WEBVTT

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Prof: Last time we
introduced the way in which the

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preoccupation with literary and
other forms of theory in the

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twentieth century is shadowed by
a certain skepticism,

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but as we were talking about
that we actually introduced

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another issue which isn't quite
the same as the issue of

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skepticism--
namely, determinism.

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In other words,
we said that in intellectual

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history,
first you get this movement of

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concern about the distance
between the perceiver and the

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perceived,
a concern that gives rise to

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skepticism about whether we can
know things as they really are.

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But then as a kind of aftermath
of that movement in figures like

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Marx,
Nietzsche and Freud--and you'll

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notice that Foucault reverts to
such figures when he turns to

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the whole question of
"founders of

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discursivity,"
we'll come back to that--

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in figures like that,
you get the further question of

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not just how we can know things
in themselves as they really are

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but how we can trust the
autonomy of that which knows:

01:14.623 --> 01:18.603
in other words,
how we can trust the autonomy

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of consciousness if in fact
there's a chance--

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a good chance,
according to these writers--

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that it is in turn governed by,
controlled by,

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hidden powers or forces.

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This question of determinism is
as important in the discourse of

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literary theory as the question
of skepticism.

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They're plainly interrelated in
a variety of ways,

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but it's more to the question
of determinism I want to return

01:50.534 --> 01:51.304
today.

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Now last time,
following Ricoeur,

01:55.958 --> 02:00.788
I mentioned Marx,
Nietzsche and Freud as key

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figures in the sort of secondary
development that somehow

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inaugurates theory,
and then I added Darwin.

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It seems particularly important
to think of Darwin when we begin

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to think about the ways in which
in the twentieth century,

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a variety of thinkers are
concerned about human agency--

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that is to say,
what becomes of the idea that

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we have autonomy,
that we can act or at least

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that we can act with a sense of
integrity and not just with a

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sense that we are being pulled
by our strings like a puppet.

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In the aftermath of Darwin in
particular,

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our understanding of natural
selection,

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our understanding of genetic
hard-wiring and other factors,

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makes us begin to wonder in
what sense we can consider

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ourselves,
each of us, to be autonomous

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subjects.

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And so, as I say,
the question of agency arises.

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It's in that context,
needless to say,

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that I'd like to take a look at
these two interesting passages

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on the sheet that has Anton
Chekhov on one side and Henry

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James on the other.

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Let's begin with the Chekhov.

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The Cherry Orchard,
you know,

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is about the threat owing to
socioeconomic conditions,

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the conditions that do
ultimately lead to the Menshevik

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Revolution of 1905,
to a landed estate,

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and the perturbation and
turmoil into which the cast of

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characters is thrown by this
threat.

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Now one of the more interesting
characters,

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who is not really a protagonist
in the play for class reasons,

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is a house servant named
Yepihodov,

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and Yepihodov is a character
who is,

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among other things,
a kind of autodidact.

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That is to say,
he has scrambled into a certain

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measure of knowledge about
things.

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He is full of a kind of
understandable self-pity,

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and his speeches are in some
ways more characteristic of the

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gloomy intellectual
milieu that is reflected

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in Chekhov's text really than
almost anyone else's.

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I want to quote to you a couple
of them.

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Toward the bottom of the first
page, he says,

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"I'm a cultivated man.

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I read all kinds of remarkable
books and yet I can never make

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out what direction I should
take,

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what it is that I want,
properly speaking."

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As I read, pay attention to the
degree to which he's constantly

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talking about language and about
the way in which he himself is

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inserted into language.

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He's perpetually seeking a mode
of properly speaking.

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He is a person who is somewhat
knowledgeable about books,

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feels himself somehow to be
caught up in the matrix of book

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learning--
in other words,

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a person who is very much
preoccupied with his

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conditioning by language,
not least when perhaps

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unwittingly he alludes to
Hamlet.

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"Should I live or should I
shoot myself?"--properly

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speaking, "To be or not to
be?"

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In other words,
he inserts himself into the

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dramatic tradition to which as a
character he himself belongs and

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shows himself to be in a debased
form derived from one of those

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famous charismatic moments in
which a hero utters a comparable

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concern.

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So in all sorts of ways,
in this simple passage we find

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a character who's caught up in
the snare--if I can put it that

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way--the snare of language.

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To continue,
he says at the top of the next

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page,
"Properly speaking and

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letting other subjects alone,
I must say"--everything in

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terms of what other discourse
does and what he himself can

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say,
and of course,

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it's mainly about
"me"--

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"regarding myself among
other things,

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that fate treats me mercilessly
as a storm treats a small

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boat."

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And the end of the passage is,
"Have you read

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Buckle?"

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Now Buckle is a forgotten name
today, but at one time he was

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just about as famous as Oswald
Spengler who wrote The

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Decline of the West.
He was a Victorian historian

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preoccupied with the dissolution
of Western civilization.

06:52.660 --> 06:55.180
In other words,
Buckle was the avatar of the

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notion in the late nineteenth
century that everything was

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going to hell in a handbasket.

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One of the texts that Yepihodov
has read that in a certain sense

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determines him is Buckle.

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"Have you read Buckle?

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I wish to have a word with you
Avdotya Fyodorovna."

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In other words,
I'm arguing that the saturation

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of these speeches with signs of
words,

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language, speaking,
words, books,

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is just the dilemma of the
character.

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That is to say,
he is in a certain sense book-

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and language-determined,
and he's obscurely aware that

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this is his problem even as it's
a source of pride for him.

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Turning then to a passage in a
very different tone from James's

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Ambassadors.

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An altogether charming
character,

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the elderly Lambert Strether,
who has gone to--

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most of you know--has gone to
Paris to bring home the young

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Chad Newsome,
a relative who is to take over

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the family business,
the manufacture of an unnamed

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household article in Woollett,
Massachusetts,

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probably toilet paper.

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In any case,
Lambert Strether,

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as he arrives in Paris,
has awakened to the sheer

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wonder of urbane culture.

08:23.199 --> 08:26.569
He recognizes that he's missed
something.

08:26.569 --> 08:30.119
He's gone to a party given by a
sculptor,

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and at this party he meets a
young man named Little Bilham

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whom he likes,
and he takes Little Bilham

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aside by the lapel,
and he makes a long speech to

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him, saying,
"Don't do what I have done.

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Don't miss out on life.

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Live all you can.

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It is a mistake not to.

