WEBVTT 00:01.740 --> 00:05.890 Prof: Well, I'd like to begin by pointing 00:05.885 --> 00:10.465 out that the first name of Fredric Jameson is spelled 00:10.472 --> 00:12.062 F-r-e-d-r-i-c. 00:12.060 --> 00:16.840 The reason I point that out is that most scholars don't seem to 00:16.842 --> 00:21.782 be able to grasp that simple fact and that references to him, 00:21.780 --> 00:24.720 which are rife in the critical literature, 00:24.720 --> 00:29.190 perhaps one-third of the time spell his first name wrong. 00:29.190 --> 00:32.690 So I thought it would be important for you to be among 00:32.688 --> 00:36.848 the cognoscenti and to know that it is spelled in the way that I 00:36.846 --> 00:38.096 just mentioned. 00:38.100 --> 00:39.980 It's a strange thing. 00:39.980 --> 00:42.600 When I started teaching I taught many, 00:42.600 --> 00:45.730 many, many sections of English 129, 00:45.730 --> 00:48.150 and of course in the first semester, 00:48.150 --> 00:51.080 the first text that we read was The Iliad. 00:51.080 --> 00:55.510 Now "Iliad" is spelled I-l-i-a-d. 00:55.510 --> 00:59.540 Why it is that of the student population I taught over all 00:59.539 --> 01:02.339 those years, hundreds and hundreds of 01:02.344 --> 01:06.854 students, fully a third of them spelled it I-l-l-i-a-d I really 01:06.852 --> 01:09.682 couldn't say, but there are words that simply 01:09.676 --> 01:12.436 seem to be insusceptible to being spelled correctly, 01:12.439 --> 01:13.119 > 01:13.120 --> 01:19.020 and one of those words is the first name of Fredric Jameson, 01:19.019 --> 01:20.919 so stand advised. 01:20.920 --> 01:21.400 Okay. 01:21.402 --> 01:26.712 Now last time I talked about four possible options of an 01:26.712 --> 01:32.512 aesthetic nature for a Marxist approach to literature, 01:32.506 --> 01:35.496 and passed them in review. 01:35.500 --> 01:39.940 I mentioned realism, both realism according to the 01:39.941 --> 01:44.201 tastes and theoretical preferences of Engels and 01:44.202 --> 01:48.362 Lukacs, and also tendentious realism as 01:48.355 --> 01:54.895 it pervaded the Soviet world, especially after 1934; 01:54.900 --> 01:59.550 then also the participatory aesthetic of figures like Walter 01:59.553 --> 02:02.263 Benjamin, and the high Modernist 02:02.262 --> 02:04.912 aesthetic of the "whole" 02:04.906 --> 02:07.786 embraced particularly by Adorno-- 02:07.790 --> 02:11.370 those last are the two aesthetic modes that we passed 02:11.366 --> 02:13.776 in review last time-- and finally, 02:13.775 --> 02:16.865 as a fifth notion, the idea that realism being 02:16.872 --> 02:20.462 somehow outworn, having developed hardening of 02:20.455 --> 02:25.165 the arteries as a kind of a bourgeois perspective on things, 02:25.169 --> 02:30.279 needs somehow or another to be replaced aesthetically in the 02:30.276 --> 02:33.996 Marxist view of things by something else. 02:34.000 --> 02:38.490 Perhaps the most eloquent proponent of replacing it with 02:38.490 --> 02:42.510 something is Jameson, who earlier in the introductory 02:42.507 --> 02:45.557 chapter of The Political Unconscious-- 02:45.560 --> 02:48.510 much of which you've been assigned for today-- 02:48.508 --> 02:54.368 writes a section which he calls "Magical Narratives" 02:54.366 --> 02:58.686 and which promotes, very much in keeping with the 02:58.694 --> 03:03.664 thinking of Northrop Frye about the role of romance in society-- 03:03.658 --> 03:08.208 and particularly the religious role of romance in society-- 03:08.210 --> 03:13.700 proposes that an aesthetic of the romance which entails 03:13.699 --> 03:16.169 folklore, the folk tale, 03:16.169 --> 03:19.739 the fairy tale, and various forms of folk 03:19.741 --> 03:24.291 expression as a magical resolution of conflicts that 03:24.294 --> 03:29.654 can't otherwise be resolved, is the more appropriate 03:29.645 --> 03:31.855 aesthetic to take up. 03:31.860 --> 03:35.420 The long passage that I sent to you last night, 03:35.419 --> 03:41.219 which I'd like quickly to go over, is meant to further the 03:41.218 --> 03:47.428 promotion of this aesthetic and also to pose for us a critique 03:47.425 --> 03:53.525 of what the consequences would be of lingering with a realist 03:53.531 --> 03:55.161 aesthetic. 03:55.160 --> 03:58.290 So Jameson says, on the second passage on your 03:58.285 --> 04:00.825 sheet: Let Scott, Balzac and Dreiser 04:00.825 --> 04:04.985 serve as the [and remember that Balzac is the favorite author of 04:04.989 --> 04:08.159 Engels; Scott is the favorite author, 04:08.155 --> 04:10.655 at least in 1927, of Lukacs; 04:10.658 --> 04:14.518 and Dreiser is a figure from the so-called naturalist 04:14.518 --> 04:18.668 movement, the American novelist who is a very appropriate 04:18.673 --> 04:20.533 addition to the list. 04:20.528 --> 04:25.338 It's in that context that Jameson is dropping these 04:25.341 --> 04:29.671 particular names] non-chronological markers of 04:29.670 --> 04:34.290 the emergence of realism in its modern form. 04:34.290 --> 04:38.460 These first great realisms are characterized by a fundamental 04:38.464 --> 04:42.434 and exhilarating heterogeneity in their raw materials, 04:42.430 --> 04:46.030 and by a corresponding versatility in their narrative 04:46.029 --> 04:46.859 apparatus. 04:46.860 --> 04:50.430 At such moments a generic confinement to the existent [in 04:50.425 --> 04:53.655 other words, the only thing you have to do 04:53.658 --> 04:58.298 if you're a realist is talk about things the way they really 04:58.297 --> 05:00.967 are] has a paradoxically liberating 05:00.970 --> 05:05.370 effect on the registers of the text and releases a set of 05:05.370 --> 05:08.280 heterogeneous historical perspectives: 05:08.279 --> 05:12.059 the past for Scott, the future for Balzac, 05:12.055 --> 05:15.385 and the process of commodification for Dreiser-- 05:15.389 --> 05:18.929 normally felt to be inconsistent with a focus on the 05:18.930 --> 05:20.390 historical present. 05:20.389 --> 05:23.089 In other words, in Scott's treatment of history 05:23.091 --> 05:27.181 as dialectical, against the foil of the present 05:27.182 --> 05:32.662 there is envisioned a kind of romanticized evocation of a 05:32.663 --> 05:35.813 feudal past, and so it is in turn--I don't 05:35.809 --> 05:38.749 want to linger long over this with the other writers. 05:38.750 --> 05:44.110 Indeed, this multiple temporality tends to be sealed 05:44.112 --> 05:50.422 off and re-contained again in high realism and naturalism [in 05:50.422 --> 05:54.222 other words, it starts getting too easy, 05:54.216 --> 05:57.706 and the formulas of representing and evoking the 05:57.711 --> 06:01.321 real begin to become, as I said, sclerotic. 06:01.319 --> 06:03.259 They begin to harden. 06:03.259 --> 06:07.409 They begin to confine us in ways that had hitherto been 06:07.408 --> 06:10.328 liberating] where a perfected narrative 06:10.326 --> 06:13.376 apparatus, in particular the threefold 06:13.380 --> 06:16.550 imperatives of authorial depersonalization-- 06:16.550 --> 06:19.020 that is to say, the voice in style indirect 06:19.024 --> 06:25.164 libre, authorial depersonalization; 06:25.160 --> 06:28.800 unity of point of view, and restriction to scenic 06:28.795 --> 06:33.105 representation begin to confer on the realistic option the 06:33.113 --> 06:37.283 appearance of an asphyxiating self-imposed penance. 