaques Derrida a philosophical system underlines the roles of the context and the reader interested in the act of reading looking for the Other and the new

DECONSTRUCTIONISM represented by Paul de Man (and the Yale School)

draws attention to self-referentiality of literature investigates the rhetorical figures and tropes through close reading

interested in the discrepancy between the linguistic reality and the natural reality, between the words/sounds and their meanings

JAQUES DERRIDA Language, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DECONSTRUCTION

Challenging commonly accepted truths Revealing paradoxes, stemming from the acceptance of easy dualities, acknowledged pairs of opposites, e.g. reasonable – unreasonable, inside – outside, model – copy, etc.

Oppositions vs quasi-transcendentalia We are made up of both sameness and otherness we are defined as Other in relations to other things, so our identity is hinged upon the Other (me vs not-me)

The paradox of Other: it is elusive, impossible to tame, to familiarize but also calling for a dialogue, answer Affirmation: embracing the Other, (saying „yes”) enables communication

DECONSTRUCTION AND LITERATURE 1966: conference in Baltimore language play: the interaction between different elements of the text

Main interest of deconstruction: the „surplus of meaning”, the inexpressible, the Other, the surprise, incongruence

„there is nothing outside the text”) (Derrida

APORIA A rhetoric device to express doubt, a difficulty in understanding or acting e.g. „To be or not to be” In deconstruction, a paradox or an impasse, resulting from a possible-impossible situation, e.g. „Be spontaneous”

DIFFÉRANCE „to differ” + „to defer” (withhold, delay) the result of the play of language: constant tension between different words, which meaning remains indeterminate

The liberation from the aporetic impasse Assumes the constant change of meanings, escaping final definitions

Literature provides the space for talking about the inexpressible, the aporetic There is no literature-in-itself, no pure essence (literariness): it is submerged in history, especially literary history

literature composed of individual idiom and general tradition, which cannot be fully reconciled

a philosophy of openness towards the text, looking for the meaning in the ambiguities Meaning is created through repetition in different contexts, thus it is essentially changing

Each reading is different and unrepeatable dynamic relations of meanings, the relation between the reader and the text (signature/countersignature)

Creative re-reading constitutes the enduring character of the text

Methods: a rigorous exegesis with traditional methods to uncover any discrepancies Investigating instances of logocentrism and binary opositions (expressed, e.g., by contrast and comparison)

reading one text multiple times and constructing a different „answers” for each reading, e.g., through the choice of various genres, conventions, points of view, etc. Situating a literary work in context(s)

PAUL DE MAN Allegories of Reading (1979

Literature does not reveal anything about us, the world, Good, Evil, beauty, etc., but only about the language it uses The literal meaning is constantly weakened by the figurative

RONY = superior linguistic mode, wherein the words acquire meanings far beyond the intended ones

Method: The analysis is rooted in the text Not much use for the context of the work the reader’s presence should be minimized

Investigating the discrepancies between the grammatic and the rhetoric meaning the tension between the assumed authorial meaning and the interplay between tropes and figures

ULIO CORTAZAR, HOPSCOTCH, 1963

THOMAS TRANSTRÖMER, NATIONAL INSECURITY, 1997