The Languages of Literary Criticism

Abstract

Literature speaks, sometimes in a singular voice, the multiple languages of knowledge. Often, it is a forum where distant and distinct areas of human knowledge meet and interact. One of the most important functions of the literary work, and, in fact, the dominant feature of its functioning, is to bridge the gap between seemingly unrelated fields of human activities, sometimes in unexpected ways. To uncover the networks of correspondences a work of literature establishes, to unveil the system of links it makes, is, I believe, the aim of any careful reading of literature. itself, the work of literature is nothing but a pattern of potentialities, promises proffered by an absent speaker; it has to be dis-covered. This is to say that paradoxically the literary text is in a sense a poor text: it calls necessarily for interpretation. There are, in my copy of American Verse,' two kinds of texts. first kind is a prosaic or unliterary text. An example of it reads as follows: Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser (4). This first kind of text, even though dull and repetitive, is a rich text, because it fulfills the contract of its motivation which is the obligation of an action (or rather the lack of it). It says in no uncertain terms, in plain English (rich English), what it means and leaves no room for ambiguity, no room for deficiency of meaning. second kind of text in my copy of American Verse is quite the opposite. It seems to thrive on deficiency of meaning as if it were ascetic, content with the staging of its own poverty. An example of this asceticism or literariness is the text entitled In a Station of the Metro, convenient for its brevity, which reads: The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet black bough (280). Unlike the first text, this one does not induce an action. It does not tell me, for example, to avoid Metro stations. Or does it? I am unable to determine. Yet only I can determine since the text does not do it for me, even though it resists and limits my freedom just as it limits itself while resisting profusion. I cannot just say anything about it. It is not, for example, by any stretch of the imagination, about race horses or the sexuality of ants. What then can I say about it? Knowing what I know of the personal history of Ezra Pound, of his collaboration with the fascist regime of Mussolini during the Second World War, I can translate this poem in terms of his political views and find that the distinction he makes between the elect faces in the crowd and the crowd itself is an expression of these views, the