06:37.279 --> 06:39.439 In other words, "this is all I can say and 06:39.444 --> 06:41.144 this is the only way I can say it. 06:41.139 --> 06:45.259 There are no other possibilities of literary 06:45.255 --> 06:50.995 expression because I now feel confined to this reification of 06:50.999 --> 06:55.009 the real, this insistence that the real, 06:55.007 --> 06:59.597 the evocation of the real, is my only literary option, 06:59.603 --> 07:02.723 and so it's no longer liberating." 07:02.720 --> 07:07.130 It is in the context of this gradual reification in late 07:07.127 --> 07:12.017 capitalism that the romance once again comes to be felt as the 07:12.017 --> 07:16.827 place of narrative heterogeneity and freedom from the reality 07:16.827 --> 07:18.107 principle. 07:18.110 --> 07:22.080 That is, in a way, a jab at Freud, 07:22.079 --> 07:26.309 but at the same time an acknowledgement that Freud 07:26.312 --> 07:30.542 participates in a sort of growing despair over the 07:30.543 --> 07:34.693 necessity of confining oneself to the real, 07:34.690 --> 07:38.580 evoking freedom from the reality principle to which a now 07:38.584 --> 07:42.274 oppressive realistic representation is the hostage. 07:42.269 --> 07:42.769 Okay. 07:42.766 --> 07:47.246 So that's the aesthetic of Fredric Jameson, 07:47.250 --> 07:50.360 and before we begin an analysis--that is to say, 07:50.360 --> 07:54.730 before we begin to consider his three horizons or concentric 07:54.730 --> 07:58.500 circles of interpretation-- from other points of view, 07:58.500 --> 08:01.300 I thought it would be interesting to find this 08:01.303 --> 08:04.423 romance aesthetic in those three levels. 08:04.420 --> 08:06.280 We're talking, of course, about the 08:06.278 --> 08:08.738 "political," the "social," 08:08.738 --> 08:11.908 and the "historical": the political, 08:11.910 --> 08:15.910 the kind of chronicle-like--as he puts it-- 08:15.910 --> 08:21.930 record of successive happenings in a fictive context, 08:21.930 --> 08:28.180 constructed as a plot by some individual voice; 08:28.180 --> 08:34.380 the social as the conflict--or emergence into our 08:34.384 --> 08:38.564 awareness of its being a conflict-- 08:38.558 --> 08:41.788 of what Jameson calls "ideologemes"-- 08:41.788 --> 08:45.288 that is to say, ways of thinking about the 08:45.293 --> 08:50.253 world as expressed by disparate and conflicting classes; 08:50.250 --> 08:52.490 and then finally the historical, 08:52.488 --> 08:55.078 which Jameson calls "necessity." 08:55.080 --> 08:58.030 At the end of the essay, he says it's "what 08:58.029 --> 09:01.169 hurts," but in terms of literary analysis, 09:01.168 --> 09:05.898 as we'll see, it has to do with understanding 09:05.897 --> 09:12.237 the overlap of the succession of modes of production as they 09:12.235 --> 09:15.455 unfold in historical time. 09:15.460 --> 09:18.600 We'll have more to say about modes of production, 09:18.600 --> 09:20.710 but our basic three horizons, then-- 09:20.710 --> 09:25.630 in which I am now going to look for the romance aesthetic-- 09:25.629 --> 09:29.269 our basic three horizons, then, are what Jameson calls 09:29.270 --> 09:32.560 the political, the social and the historical. 09:32.558 --> 09:35.268 It's important that he does sometimes call them 09:35.269 --> 09:39.239 concentric circles, because you have to understand 09:39.235 --> 09:42.765 that as you advance through the three stages, 09:42.769 --> 09:45.499 you're not leaving anything behind. 09:45.500 --> 09:52.970 The political is contained within the social and the social 09:52.966 --> 09:57.726 is contained within the historical. 09:57.730 --> 10:04.490 All of that is what is not to be left behind but is rather to 10:04.485 --> 10:07.745 be rethought, reconsidered. 10:07.750 --> 10:11.720 Jameson sometimes uses the word "rewritten," 10:11.716 --> 10:16.206 thinking of the text that is the object of one's study as one 10:16.206 --> 10:19.196 advances through these three stages. 10:19.200 --> 10:22.790 So that's why he thinks it appropriate to call them 10:22.791 --> 10:24.301 concentric circles. 10:24.298 --> 10:31.508 So what is the essential political moment of the 10:31.506 --> 10:33.506 creative act? 10:33.509 --> 10:36.679 Well, it's what Jameson, borrowing from Kenneth Burke, 10:36.678 --> 10:38.888 calls "the symbolic act." 10:38.889 --> 10:44.349 As an individual writer, I undertake to resolve 10:44.351 --> 10:49.791 symbolically a contradiction-- and Marxism is always about 10:49.788 --> 10:51.728 contradiction: that is to say, 10:51.730 --> 10:56.800 the way in which the perspective of any class exists 10:56.803 --> 11:02.973 in a contradictory relation both with its own needs and desires 11:02.972 --> 11:05.662 and with other classes. 11:05.658 --> 11:08.928 In any case, then, the symbolic act at the 11:08.932 --> 11:13.572 political level is designed to resolve a contradiction that 11:13.565 --> 11:16.515 can't be resolved by other means. 11:16.519 --> 11:19.069 In other words, it's a fantasy, 11:19.070 --> 11:23.070 it is the fairy tale, it is the princess and the 11:23.065 --> 11:23.995 pauper. 11:24.000 --> 11:28.950 It is the arbitrary happy ending tacked onto a situation 11:28.950 --> 11:33.810 for which in reality there would be no happy ending. 11:33.808 --> 11:37.438 In other words, it is a romance perspective 11:37.437 --> 11:42.027 about the world, the realistic approach to which 11:42.029 --> 11:47.929 would somehow or another leave us feeling much more confined. 11:47.928 --> 11:53.658 "Slumdog Millionaire" is an interesting example. 11:53.658 --> 11:56.428 It's an auteur film made by Danny Boyle, 11:56.428 --> 12:01.258 an interesting example of an individual act which magically 12:01.259 --> 12:06.339 resolves a contradiction through the whole Bollywood apparatus 12:06.341 --> 12:09.091 that it brings to bear on it. 12:09.090 --> 12:12.000 The contradictions, of course, are rife between 12:12.003 --> 12:14.943 Hindu and Muslim, the contradictions entailed in 12:14.938 --> 12:17.068 globalization, the contradictions of 12:17.067 --> 12:19.247 caste--all of these contradictions, 12:19.250 --> 12:23.440 not to be resolved on a realistic plane, 12:23.440 --> 12:27.480 nevertheless can be resolved by an individual symbolic act: 12:27.476 --> 12:28.866 You hit the Lotto. 12:28.870 --> 12:34.980 You win against all odds a prize that makes you a 12:34.977 --> 12:36.757 millionaire. 12:36.759 --> 12:38.299 Who wants to be a millionaire? 12:38.298 --> 12:39.488 Well, we all > 12:39.490 --> 12:43.050 want to be millionaires, but only one of us 12:43.048 --> 12:46.688 miraculously, magically, through a series of 12:46.691 --> 12:49.741 completely implausible happenstances, 12:49.740 --> 12:51.690 is able to do so. 12:51.690 --> 12:56.020 Now notice this: it's not that it doesn't 12:56.024 --> 12:57.004 happen. 12:57.000 --> 12:58.850 People do hit the Lotto. 12:58.850 --> 13:03.360 People do win the $64,000 question or whatever it is. 13:03.360 --> 13:07.350 It's not that it's absolute never-never land, 13:07.350 --> 13:11.030 but the point is--and I think this is really ultimately the 13:11.033 --> 13:14.913 point of that extravagant dance in the railroad station at the 13:14.905 --> 13:19.895 end of the film-- the point is that even were it 13:19.902 --> 13:23.892 to happen in reality, it wouldn't resolve 13:23.893 --> 13:24.893 contradictions. 13:24.889 --> 13:27.979 That is to say, your life would not have that 13:27.984 --> 13:31.434 kind of scripted perfection: You get the girl, 13:31.428 --> 13:34.838 everything is going to be perfect, and the whole world 13:34.836 --> 13:37.836 falls in line, dancing behind you. 13:37.840 --> 13:40.280 This just > 13:40.279 --> 13:42.069 doesn't happen. 