WEBVTT

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Prof: So we arrive at
our turn to sociogenesis.

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Genesis is, of course,
here obviously--even as we read

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both Jauss and Bakhtin for
today--a misleading term in a

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certain sense;
because obviously,

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the most egregious difference
between Jauss and Bakhtin--

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and once again you're probably
saying to yourself,

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"Well, my goodness.

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Why have these two texts been
put together?"--

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the most egregious difference
is that Bakhtin's primary

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concern is with the "life
world"

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that produces a text and Jauss'
primary concern is with the

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"life world,"
or perhaps better

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"succession of life
worlds,"

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in which a text is received.

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I think you can tell,
however, from reading both

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texts,
and will be conscious as you go

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through the materials that
remain on the syllabus,

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that the relationship between
the production and reception of

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literature,
or of discourse of any kind,

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once you factor in the social
setting of such a text,

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becomes much more permeable,
much more fluid.

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There's a certain sense in
which the producer is the

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receiver;
in which the author is the

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reader and stands in relation to
a tradition, to a past,

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as a reader;
and the reader in turn,

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in continuing to circulate
texts through history--

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that is to say,
in playing a role as someone

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who keeps texts current--
is perhaps even in concrete

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terms a writer.

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That is to say,
he or she is someone who

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expresses opinions,
circulates values,

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and keeps texts,
as I say, in circulation.

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I've always felt this about
Jauss's sense of what a reader

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is.

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What kind of reader would it be
who was responsible for the

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continued presence,
or influence,

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of a text through literary
history who wasn't in some sense

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communicating an opinion?

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This is obviously truer today
than ever before when we have

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blogs and discussion groups and
when everybody is circulating

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opinions on the internet.

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Plainly the reader,
plainly the taste-maker,

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the reader as taste-maker,
is at the same time a writer.

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Just in passing--this has
become a digression but I hope a

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useful one--
in this context,

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one can think about a really
strange pairing,

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Jauss in relation to Bloom.

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If Bloom's theory of strong
misreading as a principle of

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literary historiography can be
understood as a relationship

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between writers as readers and
readers as writers,

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so by the same token if we see
Jauss's analysis of reception in

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these terms,
and if we think of reception as

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a necessary circulation of
opinion,

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there is, after all,
a sense in which for Jauss,

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too, the reader is a writer and
the writer is a reader.

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That is undoubtedly a remote
connection,

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but it is a way of seeing how
both Bloom and Jauss are figures

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who have strong and interesting
and plausible theories about

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literary history.

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All right.

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To go, however,
back to the beginning--

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back to the sense in which
we're at a watershed,

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or a moment of transition in
this course,

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leaving for the moment out of
the picture the intermediate

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step of psychogenesis--
to go back to this sense of our

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being in a moment of
transition--

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as always, such is the
calendar, just at the wrong

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time: we finally accomplish our
transition,

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then we go off to spring break,
forget everything we ever knew

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and come back and start off once
again as a tabula rasa.

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We'll do our best to bridge
that gap.

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In any case,
if we now find ourselves

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understanding in reading these
two texts for the first time,

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really--although it's not that
we haven't been talking about

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"life"
before.

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Obviously, we have been,
as it's not as though the

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Russian formalists culminating
in the structuralism of Jakobson

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don't talk about a referential
function.

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It's unfair even to the New
Critics to say that somehow the

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world is excluded from the
interpretative or reading

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process--
even though all along we've

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been saying things like this,
we still sense a difference.

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The difference is in the
perceived relationship between

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the text,
the object of study,

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and the life world--
the sense, in fact,

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in which a text is a life
world.

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This has, after all,
something to do with our

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understanding of what language
is.

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So far we have been thinking of
language as a semiotic code and

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also with the strong suspicion
that this semiotic code is a

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virtual one.

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We have been emphasizing the
degree to which we are passive

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in relation to,
or even, as it were,

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"spoken by"
this language.

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In other words,
it's been a constant in our

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thinking about these matters
that language speaks through us,

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but we have exercised so far a
curious reticence about the

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sense in which this language is
not just a code,

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not just something that exists
virtually at a given historical

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moment,
but is in fact a code made up

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of other people's language:
in other words,

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that it is language in
circulation,

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not just language as somehow
abstractly outside of networks

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of circulation available for
use.

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So we begin now to think of
language still,

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and the relationship between
language and speech,

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but now it's not a language
abstracted from reality;

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it's a language which,
precisely, circulates

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within reality and as a matter
of social exchange and social

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interaction.

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Language is now and henceforth
on our syllabus a social

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institution.

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In literary theory it has the
same determinative relationship

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with my individual speech,
but we now begin to understand

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the claim that I don't speak my
own language in a different

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register.

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Hitherto it's been,
well, "Language is there

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before me,
what I speak is just sort of

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that which I borrow from
it," but now this takes on

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a new valency altogether.

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What I don't speak is my
language;

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it's other people's language.

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My voice--and the word
"voice"

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is obviously under heavy
pressure here,

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even though nobody says it goes
away--

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my voice is a voice permeated
by all the sedimentations,

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registers, levels,
and orientations of language in

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the world that surrounds me.

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I take my language,
in other words,

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from other people.

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I stand here--for my
sins--lecturing in kind of an

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ad-lib way, and that makes it
even more pronounced in what I

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say.

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You're hearing the internet.

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You're hearing newspaper
headlines.

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You're hearing slang.

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You're hearing all sorts of
locutions and rhetorical devices

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that I'd be ashamed to call
mine, >

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at least in many cases,
because they are in the world;

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they are out there, as we say.

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What's out there gets to the
point where it's in here,

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and the next thing you know,
it becomes part of the ongoing

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patter or blather of an
individual.

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It is, in other words,
the speech of others that

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you're hearing when you hear an
individual.

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The extent or the degree to
which this might be the case is,

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I suppose, always subject to
debate.

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We're going to take up a couple
of examples,

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but in any case,
you can see that without the

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structure of the relationship
between language and speech

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having really changed--
and in fact it won't really

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change as we continue along--
without the structure of the

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relationship between language
and speech having changed,

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the nature of this relationship
and the way in which we think of

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it in social terms is changed,
and the social aspect of it now

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comes into prominence and will
remain there.

