Negation, Critical Theory, and Postmodern Textuality

330 Pages·1994·8.05 MB·English

by  Daniel Fischlin (auth.)

NEGATION, CRITICALTHEORY,AND POSTMODERNTEXTUALITY
NEGATION,
CRITICAL THEORY,
AND
POSTMODERN TEXTUALITY
edited by
DANIEL FISCHLIN
Department of English,
Bishop's University,
Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.
A c.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-4403-7 ISBN 978-94-015-8291-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8291-9
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© Springer Science+ Business Media Dordrecht 1994
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1994.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1994
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
for my parents,
Georges G. Y. Fischlin and Shirley Carlson Fischlin
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: NEGATION, CRITICAL THEORY, AND POSTMODERN
TEXTUALITY
Daniel Fischlin 1
PART I
NEGATIVE MEANING, UNRECOGNIZABILITY, ELENCTIC
NEGA TION, AND ApOCALYPSE
DECONSTRUCTION AND NEGATIVE MEANING IN MEDIEVAL
MYSTICISM
David Thomson 41
"IN No RECOGNIZABLE WAY" THE TEMPEST
Mark Fortier 59
"My REAL SMASH": ELENCTIC NEGATION IN HENRY JAMES'S THE
AMBASSADORS
Andre Furlani 89
"WHERE DREAM USED TO COLLIDE WITH ITS REALITY": THE
ApOCALYPTIC SPACE OF NEGATION IN GARCIA LORCA'S POET IN
NEW YORK
Martha 1. Nandoify 111
PART II
NOTHING DOING AND NIHILISM
NOTHING DOING: THE REPUDIATION OF ACTION IN BECKETT'S
MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
Harry Vandervlist 145
THE SHADOW LIFE: NEGATION, NIHILISM, AND INSANITY IN
THOMAS BERNHARD'S CORRECTION
Bruce Murphy 157
vii
viii
PART III
ENGENDERING NEGATION
BEYOND NEGATION: PARADOXICAL AFFIRMATION IN WHITMAN'S
THIRD EDITION
Herbert 1. Levine 175
FORSTER'S GHOSTS: A PASSAGE TO INDIA AND THE EMPTYING OF
NARRATIVE
Judith Scherer Herz 191
PUTTING ON THE FEMININE: GENDER AND NEGATIVITY IN
FRANKENSTEIN AND THEHANDMAID'S TALE
Veronica Hollinger 203
IV
PART
THEORY, PRACTICE, AND DENEGAT ION
NEGATION AND THE EVIL EYE: A READING OF CAMERA LUCIDA
Joann Blais 227
"THERES MORE NOTHING TO SAY": U NSPEAKING DOUGLAS
BARBOUR'S "STORY FOR A SASKATCHEWAN NIGHT"
Charlene Diehl-Jones 241
MONSTROSITY, ILLEGIBILITY, DENEGATION: DE MAN, NICHOL,
AND THE RESISTANCE TO POSTMODERNISM
David L. Clark 259
DERRIDA AND DoaEN: DENEGATION AND THE LIBERATION OF
DISCRIMINATING THOUGHT
Toby Avard Foshay 301
CONTRIBUTORS 321
INDEX 325
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK OWES ITS GENESIS to a number of people, all of
whom have encouraged, critiqued, or helped with funding:
Robert K. Martin, Constantine Boundas, Andrew Taylor,
Jamie Crooks, Victor Coelho, Brita Heimarck, Brenda Cooke,
George Englebretsen, Robert E. Carter, Julie Boland, Briar
Margaret Tyler, Andrew P. MacDonald, Eleanor Gang,
Robert Kroetsch and David Amason, of the University of
Manitoba Critical Theory Reading Group, who provided an
early opportunity to articulate some of the concerns of this
volume, the Dartmouth School of Criticism and Theory
(1992), and the many readers who have contributed to the
lengthy editorial process this book has undergone. lowe
especial debts of gratitude to David Blitz and Martin
Dowding for their substantial and utterly professional help in
the final stages of the production of this text, and to Lisa
Guenther, whose research assistance was invaluable.
Some of the ideas developed in this book were first
explored in a Special Session of the Association of Canadian
College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE)
entitled "Negation Theory" held at Queen's University, May
1991. My thanks to the ACCUTE Executive for providing a
forum. I am grateful to both Trent University and Bishop's
University for several small research grants that helped with
incidental costs related to the production of this volume. I
would particularly like to thank Dr. David Bevan, Vice
Principal Academic, and the Bishop's Publications
Committee for their financial backing in the final stages of the
project. Maja S. M. de Keijzer, of the Humanities & Social
Sciences Division at Kluwer, provided efficient editorial
support throughout. I am indebted to those of my students in
critical theory over the years who, when exposed to various
theoretical models of negation, have responded with
provocative and instructive critiques. Finally, any extended
project such as this must bear its burden of unacknowledged
debts and untold stories for which no words are possible.
IX
x
I do not know even this one thing, namely that I know nothing. I infer, however, that this is
true both of myself and others. Let this proposition be my battle colour-it commands my
allegiance-"Nothing is known." If I come to know how to establish this, I shall be justified
in drawing the conclusion that nothing is known; whereas if I do not know how to establish it,
then all the more so-for that was what I claimed.
-Francisco Sanches, That Nothing Is Known, Eds. Elaine Limbrick and Douglas F. S.
Thomson (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988), 172-73.
The essential distinction between the verbal and the nonverbal is in the fact that language
adds the peculiar possibility of the negative.
-Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and
Method (Berkeley: U of California P, 1966),420.
From Macbeth to Dorian Gray, literature has literalized its effects through a syntax of casting
spells and charms, opening a region of nonknowledge in unceasing negotiation with finitude.
-Avital Ronell, Crack Wars: Literature, Addiction, Mania (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P,
1992), 130.
I knew not where I entered,
For, when I stood within,
Not knowing where I was,
I heard great things.
What I heard I will not tell:
I was there as one who knew not,
All science transcending.
-St. John of the Cross, "On the Superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness."
Dionysius the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology and the Celestial Hierarchies
(Letchworth: Garden City Press, 1965),69.
Everyday opinion sees in the shadow only the lack of light, if not light's complete denial. In
truth, however, the shadow is a manifest, though impenetrable, testimony to the concealed
emitting of light. In keeping with this concept of shadow, we experience the incalculable as
that which, withdrawn from representation, is nevertheless manifest in whatever is, pointing
to Being, which remains concealed.
-Martin Heidegger, "The Age of the World Picture," The Question Concerning
Technology, Tr. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 154.
xi
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