13:42.070 --> 13:45.880 In other words, it can be sort of tragic to hit 13:45.875 --> 13:51.165 the Lotto, as many stories of that kind have made clear to us. 13:51.168 --> 13:54.958 That, it seems to me, is finally how the film is 13:54.956 --> 13:59.866 somewhat self-conscious about its nature as a symbolic act. 13:59.870 --> 14:04.850 Anyway, that's the romance element of the political level 14:04.854 --> 14:08.864 of interpretation as understood by Jameson. 14:08.860 --> 14:14.570 Now the second level brings to the surface the element of 14:14.572 --> 14:20.382 subversion that has to be entailed in this same fairy tale 14:20.384 --> 14:26.714 resolution of a conflict that can't otherwise be resolved. 14:26.710 --> 14:30.000 There are all sorts of other aspects at the second level, 14:30.000 --> 14:34.460 but remember I'm discovering the romance aesthetic here in 14:34.464 --> 14:39.164 all three levels before turning to other matters having to do 14:39.163 --> 14:40.263 with them. 14:40.259 --> 14:43.529 At the second level, on page 1297, 14:43.529 --> 14:47.889 the right-hand column, you have Ernst Bloch's 14:47.890 --> 14:51.460 understanding of the fairy tale. 14:51.460 --> 14:54.900 This is at the second level, about two thirds of the way 14:54.900 --> 14:55.340 down. 14:55.340 --> 14:57.890 Thus, for instance, Bloch's reading of the fairy 14:57.894 --> 14:59.354 tale, with its magical 14:59.351 --> 15:02.931 wish-fulfillments and its Utopian fantasies of plenty and 15:02.928 --> 15:06.518 the pays de Cocagne, restores the dialogical 15:06.524 --> 15:09.264 ["The Big Rock Candy Mountain" 15:09.264 --> 15:12.504 basically is the pays de Cocagne] 15:12.495 --> 15:15.865 and antagonistic content of this "form" 15:15.868 --> 15:19.378 by exhibiting it as a systematic deconstruction and 15:19.380 --> 15:23.030 undermining of the hegemonic aristocratic form of the 15:23.033 --> 15:25.873 epic… In other words, 15:25.865 --> 15:29.375 it's not just a symbolic act, the fairy tale. 15:29.379 --> 15:33.899 It is a thumbing of the nose at hegemony. 15:33.899 --> 15:38.539 It is, in other words, an act of antagonism which, 15:38.538 --> 15:44.088 of course, recognizes the impossibility of resolution or 15:44.089 --> 15:49.839 reconciliation precisely in its register of antagonism; 15:49.840 --> 15:52.660 so that at the second level, the social level, 15:52.658 --> 15:57.218 in which the ideological voices of various classes and 15:57.220 --> 16:00.490 perspective are openly in conflict, 16:00.490 --> 16:02.570 you don't get resolution. 16:02.570 --> 16:06.400 What you get is subversion and reaction. 16:06.399 --> 16:11.549 You get, in other words, a tension of voices that is not 16:11.552 --> 16:17.172 meant to resolve anything but is rather meant to lay bare the 16:17.172 --> 16:20.172 conflicts that are entailed. 16:20.168 --> 16:25.138 Still, however, in doing this you get the kind 16:25.144 --> 16:31.774 of carnivalesque uprising from below which Jameson associates 16:31.774 --> 16:36.754 with romance: that letting off of steam, 16:36.750 --> 16:42.460 that entertaining of the possibility of utopia that you 16:42.458 --> 16:44.418 get, for example, 16:44.421 --> 16:50.221 in the early modern period on that day in which someone is 16:50.224 --> 16:56.434 called the Lord of Misrule, the entire social order for one 16:56.428 --> 17:00.668 day is inverted, the low are elevated to 17:00.667 --> 17:05.597 positions of authority, and for one day you get the 17:05.597 --> 17:08.177 keys to the castle, in effect. 17:08.180 --> 17:12.880 This is a day in which conflict is expressed and not resolved 17:12.880 --> 17:17.350 because everybody knows that tomorrow it's going to be the 17:17.346 --> 17:21.416 same old-same old and back to business as usual; 17:21.420 --> 17:24.060 but there is still the romance element, 17:24.058 --> 17:32.808 the idea that folk expression is simultaneously the expression 17:32.806 --> 17:36.606 of a wish, a wish similar to the wish 17:36.612 --> 17:40.502 that's expressed at the first political level but the 17:40.497 --> 17:43.857 expression of a wish which is collective-- 17:43.858 --> 17:46.278 that is to say, in behalf of a class and a 17:46.282 --> 17:48.342 perspective, and which is also, 17:48.336 --> 17:52.896 with great self-consciousness, not a wish that can in any way 17:52.896 --> 17:58.506 expect to be fulfilled, but rather one that is used 17:58.510 --> 18:05.990 subversively with respect to the dominant ideology that it 18:05.987 --> 18:10.837 expresses its abrasiveness toward. 18:10.838 --> 18:15.718 The third level involves the way in which there is at any 18:15.715 --> 18:20.235 given time at the historical level a dominant mode of 18:20.242 --> 18:21.552 production. 18:21.548 --> 18:28.018 A mode of production is a system of thought or production 18:28.016 --> 18:35.056 generated by an overarching social or economic arrangement. 18:35.058 --> 18:39.178 Jameson lists them in his text, and we'll come back to them and 18:39.175 --> 18:43.155 we'll read that listing and we'll think about those terms; 18:43.160 --> 18:49.100 but Jameson gives an excellent example of the way in which, 18:49.098 --> 18:51.308 in the latter part of the eighteenth century, 18:51.308 --> 18:57.208 the Enlightenment began to be the dominant form of expression 18:57.214 --> 19:02.364 of an emergent mercantile, successfully capitalist 19:02.356 --> 19:03.646 bourgeoisie. 19:03.650 --> 19:07.460 That is to say, the values that drove the 19:07.462 --> 19:13.282 development of industrialization and capital were those values 19:13.278 --> 19:18.328 emerging from feudal and aristocratic ideals that were 19:18.332 --> 19:22.452 less realistic, less engaged with actuality and 19:22.445 --> 19:26.015 the way in which you can actually get things done in the 19:26.023 --> 19:26.613 world. 19:26.608 --> 19:32.598 The Enlightenment is understood as an expression of an emerging 19:32.595 --> 19:37.515 new mode of production, or capitalism as it succeeds 19:37.518 --> 19:38.868 feudalism. 19:38.868 --> 19:42.808 But Jameson points out--and here's where romance comes in, 19:42.808 --> 19:45.758 and then after that we'll move on to our next point-- 19:45.759 --> 19:50.739 that at the same time you get Enlightenment, 19:50.740 --> 19:54.610 at the same time that that does seem to become the dominant form 19:54.614 --> 19:58.724 of expression, you also get two modes of 19:58.715 --> 20:02.135 resistance or contestation. 20:02.140 --> 20:04.500 On the one hand you have Romanticism, 20:04.500 --> 20:09.600 which can be understood in this context as a kind of atavistic 20:09.596 --> 20:13.686 throwback to aristocratic and feudal idealism, 20:13.690 --> 20:18.470 codes of conduct, beliefs, visions of utopia 20:18.471 --> 20:23.591 within Romanticism-- all of them sort of trying to 20:23.588 --> 20:28.098 recode in an age of Enlightenment various sorts of 20:28.101 --> 20:32.061 idealism that had come to seem outmoded. 20:32.058 --> 20:36.178 So that's a kind of, as it were, reactionary mode of 20:36.180 --> 20:40.950 production overlapping with or expressing itself through the 20:40.945 --> 20:42.315 dominant one. 20:42.318 --> 20:46.188 Then at the same time, you get folk resistance 20:46.188 --> 20:50.278 to the increasing mechanization of the Enlightenment. 