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Now in order to see how this
works in the case of today's two

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authors a little more
concretely,

09:39.889 --> 09:45.989
I wanted to turn to a couple of
passages on your sheet.

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You got my grim warning last
night that if you didn't bring

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it, I wouldn't have any to
circulate.

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We'll see how well that worked,
and if it didn't work,

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well, perhaps it'll work better
in the future.

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In any case,
first of all turning to the

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first passage on the sheet by
Bakhtin--

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by the way, if you don't have
the sheet,

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maybe somebody near you does,
or maybe somebody near you has

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a computer which is being used
for the correct purposes that

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can be >

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held somehow between the two of
you.

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These are all possibilities.

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The first passage on the sheet
by Bakhtin is about the

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relationship between what he
takes to be a formalist

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understanding of
double-voicedness--

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for example,
the new critical understanding

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which he's not directly talking
about but which we could use as

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an example of irony--
the ways of talking about not

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meaning what you say.

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He's talking about those sorts
of double-voicedness in

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relationship to,
in contradistinction to,

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what he means by "genuine
heteroglossia,"

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and he says,
first passage on the sheet:

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Rhetoric is often limited to
purely verbal victories over the

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word, over ideological
authority.

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[In other words,
I am sort of getting under your

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ribs if you're somehow or
another voicing an

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authoritative,
widespread, or tyrannical

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opinion by some form or another
of subverting it--

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in other words,
a kind of a binary relationship

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between what I'm saying and
what's commonly being said out

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there.]
When this happens [says

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Bakhtin]
rhetoric degenerates into

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formalistic verbal play but,
we repeat, when discourse is

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torn from reality it is fatal
for the word itself as well.

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Words grow sickly,
lose semantic depth and

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flexibility, the capacity to
expand and renew their meanings

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in new living contexts.

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They essentially die as
discourse, for the signifying

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word lives beyond itself;
that is, it lives by directing

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its purposiveness outward.

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Double-voicedness,
which is merely verbal,

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is not structured on authentic
heteroglossia but on a mere

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diversity of voices.

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In other words,
it doesn't take into account

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the way in which there are
seepages or permeabilities among

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the possibilities and registers
of meaning,

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depending on extraordinarily
complex speaking communities

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coming together in any aspect of
discourse,

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ways in which we have to think
about the life world of a

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discourse in order to understand
the play of voice.

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Heteroglossia is the language
of others.

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That's what it means if we are
to to understand the way in

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which the language of others is
playing through and permeating

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the text.

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A comparable response to
formalism on the part of Hans

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Robert Jauss--
I should say in passing that

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both Bakhtin and Jauss have
authentic and close relations

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with the Russian formalists.

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Bakhtin begins,
in a way, at the very end of

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the formalist tradition,
as a kind of second generation

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formalist,
but quickly moves away--it is

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breaking up in the late 1920s--
from that and begins to rewrite

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formalism in a certain sense as
a sociogenesis of discourse in

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language;
and by the same token,

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Jauss in his theory of literary
history--

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which is not enunciated in
these terms in the text that you

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have,
but rather in the long text

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from which I wish your editor
had taken an excerpt,

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called "Literary History
as a Provocation to Literary

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Theory."

14:44.320 --> 14:48.050
You have excerpts from that on
your sheet.

14:48.048 --> 14:53.298
In any case,
in Jauss' understanding of the

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relationship between the text
and the life world,

14:59.799 --> 15:13.579


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Jauss cobbles together,
as it were,

15:16.740 --> 15:20.400
aspects of Russian formalist
historiography,

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particularly that of Jakobson
and Tynjanov,

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and a Marxist understanding of,
as it were,

15:28.620 --> 15:34.260
the marketing,
reception, and consumption of

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literary production.

15:37.149 --> 15:40.759
These pairs of ideas go
together in his developing of

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his thesis about literary
reception, to which we'll return

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at the end of the lecture.

15:46.788 --> 15:51.248
The second passage on the
sheet, which distances him,

15:51.253 --> 15:56.233
in which he wants to distance
himself somewhat from both of

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these influences,
goes as follows:

15:59.580 --> 16:03.350
Early Marxist and formalist
methods in common conceive the

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literary fact within the closed
circle of an aesthetics of

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production and representation.

16:09.379 --> 16:12.099
In doing so,
they deprive literature of a

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dimension that inalienably
belongs to its aesthetic

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character as well as to its
social function,

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the dimension of its reception
and influence.

16:22.350 --> 16:24.190
In other words,
the way in which a text,

16:24.190 --> 16:27.710
once it exists,
moves in the world,

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the way in which it persists,
changes as we understand it and

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grows or diminishes as time
passes in the world:

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this is the medium,
the social medium,

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in which Jauss wants to
understand literary--

16:44.490 --> 16:46.820
precisely
literary--interpretation,

16:46.820 --> 16:47.990
as we'll see.

16:47.990 --> 16:51.950
Coming a little closer to this
issue of the relationship

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between thinking of this kind
and the formalist tradition,

16:56.340 --> 17:01.360
Bakhtin on page 592,
the left-hand column toward the

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bottom--
I'm not going to quote this,

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I'm just going to say that it's
there--

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Bakhtin begins a sentence
about, as he puts it,

17:09.088 --> 17:14.408
literary "parody"
understood in the narrow sense.

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Now what he's implying here is
that the theory of parody

17:18.676 --> 17:22.236
belongs primarily to Russian
formalist literary

17:22.244 --> 17:23.724
historiography.

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In other words,
the relationship between a new

17:27.064 --> 17:31.524
text and an old text is one of,
broadly conceived within this

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discourse, parody.

17:33.160 --> 17:41.150
Bakhtin picks up the word
"parody"

17:41.146 --> 17:52.106
in order to say also on page
592, the left-hand column about

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halfway down:
… [A]

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mere concern for language is
[and it's an odd thing to say,

17:59.788 --> 18:02.528
"a mere concern for
language"

18:02.534 --> 18:04.124
>

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]
but the abstract side of the

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concrete and active [i.e.,
dialogically engaged]

18:10.259 --> 18:14.699
understanding of the living
heteroglossia that has been

18:14.704 --> 18:19.484
introduced into the novel and
artistically organized within

18:19.480 --> 18:20.140
it.