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And this is why,"
he goes on to say,

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"the affair,
I mean the affair of

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life"--
it's as though he's

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anticipating the affair of Chad
Newsome and Madame de Vionnet,

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which is revealed at the end of
the text--

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"couldn't,
no doubt, have been different

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for me for it's"--
"it" meaning life--

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"[life is]
at the best a tin mold either

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fluted or embossed with
ornamental excrescences or else

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smooth and dreadfully plain,
into which, a helpless jelly,

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one's consciousness,
is poured so that one takes the

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form,
as the great cook says"--

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the great cook,
by the way, is

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Brillat-Savarin--
"one takes the form,

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as the great cook says,
and is more or less compactly

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held by it.

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One lives, in fine, as one can.

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Still one has the illusion of
freedom."

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Here is where Strether says
something very clever that I

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think we can make use of.

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He says, "Therefore,
don't be like me without the

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memory of that illusion.

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I was either at the right time
too stupid or too intelligent to

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have it.

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I don't quite know which."

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Now if he was too stupid to
have it, then of course he would

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have been liberated into the
realm of action.

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He would have been what
Nietzsche in an interesting

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precursor text calls
"historical man."

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He simply would have plunged
ahead into life as though he had

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freedom, even though he was too
stupid to recognize that it was

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an illusion.

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On the other hand,
if he was too intelligent to,

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as it were, bury the illusion
and live as though he were free,

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if he was too intelligent to do
that,

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he's a kind of an avatar of the
literary theorist--

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in other words,
the sort of person who can't

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forget long enough that freedom
is an illusion in order to get

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away from the preoccupations
that,

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as I've been saying,
characterize a certain kind of

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thinking in the twentieth
century.

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And it's rather charming at the
last that he says--because how

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can we know anything--"I
don't quite know which."

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That, too, strikes me as a
helpful and also characteristic

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passage that can introduce us to
today's subject,

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which is the loss of authority:
that is to say,

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in Roland Barthes' terms,
"the death of the

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author,"
and in Foucault's terms,

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the question "What is an
author?"

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In other words,
in the absence of human agency,

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the first sacrifice for
literary theory is the author,

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the idea of the author.

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That's what will concern us in
this second, still introductory

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lecture to this course.

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We'll get into the proper or at
least more systematic business

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of the course when we turn to
hermeneutics next week.

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Now let me set the scene.

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This is Paris.

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It wouldn't have to be Paris.

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It could be Berkeley or
Columbia or maybe Berlin.

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It's 1968 or '69,
spilling over in to the

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seventies.

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Students and most of their
professors are on the

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barricades,
that is to say in protest not

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only against the war in Vietnam
but the outpouring of various

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forms of authoritative
resistance to protest that

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characterized the sixties.

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There is a ferment of
intellectual revolt which takes

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all sorts of forms in Paris but
is first and foremost perhaps

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organized by what quickly in
this country became a bumper

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sticker: "Question
authority."

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This is the framework in which
the then most prominent

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intellectual in France writes an
essay at the very peak of the

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student uprising,
entitled "What is an

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Author?"

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and poses an answer which is by
no means straightforward and

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simple.

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You're probably a little
frustrated because maybe you

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sort of anticipated what he was
going to say,

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and then you read it and you
said, "Gee,

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he really isn't saying that.

13:41.399 --> 13:44.329
In fact, I don't quite know
what he is saying"

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and struggled more than you're
expected to because you

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anticipated what I've just been
saying about the setting and

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about the role of Foucault and
all the rest of it,

13:54.240 --> 13:58.280
and were possibly more confused
than you might have expected to

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be.

13:58.610 --> 14:01.620
Yet at the same time,
you probably thought "Oh,

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yeah, well, I did come out
pretty much in the place I

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expected to come out in despite
the roundabout way of having

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gotten there."

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Because this lecture is
introductory,

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I'm not going to spend a great
deal of time explicating the

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more difficult moments in his
argument.

14:18.360 --> 14:22.590
I am going to emphasize what
you perhaps did anticipate that

14:22.590 --> 14:25.320
he would say,
so that can take us along

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rather smoothly.

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There is an initial issue.

14:28.610 --> 14:33.030
Because we're as skeptical
about skepticism as we are about

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anything else we're likely to
raise our eyebrows and say,

14:37.302 --> 14:38.372
"Hmm.

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Doesn't this guy Foucault think
he's an author?

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You know, after all,
he's a superstar.

14:44.629 --> 14:48.929
He's used to being taken very
seriously.

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Does he want to say that he's
just an author function,

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that his textual field is a
kind of set of structural

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operations within which one can
discover an author?

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Does he really want to say
this?"

15:02.870 --> 15:06.160
Well, this is the question
raised by the skeptic about

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skepticism or about theory and
it's one that we're going to

15:09.770 --> 15:12.840
take rather seriously,
but we're going to come back to

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it because there are ways,
it seems to me,

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of keeping this question at
arm's length.

15:17.700 --> 15:19.960
In other words,
Foucault is up to something

15:19.961 --> 15:22.831
interesting,
and probably we should meet him

15:22.831 --> 15:26.051
at least halfway to see,
to measure, the degree of

15:26.054 --> 15:27.734
interest we may have in it.

15:27.730 --> 15:31.630
So yes, there is the
question--there is the fact that

15:31.630 --> 15:36.130
stands before u--that this very
authoritative-sounding person

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seems to be an author,
right?

15:38.610 --> 15:43.350
I never met anybody who seemed
more like an author than this

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person,
and yet he's raising the

15:45.615 --> 15:48.235
question whether there is any
such thing,

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or in any case,
the question how difficult it

15:51.094 --> 15:53.564
is to decide what it is if there
is.

15:53.558 --> 15:58.918
Let me digress with an anecdote
which may or may not sort of

15:58.916 --> 16:03.816
help us to understand the
delicacy of this relationship

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between a star author,
a person undeniably a star

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author, and the atmosphere of
thought in which there is,

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in a certain sense,
no such thing as an author.

16:14.990 --> 16:19.370
An old crony and former
colleague of mine was taking a

16:19.374 --> 16:22.604
course at Johns Hopkins in the
1960s.

16:22.600 --> 16:27.600
This was a time when Hopkins
led all American universities in

16:27.600 --> 16:31.600
the importing of important
European scholars,

16:31.600 --> 16:35.920
and it was a place of
remarkable intellectual ferment.

16:35.918 --> 16:40.358
This particular lecture course
was being given by Georges

16:40.355 --> 16:43.995
Poulet, a so-called
phenomenological critic.

