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Ethical Criticism: Reading After Levinas
What is the relationship between literary criticism and ethics? Does criticism have an ethical task? How can criticism be ethical after literary theory? Ethical Criticism seeks to answer these questions by examining the historical development of the ethics of criticism and the vigorous contemporary backlash against what is known as 'theory'. The book appraises current arguments about the ethics of criticism and, finding them wanting, turns to the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Described as 'the greatest moral philosopher of the twentieth century', Levinas' thought has had a profound influence on a number of significant contemporary thinkers. By paying close attention to his major writings, Robert Eaglestone argues cogently and persuasively for a new understanding of the ethical task of criticism and theory.
224 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 1997
24 people want to read
About the author
Robert Eaglestone
70 books5 followersRobert Eaglestone (born 1968) is a British academic and writer. He is Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought in the Department of English at Royal Holloway, University of London. He works on contemporary literature, literary theory and contemporary European philosophy, and on Holocaust and Genocide studies.
His work explores how literature ‘thinks’, especially in relation to issues of ethics. This was the subject of his first book, Ethical Criticism: Reading After Levinas, on literary theory and the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. This focus on ethics broadened to a concern with ethical relationships to the past, centrally the Holocaust, other genocides and atrocities, in The Holocaust and the Postmodern. His work draws on memory studies and trauma studies, as well as on the thought of Jacques Derrida and Hannah Arendt.
He works widely on contemporary literature, including Salman Rushdie and J. M. Coetzee and is the author of Contemporary Literature: A Very Short Introduction. In that book he writes:
He is also concerned with the teaching of literature, and has written the text book Doing English, a Guide for Literature Students; edits a series of books introducing major thinkers, Routledge Critical Thinkers, and is a commentator in the national press on literature teaching at school and in Higher Education.
He lives in Brixton, London, and has two children.
His work explores how literature ‘thinks’, especially in relation to issues of ethics. This was the subject of his first book, Ethical Criticism: Reading After Levinas, on literary theory and the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. This focus on ethics broadened to a concern with ethical relationships to the past, centrally the Holocaust, other genocides and atrocities, in The Holocaust and the Postmodern. His work draws on memory studies and trauma studies, as well as on the thought of Jacques Derrida and Hannah Arendt.
He works widely on contemporary literature, including Salman Rushdie and J. M. Coetzee and is the author of Contemporary Literature: A Very Short Introduction. In that book he writes:
Literature thinks. Literature is where ideas are investigated, lived out, explored in all their messy complexity… Perhaps… ‘think’ is not the right word: ‘think’ is too limiting a description of the range of what a novel can do with ideas. In any event, the way literature thinks is bound up with what it’s like to be us, to be human. Literature is how we make ourselves intelligible to ourselves. And contemporary fiction matters because it is how we work out who we are now, today.
He is also concerned with the teaching of literature, and has written the text book Doing English, a Guide for Literature Students; edits a series of books introducing major thinkers, Routledge Critical Thinkers, and is a commentator in the national press on literature teaching at school and in Higher Education.
He lives in Brixton, London, and has two children.
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January 27, 2012
"Life, friends, is boring..."
So says John Berryman, and that is the fatigued feeling I get upon reading this book. It is not particularly impressive in terms of thought in that it opposes 'theorists' to 'anti-theorists'. It also assumes a 'nostalgia for the human (humanism)'. I am not sure that Eaglestone has looked at the phenomenon of nostalgia -- complicated no doubt -- carefully. It is reductive and silly to group all criticism that concerns things like narratology as 'ignoring the textuality of the text' -- excuse me? The assumption that more 'humanist' critics are ignoring the textuality of the text is not just galling but appalling. He argues that the text is seen as merely a cover for events for these critics: untrue because the investigation of narratology is already an acknowledgement of the status of the text as text. I am not sure, moreover, that identification with the other (eg wrt first person narrative) means that there is disrespect of the other, in the Levinasian sense.
His readings of Levinas, Derrida and Heidegger seem to be ok, but too simplistic to be very interesting. Unfortunately the quotes from the book make me want to read Derrida and Levinas -- to abandon ship -- I go, 'ok, when is my Hegel and Plato coming in?'. It is ironic that he says that the task of criticism is to continually 'introduce the saying into the said' -- to interrupt the echoing of essences with a new sound in short -- but his book is very reductive and does just that: reduce the saying to the said. Whatever openness in Derrida and Levinas -- and even Heidegger -- is crushed here.