18:20.140 --> 18:23.590
To pause over this,
"parody":

18:23.588 --> 18:28.398
if we linger merely on the
literariness of parody,

18:28.400 --> 18:35.080
we simply don't have any grasp
of the complexity of the ways in

18:35.078 --> 18:40.788
which the dialogic or the
heteroglossal modulates,

18:40.788 --> 18:45.658
ripples, and makes complicated
the surface of literary

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discourse.

18:46.759 --> 18:51.339
Parody once again leaves us
with a sense of the binary:

18:51.336 --> 18:56.806
the previous text was this,
the secondary text or the next

18:56.814 --> 19:02.494
text riffs off that previous
text in a way that we can call

19:02.486 --> 19:04.726
parodic--
but that's binary.

19:04.730 --> 19:09.870
It's one text against another
and leaves out the whole

19:09.867 --> 19:15.007
question of that flood or
multiplicity of voices which

19:15.007 --> 19:17.137
pervades the text.

19:17.140 --> 19:19.170
Okay.

19:19.170 --> 19:24.380
So then Jauss has an
interesting moment again,

19:24.380 --> 19:27.540
in the fourth passage on your
sheet,

19:27.538 --> 19:31.258
in which he is obviously
directly responding to that

19:31.257 --> 19:35.557
passage at the end of Tynjanov's
essay on literary evolution

19:35.557 --> 19:40.367
which we've had on the board and
which we've discussed before.

19:40.368 --> 19:44.318
You remember Tynjanov makes the
distinction between evolution--

19:44.318 --> 19:48.458
the way in which a sequence of
texts mutates,

19:48.460 --> 19:50.380
as one might say,
and the way in which,

19:50.380 --> 19:55.050
in other words,
successive texts (again) parody

19:55.053 --> 19:59.323
or alter what was in the
previous text--

19:59.318 --> 20:03.798
and modification,
which is the influence on texts

20:03.797 --> 20:09.577
from the outside by other sorts
of historical factors which may

20:09.580 --> 20:12.100
lead to textual change.

20:12.098 --> 20:14.928
Tynjanov says that it's
important,

20:14.930 --> 20:18.190
actually for both studies--for
the study of history and also

20:18.192 --> 20:20.242
for the study of literary
history--

20:20.240 --> 20:25.710
that the two be always kept
clearly distinct in the mind of

20:25.705 --> 20:28.435
the person looking at them.

20:28.440 --> 20:32.420
Well, Jauss's response to that
is perhaps chiefly rhetorical,

20:32.420 --> 20:36.370
but it nevertheless once again
does mark this shift in the

20:36.369 --> 20:40.599
direction of the understanding
of language as social that I've

20:40.597 --> 20:43.437
been wanting to begin by
emphasizing.

20:43.440 --> 20:46.860
Jauss says:
The connection between literary

20:46.855 --> 20:49.815
evolution and social change
[that is to say,

20:49.818 --> 20:55.688
those features in society that
would and do modify texts]

20:55.688 --> 21:01.768
does not vanish from the face
of the earth through its mere

21:01.767 --> 21:03.127
negation.

21:03.130 --> 21:04.210
What is he saying?

21:04.210 --> 21:06.810
He's saying "does not
vanish from the face of the

21:06.807 --> 21:09.257
earth" because Tynjanov
said it did.

21:09.259 --> 21:10.399
>

21:10.400 --> 21:15.220
There is no doubt that that's
the passage Jauss is talking

21:15.223 --> 21:18.363
about.]
The new literary work [he goes

21:18.355 --> 21:21.145
on]
is received and judged against

21:21.148 --> 21:25.888
the background of the everyday
experience of life.

21:25.890 --> 21:28.370
In other words,
the work exists in a life

21:28.373 --> 21:28.873
world.

21:28.868 --> 21:33.438
There is no easy or even
possible way of distinguishing

21:33.444 --> 21:38.534
between its formal innovations
and those sorts of innovations

21:38.529 --> 21:43.699
which are produced by continuous
and ongoing factors of social

21:43.698 --> 21:44.798
change.

21:44.799 --> 21:46.019
They interact.

21:46.019 --> 21:51.199
They seep into one another in
exactly the same way that all

21:51.199 --> 21:56.559
the registers and sedimentations
of human voices interact and

21:56.557 --> 22:01.287
seep into one another in
Bakhtin's heteroglossia.

22:01.289 --> 22:02.009
All right.

22:02.009 --> 22:06.249
So these then are the emphases
of both of these writers with

22:06.247 --> 22:10.767
respect to formalist ideas which
have played a prominent part in

22:10.770 --> 22:14.430
most,
if not all, of the literary

22:14.432 --> 22:19.012
theory that we have studied up
until now.

22:19.009 --> 22:24.289
I'd like to linger a little
while with Bakhtin before

22:24.285 --> 22:26.715
turning back to Jauss.

22:26.720 --> 22:29.940
Now heteroglossia or diversity
of speech,

22:29.940 --> 22:35.080
as he calls it sometimes--he
says at one point again on page

22:35.075 --> 22:39.075
592 toward the top of the
left-hand column--

22:39.078 --> 22:43.878
heteroglossia is what he calls
"the ground of style."

22:43.880 --> 22:47.720
I want to pause to ask a little
bit what he might mean by this

22:47.721 --> 22:51.371
expression, "the ground of
style," the italicized

22:51.374 --> 22:52.134
passage.

22:52.130 --> 22:56.630
It is precisely the diversity
of speech and not the unity of a

22:56.634 --> 23:00.774
normative shared language that
is the ground of style.

23:00.769 --> 23:02.889
In other words,
I've already said,

23:02.888 --> 23:06.808
of course, when I speak I'm not
speaking to you in an official

23:06.807 --> 23:07.447
voice.

23:07.450 --> 23:11.650
I am not speaking the King's
English.

23:11.650 --> 23:15.380
In fact, on this view there's
really no such thing as the

23:15.384 --> 23:16.524
King's English.

23:16.519 --> 23:21.409
Nobody speaks the King's
English because there is no such

23:21.412 --> 23:25.782
isolated distilled entity that
one can point to.

23:25.778 --> 23:29.748
Language, at least the language
of most of us--

23:29.750 --> 23:33.530
that is to say,
of everyone except people in

23:33.531 --> 23:37.141
hermetically sealed environments
like,

23:37.140 --> 23:41.260
for example,
a peculiarly privileged,

23:41.259 --> 23:47.019
inward-looking aristocracy--the
language of virtually all of us

23:47.016 --> 23:52.336
is the language of the people,
the language of others.