16:44.000 --> 16:45.790
That's one of the
"isms"

16:45.785 --> 16:47.785
we aren't covering in this
seminar.

16:47.788 --> 16:50.818
In any case,
Poulet was also a central

16:50.820 --> 16:53.850
figure on the scene of the
sixties.

16:53.850 --> 16:57.340
Poulet would be lecturing
along, and the students had

16:57.341 --> 17:00.501
somehow formed a habit of from
time to time--

17:00.500 --> 17:02.140
by the way, you can form this
habit,

17:02.139 --> 17:05.799
too--of raising their hand,
and what they would do is they

17:05.798 --> 17:08.748
would utter a name--
at least this is what my friend

17:08.751 --> 17:09.201
noticed.

17:09.200 --> 17:11.470
They would raise their hand and
they would say,

17:12.950 --> 17:15.420
And Poulet would look at them
and say, "Mais,

17:15.416 --> 17:15.716
oui!

17:15.720 --> 17:16.800
Exactement!

17:16.799 --> 17:19.379
A mon avis aussi!"

17:19.380 --> 17:25.370
And then he would go on and
continue to lecture for a while.

17:25.368 --> 17:26.868
Then somebody else would raise
his hand and say,

17:26.868 --> 17:27.538
"Proust."

17:31.319 --> 17:31.859
Proust.

17:31.859 --> 17:32.559
Proust."

17:32.559 --> 17:35.029
And then he'd continue along.

17:35.029 --> 17:37.229
So my friend decided he'd give
it a try

17:37.226 --> 17:38.726
>

17:38.730 --> 17:42.580
and he raised his hand and he
said,

17:42.578 --> 17:45.608
"Voltaire,"
and Poulet said "Quoi

17:45.606 --> 17:48.376
donc… Je ne vous
comprends pas,"

17:48.376 --> 17:52.176
and then paused and hesitated
and continued with his lecture

17:52.176 --> 17:55.716
as though my friend had never
asked his question.

17:55.720 --> 17:59.570
Now this is a ritual of
introducing names,

17:59.566 --> 18:04.156
and in a certain sense,
yes, the names of authors,

18:04.162 --> 18:07.992
the names of stars;
but at the same time,

18:07.991 --> 18:12.691
plainly names that stand for
something other than their mere

18:12.692 --> 18:16.882
name,
names that stand for domains or

18:16.882 --> 18:20.692
fields of interesting
discursivity:

18:20.691 --> 18:24.661
that is to say--
I mean, Poulet was the kind of

18:24.663 --> 18:28.353
critic who believed that the
oeuvre of an author was a

18:28.352 --> 18:31.302
totality that could be
understood as a structural

18:31.301 --> 18:34.171
whole,
and his criticism worked that

18:34.172 --> 18:34.542
way.

18:34.538 --> 18:40.028
And so yes, the signal that
this field of discursivity is on

18:40.032 --> 18:45.152
the table is introduced by the
name of the author but it

18:45.154 --> 18:47.394
remains just a name.

18:47.390 --> 18:52.900
It's an author without
authority, yet at the same time

18:52.904 --> 18:58.314
it's an author who stands for,
whose name stands for,

18:58.314 --> 19:02.064
an important field of
discourse.

19:02.058 --> 19:04.068
That's of course what my
friend--because he knew

19:04.070 --> 19:06.340
perfectly well that when he said
"Voltaire,"

19:06.339 --> 19:08.009
Poulet would
>

19:08.009 --> 19:12.689
have nothing to do with
it--that's the idea that my

19:12.685 --> 19:15.955
friend wanted to experiment
with.

19:15.960 --> 19:18.910
There are relevant and
interesting fields of discourse

19:18.907 --> 19:22.187
and there are completely
irrelevant fields of discourse,

19:22.190 --> 19:26.380
and some of these fields are on
the sides of angelic discourse

19:26.376 --> 19:30.356
and some of these fields are on
the side of the demonic.

19:30.358 --> 19:33.968
We simply, kind of
spontaneously,

19:33.965 --> 19:36.215
make the division.

19:36.220 --> 19:39.390
Discursivity,
discourse: that's what I forgot

19:39.386 --> 19:41.256
to talk about last time.

19:41.259 --> 19:45.129
When I said that sometimes
people just ultimately throw up

19:45.131 --> 19:49.071
their hands when they try to
define literature and say,

19:49.068 --> 19:51.768
"Well, literature's just
whatever you say it is.

19:51.769 --> 19:53.039
Fine.

19:53.038 --> 19:56.688
Let's just go ahead,"
they are then much more likely,

19:56.690 --> 20:00.390
rather than using the word
"literature,"

20:00.394 --> 20:03.124
to use the word
"discourse"

20:03.117 --> 20:07.577
or "textual field,"
"discursivity."

20:07.578 --> 20:10.518
You begin to hear,
or perhaps smell,

20:10.515 --> 20:15.795
the slight whiff of jargon that
pervades theoretical writing.

20:15.799 --> 20:17.679
It often does so for a reason.

20:17.680 --> 20:21.480
This is the reason one hears so
much about discourse.

20:21.480 --> 20:27.070
Simply because of doubt about
the generic integrity of various

20:27.066 --> 20:28.986
forms of discourse.

20:28.990 --> 20:32.400
One can speak hesitantly of
literary discourse,

20:32.400 --> 20:36.000
political discourse,
anthropological discourse,

20:36.000 --> 20:40.400
but one doesn't want to go so
far as to say literature,

20:40.400 --> 20:43.250
political science, anthropology.

20:43.250 --> 20:48.730
It's a habit that arises from
the sense of the permeability of

20:48.733 --> 20:53.503
all forms of utterance with
respect to each other,

20:53.500 --> 20:58.120
and that habit,
as I say, is a breakdown of the

20:58.122 --> 21:04.152
notion that certain forms of
utterance can be understood as a

21:04.152 --> 21:07.932
delimited,
structured field.

21:07.930 --> 21:11.510
One of the reasons this
understanding seems so

21:11.506 --> 21:16.506
problematic is the idea that we
don't appeal to the authority of

21:16.511 --> 21:20.881
an author in making our mind
about the nature of a given

21:20.883 --> 21:22.873
field of discourse.

21:22.868 --> 21:28.068
We find the authority of the
author instead somewhere within

21:28.074 --> 21:30.284
the textual experience.

