‘Foucault cannot be understood without understanding his early years in the communist party, his polemics against the French left, the degree to which Marx’s culture was so deeply influential on the left bank, and Foucault’s own attempts to create new left space in relation to those various tendencies and elements. That’s what a critical reception of Foucault, or anybody from anywhere, is about’ (Cornel West)
How much attention should we pay to the lives of theorists?
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| Foucault in his bureau. |
Cornel West stresses the importance of a theorist’s own personal history in relation to a complete understanding of their works, most particularly their political history.
Barthes acknowledges that the ‘image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions…explanation of the work is still sought in the person of its producer…once the author is found the text is explained.’
In his essay ‘Death of the Author’ Barthes goes on to disprove this need to discover the writer by declaring the death of the author. The death of the author can be applied not only to fictional writing but to theoretical as well. ‘Contemporary culture’ as Barthes terms it, feels a need to ‘find’ the man behind the text to satisfy our own needs as a reader, but in looking so attentively behind the text, whilst looking for the history, it is possible to lose sight of the text itself, what the writer aimed to it to mean in its entirety.
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| Roland Barthes. |
It is because Foucault was so influential in many different fields of theological study that Cornel West suggests it is vital to have knowledge about his life and his political standing. To get an understanding to why his work may have been so influential, it is important to know the beginnings of his works; of what, or who, had influenced him.
It was the student-led revolt that ‘almost toppled the French Government before itself collapsing’ in 1968 ‘and his own involvement in student unrest in Tunisia’ that made Foucault so politically active and it is clear from then on that Foucault felt very strongly about political issues; this is shown clearly through the subject choices of his work. Before the late sixties his essays such as ‘The Order of Things’ and ‘Archaeology of Knowledge’ was not as politically charged as his writings to come later on such as ‘Discipline and Punish’ and ‘The History of Sexuality’.
The social history of France around the time of Foucault’s later writings show the ‘ways in which textual processes cannot be confined within the bindings of the book’ , and because of this lack of confinement, the space in which the social, political and the textual interact, as is proposed by West, that it is important to have a basic understanding of Foucault’s political beliefs and of the French government during his lifetime.
Foucault attacks institutions and the power forces acting behind them. This strong interest in power relations in contemporary culture can be said to stem from his teachings from Althusser, of whom he was largely influenced.
| Althusser's theory of ideology. |
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| Louis Althusser. |
Althusser wrote on the Ideological State Apparatuses of which Foucault explores in ‘Discipline and Punish’ and ‘The History of Sexuality’.
Before embarking on a study of Foucault’s essay, in the case, it would seem relevant to gain an understanding of Althusser’s explanation of Ideological State Apparatus by reading his work first. Without knowing about Foucault’s education, then, J. Weeks notices a ‘rich diversity’ in Foucault’s work, his large range of publications are all connected with the human psyche; that he is ‘exposing the conditions for the emergence of modern forms of rationality especially the human sciences and comprehending the complex mutual involvements of power and knowledge’ Foucault has taken Althusser’s notions of power and taken it a step further in relating it to the history of today. In beginning at a similar place to Foucault, with a similar knowledge of Ideological State Apparatuses we are more likely to gain a better understanding of Foucault, to see exactly what he has expanded on. In noting Foucault’s influences, the readers of his work are able to increase their own understanding of what Foucault means when he speaks of power.
It is also important to note that ‘while his earlier work saw power in terms of exclusion, from the late 1960’s he began to analyse it in terms of what it constructs rather than what it denies’ It is often felt that ‘an author’s drastic changes in style or opinion must be explained’ and to explain such changes we look first to the history. In an attempt to understand the text we reach out towards the author for background information in order to ground the text, to give it a beginning and an end with which to help interpret it. So in this case we look towards the events of 1968, assuming this has had an impact on Foucault’s outlook, his work seeming more optimistic, that one is able to use these power relations in a positive manner.
If the key essays of theorists’ are often worked upon by other theorists, i.e. Foucault’s works has been very influential in New Historicism, and expanded upon to be prominent within a whole new school of study; that the beginnings of a theorist’s work and significant life events that may greatly influence their writings are important factors to consider when studying the past, present and possible future of a theory.
