Literary Research and Critical Strategies

Literary Research and Critical Strategies

30-03-2015

Lecture delivered at SRM University – Plenary Session

Lecture notes

Dr. S. Sridevi

We need to understand our past. We need to understand the various voices across the world. We need to look at various cultural, political and religious documents from a critical perspective. The study of humanities is a necessity. Nationalism,  chauvinism and  religiosity have to be analyzed. Individual and institutional practice of reading of close, careful, critical reading is necessary. We need to know why the text is written, from whom it was written, what religious and moral or political purposes motivated it, as well as its historical circumstances. Then we can move on to the issues of its style, its language, its structure and its deployment of rhetorical and literary techniques.

Theory is devoted to examining the principles behind the practice. Theory is a systematic explanation of a practice or a situation of a practice in broader framework. Theory brings to light the motives behind our practice. It shows the connection of practice to ideology, power structures, our own unconscious, our political and religious attitudes, our economic structures. Theory shows us that practice is not something natural, but a specific historic construct. Literary criticism helps us locate the sources of our identity. It helps us renew our connections with some of the deepest resources of our present and future sustenance.

Modern literary criticism and theory derives its terminology from philosophy. We have to understand Western thought and locate it in history. We have to situate philosophic thoughts in their philosophical systems that are born out of society. Many scholars distrust the jargon of philosophy. They are not familiar with the philosophical systems. These philosophical systems have been responsible for the world as we have inherited. Rationalism, pragmatism, empiricism and liberalism of Western philosophy have constructed our world. Locke, Kant, Hegel, Derrida, Foucault, and Kristeva have contributed to concepts of equality, mutual respect, valuing multiculturalism, respecting various religions etc. Romanticism, Symbolism, Marxism, Freudianism and Existentialism have shaped man’s thought. We carry our religious, social, cultural beliefs along with global trends of thought and have become more multicultural than ever.

            Christianity / Judaism / Islam ----------- faith

            Romanticism ------------- respect for creativity

            Marxism -------------- equality for economic opportunities

            Freud -------------- everyone is good. No evil around. Psychology approached life from a scientific perspective.

The history of literary criticism is in the history of thought in a broad range of spheres – philosophical, religious, social, economic and psychological. We have to locate these theories in a historical context from which they are born. The lines of origins will help us understand the significance of dry theories. We have to find how philosophy has descended. Most of the time we depend upon interpretations of philosophy to understand philosophy. We need to aim at close textual analysis.

Greek term – Kritics ------ judge

Poetic creation itself is a judgment on society.

Uzhudundu vazhvare vazhvar. Matrellam

thozhundu pin selbavar.

Karka kasadara Katrapin nirka

adharku thaga.

The creative act itself is a critical act – involving not just inspiration but some kind of self-assessment, reflection and judgment.

Rhapsody / Harikatha / kathakaalatshepam were forms that required interpretation. A performance is self-conscious and informed by critical judgment. Schools of rhetoric were the natural development.

Concept of mimesis.

            beauty and truth

            organic beauty of a literary work

            social, political, moral functions of literature

            nature and status of language

                        (Bama wrote her autobiography in her native dialect.)

            impact of lit. performance on arts

            The definition of figures of speech as metaphor, metonymy, symbol

            The notion of a cannon

            development of genres like epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric, poetry, song

Thillai moovayiram per arangetram – Kamba Ramayanam

‘Sangam’ itself refers to a convocation of Tamil poets and literary critics to whom poetics were submitted for their approval or otherwise.

Purananuru  has to be politically understood with Buddhism in the background. Manimegalai and Silappadhikaram reflect the dominant ideology of Buddhism. Tamil literature and grammar had the system of commentators.

Saathanaar was a Buddhist poet.

Sangams were societies of poets – organized bodies which acted as literary censors of every new poem – accepted some as correctly composed.

            Sanga chheyul. Saandror chehhyul.

Nakkeerar finds fault with  Irayanaar’s poetry who is supposed to have been God himself.