20:50.279 --> 20:54.359 With Political Economy, with the rise of social 20:54.357 --> 20:59.677 engineering and with the various forms of social organization 20:59.678 --> 21:05.698 associated with Utilitarianism, you get folk resistance. 21:05.700 --> 21:09.770 You get popular resistance in the forms of protest, 21:09.769 --> 21:15.289 "frame-breaking," disruption of labor activity, 21:15.288 --> 21:17.898 protest against industrialization, 21:17.898 --> 21:22.248 all of which also-- because it insists on earlier 21:22.247 --> 21:27.247 forms of agricultural and industrial cottage industries 21:27.251 --> 21:29.931 and so on-- is atavistic, 21:29.933 --> 21:36.003 also a throwback to the way in which labor is performed or 21:36.001 --> 21:39.091 conducted under feudalism. 21:39.088 --> 21:43.038 So that, too, in the form of folk 21:43.040 --> 21:46.270 expression-- of longing for, 21:46.269 --> 21:49.369 in this case, a utopian past, 21:49.368 --> 21:54.198 more agrarian, more individualized as a mode 21:54.201 --> 21:58.231 of labor, and more cottage-oriented--in 21:58.229 --> 22:03.309 all of this you get an overlapping mode of production. 22:03.308 --> 22:06.308 So the tension among modes of production, 22:06.308 --> 22:10.548 which is the focus of analysis at the historical level, 22:10.548 --> 22:15.198 the third historical level, can also be understood in terms 22:15.195 --> 22:18.235 of the romance of utopian nostalgia. 22:18.240 --> 22:19.500 All right. 22:19.500 --> 22:21.940 So that, then, just to show how 22:21.942 --> 22:25.372 Jameson's aesthetic, his sense of the importance of 22:25.365 --> 22:28.805 romance, can be seen to pervade the way 22:28.806 --> 22:34.696 in which he understands analysis at all three of these levels. 22:34.700 --> 22:36.940 So that's his aesthetic. 22:36.940 --> 22:39.390 The question then is: what is the 22:39.391 --> 22:44.221 interpretative payoff of undertaking literary analysis at 22:44.217 --> 22:45.977 these three levels? 22:45.980 --> 22:49.100 That is to say, why should we take the trouble 22:49.096 --> 22:49.856 to do it? 22:49.859 --> 22:51.849 What's so interesting about it? 22:51.848 --> 22:53.538 Well, from Jameson's point of view-- 22:53.538 --> 22:56.368 this, of course, is the title of his book-- 22:56.368 --> 23:01.618 each of these three modes of analysis is designed to 23:01.623 --> 23:05.303 disclose, to uncover, to lay bare an 23:05.295 --> 23:09.975 element of the "political unconscious." 23:09.980 --> 23:14.620 As for deconstruction, as for Freud, 23:14.618 --> 23:19.458 this sense of a political unconscious exposes or reveals 23:19.460 --> 23:24.740 something that is antithetical to ordinary consciousness-- 23:24.740 --> 23:28.650 that is to say, undermines our conventional 23:28.646 --> 23:33.256 understanding of things, shows us that beneath our 23:33.263 --> 23:38.403 conventional understanding of things there are laws and causes 23:38.396 --> 23:42.686 and dynamics at work that we need to understand. 23:42.690 --> 23:45.600 In this case, however, the unconscious in 23:45.596 --> 23:48.716 question is not a linguistic unconscious; 23:48.720 --> 23:51.460 it is not a psychological unconscious. 23:51.460 --> 23:54.530 It is a political unconscious. 23:54.529 --> 23:58.329 Insofar, in other words, as we are political animals, 23:58.328 --> 24:02.948 the acts that we perform, the dialogues that we engage 24:02.946 --> 24:05.806 in, the modes of production that we 24:05.807 --> 24:09.177 participate in-- all of them have political 24:09.175 --> 24:11.505 ramifications; that is to say, 24:11.509 --> 24:14.669 we do what we do, as opposed to doing other 24:14.671 --> 24:18.251 things, for political reasons of which 24:18.246 --> 24:23.776 we may not be fully aware-- hence the emphasis in analysis 24:23.777 --> 24:28.027 of this kind on the political unconscious. 24:28.029 --> 24:30.149 So again the three levels. 24:30.150 --> 24:34.430 Going back to the idea of the "symbolic" 24:34.428 --> 24:38.528 act: what political unconscious, in other words, 24:38.530 --> 24:41.500 is revealed by a symbolic act? 24:41.500 --> 24:45.150 Well, Jameson gives a wonderful example taken from 24:45.152 --> 24:48.672 structuralism, and you can see that he leans 24:48.665 --> 24:53.385 very heavily on structuralism for his understanding of the way 24:53.392 --> 24:58.122 in which something is going on in a narrative form of which it 24:58.117 --> 25:02.687 is not immediately apparent that anybody can be aware. 25:02.690 --> 25:07.620 Take for example Caduveo face painting. 25:07.618 --> 25:11.898 Levi-Strauss asks both in The Savage Mind and again 25:11.895 --> 25:16.615 in Tristes Tropiques: why the excessive complexity 25:16.624 --> 25:18.354 of these paintings? 25:18.348 --> 25:24.578 Why the curious tension in the marks on the faces between the 25:24.576 --> 25:27.686 vertical and the horizontal? 25:27.690 --> 25:32.100 Why, in other words, do you get a feeling of 25:32.101 --> 25:35.991 tension, of aesthetic beauty but also of 25:35.987 --> 25:40.337 tension and complication, in this cross-hatching, 25:40.339 --> 25:45.169 in this sense of the relation between the vertical and the 25:45.172 --> 25:46.362 horizontal? 25:46.358 --> 25:48.618 So Jameson's argument, which he brings out more 25:48.623 --> 25:51.643 clearly than Levi-Strauss-- but Levi-Strauss does say the 25:51.637 --> 25:54.627 same thing, contrasting the Caduveo in this 25:54.630 --> 25:58.310 respect with neighboring tribes like the Bororo-- 25:58.308 --> 26:03.298 his explanation is that the Caduveo are a hierarchical 26:03.303 --> 26:09.143 society in which there are open and obvious forms of inequality 26:09.144 --> 26:15.274 that one must perforce be aware of as a member of the tribe, 26:15.269 --> 26:19.319 but that neighboring tribes, (and this is something that 26:19.316 --> 26:23.356 probably the tribe itself can observe) work out a way of 26:23.362 --> 26:27.412 seeming to resolve the contradictions inherent in 26:27.409 --> 26:30.719 hierarchy by the exchange of moieties, 26:30.720 --> 26:34.300 which is to say, of kinship gifts and wedding 26:34.295 --> 26:39.515 gifts and so on-- that Levi-Strauss talks about. 26:39.519 --> 26:45.189 This exchange of moieties seems to impose on these social orders 26:45.190 --> 26:48.140 in real life, in real terms, 26:48.142 --> 26:54.302 a way of making society more equal than it might otherwise 26:54.300 --> 26:54.950 be. 26:54.950 --> 26:58.340 Yes, it's still hierarchical, but at the same time, 26:58.336 --> 27:01.916 wealth is distributed, each person has his own form of 27:01.924 --> 27:04.164 asserting dignity, and so on. 27:04.160 --> 27:05.950 The Caduveo doesn't have this. 27:05.950 --> 27:10.440 Levi-Strauss's and Jameson's point is that the Caduveo never 27:10.436 --> 27:14.466 really worked that out, so they're stuck with a simple 27:14.469 --> 27:17.359 form of hierarchical organization. 27:17.358 --> 27:20.268 Face painting, then, according to Levi-Strauss 27:20.265 --> 27:24.595 followed by Jameson, is their way of symbolically 27:24.601 --> 27:30.101 resolving the problem by introducing the horizontal-- 27:30.098 --> 27:33.048 by introducing, in other words, 27:33.048 --> 27:38.358 the ways in which other tribes have successfully offset 27:38.355 --> 27:43.655 hierarchy with ways of distributing wealth and prestige 27:43.662 --> 27:45.532 more equally. 