“The shape of power, snaking irregularly through the matrix of sociocultural life,
doesn't just yield to your touch; it asks for recompense always."
--Martha Baer
Of course, people do not agree in their interpretations of the systematic
study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature.
A feeling was afoot at the beginning of the century, just as postmodernism
began to hit its stride, that change would be thrust upon us. It was, in the
form of September 11. Where to you go after that? You change the course. You
zigzag. The world zagged right into poststructuralism.
The word, the idea of poststructuralism means so many things to me. When I
first read about it, I loved the idea of no structure, no constriction of absolute freedom
in my writing, thinking, art, and everyday life. I looked forward to the loosening of the
limitations imposed upon civilization for the last two thousand years. It was about
time, I thought.
Within the decade, I gradually let go of the structures that most inhibited me.
I crafted my poetry without punctuation and capitalization. I placed the words on the
paper using different margins. I rhymed words in the interior of my poetry lines rather
than at the end. I relished my freedom to type words as they spilled from my mind
without the stopping and starting required by a many hundreds year old structure
that boxed in poetry and all literary writing.
Yes, I heard voices and read voices within the realms of literature and
publishing lamenting 'not so fast'.
Editors of literary journals who had trouble accepting submissions in
email form now had to ‘put up with’ unstructured writing—in new fonts and
margins. Some poems were centered on the page. To those editors whose heads
still resided in the last century, the entire no structure thing was such a
conceit. Poststructuralism was an affront to their understanding of what must be done.
They were determined to maintain the structure that was set by the publishing world
when Gutenberg was a pup. The top echelons of the traditional poetry/literary
world have close ties to academia and they co-conspired to maintain literary structure.
Now that they are witnessing time and change push past them, these self-appointed
gatekeepers have relented somewhat; but, they aren’t going to let go of their antiquated
structure just yet. Left hand margins, Times New Roman, and 12 pt. fonts possess the
shelf life of Twinkies in their world. They dream of a slowing of the influence of poststructuralism
in literature. Indeed, a backlash to poststructuralism has developed. I will write about this
counterattack in my next blog. In the meantime, I will include some suggested reading about Poststructuralism.
Reading List:
Brian Boyd, “Jane, Meet Charles: Literature, Evolution, and Human
Nature.” Philosophy and Literature 22 (1998): 1-30.
Lingua Franca (R.I.P.). People Magazine for the Ivory Tower Set.
Leszek Kolakowski, Modernity on Endless Trial. Includes “How to be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist”
and other smash hits.
Joan Peskin, “Constructing Meaning When Reading Poetry: An
Expert-Novice Study.” Cognition and Instruction 16 (1998) 235-263.
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, Words and
Rules, The Language Instinct. Heir apparent to Wilson.
Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy
"Post-structuralism holds that there are many truths, that
frameworks must bleed, and that structures must become unstable or decentered.
Moreover, post-structuralism is also concerned with the power structures or
hegemonies and power and how these elements contribute to and/or maintain
structures to enforce hierarchy. Therefore, post-structural theory carries
implications far beyond literary criticism."
-- Steven Shaviro, author of Doom Patrols