21:30.278 --> 21:33.738
The author is a signal,
is what Foucault calls a

21:33.737 --> 21:35.427
"function."

21:35.430 --> 21:39.650
By the way, this isn't at all a
question of the author not

21:39.654 --> 21:40.474
existing.

21:40.470 --> 21:43.580
Yes, Barthes talks about the
death of the author,

21:43.584 --> 21:47.284
but even Barthes doesn't mean
that the author is dead like

21:47.281 --> 21:48.581
Nietzsche's God.

21:48.579 --> 21:50.849
The author is there, sure.

21:50.848 --> 21:55.548
It's a question rather of how
we know the author to be there,

21:55.548 --> 22:00.388
firstly, and secondly,
whether or not in attempting to

22:00.385 --> 22:03.575
determine the meaning of a
text--

22:03.578 --> 22:05.628
and this is something we'll be
talking about next week--

22:05.630 --> 22:09.580
we should appeal to the
authority of an author.

22:09.578 --> 22:13.918
If the author is a function,
that function is something that

22:13.920 --> 22:16.630
appears,
perhaps problematically

22:16.630 --> 22:20.350
appears, within the experience
of the text,

22:20.348 --> 22:23.938
something we get in terms of
the speaker,

22:23.940 --> 22:26.860
the narrator,
or--in the case of plays--

22:26.858 --> 22:30.958
as the inferred orchestrator of
the text: something that we

22:30.961 --> 22:33.651
infer from the way the text
unfolds.

22:33.650 --> 22:39.310
So as a function and not as a
subjective consciousness to

22:39.305 --> 22:44.955
which we appeal to grasp a
meaning, the author still does

22:44.960 --> 22:45.970
exist.

22:45.970 --> 22:50.370
So we consider a text as a
structured entity,

22:50.368 --> 22:53.548
or perhaps as an entity which
is structured and yet at the

22:53.551 --> 22:56.681
same time somehow or another
passes out of structure--

22:56.680 --> 22:59.010
that's the case with Roland
Barthes.

22:59.009 --> 23:04.299
Here I want to appeal to a
couple of passages.

23:04.298 --> 23:08.368
I want to quote from the
beginning of Roland Barthes'

23:08.374 --> 23:10.414
essay,
which I know I only suggested,

23:10.410 --> 23:13.120
but I'm simply going to quote
the passage so you don't have to

23:13.115 --> 23:15.205
have read it,
The Death of the Author.

23:15.210 --> 23:18.120
It's on page 874 for those of
you who have your texts,

23:18.116 --> 23:19.156
as I hope you do.

23:19.160 --> 23:22.540


23:22.538 --> 23:25.968
Barthes, while writing
this--he's writing what has

23:25.972 --> 23:30.042
perhaps in retrospect seemed to
be his most important book,

23:30.038 --> 23:31.648
it's called S/Z.

23:31.650 --> 23:35.920
It's a huge book which is
all about this short story by

23:35.917 --> 23:40.187
Balzac, "Sarrasine,"
that he begins this essay by

23:40.185 --> 23:41.065
quoting.

23:41.068 --> 23:44.068
This is what he says here about
"Sarrasine":

23:44.068 --> 23:45.628
In his story
"Sarrasine"

23:45.626 --> 23:48.516
Balzac,
describing a castrato disguised

23:48.522 --> 23:51.702
as a woman,
writes the following sentence:

23:51.695 --> 23:54.135
"This was woman
herself,

23:54.140 --> 23:56.890
with her sudden fears,
her irrational whims,

23:56.890 --> 24:00.220
her instinctive worries,
her impetuous boldness,

24:00.220 --> 24:04.270
her fussings and her delicious
sensibility."

24:04.267 --> 24:07.767
[Barthes says,]
"Who is speaking thus?

24:07.769 --> 24:11.929
Is it the hero of the story
bent on remaining ignorant of

24:11.933 --> 24:14.913
the castrato hidden beneath the
woman?

24:14.910 --> 24:19.810
Is it Balzac the individual,
furnished by his personal

24:19.805 --> 24:23.495
experience with a philosophy of
Woman?

24:23.500 --> 24:28.810
Is it Balzac the author
professing "literary"

24:28.814 --> 24:30.984
ideas on femininity?

24:30.980 --> 24:33.140
Is it universal wisdom?

24:33.140 --> 24:35.670
Romantic psychology?

24:35.670 --> 24:40.100
We shall never know,
for the good reason that

24:40.096 --> 24:46.026
writing is the destruction of
every voice, of every point of

24:46.032 --> 24:47.142
origin.

24:47.140 --> 24:50.780
Writing is that neutral,
composite,

24:50.779 --> 24:55.189
oblique space where our subject
[and this is a deliberate pun]

24:55.190 --> 24:57.650
slips away ["our
subject"

24:57.648 --> 25:01.768
meaning that we don't quite
know what's being talked about

25:01.769 --> 25:04.869
sometimes,
but also and more importantly

25:04.874 --> 25:07.784
the subject,
the authorial subject,

25:07.782 --> 25:12.522
the actual identity of the
given speaking subject--

25:12.519 --> 25:17.509
that's what slips away]
the negative where all identity

25:17.511 --> 25:21.441
is lost,
starting with the very identity

25:21.439 --> 25:23.409
of the body writing.

25:23.410 --> 25:27.580
So that's a shot fired across
the bow against the author

25:27.582 --> 25:31.222
because it's Barthes'
supposition that the author

25:31.223 --> 25:35.933
isn't maybe even quite an author
function because that function

25:35.928 --> 25:40.398
may be hard to identify in a
discrete way among myriad other

25:40.404 --> 25:41.774
functions.

25:41.769 --> 25:47.589
Foucault, who I think does take
for granted that a textual field

25:47.594 --> 25:52.314
is more firmly structured than
Barthes supposes,

25:52.308 --> 26:04.818
says on page 913 that when we
speak of the author function,

26:04.818 --> 26:08.708
as opposed to the author--and
here I begin quoting at the

26:08.711 --> 26:11.911
bottom of the left-hand column
on page 913--

26:11.910 --> 26:16.140
when we speak in this way we no
longer raise the questions:

26:16.140 --> 26:19.560
"How can a free subject
penetrate the substance of

26:19.561 --> 26:21.401
things and give it meaning?

26:21.400 --> 26:25.630
How can it activate the rules
of a language from within and

26:25.626 --> 26:29.706
thus give rise to the designs
which are properly own- its

26:29.709 --> 26:30.729
own?"