27:45.529 --> 27:49.749 The symbolic act which other tribes were able to accomplish 27:49.753 --> 27:52.633 in real life, in real terms, 27:52.628 --> 27:57.268 the Caduveo accomplish individually, 27:57.269 --> 28:01.749 with each individual woman painting her face as a symbolic 28:01.749 --> 28:04.579 act, a symbolic act expressing the 28:04.576 --> 28:07.956 political unconscious-- because this is not an act, 28:07.964 --> 28:11.054 we suppose, of which any individual is 28:11.053 --> 28:11.693 aware. 28:11.690 --> 28:15.190 The unawareness, the lack of consciousness of 28:15.185 --> 28:19.345 what's going on in a story, is much more readily available 28:19.352 --> 28:22.802 to us in the Oedipus myth because that's the part of 28:22.798 --> 28:25.768 Levi-Strauss's "Structural Study of Myth" 28:25.769 --> 28:27.729 that we happen to have read. 28:27.730 --> 28:29.080 The next part is > 28:29.078 --> 28:31.688 Caduveo face painting, but in "The Structural 28:31.692 --> 28:34.362 Study of Myth," Levi-Strauss begins by talking 28:34.358 --> 28:35.798 about the Oedipus myth. 28:35.798 --> 28:38.628 Well, the whole point of that is, "Gee, 28:38.627 --> 28:40.727 there's a terrible contradiction, 28:40.732 --> 28:43.432 born from two or born from one." 28:43.430 --> 28:46.690 Plainly, no individual version of the story, 28:46.690 --> 28:50.060 certainly not Sophocles' version, is saying to itself, 28:50.058 --> 28:52.018 "Oh, this is a terrible contradiction. 28:52.019 --> 28:54.679 I don't know whether I'm born from two people or born from one 28:54.675 --> 28:55.325 person." 28:55.328 --> 28:58.258 That is the unconscious, in other words, 28:58.259 --> 29:02.539 of the story which is brought out, brought to the surface, 29:02.542 --> 29:05.852 by a structuralist analysis of the myth. 29:05.848 --> 29:10.148 Jameson doesn't talk about it because it's not in any obvious 29:10.153 --> 29:14.533 and immediate way a political problem or a problem susceptible 29:14.528 --> 29:16.248 of Marxist analysis. 29:16.250 --> 29:18.410 It is perhaps ultimately--everything is-- 29:18.410 --> 29:21.920 but not immediately, and so he turns instead to a 29:21.922 --> 29:26.582 discussion of the Caduveo myth, which has as its unconscious an 29:26.575 --> 29:29.435 issue that's obviously a political one, 29:29.440 --> 29:36.270 but it is nevertheless the case that a structural analysis of a 29:36.268 --> 29:42.428 symbolic act is designed to and will inevitably reveal an 29:42.434 --> 29:48.884 element of unconscious thought, political or otherwise. 29:48.880 --> 29:51.760 That then is the way in which the political unconscious, 29:51.759 --> 29:55.099 as Jameson describes it, is brought out at the first 29:55.095 --> 29:57.445 political level of understanding, 29:57.450 --> 30:00.390 the individual symbolic act. 30:00.390 --> 30:02.270 Now at the second level, the social, 30:02.269 --> 30:05.729 in which the text, as Jameson says, 30:05.730 --> 30:10.430 rewrites itself not as an individual act but as, 30:10.430 --> 30:13.220 very much in the spirit of Bakhtin, 30:13.220 --> 30:17.540 a heteroglossal expression of voices, 30:17.538 --> 30:21.898 of points of view, writing themselves as it were 30:21.895 --> 30:26.435 through the text-- there the political unconscious 30:26.438 --> 30:31.728 in question is something that has to be understood in terms of 30:31.729 --> 30:33.029 ideologemes. 30:33.029 --> 30:37.759 In other words, people reflexively express, 30:37.759 --> 30:41.639 perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, views and opinions 30:41.640 --> 30:45.070 which are intelligible not arising out of their 30:45.071 --> 30:48.031 individuality, not because they are who they 30:48.029 --> 30:49.939 are, as they themselves might say-- 30:49.940 --> 30:55.250 but rather because of their economic class and prestige 30:55.253 --> 30:56.143 status. 30:56.140 --> 30:59.050 In other words, because of their place in the 30:59.053 --> 31:02.633 world, it follows that they will hold certain views. 31:02.630 --> 31:06.210 They will be the mouthpieces, in other words, 31:06.209 --> 31:10.519 for certain ideologemes, and those ideologemes Jameson 31:10.520 --> 31:14.670 understands to be at least in part unconscious. 31:14.670 --> 31:17.280 One doesn't know, in other words, 31:17.277 --> 31:21.347 that the opinions one so fervently expresses and so 31:21.352 --> 31:25.512 devoutly believes in are opinions conditioned by the 31:25.508 --> 31:29.988 social circumstances in which one finds oneself, 31:29.990 --> 31:33.850 so that literature then becomes a kind of drama of 31:33.854 --> 31:38.584 ideologemes, a representation of unresolved 31:38.575 --> 31:45.445 conflict that manifests in the variety of class or status 31:45.454 --> 31:48.654 voices brought to bear. 31:48.650 --> 31:53.180 You can see this is the point at which Jameson's work is 31:53.175 --> 31:57.865 closest to Bakhtin's and most clearly reflects some of the 31:57.866 --> 32:03.296 preoccupations of Bakhtin as we have encountered them already. 32:03.298 --> 32:06.198 Jameson gives a very good example of the way in which this 32:06.202 --> 32:10.482 conflict works-- because part of the mystery of 32:10.481 --> 32:16.981 these clashes is that they always present themselves within 32:16.983 --> 32:18.893 a shared code. 32:18.890 --> 32:21.660 This already begins to look forward to the idea of the mode 32:21.663 --> 32:22.433 of production. 32:22.430 --> 32:27.250 At the bottom of page 1296, Jameson is talking about the 32:27.248 --> 32:32.508 violent religious controversies of the seventeenth century in 32:32.505 --> 32:36.355 England between Cavalier and Roundhead, 32:36.358 --> 32:42.398 with all the controversies surrounding the interregnum of 32:42.404 --> 32:45.634 Cromwell, the restoration of Charles the 32:45.630 --> 32:48.510 Second, and the tremendous ferment, 32:48.511 --> 32:54.471 largely religious ferment, taking place during that period; 32:54.470 --> 32:58.540 but this ferment for any Marxist--and Christopher Hill is 32:58.536 --> 33:02.816 the leading historian writing about this period who has made 33:02.820 --> 33:06.380 it most clearly intelligible in these terms-- 33:06.380 --> 33:11.460 for any Marxist this conflict has an underlying political 33:11.461 --> 33:16.331 unconscious: that is, its ultimate motives are an 33:16.328 --> 33:21.708 assertion of rights and an expression of class views. 33:21.710 --> 33:24.610 This is the way Jameson puts it, bottom of page 1296: 33:24.612 --> 33:28.022 "…the normal form of the dialogical is essentially 33:28.017 --> 33:30.187 an antagonistic one…" 33:30.193 --> 33:34.073 He's alluding here to Bakhtin, for whom frequently the 33:34.066 --> 33:38.696 dialogical is simply a kind of happy cacophony of voices, 33:38.700 --> 33:43.620 a carnivalesque expression of chaos from below, 33:43.618 --> 33:47.248 all of which is a kind of yeast-like ferment, 33:47.250 --> 33:53.110 and somehow or another in the long run energizing and socially 33:53.105 --> 33:54.445 progressive. 33:54.450 --> 33:59.840 But Jameson points out that the ideologeme is very often 33:59.844 --> 34:04.694 expressive of conflict as well, an antagonistic one, 34:04.691 --> 34:09.071 and that the dialogue of class struggle is one in which two 34:09.074 --> 34:13.684 opposing discourses fight it out within the general unity of a 34:13.684 --> 34:14.974 shared code. 34:14.969 --> 34:18.429 Thus, for instance, the shared master code of 34:18.427 --> 34:23.297 religion becomes in the 1640s in England the place in which the 34:23.302 --> 34:27.072 dominant formulations of a hegemonic theology are 34:27.074 --> 34:30.774 re-appropriated and polemically modified. 