23:52.338 --> 23:57.848
It is that which we have to
continue to think about as we

23:57.854 --> 24:01.404
consider how a style is
generated.

24:01.400 --> 24:07.660
We speak of a style as though
it were purely a question of an

24:07.655 --> 24:09.945
authorial signature.

24:09.950 --> 24:13.960
Sometimes we think of style and
signature as synonymous.

24:13.960 --> 24:16.630
"Oh, I would recognize
that style anywhere."

24:16.630 --> 24:20.400
Coleridge said of a few lines
of Wordsworth,

24:20.400 --> 24:22.550
"If I had come across
these lines in the desert,

24:22.548 --> 24:23.958
I'd have said
'Wordsworth.'"

24:23.964 --> 24:26.274
Well,
obviously there is a certain

24:26.266 --> 24:30.016
sense in which we do recognize a
style: for example,

24:30.019 --> 24:31.759
the style of Jane Austen.

24:31.759 --> 24:34.769
[Points to quotation on board.]
I suppose arguably you could

24:34.770 --> 24:36.510
think that this is the style of
Dr.

24:36.506 --> 24:39.426
Johnson,
but most people would recognize

24:39.428 --> 24:43.258
it as the style of Jane Austen;
and yet at the same time,

24:43.259 --> 24:46.349
as we'll see in a minute,
it is a style made up,

24:46.354 --> 24:50.114
in ways that are very difficult
finally to factor out and

24:50.105 --> 24:53.165
analyze,
of many voices.

24:53.170 --> 24:54.550
Okay.

24:54.548 --> 24:59.888
So this would suggest,
I think--this idea of a style

24:59.887 --> 25:04.387
as a composite of speech
sedimentations--

25:04.390 --> 25:08.470
this idea would suggest that
possibly there isn't a voice,

25:08.470 --> 25:13.770
that to speak of an authorial
voice would be a very difficult

25:13.768 --> 25:18.888
matter and might lead us to ask,
"Does this move the idea

25:18.885 --> 25:22.305
that the sociolect speaks
through the idiolect,

25:22.308 --> 25:26.218
the idea that the language of
everyone is,

25:26.220 --> 25:29.900
in fact, the language that
speaks my speech,

25:29.900 --> 25:34.440
my peculiar individual
speech--does this once again

25:34.440 --> 25:38.800
bring us face to face with that
dreary topic,

25:38.799 --> 25:40.909
the death of the author?"

25:40.910 --> 25:44.750
I don't think so,
not quite, and certainly not in

25:44.750 --> 25:48.030
Bakhtin,
who gives us a rather bracing

25:48.029 --> 25:53.409
sense of the importance of the
author in a passage on page 593,

25:53.410 --> 25:55.160
the right-hand column.

25:55.160 --> 25:57.800
He says:
It is as if the author [this

25:57.798 --> 26:01.048
is, of course,
sort of coming face-to-face

26:01.051 --> 26:05.201
with the problem of whether
there still is an author]

26:05.198 --> 26:10.358
has no language of his own,
but does possess his own style,

26:10.357 --> 26:15.727
his own organic and unitary law
governing the way he plays with

26:15.734 --> 26:20.334
languages [so style is perhaps
one's particular way of

26:20.332 --> 26:25.542
mediating and allocating the
diversity of voice that impinges

26:25.536 --> 26:29.436
on what one's saying]
and the way his own real

26:29.438 --> 26:34.118
semantic and expressive
intentions are refracted within

26:34.122 --> 26:35.512
them.

26:35.509 --> 26:40.229
[And here Bakhtin saves or
preserves the author by invoking

26:40.231 --> 26:44.711
the principle of unifying
intention and the way in which

26:44.711 --> 26:49.271
we can recognize it in the
discourse of any given novel.]

26:49.270 --> 26:53.590
Of course this play with
languages (and frequently the

26:53.586 --> 26:58.066
complete absence of a direct
discourse of his own) in no

26:58.065 --> 27:03.425
sense degrades the general,
deep-seated intentionality,

27:03.433 --> 27:08.403
the overarching ideological
conceptualization of the work as

27:08.403 --> 27:09.333
a whole.

27:09.328 --> 27:11.938
So this is not,
though it may seem to be in

27:11.938 --> 27:16.028
certain respects,
a question of the death of the

27:16.028 --> 27:20.458
author as provoked by,
let's say, Foucault or Roland

27:20.461 --> 27:23.581
Barthes at the beginning of the
semester.

27:23.579 --> 27:28.059
It's not that exactly.

27:28.058 --> 27:31.668
Everything that we've been
saying so far can be seen to

27:31.665 --> 27:33.665
work in a variety of novels.

27:33.670 --> 27:36.820
The novel is the privileged
genre for Bakhtin.

27:36.818 --> 27:41.228
He, I think perhaps somewhat
oversimplifying in this,

27:41.230 --> 27:44.130
reads the novel,
the emergence of the novel,

27:44.130 --> 27:48.330
and the flowering and richness
of the novel against the

27:48.334 --> 27:52.154
backdrop of genres he considers
to be monoglossal:

27:52.148 --> 27:55.588
the epic,
which simply speaks the unitary

27:55.585 --> 27:58.305
voice of an aristocratic
tradition;

27:58.308 --> 28:03.388
the lyric, which simply speaks
the unitary voice of the

28:03.394 --> 28:06.224
isolated romantic solipsist.

28:06.220 --> 28:10.710
Over against that,
you get the polyglossal,

28:10.705 --> 28:15.615
the rich multiplicity of voice
in the novel.

28:15.618 --> 28:19.658
As I say, I think that the
generic contrast is somewhat

28:19.664 --> 28:24.094
oversimplified because nothing
is easier and more profitable

28:24.085 --> 28:27.975
than to read both epic and lyric
as manifestations of

28:27.980 --> 28:29.480
heteroglossia.

28:29.480 --> 28:30.580
Just think of The Iliad.

28:30.578 --> 28:33.608
What are you going to do,
if you really believe that it's

28:33.609 --> 28:36.099
monoglossal, with the speeches
of Thersites?

28:36.099 --> 28:38.169
Okay.