26:30.730 --> 26:33.390
In other words,
we no longer say,

26:33.387 --> 26:38.537
"How does the author exert
autonomous will with respect to

26:38.539 --> 26:42.279
the subject matter being
expressed?"

26:42.279 --> 26:45.109
We no longer appeal,
in other words,

26:45.111 --> 26:49.801
to the authority of the author
as the source of the meaning

26:49.803 --> 26:52.153
that we find in the text.

26:52.150 --> 26:55.830
Foucault continues,
Instead, these questions will

26:55.832 --> 26:59.532
be raised: "How,
under what conditions,

26:59.532 --> 27:04.162
and in what forms can something
like a subject appear in the

27:04.155 --> 27:05.875
order of discourse?

27:05.880 --> 27:10.240
What place can it occupy in
each type of discourse,

27:10.243 --> 27:14.433
what functions can it assume,
and by obeying what

27:14.432 --> 27:15.832
rules?"

27:15.828 --> 27:18.628
In short, it is a matter of
depriving the subject (or its

27:18.634 --> 27:20.594
substitute)…
[That is to say,

27:20.588 --> 27:23.588
when we speak in this way of an
author function,]

27:23.588 --> 27:27.398
it is a matter of depriving the
subject (or its substitute) [a

27:27.402 --> 27:29.572
character,
for example,

27:29.570 --> 27:33.780
or a speaker,
as we say when we don't mean

27:33.779 --> 27:40.039
that it's the poet talking but
the guy speaking in "My

27:40.039 --> 27:43.529
Last Duchess"
or whatever]

27:43.529 --> 27:49.489
of its role as originator,
and of analyzing the subject as

27:49.487 --> 27:53.147
a variable and complex function
of discourse.

27:53.150 --> 27:56.140
"The subject"
here always means the

27:56.136 --> 28:00.276
subjectivity of the speaker,
right, not the subject matter.

28:00.278 --> 28:03.978
You'll get used to it because
it's a word that does a lot of

28:03.978 --> 28:06.608
duty,
and you need to develop context

28:06.606 --> 28:09.006
in which you recognize that
well,

28:09.009 --> 28:11.559
yeah, I'm talking about the
human subject or well,

28:11.558 --> 28:12.898
I'm talking about the subject
matter;

28:12.900 --> 28:19.000
but I trust that you will
quickly kind of adjust to that

28:18.998 --> 28:20.438
difficulty.

28:20.440 --> 28:21.640
All right.

28:21.640 --> 28:25.660
So with this said,
it's probably time to say

28:25.664 --> 28:29.134
something in defense of the
author.

28:29.130 --> 28:32.800
I know that you wish you could
stand up here and say something

28:32.796 --> 28:36.526
in defense of the author,
so I will speak in behalf of

28:36.528 --> 28:40.328
all of you who want to defend
the author by quoting a

28:40.333 --> 28:44.143
wonderful passage from Samuel
Johnson's Preface to

28:44.137 --> 28:48.527
Shakespeare, in which
he explains for us why it is

28:48.528 --> 28:53.648
that we have always paid homage
to the authority of the author.

28:53.650 --> 28:56.280
It's not just a question,
as obviously Foucault and

28:56.276 --> 28:59.826
Barthes are always suggesting,
of deferring to authority as

28:59.832 --> 29:03.802
though the authority were the
police with a baton in its hand,

29:03.804 --> 29:04.394
right?

29:04.390 --> 29:07.760
It's not a question of
deferring to authority in that

29:07.760 --> 29:08.280
sense.

29:08.278 --> 29:12.718
It's a question,
rather, of affirming what we

29:12.724 --> 29:15.154
call the human spirit.

29:15.150 --> 29:19.450
This is what Johnson says:
There is always a silent

29:19.453 --> 29:22.973
reference of human works to
human abilities,

29:22.970 --> 29:27.390
and as the inquiry,
how far man may extend his

29:27.385 --> 29:32.485
designs or how high he may rate
his native force,

29:32.490 --> 29:37.660
is of far greater dignity than
in what rank we shall place any

29:37.663 --> 29:42.163
particular performance,
curiosity is always busy to

29:42.156 --> 29:47.576
discover the instruments as well
as to survey the workmanship,

29:47.578 --> 29:52.418
to know how much is to be
ascribed to original powers and

29:52.415 --> 29:56.125
how much to casual and
adventitious help.

29:56.130 --> 29:58.620
So what Johnson is saying is:
well,

29:58.618 --> 30:01.218
it's all very well to consider
a textual field,

30:01.220 --> 30:05.190
the workmanship,
but at the same time we want to

30:05.193 --> 30:07.903
remind ourselves of our worth.

30:07.900 --> 30:10.490
We want to say,
"Well, gee,

30:10.494 --> 30:13.514
that wasn't produced by a
machine.

30:13.509 --> 30:16.459
That's not just a set of
functions--variables,

30:16.461 --> 30:18.431
as one might say in the lab.

30:18.430 --> 30:22.190
It's produced by genius.

30:22.190 --> 30:26.400
It's something that allows us
to rate human ability

30:26.403 --> 30:27.503
high."

30:27.500 --> 30:30.950
And that, especially in this
vale of tears--and Johnson is

30:30.948 --> 30:34.518
very conscious of this being a
vale of tears--that's what we

30:34.518 --> 30:35.908
want to keep doing.

30:35.910 --> 30:40.710
We want to rate human potential
as high as we can,

30:40.710 --> 30:43.740
and it is for that reason in a
completely different spirit,

30:43.740 --> 30:48.230
in the spirit of homage rather
than cringing fear,

30:48.230 --> 30:52.870
that we appeal to the authority
of an author.

30:52.868 --> 30:55.608
Well, that's an argument for
the other side,

30:55.609 --> 30:57.649
but these are different times.

30:57.650 --> 31:02.430
This is 1969,
and the purpose that's alleged

31:02.433 --> 31:08.223
for appealing to the author as a
paternal source,

31:08.220 --> 31:11.830
as an authority,
is, according to both Barthes

31:11.834 --> 31:16.004
and Foucault,
to police the way texts are

31:16.000 --> 31:16.640
read.

31:16.640 --> 31:19.820
In other words,
both of them insist that the

31:19.816 --> 31:23.906
appeal to the author--
as opposed to the submersion of

31:23.913 --> 31:28.043
the author in the functionality
of the textual field--

31:28.038 --> 31:36.788
is a kind of delimitation or
policing of the possibilities of

31:36.790 --> 31:38.250
meaning.

