IÑIGO, CHELISSA ISABELA ANA F.

MA COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

WHAT IS CRITICISM?
Roland Barthes

What is Criticism according to Barthes?

What is the object of this Criticism?
What is the Critic's responsibility?
What is the Critic's task?

I. ROLAND BARTHES
A. professor at the College de France
B. Structuralist
C. Critical Essays
II. “CRITICAL ESSAYS”
A. marks the beginning of Barthes' work in Structuralism, along with a range of other critical interests
III. FOUR MAJOR PHILOSOPHIES IN LITERARY CRITICISM
A. Existentialism
i. examines literature in light of existentialism, a philosophical theory that emphasizes existence before essence

For example, the essence of a chair is that it supports a seated person. As a chair is manufactured to fulfill this function,
its essence precedes its existence: The manufacturer determines the function of the chair before the chair is brought into
existence by being manufactured. In contrast, humans come into existence without a predetermined function, or essence,
which is to say there is no manufacturer of humans. Each individual human self, or subject, must recognize that he or she
exists and then determine his or her essence.
earlhaig.ca/departments/english/downloads/Ahumada/.../Existential%20criticism.do c

i. existential authors popularized existential themes, such as dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment
and nothingness
https://www.philosophybasics.com/movements_existentialism.html
B. Marxism
i. literature reflects social institutions
ii. literature reflects class struggle and materialism – how often the quest for wealth traditionally defines characters
iii. literature are not works created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but 'products' of the economic and ideological
determinants specific to that era (Abrams 149).
iv. literature reflects an author's own class or analysis of class relations
v. Marxist critic is a careful reader or viewer who keeps in mind issues of power and money
https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/marxist.crit.html
C. Psychoanalysis
i. literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author
ii. literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses
iii. one may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are
projections of the author's psyche
https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/psycho.crit.html
D. Structuralism
i. challenges the belief that a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text is constituted of linguistic conventions
ii. critics analyzed material by examining underlying structures, such as characterization or plot, and attempted to show how
these patterns were universal and could thus be used to develop general conclusions about both individual works and the
systems from which they emerged
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/structuralism
IV. FOUR QUESTIONS
A. What is Criticism according to Barthes?
i. First, what is Structuralism?
a) activity (not a school or movement) that reconstructs an object to show how it functions
b) a reconstruction of the object (called the “simulacrum” or “imitation”of an object) produces its ability to be understood
because its functions (which are unrecognizable pre-reconstruction) become visible
ii. Critical Activity follows Structuralist criteria:
a) it is an activity (not a school or movement) that reconstructs a TEXT to show how it functions; the reconstruction of
the TEXT produces its ability to be understood because its functions (which are unrecognizable pre-reconstruction)
become visible
iii. work is not an object that is independent of the psyche and history of the man who critiques; all criticism must include a
reflection upon itself in addition to a reflection of the work.
iv. criticism must acknowledge itself as no more than a language so that it can be both objective and subjective
v. criticism is the “friction between the “Metalanguage” (the second language) and the first language – criticism is not a
“Metalanguage”alone (IV, B, iv.)
vi. “Proof of Criticism”
a) does not proceed from truth because critical discourse is true by virtue of logical form alone – Proust is Proust,
Racine is Racine
b) depends on an aptitude to cover a work as completely as possible using its own language – not to discover the work
B. What is the object of this Criticism?
IÑIGO, CHELISSA ISABELA ANA F. MA COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

i. First, what is a “Metalanguage”?

a) a second language or a conversation upon conversation
b) using it produces the text's ability to be understood
ii. Second, what is “Literature”?
a) literature is when writers speak of objects and phenomena exterior and anterior to the language – when the writer
speaks and the world listens
b) a very special semantic system whose goal is to put “meaning” in the world but not “a meaning”
c) never entirely “inspired” nor clear – it offers itself to the reader as an “avowed signifying system” but witholds itself as
a “signified object”
d) has the power to ask the world questions without ever answering them
e) offers itself to endless decipherment
f) only a system of signs whose Being is not in a message but in the system itself
iii. “Criticism” is different from “Literature” – the object of criticism is not to speak to the world, but to have a second-language
(metalanguage) conversation which operates upon a first language or work (language object)
iv. critical language must deal with two kinds of relations:
a) relation of critical, second language (metalanguage) to the language of the author
b) relation of the first language or language object (work) to the world (IV, A, v.)
C. What is the Critic's responsibility?
i. do not reconstruct or change a work's meaning; instead, reconstruct the language and signs of the text
ii. do not say whether “Proust” has spoken “the truth” or whether the society he describes reproduces accurate history;
instead, explain “Proustian” language
iii. do not take as a moral goal the decipherment of a work's meaning
D. What is the Critic's task?
i. not to discover a hidden profound or secret meaning in the work, but to adjust the language of the author according to a
given ideology (Existentialism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Structuralism)
ii. do not reconstruct the work's message but only its system
iii. speak the language his age affords him – a language that is the end product of knowledge, ideas, and intellectual
passions across history
iv. choose a language as an exercise of his own intellectual function – choices, pleasures, resistances, obsessions