28:38.170 --> 28:40.900
In any case,
the basic idea,

28:40.897 --> 28:44.477
however,
is I think extraordinarily rich

28:44.482 --> 28:47.662
and important,
and I thought we could try it

28:47.659 --> 28:51.389
out by taking a look for a
moment at the first sentence of

28:51.391 --> 28:54.011
Pride and Prejudice,
which I'm sure most of you

28:54.010 --> 28:54.750
know [gestures to board,

28:54.750 --> 28:57.200


28:57.200 --> 29:01.310
It is plainly an example of the
relationship between what

29:01.307 --> 29:04.607
Bakhtin calls "common
language"--

29:04.608 --> 29:05.908
"It is a truth universally
acknowledged,"

29:05.912 --> 29:06.852
or in other
>

29:06.848 --> 29:14.508
words, it's in everybody's
mouth--and something like

29:14.506 --> 29:19.686
authorial reflection,
or what he elsewhere calls

29:19.691 --> 29:22.431
"internally persuasive
discourse."

29:22.430 --> 29:27.090
Now in traditional parlance,
this would be a speech which

29:27.088 --> 29:31.138
manifests irony,
the rhetoric of irony against

29:31.144 --> 29:36.524
which Bakhtin sets himself in
the first passage on your sheet.

29:36.519 --> 29:39.099
"How ridiculous!"

29:39.096 --> 29:39.856
we say.

29:39.858 --> 29:43.168
Jane Austen doesn't believe
this.

29:43.170 --> 29:47.540
This is drawing-room wisdom,
and everything in her sentence

29:47.540 --> 29:51.460
points to the ways in which it's
obviously wrong,

29:51.460 --> 29:56.000
even while it's being called a
truth: "universally"

29:56.001 --> 29:59.561
meaning the thousand people or
so who matter;

29:59.558 --> 30:00.278
in other words,
>

30:00.278 --> 30:05.938
there are a great many people
who neither acknowledge nor care

30:05.943 --> 30:08.083
about any such thing.

30:08.078 --> 30:11.168
Then, of course,
the idea that "a single

30:11.172 --> 30:14.052
man in possession of a good
fortune,"

30:14.053 --> 30:18.993
or indeed otherwise,
has nothing to do but be

30:18.990 --> 30:23.100
"in want of a wife."

30:23.098 --> 30:30.638
Obviously, this is what is
being said not by the man in the

30:30.640 --> 30:35.450
street but by drawing-room
culture.

30:35.450 --> 30:39.760
Now even before we turn to the
complication of the ways in

30:39.756 --> 30:42.926
which the sentence is being
undermined,

30:42.930 --> 30:47.990
bear in mind that the plot of
the novel confirms the

30:47.986 --> 30:49.726
"truth."

30:49.730 --> 30:51.970
In other words,
Darcy and Bingley,

30:51.974 --> 30:54.774
both of them "in
possession of a good

30:54.765 --> 30:57.555
fortune,"
do turn out very plainly to

30:57.555 --> 31:02.395
have been in want of a wife and,
in fact, procure one by the end

31:02.400 --> 31:03.390
of the novel.

31:03.390 --> 31:06.090
That is precisely what the plot
is about,

31:06.088 --> 31:10.138
so that the conventions
governing the plot of Pride

31:10.144 --> 31:14.204
and Prejudice altogether
confirm the truth that is

31:14.201 --> 31:18.041
announced in this sentence,
even though it is a

31:18.041 --> 31:20.561
truth that is plainly to be
viewed ironically.

31:20.558 --> 31:23.658
That in itself is quite
extraordinary and,

31:23.655 --> 31:28.035
I think, reinforces our sense
that this is one of the great

31:28.036 --> 31:31.506
first sentences in the history
of fiction.

31:31.509 --> 31:34.829
Let's turn now to the way in
which we can think of it as

31:34.827 --> 31:37.117
something other than a simple
irony.

31:37.118 --> 31:40.338
Of course, there is this word
"want."

31:40.338 --> 31:43.998
We've been thinking a lot about
want lately because we have just

31:43.997 --> 31:46.317
gone through our psychoanalytic
phase.

31:46.318 --> 31:50.918
What exactly does this
>

31:50.920 --> 31:54.820
single man really want?

31:54.818 --> 31:58.538
In a way, the subtle pun in the
word "want,"

31:58.538 --> 32:02.048
which means both "to
desire" and "to

32:02.047 --> 32:04.437
lack"--
well, if I lack something,

32:04.438 --> 32:05.948
I don't necessarily desire it.

32:05.950 --> 32:08.380
I just don't happen to have it,
right?

32:08.380 --> 32:10.990
On the other hand,
if I want something,

32:10.991 --> 32:13.331
I can also be said to desire
it.

32:13.329 --> 32:16.549
Well, which is it?

32:16.548 --> 32:23.158
Is it a kind of lack that
social pressure of some sort is

32:23.162 --> 32:27.652
calculated to fill,
or is it desire?

32:27.650 --> 32:29.960
If it's desire,
what on earth does it have to

32:29.963 --> 32:31.283
do with a good fortune?

32:31.278 --> 32:34.938
There are elements of the
romance plot which raise

32:34.938 --> 32:36.878
precisely that question.

32:36.880 --> 32:40.640
Desire has nothing to do with
fortune.

32:40.640 --> 32:42.760
Convenience,
social acceptability,

32:42.759 --> 32:46.359
comfort: all of those things
have to do with fortune,

32:46.358 --> 32:49.738
but desire, we suppose--having
passed through our

32:49.740 --> 32:53.530
psychoanalytic phase--
to be of a somewhat different

32:53.529 --> 32:54.109
nature.

32:54.108 --> 32:58.088
The complication of the
sentence has to do actually with

32:58.086 --> 33:02.636
the question of the way in which
the meanings of these words can

33:02.640 --> 33:07.050
be thought to be circulating and
to create ripples of irony of

33:07.049 --> 33:10.809
their own far more complicated
than "Oh,

33:10.808 --> 33:13.378
the author's much smarter than
that,

33:13.380 --> 33:17.170
she doesn't mean that,"
which is already a complication

33:17.169 --> 33:20.509
introduced by the fact that her
plot bears it out.

33:20.509 --> 33:23.509
How can her plot bear it out if
she's being so ironic?