New criticism is concerned with ‘prying literature and writing loose from confining institutions’ . Said explains that New Criticism’s success was due to the fact it is anti-institutional, he explains that ‘English studies became narrower and narrower, in my opinion, and critical reading degenerated into decisions about what should or should not be allowed into the great tradition’ In a way he suggests that such institutional traditions prevent progress, that radical thinking that breaks from these is the only way to progress, ‘Galileos and Einstiens are infrequent figures not just because genius is a rare thing but because scientists are borne along by agreed-upon ways to do research, and this consensus encourages uniformity rather than bold enterprise’
‘In this view of things, expertise is partially determined by how well an individual learns ‘the rules of the game’. It was considered intellectual, then to be a well read critic; New Critics eradicate the need for ‘background’ reading, making theorists more accessible, therefore increasingly more popular. For the New Critics, nothing outside of the text is important and in order to find what we need; it will almost always be within the text.
The way to approach a theoretical text, then, is to take example from New Criticism, approaching it in a purely formalist manner; that contextual information should be disregarded. Everything significant therefore is contained within the text itself; this approach can be applied to theoretical writing. John Crowe Ransom, for example, as a New Critic would expect those following New Criticism to treat all texts in the same manner, including that of his own.
In determining the unimportance of the contextual aspect of the study of texts Ransom suggests that readers of ‘Criticism Inc’ should read his work in light of this.
‘His important work as an editor of the prestigious journal the Kenyon Review, and his friendships with many noteworthy authors and critics, Ransom was able to gain a wide and respectful hearing for his and other New Critic’s literary views and values’ . In order to have a fair hearing of his views on literature, then, Ransom had to build a status and a reputation first; his very success as a theorist was based on his previous literary history and social standing. Ransom’s work before moving into New Criticism shows his involvement with the Agrarian movement; his essays ‘The South- Old or New?’ (1928) and ‘The Aesthetics of Regionalism’ (1934) showed concerns that poetry did not reflect southern American values, however, these concerns were not replicated and the essays were not received well. In his attempt to engage with culture and society, it had not responded leaving Ransom to search in a new direction for recognition. In doing so he did the exact opposite; stressing the critical aspect to criticism, that it is not historical and that one should not look outwardly towards culture and society but inwardly to the text itself.
Gerard Gennette notes that critics tend to ‘identify the narrating instance with the instance of “writing”, the narrator with the author, and the recipient of the narrative with the reader of the work’ This is in the case of fiction, in regards to theoretical writing, in most instances, the author and narrator are the same; as is the ‘recipient of the narrative’ and the reader. Foucault questions the importance of the author/ narrator in ‘What is an Author?’; he explains that,
the author is not an indefinite source of significations that fill a work; the author does not precede the works; he is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one, limits, excludes, and chooses; in short, by which one impedes the free circulation, the free manipulation, the free composition, decomposition, and recomposition of[ works]. In fact, if we are accustomed to presenting the author as a genius, as a perpetual surging of invention, it is because, in reality, we make him function in exactly the opposite fashion. One can say that the author is an ideological product, since we represent him as the opposite of his historically real function. When a historically given function is represented in a figure that inverts it, one has an ideological production. The author is therefore the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning.
Therefore, the life of an author should not be sought out solely to fill the work’s gaps. The author is an ideological construct and Foucault attempts to remove himself from becoming this ‘product’ with which to impose our own ideologies. Whilst acknowledging that ‘discourse that possesses an author’s name is not to be immediately consumed and forgotten’ , he wanted to remain anonymous in an article for Le Monde; Macdonald, in ‘Marx, Foucault, Genealogy’ states Foucault’s reason was ‘out of nostalgia for a time when, being quite unknown, what I said had some chance of being heard.’ Contrary to Ransom, who achieved his ideal audience through his reputation and social connections, Foucault aims to remove himself from the text so that his audience can read him ‘for what he says (in his positive discursive dispersions), not what we think he should say’ ; the name of an author, ‘its status and its manner of reception are regulated by the culture in which it circulates’ so that as the culture shifts and changes through time, Foucault realises the statuses of writers will shifts also, hence his eagerness to be heard before being seen.