            Tholkaappiyam had many commentators. Ilampooranar, Nacchinarkiniyar

Mudal Sangam – 549 members

                          beginning with Agathiyar

Idai Sangam – 59 members

                        Tholkaapiyar belonged to this era

Kadai Sangam – 49 members

Enmanaar Pulavar – they say

Northrope Frye emphasizes the need to develop lit. crit. as a science. Tholkaapiyar speaks of Thinai, Thurai, Mudal Porul, Uriporul, Karupporul.

8 Meippadugal – that describe the nature of similes and their types. Tradition is valued. Words against the tradition have to be avoided. Thus the critic becomes the literary anthropologist helping the readers identify the literary category to which a literary work belongs.

The Tamil commentators explained and interpreted classical works without questioning the traditions.

            Parimelazhagar

            Nacchinarkiniyar

Vaishnavaite commentators like Aalavandar, Manavala Munivar wrote commentaries on Naalaayira Divyaprabandam in manipravala nadai – interlaced with Sanskrit words.

Saminadha Ayyar excelled in textual criticism and edited old Tamil texts. He brought parallel passages from other texts.

Again till 19^th c. our lit. crit. did not delve into questioning the assumptions held by the classics.

Tamilnadu was influenced by western literary criticism.

            Thi. K. Chidambara Mudaliyar, Dandapaani Desikar, S. Vaiyaapuri Pillai

Schools and colleges used the commentaries in the classroom.

            T. P. Meenakshi Sundaram

Tamil academicians continue to value tradition. The reaction of many literary scholars against modern literary and cultural theory is often underlained by a distrust of philosophy, of technical jargon, and a lack of familiarity with the great  philosophical systems.

As we are in the western University system, we need to understand the ideologies that have built the contemporary critical culture. Why?

Our research uses the scientific model. Why?

            Philosophy = Meipporul

epporul yaryar vaai ketpinum

apporul meipporul kaanbadarivu. 

Philosophy has helped every aspect of human civilization.

            Far flashing beams of light

-          WilliamJames.

Take for example – these concepts

            democracy – Socrates – Know Thyself. Be aware of your limitations.

            equality                      

            Human rights             

Information comes through Senses ---------- Emerson, Einstein

Information comes through rational thinking ----------- Socrates

                                                                                   Plato

                                                                                   Thiruvalluvar

Philosophy claims objectivity.

But it is created by human beings.

And human beings are subjective.

Look at Plato who banishes myth. His student Aristotle launches realism. Consolidates Plato’s ideas.

Nietzsche questions these views. He argues myths are essential for humanity. It is eco-friendly.

Thomas Kuhn would call this as Paradigm Shift -  We change our views of society.

Once upon a time we burnt depressed women who went mad as witches. We burnt widows. Now rules have changed.

Philosophy aims at neutrality. Research cannot be one sided. It has to study both sides of any argument and present it in the thesis. M. Phil. is Master of Philosophy – a person who has mastered the art of studying both sides of any hypothesis. Ph. D. is Doctor of Philosophy – a person who is a real expert in presenting a thorough representation of any theme, studying all that has been written about that field. The framework has to be scientific.

            What is this science?

We have to make theories about life, nature, and in our case, books. We have to arrive at principles of life.

            Principles of nature – Science

            Principles of human thought that are represented in literary works – Literary Criticism.

In normal life, half our time is used up for creating theories about the life around us. Forming opinions and arguing we are right is our practice. In research too we have to form opinions of books. But we don’t stop with that. We collect the opinions of others too. These opinions can be found anywhere – in the newspapers, films, Television talk shows, serials, Political meetings, blogs, websites, books etc. Some of these opinions are similar to our opinion. Some opinions might be different. Both have to be recorded. We have to analyze both opinions.

A scholarly opinion is different from an ordinary opinion. Young students will argue for the hero and against the villain. A mature reader knows the writer has created a certain type of person belonging to a particular caste, class, colour, region, nationality as the hero and another type as the villain.

Take the example of Karate Kid, for example. It shows careful geopolitical construction. We have to deconstruct it to understand its structure.