31:38.250 --> 31:43.420
Let me just read two texts to
that effect, first going back to

31:43.421 --> 31:45.881
Roland Barthes on page 877.

31:45.880 --> 31:52.530


31:52.529 --> 31:55.569
Barthes says,
"Once the Author is

31:55.567 --> 32:01.067
removed, the claim to decipher a
text becomes quite futile."

32:01.068 --> 32:03.558
By the way, once again there's
a bit of a rift there between

32:03.558 --> 32:04.528
Barthes and Foucault.

32:04.528 --> 32:06.548
Foucault wouldn't say
"quite futile."

32:06.549 --> 32:07.469
He would say, "Oh, no.

32:07.470 --> 32:10.140
We can decipher it,
but the author function is just

32:10.135 --> 32:12.585
one aspect of the deciphering
process."

32:12.588 --> 32:16.318
But Barthes has entered a phase
of his career in which you

32:16.316 --> 32:20.236
actually think that structures
are so complex that they cease

32:20.239 --> 32:24.229
to be structures and that this
has a great deal to do with the

32:24.227 --> 32:26.447
influence of deconstruction.

32:26.450 --> 32:29.420
We'll come back to that much
later in the course.

32:29.420 --> 32:31.430
In any case, he continues.

32:31.430 --> 32:36.840
To give a text an Author is to
impose a limit on that text,

32:36.839 --> 32:42.529
to furnish it with a final
signified, to close the writing.

32:42.529 --> 32:46.279
Such a conception suits
criticism [and criticism is a

32:46.282 --> 32:48.972
lot like policing,
right--"criticism"

32:48.973 --> 32:51.283
means being a critic,
criticizing]

32:51.284 --> 32:57.564
very well, the latter then
allotting itself the important

32:57.559 --> 33:03.049
task of discovering the Author
(or its hypostases:

33:05.855 --> 33:09.075
liberty) beneath the work:
when the Author has been found,

33:09.078 --> 33:11.818
the text is
"explained"-- a

33:11.820 --> 33:13.650
victory to the critic.

33:13.650 --> 33:16.610
In other words,
the policing of meaning has

33:16.609 --> 33:20.979
been accomplished and the critic
wins, just as in the uprisings

33:20.980 --> 33:23.660
of the late sixties,
the cops win.

33:23.660 --> 33:28.680
This is, again,
the atmosphere in which all of

33:28.676 --> 33:33.316
this occurs--
just then to reinforce this

33:33.318 --> 33:39.368
with the pronouncement of
Foucault at the bottom of page

33:39.368 --> 33:41.788
913,
right-hand column:

33:41.794 --> 33:46.944
"The author is therefore
the ideological figure by which

33:46.940 --> 33:51.830
one marks the manner in which we
fear the proliferation of

33:51.829 --> 33:53.459
meaning."

33:53.460 --> 33:56.420
Now once again,
there is this sort of the

33:56.420 --> 33:58.640
skepticism about skepticism.

33:58.640 --> 34:01.290
You say, "Why shouldn't I
fear the proliferation of

34:01.288 --> 34:01.768
meaning?

34:01.769 --> 34:04.279
I want to know what something
definitely means.

34:04.278 --> 34:06.368
I don't want to know that it
means a million things.

34:06.368 --> 34:10.348
I'm here to learn what things
mean in so many words.

34:10.349 --> 34:13.429
I don't want to be told that I
could sit here for the rest of

34:13.425 --> 34:15.675
my life just sort of parsing one
sentence.

34:15.679 --> 34:17.529
Don't tell me about that.

34:17.530 --> 34:20.550
Don't tell me about these
complicated sentences from

34:20.554 --> 34:21.924
Balzac's short story.

34:21.920 --> 34:25.140
I'm here to know what things
mean.

34:25.139 --> 34:27.079
I don't care if it's policing
or not.

34:27.079 --> 34:29.359
Whatever it is,
let's get it done."

34:29.360 --> 34:32.960
That, of course,
is approaching the question of

34:32.963 --> 34:37.513
how we might delimit meaning in
a very different spirit.

34:37.510 --> 34:44.210
The reason I acknowledge the
legitimacy of responding in this

34:44.210 --> 34:50.690
way is that to a certain extent
the preoccupation with--

34:50.690 --> 34:55.550
what shall we say?--the misuse
of the appeal to an author is

34:55.550 --> 34:58.600
very much of its historical
moment.

34:58.599 --> 35:01.329
That is to say,
when one can scarcely say the

35:01.329 --> 35:03.749
word "author"
without thinking

35:03.751 --> 35:06.851
"authority,"
and one can definitely never

35:06.853 --> 35:08.903
say the word
"authority"

35:08.902 --> 35:11.512
without thinking about the
police.

35:11.510 --> 35:16.010
This is a structure of thought
that perhaps pervades the lives

35:16.007 --> 35:20.507
of many of us to this day and
has always pervaded the lives of

35:20.505 --> 35:24.715
many people,
but is not quite as hegemonic

35:24.719 --> 35:30.949
in our thinking today perhaps as
it was in the moment of these

35:30.947 --> 35:34.417
essays by Barthes and Foucault.

35:34.420 --> 35:35.660
All right.

35:35.659 --> 35:39.679
With all this said,
how can the theorist recuperate

35:39.684 --> 35:42.984
honor for certain names like,
for example,

35:42.983 --> 35:43.953
his own?

35:43.949 --> 35:45.559
"All right.

35:45.559 --> 35:46.589
It's all very well.

35:46.590 --> 35:49.680
You're not an author,
but I secretly think I'm an

35:49.675 --> 35:51.085
author, right?"

35:51.090 --> 35:56.910
Let's suppose someone were
dastardly enough to harbor such

35:56.914 --> 35:58.044
thoughts.

35:58.039 --> 36:02.839
How could you develop an
argument in which a thought like

36:02.840 --> 36:05.840
that might actually seem to
work?

36:05.840 --> 36:09.360
After all, Foucault--setting
himself aside,

36:09.360 --> 36:13.130
he doesn't mention
himself--Foucault very much

36:13.132 --> 36:15.482
admires certain writers.

36:15.480 --> 36:18.640
In particular,
he admires, like so many of his

36:18.639 --> 36:22.219
generation and other
generations, Marx and Freud.