34:30.768 --> 34:33.458 In other words, the Church of England stands 34:33.460 --> 34:36.590 for--and this is the word that was used--"esta 34:36.588 --> 34:37.838 blishment." 34:37.840 --> 34:40.940 Roundhead points of view, various forms of Puritanism and 34:40.943 --> 34:43.053 other forms of religious rebellion, 34:43.050 --> 34:47.480 are antiestablishment, and yet they are all coded 34:47.483 --> 34:52.013 within the discourse of the Christian religion. 34:52.010 --> 34:54.940 That is to say, they have to fight it out on a 34:54.936 --> 34:58.056 common battlefield, and that's the way it is with 34:58.057 --> 34:59.747 conflict of this kind. 34:59.750 --> 35:04.140 Maybe a contemporary example would be not so much in the 35:04.141 --> 35:05.821 sphere of religion. 35:05.820 --> 35:10.200 Well, today one could speak again of religion, 35:10.202 --> 35:14.502 but in the sixties and seventies it was maybe more a 35:14.501 --> 35:16.441 question of ethics. 35:16.440 --> 35:19.140 Think, for example, of the sexual revolution. 35:19.139 --> 35:24.229 Again there is a common ground, a sense of the centrality of 35:24.226 --> 35:30.126 sexual conduct to human life; but what you get in--not so 35:30.132 --> 35:33.662 much, perhaps, the conflict of classes as 35:33.661 --> 35:36.081 conflict of generations in this case-- 35:36.079 --> 35:40.899 what you get in the conflict of generations is an inversion of 35:40.898 --> 35:44.088 values, not a new set of values exactly 35:44.090 --> 35:47.500 but a simple transvaluation of what exists. 35:47.500 --> 35:50.480 Everything that one faction considers bad, 35:50.483 --> 35:54.053 another faction transvalues and considers good. 35:54.050 --> 35:59.090 The very thing against which one is warned is the thing that 35:59.092 --> 36:02.002 one rushes to embrace and so on. 36:02.000 --> 36:07.080 So once again you get a clash, an unresolved clash, 36:07.081 --> 36:13.181 but a clash that arises from and participates in the semiotic 36:13.177 --> 36:17.037 structure of a common code, right? 36:17.039 --> 36:22.679 That's the way in which social antagonism expresses itself at 36:22.679 --> 36:26.239 the second level, and it usually involves, 36:26.239 --> 36:29.109 because there are underlying interests, 36:29.110 --> 36:32.470 elements of the political unconscious and brings to the 36:32.465 --> 36:35.445 surface elements of the political unconscious. 36:35.449 --> 36:40.909 Finally, at the third level what comes out, 36:40.909 --> 36:47.339 what is made manifest, is the tension or clash among 36:47.344 --> 36:55.044 modes of production as they jostle each other historically. 36:55.039 --> 36:59.049 It's understood that the danger, as Jameson puts it, 36:59.050 --> 37:02.740 of thinking in terms of a succession of modes of 37:02.737 --> 37:07.517 production is that each one of those modes of production might 37:07.521 --> 37:10.191 seem like a synchronic moment. 37:10.190 --> 37:12.650 In other words, if you're in capitalism, 37:12.653 --> 37:16.133 you might get lulled into thinking that no other mode of 37:16.130 --> 37:17.900 production is available. 37:17.900 --> 37:20.900 If you're in patriarchy, you might get lulled into 37:20.903 --> 37:24.403 thinking that no other mode of production is available; 37:24.400 --> 37:29.650 yet as Jameson points out, the tension between corporate 37:29.648 --> 37:33.368 hierarchy and patriarchal hierarchy-- 37:33.369 --> 37:35.299 the tension, in other words, 37:35.304 --> 37:39.324 which very often drives a wedge and has driven a wedge in 37:39.315 --> 37:43.395 polemic between Marxist and feminist points of view-- 37:43.400 --> 37:46.800 is a reflection of the coexistence of modes of 37:46.795 --> 37:49.885 production from completely different eras: 37:49.889 --> 37:54.259 one contemporary, one completely--at least 37:54.257 --> 37:59.957 insofar as it was the dominant-- a thing of the past, 37:59.956 --> 38:05.286 and yet persisting and still overlapping with a mode of 38:05.291 --> 38:08.751 production that is contemporary. 38:08.750 --> 38:14.110 All of that is simply a matter of historical fact, 38:14.110 --> 38:20.670 but in literary analysis you begin to think of it in more 38:20.666 --> 38:24.076 formal terms, and you see, 38:24.077 --> 38:29.847 for example, the very choice of verse form-- 38:29.849 --> 38:34.509 and I'm taking as an example Shelley's famous poem "The 38:34.510 --> 38:39.040 Ode to the West Wind"-- you see the very choice of 38:39.043 --> 38:43.703 verse form as an instance of what Jameson calls "the 38:43.704 --> 38:48.124 ideology of form" that can be understood in terms 38:48.117 --> 38:51.777 of the conflict of modes of production. 38:51.780 --> 38:57.070 The verse form of Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" 38:57.070 --> 39:01.470 has five strophes, and each strophe is exactly the 39:01.465 --> 39:02.985 same in form. 39:02.989 --> 39:08.679 It is simultaneously a sonnet and--the first twelve lines of 39:08.677 --> 39:13.687 which, concluding in a couplet--a succession of terza 39:13.692 --> 39:14.562 rima. 39:14.559 --> 39:19.229 Now these two forms brought together, synthesized as a 39:19.231 --> 39:24.791 single strophic form in Shelley, are coded in entirely different 39:24.786 --> 39:25.576 ways. 39:25.579 --> 39:29.089 Each aspect of them has an ideology. 39:29.090 --> 39:32.650 Terza rima is coded "prophecy" 39:32.648 --> 39:36.478 because it is in the tradition of Dante. 39:36.480 --> 39:39.120 It's the verse form in which The Divine Comedy is 39:39.121 --> 39:42.101 written, and it is a mode that is 39:42.097 --> 39:48.927 expressive of hope that resolves all contradiction in the divine, 39:48.929 --> 39:52.269 in the revelation of the divine, in The 39:52.271 --> 39:57.161 Paradiso; so that terza rima expresses for Shelley 39:57.161 --> 40:02.191 the hope of the poem, which is that the west wind 40:02.192 --> 40:08.342 will be through him the trumpet of a political prophecy. 40:08.340 --> 40:12.630 If winter's here, can spring be far behind? 40:12.630 --> 40:17.060 Revolution is in the offing, everything's going to be great. 40:17.059 --> 40:21.159 But at the same time, the poem is shot through with a 40:21.159 --> 40:24.389 kind of pessimism--a sort of, if you will, 40:24.393 --> 40:27.563 realism; an awareness that this notion 40:27.557 --> 40:30.157 of prophecy is rather farfetched. 40:30.159 --> 40:32.769 Why should the wind do his bidding? 40:32.769 --> 40:34.319 The wind is just wind. 40:34.320 --> 40:36.130 It's not inspiration. 40:36.130 --> 40:40.920 Therefore, the very stanza which is written in terza rima 40:40.923 --> 40:45.893 is written at the same time as a sonnet, fourteen lines. 40:45.889 --> 40:50.929 The first stanza in particular is coded not just as a sonnet 40:50.927 --> 40:55.537 but also as an allusion specifically to one sonnet, 40:55.539 --> 40:58.009 Shakespeare's seventy-third sonnet, 40:58.010 --> 41:01.340 which begins "That time of year in me thou mayest 41:01.335 --> 41:04.485 behold"-- in which I'm getting old. 41:04.489 --> 41:07.049 I don't have any hair left. 41:07.050 --> 41:11.650 I'm just a bare-ruined choir where late sweet birds sang. 41:11.650 --> 41:13.730 In other words, I am in a parlous state, 41:13.730 --> 41:16.240 I am getting old, and there's nothing to be done 41:16.235 --> 41:16.925 about it. 41:16.929 --> 41:22.739 At the end of the poem, the embers of my fire are about 41:22.737 --> 41:24.887 to be snuffed out. 41:24.889 --> 41:28.029 There is just no hope for it. 41:28.030 --> 41:30.730 That's the way it is: you get old. 41:30.730 --> 41:33.740 In other words, winter's here and spring isn't 41:33.737 --> 41:34.337 coming. 