Derrida was a French Jewish philosopher who identified the binary nature of human thought. Every child is taught antonyms. The age-old analytical method itself is binary. It uses compare and contrast method. If one student is called as brilliant, the meaning does not stop with that. The sentence has to be re-understood. Brick by brick we have to remove it to understand its construction.

What is the criterion for brilliance? Is it communication skills? Is it memory power? Is it analytical skills? Is it innovative thinking? Is it problem solving ability? Is it leadership and teamwork? Is it language ability? Each teacher might have his / her criterion or criteria to judge the ability of others.

When we deconstruct the sentence, we understand the criteria involved. Also, it brings yet another level of meaning – Others are not so brilliant. So this second meaning is unintended. It has escaped the control of the teacher.

Similarly, a book might have thousands of sentences that can be deconstructed and new meanings will arrive. These meanings will explain the society that created the book or the movie.

For example, Rajam Krishnan’s Kurinji Then translated as Why the Kurinji Blooms constructs the character of Rangan as a negative character. Rajam Krishnan carefully builds scenes where this motherless boy is insulted by his family members. He does not receive any love from the family members and that has made him a boy without family values. It is he who supports modernization and hurts the tribal culture. If we deconstruct the characterization and study how it is built, we realize Rajam Krishnan uses the binary opposition of mother’s love vs. family. She has projected motherhood. Similarly, City vs. Village. Many films use the binary opposition of city / village, English / No-English, rich / Poor, educated / uneducated etc. Writers have to construct stories.

The fundamental framework for creative writing reflects / represents human thought. Derrida captured it well: light-darkness, heaven-hell. Our religions conceived heaven as golden and hells as black that has now become one of the strong reasons for racism.

Good vs. Evil is the universal framework for literature, films and Television stories. Even non-fiction and reality shows have this frame. Because that is the way we think. This knowledge of us is fundamental to understand others and what others speak and write. When we consider others as bad, or evil, then meanings will escape from our words – negative. Sartre called this as “Hell is the other.” All literary works have this problem. That’s why Roland Barthes said “the author is dead”. At one level, the author cannot control his meaning, just like in normal life. Secondly in a film the novel becomes a script and later the movie is practically made by the technicians – editors of various types, computer engineers and so on.

This arc of criticism is generally referred to as post-structuralism. We must also remember the contributions of Foucault. His discourse analysis studied not only what is said, but also what is unsaid. How are women presented by male writers? Do women critics represent men without saying many thing? A researcher has to concentrate upon the issues that have not been represented by the writer.

So, how are we locating literature? We have started looking at literature as representation of life – Aristotelian model – realism. Today New Historicism talks about locating literature as a cultural product that is influenced by other cultural products. For example, Harry Potter influenced a whole lot of other similar books. Anyone researching on these books after 200 years will have to understand postmodernism, archaeology etc. which initiated a study into myths, magic and other areas that were rejected as superstition.

In other words, a new historic study will reveal how themes build in creative work. A writer is caught in his tradition, T. S. Eliot says. In the early 20^th century, A. G. Grierson published a collection of poems – Metaphysical Poets. T. S. Eliot wrote a brief preface to the book. In the preface, T. S. Eliot wrote a simple theory that is actually new historic in style.

He studied Elizabethan poetry and attempted to locate Metaphysical poets in the framework. He found out he could not do so. So he created a new theory – disassociation of sensibility – to describe Donne’s poems. When all the poets wrote about senses or love, Donne mocked love. He represented practical, popular versions. He told his lady not to cry, as each tear would bring down one year in the man’s life. He used conceits – we have given the phrase – linking two totally different images – a brilliant fusing. Donne dis-associated himself with love.

Later, New Criticism came up in America, Formalism came up in Russia, Structuralism came up in France – all these critical philosophies were based on the study of language. 20^th century has come under the impact of language studies. This is the result of European colonialism. During 19^th century Europe found out Indian languages. Germany was leading in language research. The German Universities started Philology departments to study Asian languages. Indo-European language tree was formalized and drawn. Aryan supremacy was theorized and believed. It later developed into Nazism and brought about the millions of Jews’ death – as Jews belonged to Semitic race. The Germans called themselves Teutonic and framed themselves as Aryan race – Noble race – Terminologies given by Professors.