36:22.219 --> 36:29.359
It's a problem if we reject the
police-like authority of

36:29.360 --> 36:32.780
authors,
of whom we may have a certain

36:32.784 --> 36:36.314
suspicion on those grounds,
when we certainly don't feel

36:36.311 --> 36:38.011
that way about Marx and Freud.

36:38.010 --> 36:39.770
What's the difference then?

36:39.768 --> 36:46.718
How is Foucault going to mount
an argument in which privileged

36:46.724 --> 36:48.944
authors--
that is to say,

36:48.936 --> 36:52.246
figures whom one cites
positively and without a sense

36:52.251 --> 36:56.091
of being policed--
can somehow or another stay in

36:56.086 --> 36:57.166
the picture?

36:57.170 --> 37:00.080
Foucault, by the way,
doesn't mention Nietzsche,

37:00.079 --> 37:02.679
but he might very well because
Nietzsche's idea of

37:02.675 --> 37:04.945
"genealogy"
is perhaps the central

37:04.952 --> 37:06.702
influence on Foucault's work.

37:06.699 --> 37:10.719
Frankly, I think it's just an
accident that he doesn't mention

37:10.715 --> 37:11.105
him.

37:11.110 --> 37:14.930
It would have been a perfect
symmetry because last time we

37:14.927 --> 37:18.677
quoted Paul Ricoeur to the
effect that these authors,

37:18.679 --> 37:21.449
Marx, Nietzsche,
and Freud, were--and this is

37:21.447 --> 37:23.897
Ricoeur's word--
"masters."

37:23.900 --> 37:24.650
Whoa!

37:24.650 --> 37:26.710
That's the last thing we want
to hear.

37:26.710 --> 37:29.030
They're not masters.

37:29.030 --> 37:33.080
Foucault couldn't possibly
allow for that because plainly

37:33.083 --> 37:37.283
the whole texture of their
discourse would be undermined by

37:37.280 --> 37:41.480
introducing the notion that it's
okay to be a master,

37:41.480 --> 37:46.070
and yet Ricoeur feels that
these figures dominate modern

37:46.074 --> 37:47.834
thought as masters.

37:47.829 --> 37:49.729
How does Foucault deal with
this?

37:49.730 --> 37:52.020
He invents a concept.

37:52.018 --> 37:55.718
He says, "They aren't
authors.

37:55.719 --> 37:59.009
They're founders of
discursivity,"

37:59.014 --> 38:04.224
and then he grants that it's
kind of difficult to distinguish

38:04.215 --> 38:08.545
between a founder of
discursivity and an author who

38:08.552 --> 38:11.762
has had an important influence.

38:11.760 --> 38:12.200
Right?

38:12.199 --> 38:15.489
And then he talks about the
gothic novel and he talks about

38:15.494 --> 38:18.114
Radcliffe's, Anne
Radcliffe's--he's wrong about

38:18.106 --> 38:19.296
this, by the way.

38:19.300 --> 38:21.820
The founder of discursivity in
the gothic novel is not Anne

38:21.818 --> 38:23.358
Radcliffe;
it's Horace Walpole,

38:23.360 --> 38:27.500
but that's okay--
he talks about Anne Radcliffe

38:27.496 --> 38:32.706
as the person who establishes
certain tropes,

38:32.710 --> 38:36.390
topoi, and
premises that govern the writing

38:36.385 --> 38:39.795
of gothic fiction for the next
hundred years and,

38:39.800 --> 38:42.380
indeed, even in to the present,
so that she is,

38:42.380 --> 38:45.720
Foucault acknowledges,
in a certain sense a person who

38:45.722 --> 38:48.772
establishes a way of talking,
a way of writing,

38:48.773 --> 38:49.993
a way of narrating.

38:49.989 --> 38:53.959
But at the same time she isn't
a person,

38:53.960 --> 38:59.800
Foucault claims,
who introduces a discourse or

38:59.798 --> 39:04.858
sphere of debate within which
ideas,

39:04.860 --> 39:08.090
without being attributable
necessarily,

39:08.090 --> 39:10.750
can nevertheless be developed.

39:10.750 --> 39:12.550
Well, I don't know.

39:12.550 --> 39:16.640
It seems to me that literary
influence is not at all unlike

39:16.641 --> 39:20.451
sort of speaking or writing in
the wake of a founder of

39:20.449 --> 39:23.379
discursivity,
but we can let that pass.

39:23.380 --> 39:26.040
On the other hand,
Foucault is very concerned to

39:26.038 --> 39:29.488
distinguish figures like this
from scientists like Galileo and

39:29.487 --> 39:30.107
Newton.

39:30.110 --> 39:32.610
Now it is interesting,
by the way, maybe in defense of

39:32.612 --> 39:35.272
Foucault,
that whereas we speak of people

39:35.271 --> 39:39.941
as Marxist or Freudian,
we don't speak of people as

39:39.938 --> 39:44.128
Radcliffian or Galilean or
Newtonian.

39:44.130 --> 39:45.880
We use the adjective
"Newtonian"

39:45.876 --> 39:48.476
but we don't speak of certain
writers who are still interested

39:48.476 --> 39:50.946
in quantum mechanics as
"Newtonian writers."

39:50.949 --> 39:56.249
That's interesting in a way,
and may somehow or another

39:56.251 --> 40:02.141
justify Foucault's understanding
of the texts of those author

40:02.141 --> 40:05.971
functions known as Marx and
Freud--

40:05.969 --> 40:10.269
whose names might be raised in
Poulet's lecture class with an

40:10.268 --> 40:14.488
enthusiastic response--
as place holders for those

40:14.487 --> 40:16.447
fields of discourse.

40:16.449 --> 40:21.409
It may, in some sense,
reinforce Foucault's argument

40:21.413 --> 40:26.283
that these are special
inaugurations of debate,

40:26.280 --> 40:30.980
of developing thought,
that do not necessarily

40:30.983 --> 40:35.273
kowtow to the originary
figure--

40:35.268 --> 40:39.018
certainly debatable,
but we don't want to pause over

40:39.016 --> 40:42.246
it in the case either of Marx or
of Freud.

40:42.250 --> 40:44.990
Plainly, there are a great many
people who think of them as

40:44.989 --> 40:47.389
tyrants,
right, but within the

40:47.391 --> 40:50.531
traditions that they
established,

40:50.530 --> 40:54.900
it is very possible to
understand them as instigating

40:54.898 --> 40:59.598
ways of thinking without
necessarily presiding over those

40:59.601 --> 41:02.711
ways of thinking
authoritatively.

