Labyrinths, legends, legions: an allergory of reading.
Date
1996
Authors
Cruddas, Leora Anne
Journal Title
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Abstract
This dissertation grapples With the activity of critical production. It answers
not to an interpretation which would constitute the writer within the
institutionalised category of effect and object of knowledge, but rather to an
explosion, a proliferation of critical paths at the limit of the doxa: a veritable
labyrinth.
The terms of my title open up a methodological field within which I enact the
play of associations, contiguities, relations among four texts: The Name of
the Rose, lost. in the Funhouse, The Naked Lunch and 'The library of
Babel'. The terms themselves disseminate across the text argument
in citations, references, echoes. The labyrinth is used throughout as a trope
which deconstructs its own performance within the text. Legends are
myths, inscriptions on maps, legenda or "things for reading" (through an
etymological supplement), "lesser libraries." Barthes cites the biblical words
of the man possessed by demons: "My name is Legion for we are many"
and demonstrates how the demonlacal plural brings with it fundamental
changes in reading strategies.
The notion of the demoniacal plural is used to problernatlse the debates
around subjectivity. The belief in unitary, rational selfhood is debunked and
the subject is Seen to be plural, irreducible, heterogenous. Subjectivity is
further problernatlsed by demonstrating the slippage among the labyrinthine
multiplicity of discursive positions occupied by readers: the monoloqlcal
models of meaning developed from each reading position constantly shift.
The discursive position recuperated and sanctioned by the Law or the
institution is impossible to maintain as Subjects are seduced by language
into confrontation with other positions through their continuous renarnings of
each other. Subjectivity and discursive positioning form .their own
labyrinthine intentionality.
The argument then moves towards an exploration of the current calculation
of the subject for the writer. (Distinctions between author and critic begin to
collapse here since meaning is shown to be governed by neither). The
reading\writing subject strolls in a vast labyrinth of text - a postmodern
flaneur who frustrates the work of exegesis by enacting the play of the
signifier. The line traced by this hypothetical traveller does not engender a
definitive theoretical or discursive map of the domain but rather a contingent
and highly provisional, backward turning path.
The demoniacal plural is also used to problematise notions of an original
and innovative critical voice which "speaks" the dissertation. The logic
regulating the argument is the already-written, The dissertation plavs with
each text (both critical texts and fictions) looking for a practice which
reproduces them but in another place.
My imagined (ideal?) reader wmtreat the argument as that Which. lt was not
simply meant to be,will. follow.the argument and be seduced by it: an
echoing. structure with dead ends, wrong turns, false entrances fictitious
exits; misleading threads and deceptive lines,
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Arts in Engiish.
Keywords
Eco, Umberto. Nome della rosa., Barth, John. Lost in the funhouse., Criticism -- History -- 20th century -- Theory, etc., Deconstruction., Burroughs, William S, 1914-. The Naked Lunch., Fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.