The Receptive Circuit and the Mise en scene in/of La Estrella de Sevilla

Abstract

An important collection of essays on post-structuralist theory that appeared less than a decade ago carries the general title Displacement and the claim of its editor that this term, although perhaps less frequently used in an explicit sense by the avatars of deconstruction and other post-structuralist schools, succinctly characterizes all the activity of literary theory of the 1970s and early 80s (1-17). Although the short half-life of contemporary critical discourse immediately suggests that by now the concepts developed in this volume have also undergone their own form of displacement, a case may well be made for the validity of such a notion if it is accepted that newer critical approaches have not revolutionized but rather have subverted-that is, have displaced instead of replaced-the previous discourse. Rather than establishing an original or revolutionary position, the contemporary scene has been dominated by a series of displacements: the displacement of the values of logocentrism in deconstruction; the displacement of the formalist intentional and affective fallacies in phenomenological methodologies; and the general displacement of anything smacking of subjectivity in its traditional sense from a variety of arenas which feature prominently psychoanalytic theory, feminist theories, and often these in combination. The theoretical study of the relation of dramatic text to performance and reception has also invoked strategies of displacement that have undermined the dominance of text-centered