41:02.710 --> 41:07.640
That is the special category
that Foucault wants to reserve

41:07.635 --> 41:12.135
for those privileged figures
whom he calls founders of

41:12.135 --> 41:13.575
discursivity.

41:13.579 --> 41:14.359
All right.

41:14.360 --> 41:18.490
Very quickly then to conclude:
one consequence of the death of

41:18.490 --> 41:21.680
the author,
and the disappearance of the

41:21.679 --> 41:27.379
author into author function is,
as Foucault curiously says in

41:27.384 --> 41:31.684
passing on page 907,
that the author has no legal

41:31.677 --> 41:32.237
status.

41:32.239 --> 41:33.859
And you say, "What?

41:33.860 --> 41:34.830
What about copyright?

41:34.829 --> 41:36.949
What about intellectual
property?

41:36.949 --> 41:40.069
That's a horrible thing to say,
that the author has no legal

41:40.067 --> 41:40.857
status."

41:40.860 --> 41:44.110
Notice once again the
intellectual context.

41:44.110 --> 41:48.630
Copyright arose as a bourgeois
idea.

41:48.630 --> 41:51.780
That is to say,
"I possess my writing.

41:51.780 --> 41:54.480
I have an ownership
relationship with my

41:54.481 --> 41:55.591
writing."

41:55.590 --> 42:00.810
The disappearance of the
author, like a kind of corollary

42:00.807 --> 42:04.347
disappearance of bourgeois
thought,

42:04.349 --> 42:08.659
entails, in fact,
a kind of bracketing of the

42:08.661 --> 42:13.071
idea of copyright or
intellectual property.

42:13.070 --> 42:16.740
And so there's a certain
consistency in what Foucault is

42:16.744 --> 42:20.024
saying about the author having
no legal status.

42:20.018 --> 42:23.998
But maybe at this point it
really is time to dig in our

42:24.000 --> 42:24.590
heels.

42:24.590 --> 42:29.830
"I am a lesbian Latina.

42:29.829 --> 42:37.789
I stand before you as an author
articulating an identity for the

42:37.793 --> 42:44.193
purpose of achieving freedom,
not to police you,

42:44.192 --> 42:53.022
not to deny your freedom,
but to find my own freedom.

42:53.018 --> 42:57.278
And I stand before you
precisely, and in pride,

42:57.280 --> 42:58.670
as an author.

42:58.670 --> 43:02.310
I don't want to be called an
author function.

43:02.309 --> 43:05.929
I don't want to be called an
instrument of something larger

43:05.927 --> 43:09.667
than myself because frankly
that's what I've always been,

43:09.670 --> 43:15.770
and I want precisely as an
authority through my authorship

43:15.769 --> 43:21.979
to remind you that I am not
anybody's instrument but that I

43:21.978 --> 43:25.508
am autonomous and free."

43:25.510 --> 43:29.130
In other words,
the author, the traditional

43:29.132 --> 43:32.562
idea of the author--
so much under suspicion in the

43:32.563 --> 43:35.173
work of Foucault and Barthes in
the late sixties--

43:35.170 --> 43:39.740
can be turned on its ear.

43:39.739 --> 43:46.529
It can be understood as a
source of new-found authority,

43:46.530 --> 43:52.620
of the freedom of one who has
been characteristically not free

43:52.623 --> 43:58.623
and can be received by a reading
community in those terms.

43:58.619 --> 44:04.459
It's very difficult to think
how a Foucault might respond to

44:04.458 --> 44:08.588
that insistence,
and it's a problem that in a

44:08.585 --> 44:11.705
way dogs everything,
or many of the things we're

44:11.708 --> 44:14.578
going to be reading during the
course of this semester--

44:14.579 --> 44:17.609
even within the sorts of
theorizing that are

44:17.608 --> 44:21.338
characteristically called
cultural studies and concern

44:21.340 --> 44:24.300
questions of the politics of
identity.

44:24.300 --> 44:30.020
Even within those disciplines
there is a division of thought

44:30.023 --> 44:35.163
between people who affirm the
autonomous integrity and

44:35.164 --> 44:41.184
individuality of the identity in
question and those who say any

44:41.177 --> 44:46.607
and all identities are only
subject positions discernible

44:46.610 --> 44:52.430
and revealed through the matrix
of social practices.

44:52.429 --> 44:57.349
There is this intrinsic split
even within those forms of

44:57.353 --> 45:00.093
theory--
and not to mention the kinds of

45:00.094 --> 45:03.494
theory that don't directly have
to do with the politics of

45:03.485 --> 45:06.775
identity--
between those for whom what's

45:06.784 --> 45:11.664
at stake is the discovery of
autonomous individuality and

45:11.659 --> 45:17.059
those for whom what's at stake
is the tendency to hold at arm's

45:17.056 --> 45:21.666
length such discoveries over
against the idea that the

45:21.670 --> 45:26.110
instability of any and all
subject positions is what

45:26.110 --> 45:31.310
actually contains within it--
as Foucault and Barthes thought

45:31.313 --> 45:35.103
as they sort of sat looking at
the police standing over against

45:35.099 --> 45:38.209
them--
those for whom this alternative

45:38.208 --> 45:42.668
notion of the undermining of any
sense of that which is

45:42.668 --> 45:46.878
authoritative is in its turn a
possible source,

45:46.880 --> 45:48.260
finally, of freedom.

45:48.260 --> 45:53.140
These sorts of vexing issues,
as I say, in all sorts of ways

45:53.143 --> 45:57.613
will dog much of what we read
during the course of this

45:57.612 --> 45:58.692
semester.

45:58.690 --> 45:59.200
All right.

45:59.199 --> 46:03.999
So much for the introductory
lectures which touch on aspects

46:03.996 --> 46:07.896
of the materials that we'll keep
returning to.

46:07.900 --> 46:11.550
On Tuesday we'll turn to a more
specific subject matter:

46:11.547 --> 46:13.797
hermeneutics,
what hermeneutics is,

46:13.804 --> 46:17.524
how we can think about the
nature of interpretation.

46:17.518 --> 46:21.368
Our primary text will be the
excerpt in your book from

46:21.373 --> 46:25.523
Hans-Georg Gadamer and a few
passages that I'll be handing

46:25.518 --> 46:29.008
out from Martin Heidegger and
E.D. Hirsch.

46:29.010 --> 46:35.000