41:34.340 --> 41:38.120 There is no prophetic possibility. 41:38.119 --> 41:42.969 There is only the reality of the trajectory of a life spent. 41:42.969 --> 41:46.019 If there is rise, there is also fall. 41:46.018 --> 41:49.068 If there is development, there is also decline and 41:49.068 --> 41:52.988 decay, and these, as the sonnet form 41:52.985 --> 41:56.755 codes it, are simple facts of life that 41:56.764 --> 42:00.034 poetic idealism, that Romanticism, 42:00.034 --> 42:01.754 cannot override. 42:01.750 --> 42:08.930 So what you get in Shelley's verse form is a tension between 42:08.934 --> 42:12.864 ideas, the prophetic idea which you 42:12.855 --> 42:19.005 can associate with a feudal and theocentric world in which the 42:19.009 --> 42:25.769 contradictions of reality really can be resolved theologically, 42:25.768 --> 42:29.278 on the one hand, and a kind of proto-realist 42:29.284 --> 42:34.194 tradition in which we just have to come to terms with the way 42:34.190 --> 42:37.270 things are, coded through--which is, 42:37.266 --> 42:40.176 after all, proto-Enlightenment, 42:40.179 --> 42:44.949 and Shakespeare is often sort of thought of as a 42:44.952 --> 42:49.322 proto-Enlightenment figure-- the sonnet. 42:49.320 --> 42:52.420 So formally, both the terza rima and the 42:52.418 --> 42:57.028 sonnet participate in what Jameson calls "the ideology 42:57.025 --> 43:00.355 of form," and they reflect modes of 43:00.362 --> 43:04.262 production, feudal and Enlightenment 43:04.257 --> 43:05.507 respectively. 43:05.510 --> 43:11.470 They reflect attitudes that one can associate with those modes 43:11.474 --> 43:13.044 of production. 43:13.039 --> 43:18.769 So that's an example of the way in which the political-- 43:18.768 --> 43:22.018 perhaps one had better call it quasi-conscious because Shelley 43:22.016 --> 43:24.196 was an incredibly self-conscious poet-- 43:24.199 --> 43:29.129 the way in which the political "quasi-conscious" 43:29.126 --> 43:34.656 expresses itself at the third or historical level of analysis. 43:34.659 --> 43:40.419 Now in formal terms--and I have already sort of gotten into 43:40.416 --> 43:42.556 this, and I'll go through it rather 43:42.561 --> 43:44.661 quickly because there isn't much time left-- 43:44.659 --> 43:51.709 in formal terms we can think of the essential critical task at 43:51.706 --> 43:58.056 the first or political level as one of thematization. 43:58.059 --> 44:01.519 That is to say, what theme is the plot 44:01.523 --> 44:07.143 structure of an individual symbolic act trying to express? 44:07.139 --> 44:12.549 What is the contradiction that's being resolved in this 44:12.547 --> 44:14.047 symbolic act? 44:14.050 --> 44:18.120 At the second level, the formal principle that we do 44:18.117 --> 44:21.957 bring to bear is the idea, the Bakhtinian idea, 44:21.956 --> 44:25.006 of heteroglossia: the clash of voices, 44:25.010 --> 44:29.580 the way in which the voice is no longer individual but rather 44:29.577 --> 44:33.437 social, the representative of a social 44:33.440 --> 44:39.330 point of view that expresses itself through the individual 44:39.331 --> 44:41.401 author's writing. 44:41.400 --> 44:44.070 At the third level, you get what Jameson calls 44:44.072 --> 44:46.152 "a repertoire of devices," 44:46.152 --> 44:49.362 and I have already reflected a little bit on that. 44:49.360 --> 44:52.010 Let me just add another example, also taken from 44:52.012 --> 44:54.502 Romanticism, in keeping with Jameson's 44:54.501 --> 44:58.511 exemplification of the overlap of modes of production as being 44:58.510 --> 45:02.190 particularly interesting in the age of Enlightenment. 45:02.190 --> 45:07.640 In Romanticism there is a long tradition leading up to it of 45:07.644 --> 45:10.054 the formal Pindaric ode. 45:10.050 --> 45:13.810 Wordsworth is still making use of that tradition in writing his 45:13.813 --> 45:15.673 ode, "Intimations of 45:15.673 --> 45:18.833 Immortality," but in the meantime he and 45:18.829 --> 45:22.199 Coleridge have developed a new kind of ode, 45:22.199 --> 45:23.859 if you will, which is called the 45:23.856 --> 45:26.846 "conversation poem": Coleridge's "Frost at 45:26.851 --> 45:29.201 Midnight" and "This Lime-Tree Bower 45:29.204 --> 45:31.454 My Prison," Wordsworth's "Tintern 45:31.449 --> 45:34.979 Abbey" are notable examples of the conversation poem. 45:34.980 --> 45:39.240 Now the difference is very clearly intelligible in terms of 45:39.242 --> 45:41.892 a conflict of modes of production. 45:41.889 --> 45:46.599 The formal ode, derived ultimately from Pindar 45:46.601 --> 45:53.621 celebrating Olympic victories of aristocratic patrons in Greece-- 45:53.619 --> 45:56.829 horse races, foot races, wrestling matches: 45:56.827 --> 46:01.637 that's the original purpose to which the formal ode was put-- 46:01.639 --> 46:08.219 plainly is coded once again as feudal-aristocratic, 46:08.219 --> 46:12.249 whereas the conversation poem belongs very much, 46:12.250 --> 46:16.090 as the word suggests, in the public sphere. 46:16.090 --> 46:18.300 It's the atmosphere of the coffeehouse. 46:18.300 --> 46:21.990 It's the atmosphere in which people sit down and talk 46:21.985 --> 46:25.595 together, exchange views, and address each other. 46:25.599 --> 46:30.319 It is a poem always of address to some individual person that 46:30.318 --> 46:33.698 turns to that person at a certain point, 46:33.699 --> 46:37.399 evokes the nature of that person, sometimes solicits that 46:37.398 --> 46:38.718 person's opinions. 46:38.719 --> 46:42.849 In other words, it's a poem that performs 46:42.849 --> 46:44.089 dialogism. 46:44.090 --> 46:49.670 It's a poem that performs the sense of the give-and-take of a 46:49.672 --> 46:53.392 much more open, democratic culture in the 46:53.394 --> 46:55.074 public sphere. 46:55.070 --> 46:59.800 So you can see that the very transition from the formal ode 46:59.797 --> 47:03.947 to the conversation poem is itself intelligible as a 47:03.952 --> 47:08.722 transition between-- or what Jameson calls "a 47:08.719 --> 47:13.949 cultural revolution" brought in by a seismic shift 47:13.951 --> 47:16.531 in-- modes of production. 47:16.530 --> 47:17.200 All right. 47:17.195 --> 47:19.515 So these exemplify, in various ways, 47:19.523 --> 47:22.453 what can be done with these three levels. 47:22.449 --> 47:26.569 Jameson himself reminds us of the dangers. 47:26.570 --> 47:30.470 If we think of a narrative as a symbolic act, 47:30.469 --> 47:35.299 we are much too prone either to forget that it's based on 47:35.304 --> 47:40.144 reality by emphasizing the structuralist nature of what's 47:40.139 --> 47:44.629 going on or to forget that form is involved at all by 47:44.628 --> 47:48.768 emphasizing the social contradiction that's being 47:48.771 --> 47:50.241 resolved. 47:50.239 --> 47:53.539 As Jameson says, these two dangers at the first 47:53.541 --> 47:57.421 level are the danger of structuralism and the danger of 47:57.418 --> 47:59.068 vulgar materialism. 