Filipendula Literaria: Applied Literary Studies

Abstract

By definition, disengaged literary exegesis, vigorously pursued since the advent of Anglo-American New Criticism (and avidly recycled in various guises in the aftermath of the deconstructive spin), retreats from the prospect of integrating "art" and "life" (to revert to an older, belletristic idiom). It retreats, too, from the prospect of investing the discipline of literary studies with existential purpose or propensity. Although recent orientations such as ethnic and embodiment studies are routinely interfused with standard, often Levinasian, animadversions concerning moral and cultural circumstances and the amelioration of socio-political ills, the professional pursuit of interpretative fecundity compels their exponents to sorn upon the artefact and to treat the activity of reading ontolophagously - as an opportunity to infiltrate shopworn "theories" and viscid banalities into tedious and wearisome recensions of the literary text.
    The article proposes an exegetical model which has its source in a desire to rediscover the paradoxes, perplexities, and polarities - the unaccountable amalgam f dispossession, intimacy, and spectatorship - inherent in the act of reading. Beyond characterisation, beyond narrative progression, beyond action and re­action, even beyond the artifice of syntax and semantics, the reader is preoccupied with the singularity of consciousness as it seeks to organise experience. The article explores some of the ways in which consciousness is represented to consciousness, and some of the ways in which readers "model" consciousness in order to make it available to itself.

Opsomming
Onbetrokke literere eksegese, wat sedert die aanbreek van die Anglo-Amerikaanse New Criticism sterk steun geniet het (en geesdriftig onder die invloed van die dekonstruktiewe denke in verskillende vorme hergebruik is) vermy uiteraard die integrasie van "kuns" en "lewe" (as 'n ouer, belletristiese idioom hier ingespan mag word). Dit beweeg ook weg van die idee dat literatuurstudie as dissipline met eksistensiele doeleindes en neigings beklee kan word. Onlangse orientasies soos etniese en vergestaltingstudie word in die gewone loop van sake versmelt met 'n standaard-, dikwels Leviniaanse, kritiek oor morele en kulturele omstandighede en die versagting van sosiopolitieke euwels, maar die professionele soeke na ver­tolkingsvrugbaarheid noop voorstanders van hierdie orientasies om alles moontlik uit die artefak te neem en ontologies op die leesaktiwiteit te teer as 'n geleentheid om holruggeryde "teoriee" en banaliteite na saai en vermoeiende hersienings van literere tekste te laat deursypel. 

    Hierdie artikel stel 'n eksegetiese model voor wat sy oorsprong vind in die begeerte om die paradokse, ingewikkeldhede en polariteite - die onverklaarbare vermenging van ontneming, intimiteit en toeskouerskap - wat onlosmaaklik deel van die leeshandeling is, te herontdek. 

    Oor die grense van karakterisering, narratiewe progressie, aksie en reaksie, en selfs die behendige gebruik van sintaksis en semantiek heen word die leser se aandag in beslag geneem deur die enkelvoudigheid van die bewussyn wat struktuur aan ervaring wil gee. Die artikel ondersoek enkele wyses waarop bewussyn aan bewussyn voorgestel word, en ook wyses waarop lesers die bewussyn "modelleer" om dit tot hul eie beskikking te stel.