Literary Language and Complex Literature
James B. Luberda
Introduction
The latter half of the twentieth
century has seen the rise of a new discipline, one that at present receives a
great deal of attention in literary studies; categorized by the generic label
"theory," much of this work is characterized by reflection on the act
of interpretation itself, as opposed to the more traditional study of
individual works.[1]
Influenced heavily by Continental philosophy and linguistics, the focus of
contemporary theory is on textuality and the creation of meaning, especially as
concerns the reader; the author, as Roland Barthes has explained, is dead for
all practical purposes.[2]
Much of this theory, however,
seems to have buried the text with the author; that is to say, there is little
effort made to distinguish between kinds
of texts. Yet if the text is the site upon which the reader creates meaning,
surely the nature of the text will affect that process. Such is the principal
contention of this study. To this end, it proposes a distinction, ultimately
elaborated into a continuum, between "literary language" and
"instrumental language." The former is identified as that which is
functionally polysemous, admitting of more than one meaning; metaphor and
ambiguity are two of the more commonly studied varieties. The latter is
language that is functionally monosemic, carrying a single meaning. All texts,
of course, are composed of both types of language in varying proportions, but
most are principally instrumental. This dominance both reflects and determines
what readers expect from texts.
By classifying texts as
primarily polysemic or monosemic, literary or instrumental, it is possible to
examine the interaction between the reader and the text more closely; using the
perspective afforded by the continuum, one may observe how a highly polysemic
text can actually alter the reading process, especially in readers familiar
with typically monosemic texts. This change can lead to a new perception of
language in general, a new consciousness of the polysemic potential in all
communication. Further, polysemies demand that the reader make connections
within a network of potential meanings, some of which may not exist until the
reader creates them. These new connections, then, have the power to create new
ideas, new communicative possibilities. As a result, the cognitive value of
certain kinds of texts may be estimated relative to others.
Given that literary texts have
the ability to add new meaning to language as well as reveal its inherently
polysemic nature, it is clear that they have an important role in the growth
and evolution of communication; yet history has not been kind to polysemy. The
sciences have their basis in a highly structured, monosemic approach to
language and reality; this bias has contributed to the marginalization of
polysemy, as has the general pragmatics of contemporary culture. This study
intends to demonstrate that this privileging of instrumental language over
literary language is unhealthy for the social ecology.
Perhaps ironically, the sciences
have become increasingly popular troves from which contemporary theory steals
metaphors and models; the present study shares company with those that make use
of information theory. The impact that it has upon the study of communication
carries over to the study of texts, providing a different perspective from
which to view the creation of meaning and the author and reader's roles in it.
Linguistics and semiotics also make a significant contribution here, and their
approaches to this subject are similarly employed. All support the contention
that literary texts are experientially very different from instrumental ones.
Readers and polysemic texts are
also the subjects of a rather complex novel by Thomas Pynchon; The Crying of Lot 49 engages several of
the same topics explored here, including information theory. Lot 49 appears within this thesis as a
paradigmatic literary text, for it both exemplifies the use of polysemic
language and addresses the issues of communication and reading. Its
protagonist, Oedipa Maas, is the archetypal instrumental reader whose encounter
with a polysemic text radically alters her understanding of her world; because
the novel is itself highly polysemic, the reader's experience matches Oedipa's,
so that by the end of the text both Oedipa and the reader are in the same bind.
Pynchon's book provides the perfect opportunity for the application of the
theory that constitutes the first part of this study.
The ultimate purpose of this
thesis is to re-examine the communicative
relationship between readers and texts, texts and society; the literary
language-instrumental language dialectic and the continuum it proposes are a
means to that end. Its contribution to the ongoing dialogue about meaning is a
renewed emphasis on the role of the text.
Notes
[1]A shorthand history of this paradigm shift is embodied in the terms "New Criticism" and "postmodernism." The former identifies a principally American critical methodology that holds a literary work to be a free-standing aesthetic object, whose meaning is contained within the text itself (Collini 6). The latter, though much less well-defined, is associated with Continental philosophy and its focus on general theories about the nature of communication and meaning; two principal assumptions typical of postmodern theory are that language is unstable and meaning is reader-dependent (7). New Criticism held sway over literary studies throughout much of the fifties and sixties; today, it no longer dominates critical scholarship, though the core of its approach still carries significant weight. Postmodernism began its ascent in the sixties, and it remains in contest with what persists of the New Criticism while addressing greater social and political issues.
[2]Of course, the death throes began with the New Critical principle of "intentional fallacy," which dictated that authorial intentions had nothing to do with the interpretation of texts.