47:59.070 --> 48:04.240 The point in analyzing the symbolic act is to sustain a 48:04.237 --> 48:09.597 balance or a synthesis between formal and social elements 48:09.596 --> 48:11.506 within the text. 48:11.510 --> 48:16.130 At the second level, the problem is that if we start 48:16.128 --> 48:21.108 thinking in terms of un-reconcilable class conflict, 48:21.110 --> 48:25.590 our analysis can become static, as though class perspectives 48:25.585 --> 48:29.275 didn't shift, as though one perspective might 48:29.282 --> 48:33.692 not succeed another as the hegemonic: in other words, 48:33.690 --> 48:36.210 as though change didn't take place, 48:36.210 --> 48:40.050 as though there was always the same old-same old in class 48:40.054 --> 48:40.814 conflict. 48:40.809 --> 48:43.759 The boss is always going to speak demeaningly of the worker. 48:43.760 --> 48:46.900 The worker is always going to laugh at the boss behind his 48:46.902 --> 48:47.292 back. 48:47.289 --> 48:50.439 This is the way it is; this is the way it will always 48:50.440 --> 48:50.660 be. 48:50.659 --> 48:54.599 There are static relations in other words among the classes 48:54.599 --> 48:56.569 that history can't resolve. 48:56.570 --> 49:00.500 Finally, at the third level, there is the danger of thinking 49:00.498 --> 49:03.168 in terms of impasse-- late capitalism, 49:03.166 --> 49:06.216 for example, as an impasse that simply can't 49:06.222 --> 49:07.432 be surmounted. 49:07.429 --> 49:11.149 Think of Adorno and his incredible gloom about the 49:11.148 --> 49:12.588 culture industry. 49:12.590 --> 49:14.940 There isn't much hope in Adorno, > 49:14.940 --> 49:15.420 is there? 49:15.420 --> 49:18.560 And by the same token, you could argue that poor old 49:18.557 --> 49:21.387 Jameson talking about history as necessity, 49:21.389 --> 49:25.129 history as what hurts, history as just what has 49:25.125 --> 49:27.305 happened-- by the same token, 49:27.307 --> 49:31.207 you could argue that Jameson, too, is perhaps a little bit 49:31.211 --> 49:33.491 subject to this sense of impasse, 49:33.489 --> 49:37.709 which is why I quote for you, as these people themselves 49:37.708 --> 49:41.058 often do, the ringing warning of Marx in 49:41.057 --> 49:44.457 the Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach: "The 49:44.458 --> 49:48.828 philosophers have only interpreted the world in various 49:48.829 --> 49:49.639 ways. 49:49.639 --> 49:51.719 The point, however, is to change it." 49:51.719 --> 49:55.069 That is ultimately the focus of Marx's analysis. 49:55.070 --> 49:57.140 Let's revisit Tony in the remaining minute. 49:57.139 --> 50:00.879 Now a reified realist approach to Tony, 50:00.880 --> 50:03.260 the kind that Jameson criticizes on the sheet, 50:03.260 --> 50:06.480 would point out that nothing happens to Neato and Speedy. 50:06.480 --> 50:10.370 They are manifest villains, and yet at the same time, 50:10.369 --> 50:12.539 nothing can happen to them. 50:12.539 --> 50:15.539 They simply have their place in the social order: 50:15.539 --> 50:19.099 one of them is a fastidious aristocrat who doesn't want to 50:19.101 --> 50:21.781 get dirty, the other is completely 50:21.775 --> 50:25.995 committed to productivity and the time clock and the work 50:26.003 --> 50:28.723 ethic, a bourgeois Speedy. 50:28.719 --> 50:31.299 There they are; nothing to be done. 50:31.300 --> 50:34.290 They're not nice to Tony but nothing happens to them. 50:34.289 --> 50:36.169 There is no recrimination. 50:36.170 --> 50:39.420 But then at the first level, if we understand this as a 50:39.416 --> 50:42.166 symbolic act, the resolution of what would 50:42.168 --> 50:45.808 otherwise be a hopeless conflict is through friendship-- 50:45.809 --> 50:49.009 the friendship of Bumpy and Tony; 50:49.010 --> 50:52.220 the fact that it's perfectly okay if I'm just a working guy. 50:52.219 --> 50:53.309 I've got my buddies. 50:53.309 --> 50:53.889 We go out. 50:53.889 --> 50:54.569 We drink beer. 50:54.570 --> 50:55.800 We have a good time. 50:55.800 --> 50:57.130 Life is great. 50:57.130 --> 50:59.110 It doesn't matter, in other words, 50:59.106 --> 51:02.876 that there's a class structure, that there's a social system. 51:02.880 --> 51:06.350 "I'm happy," Tony says in effect. 51:06.349 --> 51:07.829 "I like my job." 51:07.829 --> 51:09.549 That in itself, of course, is a resolution, 51:09.554 --> 51:10.544 > 51:10.539 --> 51:14.379 is a symbolic act and a resolution in advance of the 51:14.382 --> 51:18.302 conflicts that the story might otherwise manifest. 51:18.300 --> 51:20.870 At the second level, you get the discourse of 51:20.871 --> 51:21.691 ideologemes. 51:21.690 --> 51:24.430 "I can't help you," says Neato the car. 51:24.429 --> 51:26.739 "I don't want to get dirty." 51:26.739 --> 51:29.079 "I can't help you," says Speedy the car. 51:29.079 --> 51:30.739 "I am too busy." 51:30.739 --> 51:33.019 "I can help you," says Bumpy; 51:33.018 --> 51:36.798 but notice that this is all within an individual, 51:36.800 --> 51:39.950 single code, and that's what the complete 51:39.952 --> 51:43.972 parallelism of these three utterances shows us. 51:43.969 --> 51:47.529 Within a single code, these ideologemes, 51:47.527 --> 51:52.907 which can't really be resolved, get themselves expressed. 51:52.909 --> 51:53.629 All right. 51:53.634 --> 51:56.754 Now finally modes of production: plainly, 51:56.750 --> 52:00.590 the very existence of Neato and Speedy in the same story 52:00.588 --> 52:04.908 suggests that there is a certain tension between the feudal and 52:04.914 --> 52:08.774 the bourgeois at work, but it's not a tension that in 52:08.771 --> 52:11.271 any way necessarily works itself out. 52:11.268 --> 52:14.348 The important thing to notice here, it seems to me, 52:14.353 --> 52:17.193 is the conflict between pulling and pushing. 52:17.190 --> 52:21.250 It's very interesting--and I've said this before--that a tow 52:21.253 --> 52:25.383 truck, something that pulls--and once again Tony is a mode of 52:25.384 --> 52:26.904 production, right? 52:26.900 --> 52:28.670 He's a tow truck, right? 52:28.670 --> 52:32.340 And something that pulls has to be pushed. 52:32.340 --> 52:37.740 Bumpy, like the Little Engine that Could, is a sort of a 52:37.739 --> 52:41.569 throwback to an earlier, less energized, 52:41.567 --> 52:45.197 less powerful mode of production. 52:45.199 --> 52:46.469 He has to push. 52:46.469 --> 52:50.659 Think of the way walls get put up: a prefabricated wall before 52:50.664 --> 52:54.794 the invention of the crane and the pulley has to be pushed up 52:54.789 --> 52:56.509 by a bunch of people. 52:56.510 --> 53:00.470 Pushing is the essential labor mode before the kind of 53:00.471 --> 53:05.031 technology arises that makes it possible to pull something. 53:05.030 --> 53:07.000 After that, you have a crane. 53:07.000 --> 53:09.790 You run the hook down, and you just pull the wall up 53:09.789 --> 53:10.499 into place. 53:10.500 --> 53:12.580 Before then, you got maybe one person 53:12.577 --> 53:16.097 standing on a rafter with a rope kind of pulling but everybody 53:16.097 --> 53:18.347 else is down on the ground pushing; 53:18.349 --> 53:22.399 and so the relationship between pushing and pulling in the story 53:22.400 --> 53:26.060 is a crucially important one which suggests the overlap of 53:26.063 --> 53:28.703 older and newer modes of production, 53:28.699 --> 53:33.569 all of which can be resolved at Jameson's third or historical 53:33.567 --> 53:35.187 level of analysis. 53:35.190 --> 53:35.520 Okay. 53:35.523 --> 53:38.593 So much then for Jameson and for Tony. 53:38.590 --> 53:42.170 We'll be coming back to Tony again next time in the 53:42.173 --> 53:45.133 context of talking about the New Historicism. 53:45.130 --> 53:50.000