33:23.509 --> 33:33.369
Of course, there is obviously a
good deal more to say.

33:33.368 --> 33:37.908
A single man in possession of a
good fortune obviously may not

33:37.911 --> 33:41.511
at all want a wife,
for a variety of reasons that

33:41.508 --> 33:44.248
one could mention,
and that can't be possibly

33:44.248 --> 33:47.138
completely absent from Jane
Austen's mind.

33:47.140 --> 33:54.290
So that has to be taken into
account in itself and certainly

33:54.285 --> 33:59.125
does [lights go off in lecture
hall]--

33:59.130 --> 34:26.970


34:26.969 --> 34:34.399
I think you see it's the sort
of sentence that bears

34:34.402 --> 34:43.002
reflection beyond a kind of
simple binary of the sentence as

34:43.001 --> 34:49.271
spoken by the man in the drawing
room,

34:49.268 --> 34:51.128
or the woman in the drawing
room.

34:51.130 --> 34:54.980
"It's idiotic,
it's obviously wrong--

34:54.980 --> 35:00.660
we simply can't say that":
the style of the author is a

35:00.664 --> 35:05.874
style that is sedimented by and
through complexities of

35:05.867 --> 35:11.837
circulated meaning that really
can't be limited by any sense of

35:11.842 --> 35:15.602
one-to-one relation of that
kind.

35:15.599 --> 35:47.909
>

35:47.909 --> 35:53.279
All right.

35:53.280 --> 35:54.540
What else about Bakhtin?

35:54.539 --> 35:58.769
One more thing:
His idea of common language.

35:58.768 --> 36:04.048
This is not a concept that is
supposed to have any one

36:04.050 --> 36:07.440
particular value attached to it.

36:07.440 --> 36:10.260
It's a little bit like the
rhizome.

36:10.260 --> 36:13.260
It could be good;
it could be bad.

36:13.260 --> 36:17.050
Common language could be a kind
of Rabelaisan,

36:17.050 --> 36:21.670
carnivalesque,
subversive, energetic body of

36:21.672 --> 36:28.232
voices from below overturning
the apple carts of authority and

36:28.233 --> 36:33.183
the fixed ways of a moribund
social order.

36:33.179 --> 36:36.819
It could be that,
but at the same time it could

36:36.824 --> 36:40.314
itself be the authoritative,
the reactionary,

36:40.311 --> 36:41.661
the mindless.

36:41.659 --> 36:46.739
Common language could be that
universality of acknowledgement

36:46.735 --> 36:50.455
which seems to go along with
unreflected,

36:50.460 --> 36:55.900
knee-jerk responses to what one
observes and thinks about.

36:55.900 --> 36:58.890
Common language has that whole
range.

36:58.889 --> 37:04.189
The important thing about it is
that it's out there and that it

37:04.192 --> 37:09.072
circulates and it exists in
relationship with what Bakhtin

37:09.065 --> 37:13.765
calls "internally
persuasive discourse"--

37:13.768 --> 37:18.228
in other words,
the way in which the filtering

37:18.228 --> 37:24.368
together of these various sorts
of language result in something

37:24.371 --> 37:28.341
like what we feel to be
authentic:

37:28.335 --> 37:35.415
a power of reflection,
a posing of relations among the

37:35.420 --> 37:41.650
various strata of language,
such that they can speak

37:41.652 --> 37:45.452
authentically,
not necessarily in a way that

37:45.445 --> 37:50.285
we agree with but in a way that
we recognize to constitute that

37:50.291 --> 37:54.511
distilled consciousness that we
still do call "the

37:54.510 --> 37:57.950
author,"
and to which we ascribe,

37:57.949 --> 38:02.199
in some sense, authority.

38:02.199 --> 38:05.959
Precisely in the peculiar
self-mocking relationship

38:05.956 --> 38:10.016
between this sentence of
Pride and Prejudice and

38:10.016 --> 38:14.146
the plot of Pride and
Prejudice as a whole,

38:14.150 --> 38:18.950
we feel something like the
internal persuasiveness,

38:18.949 --> 38:23.609
the coherence of the discourse.

38:23.610 --> 38:26.600
I think, maybe just to sum up
Bakhtin,

38:26.599 --> 38:31.749
I want to quote you from the
other long excerpt that you have

38:31.748 --> 38:35.138
in your anthology,
which I would encourage you to

38:35.141 --> 38:35.461
read.

38:35.460 --> 38:38.280
Sometimes I have asked people
to read it but I decided to drop

38:38.280 --> 38:40.920
it this year--but it's still a
very strong and interesting

38:40.918 --> 38:41.518
argument.

38:41.518 --> 38:43.958
It's called "Discourse in
the Novel,"

38:43.956 --> 38:46.656
and I just want to read in the
left-hand column,

38:46.659 --> 38:51.259
near the bottom of the column:
"The ideological becoming

38:51.257 --> 38:55.697
of a human being in this view is
the process of selectively

38:55.704 --> 38:59.004
assimilating the words of
others."

38:59.000 --> 39:01.750
In other words,
the coherence of my mind,

39:01.750 --> 39:04.310
of what I say insofar as
coherence exists,

39:04.309 --> 39:09.919
is the result of selecting out,
of selecting among,

39:09.920 --> 39:12.990
in my assimilation of the words
of others,

39:12.989 --> 39:17.959
such that there is a pattern
of, again, coherence.

39:17.960 --> 39:19.480
All right.

39:19.480 --> 39:22.500
So finally, the novel is the
social text par

39:22.498 --> 39:25.648
excellence for Bakhtin for
these reasons,

39:25.650 --> 39:29.800
and it confirms again what we
have been saying about a new way

39:29.800 --> 39:31.570
of thinking of language.

39:31.570 --> 39:36.820
Language, as that which speaks
through us, is not just

39:36.820 --> 39:40.820
language;
it's other people's language,

39:40.824 --> 39:46.564
and we need to understand the
experience of the process of

39:46.556 --> 39:51.676
reading and of texts as they
exist and the nature of

39:51.684 --> 39:56.414
authorial composition as an
assimilative,

39:56.409 --> 40:01.319
selective way of putting
together other people's

40:01.320 --> 40:02.470
language.

40:02.469 --> 40:03.439
All right.

40:03.440 --> 40:05.860
Now quickly Jauss.