In an article in the Threepenny Review, a ‘Conversation with Michel Foucault’ the interviewer, Dillon, before showing the interview states that Foucault spoke but once about his personal life. The fact that Foucault said little about himself in an interview about his professional work is understandable, but the writer of the interview felt he had to explain why, the Foucault was a ‘private man’; there seems to be an intrinsic need to discover the man behind the text which always presents itself. Even in contemporary culture, in tabloid newspaper, useless information about celebrities is presented only to provide for this curiousness of society.
Personal facts often are, on the whole, useless for and understanding of the theorist as a theorist, not as man. Foucault himself notes that ‘we are prisoners of certain conceptions about ourselves and our behaviour. We have to liberate our own subjectivity, our own relation to ourselves’ .
Equally, Eagleton notices ‘Derrida’s own typical habit of reading is to settle on some apparently peripheral fragment in the work – a footnote, a recurrent minor term or image, a casual allusion- and work it tenaciously through to the point where it threatens to dismantle the oppositions which govern the text as a whole’ One cannot focus too closely and too intensely on one theoretical piece. Essentially, reading a footnote of a theorist’s life is what we are doing. Especially with theorists with such an abundance of publications to take just one piece without consideration of social or political influences is too extreme. In the same way that social conflict is embedded within literature, it is also embedded within theory; if a work of literature ‘embodies a particular social attitude’ then social attitudes are embedded within theorist’s writings. As Foucault’s work is mainly concerned with society, disassociation from contextual history would remove any sense it has. A critical reader of a theorist must remain critical, without slipping too far into historical context. It is the professional lives of theorists that are important, the development of their theories, not the personal; Miller’s biography of Foucault, Passion of Michel Foucault was criticised for being too personal and not at all relevant in regards to Foucault’s writings. Though a truthful account of Foucault’s life, personally, little of the content can be found to be useful for reading in parallel academically with Foucault’s own work and to be used in understanding his work.
Overall, in order to understand the past, present and future of a theory it must be understood that in the same way history cannot be fixed, neither can the writer; the Foucault in ‘The Order of Things’ is not the same Foucault in ‘The History of Sexuality’ in that as society changes, so do the views and opinions of a writer, he too, must not remain fixed. One must look into the lives of theorists, but only to the extent of professional lives, political standings and relations with other significant theorists. Ransom declares that we must ‘study literature, and not merely about literature’ this is also true in that we should study theorists, and not merely about theorists.
Bibliography
Barry, Peter Beginning Theory – An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory 2nd Edition, (Manchester University Press: Manchester 2002)
Eagleton, Terry and Drew Milne ed., Marxist Literary Theory, a Reader (Blackwell publishers Ltd: Oxford 1996)
Marx, Karl and Engels Friedrich – ‘Social Being and Social Consciousness’ pp.31
Leitch, Vincent B. ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2001)
Ransom, John Crowe ‘Criticism Inc’ (1938) pp. 1108-18
Barthes, Roland – ‘Death of the Author’ (1971) pp.1466-70
Foucault, Michel – ‘What is an Author?’ (1969) pp. 1622-36
‘Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison’ (1975) pp. 1636-47
‘The History of Sexuality’ (1976) pp.1648-66
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, The Communist Manifesto (Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Miller, James, The Passion of Michel Foucault (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000)
Newton- De Molina, David ed.., The Literary Criticism of T. S. Eliot (London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1977)
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Said, Edward – ‘Opponents, Audiences, constituencies and community’, in Postmodern Culture H. Foster ed., (1985), pp.137-43: 155-9.
West, Alick - ‘The relativity of literary Value’ (1937)
Eagleton, Terry – ‘Literary Theory- an Introduction’ (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1983) pp.133-4
Gennette, Gerard – ‘Narrative Discourse’ (1980) pp.212-27