German Philology departments were familiar with Thirukkural, Tholkappiyar etc. Max Mueller, a German Scholar translated almost all Sanskrit texts into English and German languages with a team of scholars. The founder of post-structural thought which brought up a whole lot of critical practices like, post-colonialism, feminism, cultural studies, cultural materialism, post-colonialism, new historicism etc. was a Philology Professor. The world had a paradigm shift after colonialism. Language became a sign of a people. It became a sign of ethnicity, identity.

Today’s most popular research practice is to locate a writer in his identity – identity politics is the agenda behind Edward Said’s model post-colonialism. How does Rudyard Kipling, an English writer represent India? All post-colonial research practices are built upon ethnic practices that are based on language. When India was created in the Nation / State model, language was used to demarcate states. Our states are now following the European model of division. Holy Roman Empire became nations of particular languages. Modern Europe is ‘linguistic’ in origin. So language studies created an impact in all aspects of life. In literature, academics began using language to study its aspects. What are the linguistic strategies to write poetry? What are the language techniques that have been used to create a literary work? Formalism studies rhymes, syllables and word syntax. Roman Jacobson found out Shakespeare used end rhymes. We can study every lyric written by Kannadasan  who wrote Atthikkai aalangai ithhikkai.        

Ferdinand de Saussure was the Harvard University Professor who taught Sanskrit. He studied Indian linguistics and taught it. After his death, his students published his notes – A General Course on Linguistics – the study of signs. Every word is a sign.  It signifies a meaning. French Structuralists and post-structuralists used the linguistic model – a sign can be arbitrary. Every language is a sign system. An object can have hundreds of signs or words. Every language will have a different word for the same object. If we develop, every book will symbolize one meaning. But it might have many other perspectives.

Meanwhile, the World War II took place and Hitler and Mussolini killed, tortured millions of people. Philosophers began questioning the power of religion and literature to tame the evil of mankind. They realized the need to respect other civilizations, other people, other cultures. The violence Europe unleashed in Asia, America and Australia now was exhibited in Europe itself. Philosophy took up the role of teaching mankind. Philosophers started analyzing the importance for self-criticism. The Frankfurt School was established to study human nature. The books written by these philosophers are referred to as Critical Theory. Adorno and Horkeimer are important names. There is a parallel growth – Post structuralism and Post modernism or Critical Theory.

To put it simply we have gone back to the age of Thiruvalluvar, Socrates, and Plato - To be aware of our limitations, our selves. Commerce has taken the SWOC model. Today a researcher has to be aware of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Challenges of the writers he is researching on. A mere appreciation of the book is not research.

            Epporul Yaaryaarvai ketpinum

            Apporul meipporul kaanbadarivu.

The researcher is a philosopher trying to find out the underlying principles of the work, the historical background of the work, the other works of the period, the political era in which the books are written and the ideologies it contains.

Areas for Research

Language

What are the mental blocks of our students learning English? Socio-economic background and English language learning

Has Tamil always resisted pan-Indian languages?

What is the archaeology of Tamil language?

Literature

What is the archaeology of colonialism in India?

First German in India – Heinrich Roth (1620 – 1668)

                                                                1652

Important German Indology

Lutheran Missionary Ziegenbalg – 1706 – Tamilnadu

Danish East India Trading Company

German Orientalism / German University System

            New chairs for Oriental languages

Important Classical Philology and Sanskrit

Important Paradigm Shift Why?

Theology ----------- Oriental languages

Kant – 1788 – Critique of Practical Reason

Accepts and retains the concept of God or eternal life.

Philosophy geared towards comparative linguistic studies.

Philhellenic trend

Schlegel – comparative linguistics.

                Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and German

Historical critical method of philology

What is our role in the development of Formalism, Structuralism and Post Structuralism?

How much was Immanuel Kant influenced by Indian philosophy?

What are the segments taken from Tholkappium for Linguistics?

The concept of identity has dominated research all over the world? What is its impact?

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I thank Dr. Cauveri, a great scholar, for supporting me.