40:05.860 --> 40:10.430
He takes us back,
obviously by way of Iser--

40:10.429 --> 40:14.579
I think you can see that
Jauss's talk about horizons of

40:14.577 --> 40:19.257
expectation and the disruption
of expectation has a great deal

40:19.262 --> 40:23.802
to do with Iser's understanding
of the role of the reader in

40:23.795 --> 40:28.245
filling imaginative gaps that
are left in the text,

40:28.250 --> 40:32.720
which are based on a complex
relationship with a set of

40:32.719 --> 40:37.169
conventional expectations--
by way of Iser to Gadamer;

40:37.170 --> 40:41.070
because after all,
what Jauss has to say is a way

40:41.067 --> 40:45.937
of talking about Gadamer's
"merger of horizons."

40:45.940 --> 40:50.240
But for Jauss it's not just my
horizon and the horizon of the

40:50.237 --> 40:50.737
text.

40:50.739 --> 40:55.809
It's not just those two
horizons that need to meet

40:55.813 --> 41:01.203
halfway on common ground as
mutually illuminative.

41:01.199 --> 41:05.589
It is, in fact,
a succession of horizons

41:05.590 --> 41:12.120
changing as modes of aesthetic
and interpretive response to

41:12.123 --> 41:16.293
texts are mediated
historically--

41:16.289 --> 41:19.089
as I say--in a sequence.

41:19.090 --> 41:23.300
It's not just that the text was
once a certain thing and now we

41:23.295 --> 41:27.855
feel it to be somehow different,
hence in order to understand it

41:27.860 --> 41:29.840
we need to meet it halfway.

41:29.840 --> 41:34.210
It's rather a matter of
self-consciously studying what

41:34.210 --> 41:38.170
has happened in between that
other time and this,

41:38.168 --> 41:39.568
here and now.

41:39.570 --> 41:41.630
The text has had a life.

41:41.630 --> 41:44.580
It has passed through life
changes,

41:44.579 --> 41:50.589
and these life changes have to
be understood at each successive

41:50.585 --> 41:56.395
stage in terms of the three
moments of hermeneutic grasp,

41:56.400 --> 42:01.180
as described by Gadamer in the
historical section of Truth

42:01.175 --> 42:02.205
and Method.

42:02.210 --> 42:04.510
The distinction between
intelligere,

42:04.510 --> 42:07.170
explicare,
and applicare--

42:07.170 --> 42:09.590
understanding,
interpretation,

42:09.585 --> 42:13.045
and application--
that Jauss talks about at the

42:13.054 --> 42:16.824
beginning of his essay actually
goes back to the eighteenth

42:16.824 --> 42:17.544
century.

42:17.539 --> 42:19.789
What Jauss has to say about it
is,

42:19.789 --> 42:24.939
yes: these three moments of
hermeneutic understanding exist

42:24.943 --> 42:30.543
for any reader or reading public
at any moment in the history of

42:30.541 --> 42:33.031
the reception of a text.

42:33.030 --> 42:38.570
He makes a considerable to-do
about distinguishing between the

42:38.568 --> 42:44.288
aesthetic response to the text
and a subsequent or leisured,

42:44.289 --> 42:48.629
reflectively interpretive
response to the text.

42:48.630 --> 42:51.680
This may seem a little
confusing because he admits with

42:51.682 --> 42:55.802
Heidegger and others,
as we've indicated ourselves in

42:55.800 --> 42:59.320
the past,
that you can't just have a

42:59.324 --> 43:04.514
spontaneous response to anything
without reflection.

43:04.510 --> 43:06.970
There's always a sense in which
you already know what it is,

43:06.965 --> 43:09.375
which is to say a sense in
which you've already interpreted

43:09.378 --> 43:11.058
it;
but at the same time,

43:11.061 --> 43:14.841
Jauss makes a considerable
point of distinguishing between

43:14.840 --> 43:17.040
these two moments--
the aesthetic,

43:17.039 --> 43:19.209
which he associates with
understanding,

43:19.210 --> 43:23.260
and the interpretive,
which he associates with what

43:23.260 --> 43:27.800
is in the hermeneutic tradition
called interpretation.

43:27.800 --> 43:29.880
Now why does he do this?

43:29.880 --> 43:32.360
It's a question of what he
means by "the

43:32.356 --> 43:33.366
aesthetic."

43:33.369 --> 43:39.499
A text enters historical
circulation and remains before

43:39.498 --> 43:46.528
the gaze of successive audiences
in history because it has been

43:46.534 --> 43:49.604
received aesthetically.

43:49.599 --> 43:53.969
Aesthetics is the glue that
keeps the text alive through

43:53.965 --> 43:54.755
history.

43:54.760 --> 43:57.060
In other words,
people continue to say,

43:57.056 --> 44:00.076
to one degree or another,
"I like it."

44:00.079 --> 44:02.479
If they don't say,
"I like it,"

44:02.480 --> 44:05.360
there will never be a question
of interpreting it

44:05.360 --> 44:06.920
>

44:06.920 --> 44:08.720
or transmitting it
historically,

44:08.722 --> 44:10.702
because it's going to
disappear.

44:10.699 --> 44:11.129
As Dr.

44:11.128 --> 44:14.278
Johnson said,
"That book is good in vain

44:14.278 --> 44:16.998
which the reader throws
away."

44:17.000 --> 44:19.290
In other words,
from the standpoint of

44:19.289 --> 44:22.569
interpretation or from the
standpoint of philosophical

44:22.568 --> 44:25.908
reflection or whatever you might
wish to call it,

44:25.909 --> 44:30.389
a book may be good,
just incontestably good--

44:30.389 --> 44:35.249
but if it didn't please,
if it didn't give pleasure,

44:35.250 --> 44:41.440
if it didn't attach itself to a
reading public aesthetically by

44:41.442 --> 44:46.402
means of pleasing,
none of what would follow in

44:46.396 --> 44:51.186
the hermeneutic process could
ever take place.

44:51.190 --> 44:55.480
So that's why Jauss makes such
a point of distinguishing

44:55.480 --> 44:58.990
between the aesthetic and the
interpretive.

44:58.989 --> 45:04.839
Then of course the historical
study of reception is what shows

45:04.844 --> 45:10.324
us the degree to which any set
of moments of aesthetic and

45:10.315 --> 45:15.785
interpretive reception is
mediated by what has gone before

45:15.786 --> 45:16.646
it.