Part of this has to do with style. It convinces me more and more that criticism as it is is unsustainable. The book's merit is that it is very neatly written. Any student would be well-advised to see how argumentation works in there. Stylistically, it is very clean and clear -- but the clarity in this case sacrifices a certain complexity of thought. I do not think, of course, that one should obfuscate when writing, but one must do what is necessary to say words, until they say him/her. It is too intelligent -- Levinas and Derrida talk a lot about love. Again, what does it mean to love a text? HOW is one open to the other? Where does feeling, if any, come in? As a critic, how can one be responsible? How do we avoid intellectual wankery -- in short -- pointless rambling that is merely an exploration in thought but is -- close (proximity) because of its distance? http://waste-of-time.xanga.com/573430...
One wonders. The link, I am convinced, stems between the reconcilation -- or recuperation of New Criticism -- so oft maligned. I do not think that JH Miller's reading is the way to go -- neither do I see Miller (as Eaglestone does) -- as a 'true' inheritor of NC. I think it is all a lot more complex than that -- the answer would have to involve a different writing style AND a link to the sciences. And a recognition and reexamination of the again oft-maligned terms 'being' and 'essence' -- as well as a reconsideration of what it means to be ironic (the viewing of self, etc) and what it means to love (acceptance of the other). This convinces me that the phd HAS to be done -- needs to be done --- ---
So says John Berryman, and that is the fatigued feeling I get upon reading this book. It is not particularly impressive in terms of thought in that it opposes 'theorists' to 'anti-theorists'. It also assumes a 'nostalgia for the human (humanism)'. I am not sure that Eaglestone has looked at the phenomenon of nostalgia -- complicated no doubt -- carefully. It is reductive and silly to group all criticism that concerns things like narratology as 'ignoring the textuality of the text' -- excuse me? The assumption that more 'humanist' critics are ignoring the textuality of the text is not just galling but appalling. He argues that the text is seen as merely a cover for events for these critics: untrue because the investigation of narratology is already an acknowledgement of the status of the text as text. I am not sure, moreover, that identification with the other (eg wrt first person narrative) means that there is disrespect of the other, in the Levinasian sense.
His readings of Levinas, Derrida and Heidegger seem to be ok, but too simplistic to be very interesting. Unfortunately the quotes from the book make me want to read Derrida and Levinas -- to abandon ship -- I go, 'ok, when is my Hegel and Plato coming in?'. It is ironic that he says that the task of criticism is to continually 'introduce the saying into the said' -- to interrupt the echoing of essences with a new sound in short -- but his book is very reductive and does just that: reduce the saying to the said. Whatever openness in Derrida and Levinas -- and even Heidegger -- is crushed here.
Part of this has to do with style. It convinces me more and more that criticism as it is is unsustainable. The book's merit is that it is very neatly written. Any student would be well-advised to see how argumentation works in there. Stylistically, it is very clean and clear -- but the clarity in this case sacrifices a certain complexity of thought. I do not think, of course, that one should obfuscate when writing, but one must do what is necessary to say words, until they say him/her. It is too intelligent -- Levinas and Derrida talk a lot about love. Again, what does it mean to love a text? HOW is one open to the other? Where does feeling, if any, come in? As a critic, how can one be responsible? How do we avoid intellectual wankery -- in short -- pointless rambling that is merely an exploration in thought but is -- close (proximity) because of its distance? http://waste-of-time.xanga.com/573430...
One wonders. The link, I am convinced, stems between the reconcilation -- or recuperation of New Criticism -- so oft maligned. I do not think that JH Miller's reading is the way to go -- neither do I see Miller (as Eaglestone does) -- as a 'true' inheritor of NC. I think it is all a lot more complex than that -- the answer would have to involve a different writing style AND a link to the sciences. And a recognition and reexamination of the again oft-maligned terms 'being' and 'essence' -- as well as a reconsideration of what it means to be ironic (the viewing of self, etc) and what it means to love (acceptance of the other). This convinces me that the phd HAS to be done -- needs to be done --- ---
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