Essay #1
Roland Barthes, in his groundbreaking book S/Z, introduced the idea that there is no such thing as a writer – or as a reader. Instead, everyone who comes into contact is considered a “scriptor,” whether or not it is the person who records the text, or the person who is reading it. The reason for this is that each person who interacts with a text has a set of baggage that affects the way that he or she perceives the levels of meaning. After reading his ideas, I was drawn to the school of “New Criticism.” While that might seem counterintuitive, given the fact that New Criticism does not take reader response into account, instead focusing on the text itself, looking at the devices and strategies at work in the writing, rather than historical, cultural or other factors, the fact remains that each critic approaching a new text will bring subconscious levels of baggage with him or her, so even in New Criticism, different critics can come away from the same text with different responses; in fact, the same critic can come away from the same text with different responses, if enough time has gone by between interpretations.
My personal preference for treating each text as its own entity, instead of having viewing texts through the lens of their own cultural milieu, keeps me from supporting the use of postcolonialism or African-American criticism. While the experiences of countries that used to be colonies have certainly shaped the way that the writers of those countries will think, those differences will appear in the writing themselves. Considering texts as independent entities will reveal rhetorical messages at work, and so if a writer is concerned with expressing the difficulties of setting up an independent political regime after years under a foreign power, that message will be apparent from an isolated interpretation. Rather than lumping, say, all writers from Suriname together, because they all come from a former colonial holding, giving each writer and each text the freedom to write about their own topics in their own ways is important. Similarly, African-American criticism requires that the reader look through the glass of the experience of bias or racism, rather than analyzing the work independently. While knowing that “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is written by an African-American does help the reader identify the particular malaise that the speaker feels, for example, the words and devices at work evoke a sense of powerlessness and captivity that emerges from the page, to such a degree that one does not need the interpretive lens to gain the significance of the message.
Looking at works through the lens of oppression is also unnecessary, in my opinion. Whether the oppression is economic, as is the case for Marxist critics, or gender-based, as is the case with feminist criticism, neither school of thought allows the literary work to take on its own life. While The Help is a powerful story about the limits placed on women in the American South during the 1950’s, looking through a feminist lens would lead to assumptions about many of the characters that are not tre, and the young man who is pursuing Skeeter in the novel would never be able to overcome from that boorish first date. New Criticism lets each work inhabit its own textual space, rather than filling up that space with expectations from various schools of thought.
Psychoanalytic criticism is intriguing, but again, the deep-seated themes at work in a piece of literature should emerge after careful consideration of the text in isolation. If the writer has taken care to embed themes that often burden the unconscious in his or her writing, those insights will appear to the New Critic without him or her having to make assumptions about the forces at work; in other words, whether a cigar is just a cigar or not should be visible to the New Critic without entering the book with the assumption that the cigar means much more.
Essay #2
There are three devices at work in Giovanni’s “Ego Tripping” that serve to express the central arguments about the folly of humanity. The poem cycles through a series of connections to many of the central people in the most ancient parts of history, explaining in part the source of much of what we know in the modern world. The first device is allusion. By claiming a central role in the formation of the Sphinx and the Sahara, by claiming kinship with Allah, Nefertiti, Hannibal and Noah, it is clear that the speaker has a close connection with African cultural traditions. The purpose of these allusions is to establish Africa as the source of life and to discuss the pride that mankind has demonstrated throughout all of history, including this very new period.
Another device at work in this poem is anaphora, a form of repetition in which sentences begin with the same formulation, in order to bring emphasis. The vast majority of the lines here start with the word “I,” which fits the theme expressed in the title. The self-importance that resounds through most of the poem thunders to the reader through the use of this repetition. If the theme of the poem is indeed man’s folly, the purpose of the anaphora is to show that this folly begins with the self. While at times the “I” appears to be Mother Earth, the fact that all of the actions that “I” undertakes are either for the benefit of mankind or grandiose in nature, suggests that the Earth exists to benefit mankind – another arrogant assumption.
Variation from conventional syntactical structure is the third device at the writer’s disposal in this poem. Not only are there no commas, which means that the poem flies along without any breaks for affective purposes, but the breakdown of the various lines gives the poem a whimsical rhythm that matches the whimsical work of fate – and of the powers that control us all.