45:16.650 --> 45:20.320
In other words,
a text gradually changes as a

45:20.318 --> 45:23.948
result of its reception,
and if we don't study

45:23.952 --> 45:27.902
reception, we are left naively
supposing that time has passed

45:27.900 --> 45:31.590
and that the past has become
sort of remote from us so we

45:31.586 --> 45:34.216
have certain problems
interpreting;

45:34.219 --> 45:37.169
but these problems as far as we
know haven't arisen from

45:37.172 --> 45:39.752
anything that could properly be
called change.

45:39.750 --> 45:43.850
There has been an unfolding
process of successive

45:43.851 --> 45:48.891
interpretations whereby a text
has gone through sea changes:

45:48.894 --> 45:52.434
it's become less popular,
more popular,

45:52.427 --> 45:56.447
more richly interpreted and
less richly interpreted,

45:56.449 --> 46:01.359
but tends to keep eddying out
from what it was sensed to be

46:01.362 --> 46:05.262
originally,
to the point where all sorts of

46:05.257 --> 46:10.147
accretive implications and
sources of pleasure may arrive

46:10.150 --> 46:12.160
as we understand it.

46:12.159 --> 46:14.169
In a certain sense,
once again it's like

46:14.166 --> 46:16.236
"Pierre Menard,
Author of the

46:16.237 --> 46:19.587
Quixote,"
but now it's not just Pierre

46:19.585 --> 46:21.905
Menard and Miguel de Cervantes.

46:21.909 --> 46:23.739
It's as though a succession of
people,

46:23.739 --> 46:28.209
perhaps whose native language
was not French necessarily but

46:28.213 --> 46:30.423
who knows--
German, Russian,

46:30.418 --> 46:35.058
whatever--continued to write in
Spanish a text which turns out

46:35.061 --> 46:39.171
to be word-for-word Don
Quixote as the centuries

46:39.172 --> 46:43.062
pass,
each one acquiring a whole new

46:43.059 --> 46:48.849
world of associations and
implications and giving pleasure

46:48.853 --> 46:51.703
in successively new ways.

46:51.699 --> 46:54.959
When we finally get to the
point in the late nineteenth

46:54.956 --> 46:56.786
century,
when we encounter this

46:56.786 --> 47:00.066
Frenchman, Pierre Menard,
writing Don Quixote,

47:00.074 --> 47:03.664
the important thing would be
to understand that lots of

47:03.659 --> 47:06.689
people have done it between him
and Cervantes.

47:06.690 --> 47:12.870
This is a kind of skeletal
model of how a reception history

47:12.869 --> 47:16.279
according to Jauss might work.

47:16.280 --> 47:19.960
Now the history of reception
studies two things.

47:19.960 --> 47:24.290
It studies changing horizons of
expectation,

47:24.289 --> 47:27.369
and that's something you're
familiar with from Iser--

47:27.369 --> 47:30.419
that is to say,
the way in which a reader has

47:30.416 --> 47:33.466
to come to terms with
conventions surrounding

47:33.465 --> 47:37.785
expectation in any given text,
in order to be able to

47:37.791 --> 47:42.981
negotiate what's new and what's
nearly merely culinary in the

47:42.981 --> 47:45.671
text--
it involves changing horizons

47:45.668 --> 47:50.078
of expectations which don't just
change once in the here and now,

47:50.079 --> 47:53.049
but have changed successively
through time.

47:53.050 --> 47:57.860
It also involves changing
semantic possibilities or,

47:57.860 --> 48:01.540
if you will,
changing possibilities for and

48:01.536 --> 48:06.506
of significance--
what does the text mean for me

48:06.507 --> 48:08.807
now?--
but understood again not just

48:08.806 --> 48:10.646
as something that matters for
me,

48:10.650 --> 48:14.630
but has successively mattered
for successive generations of

48:14.628 --> 48:16.068
readers in between.

48:16.070 --> 48:20.730
Just to take examples of how
this might work in the here and

48:20.726 --> 48:23.866
now,
there is just now on Broadway a

48:23.865 --> 48:28.735
revival of Damn Yankees,
which is about a baseball

48:28.739 --> 48:33.489
player who sells his soul in
order to beat the Yankees.

48:33.489 --> 48:37.169
One can't help but think that
the revival of interest in

48:37.172 --> 48:40.852
Damn Yankees has
something to do with the steroid

48:40.853 --> 48:44.943
scandals and the way in which so
many baseball players do sell

48:44.936 --> 48:49.486
their souls in order to win and
in order to have good careers.

48:49.489 --> 48:54.109
It occurs to one that it is in
this sort of atmosphere of

48:54.108 --> 48:59.058
social and cultural censure that
we're suddenly interested in

48:59.056 --> 49:01.526
Damn Yankees again.

49:01.530 --> 49:05.550
Perhaps there will be a revival
of Tony the Tow Truck

49:05.547 --> 49:08.467
because in the economic
downturn,

49:08.469 --> 49:14.489
obviously to be rich or to be
glamorous like Neato or to be

49:14.492 --> 49:18.522
busy like Speedy--
all of this becomes obsolete,

49:18.523 --> 49:21.693
more or less irrelevant and
beside the point,

49:21.690 --> 49:25.660
and what really matters is
little guys helping each other.

49:25.659 --> 49:31.499
So Tony the Tow Truck
could be revived today as a

49:31.498 --> 49:36.168
parable of the good life in the
downturn,

49:36.170 --> 49:41.170
and so it will probably be read
by everyone,

49:41.170 --> 49:44.290
it will give pleasure,
it will therefore be

49:44.286 --> 49:47.446
interpreted,
and it will survive to live

49:47.454 --> 49:52.174
another day historically,
fulfilling the three moments of

49:52.172 --> 49:57.072
the study of the history of
reception required by Jauss.

49:57.070 --> 49:57.750
All right.

49:57.750 --> 50:00.420
So with that said,
it's been a very interesting

50:00.423 --> 50:01.823
fifty minutes I think.

50:01.820 --> 50:03.780
>

50:03.780 --> 50:06.350
With that said,
I hope you all have a good

50:06.346 --> 50:09.096
break and we'll see you when you
get back.

50:09.099 --> 50:13.999