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Phenomenology and Literary Criticism
Phenomenology as a perspective and method was established by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). Husserl began his work by analyzing human consciousness, that is, describing the lived, tangible world as it is experienced, independent of any prior assumptions, whether from philosophy or from the common beliefs of ordinary people.
The Concept of Intentionality:
Husserl proposes that consciousness is an intentional, unified act. By intentionality, Husserl does not mean a deliberate, intended action but rather that consciousness is always directed towards something (a thing or object). In other words, to be conscious means to be conscious of something.
Husserl’s claim is that within this central act of consciousness, the thinking subject and the object of their thought or awareness are in a mutual interaction. To free phenomenological analysis from all prior concepts, his analysis of consciousness begins with a radical doubt regarding all prior hypotheses about the nature of experience. This doubt requires placing the "object of consciousness" between parentheses and investigating whether it exists or not outside the consciousness that intends it.
Phenomenology has had a wide-ranging philosophical influence since Husserl established it in 1905. It was later developed in various ways by Martin Heidegger in Germany and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in France. Phenomenology has significantly influenced Hans-Georg Gadamer and other theorists interested in analyzing the activity of consciousness and understanding language. It has also influenced, directly or indirectly, the methods by which many critics analyze literary experience.
In the 1930s, the Polish theorist Roman Ingarden (1893–1970), who wrote his books in both Polish and German, adopted the general perspective and concepts of phenomenology in his theoretical work on understanding and responding to literary works. In Ingarden's view, a literary or artistic work emerges from the intentional acts of its author's consciousness (and intentionality, in the phenomenological sense, means that these acts are directed towards an object, and these intentional acts, as recorded in the text, allow the reader to re-experience the literary work in their own consciousness). The written text includes multiple elements, which are possibilities, not always fully realized, and it also includes many indefinite possibilities. According to Ingarden, active reading responds to the sequence of printed words through a temporary process of consciousness that fills the possible and undefined aspects of the text. By doing this, as Ingarden puts it, the reader makes the literary work’s schematic structure tangible. This type of reading, it is said, creatively collaborates with the conscious processes recorded by the author and leads to the realization of the "aesthetic object" in the reader's consciousness, which does not reflect the objective truth in the text independently. Instead, the reader's consciousness will create a semblance of truth, that is, the imaginary world.
The term "phenomenological criticism" is often specifically used to describe the theory and practice of critics from the Geneva School (most of whom studied at the University of Geneva), who were united by friendship, mutual influence, and their approach to literature.
Critics from the Geneva School considered the literary work to be an imaginary world created by its author, embodying the unique mode of consciousness of the author in its entirety. In their approach to literature as a subjective world, their criticism appears to be opposed to the objective approach of formalism in its early forms and to New Criticism.
Phenomenological Criticism
The roots of the Geneva School's criticism go back to the expressive Romantic criticism of the 19th century, which viewed the literary work as an expression of the author's personality, with understanding that personality being the primary goal and value of reading literature.
For example, the German critic Johann Gottfried Herder wrote in early 1778: "This vivid reading, this immersion in the spirit of the author, are together the only form of reading and the most profound style for self-development."
Over time, critics from the Geneva School absorbed many concepts and methods from Husserl, Heidegger, and other phenomenologists. In the view of critics from the Geneva School, the cogito or the consciousness structures unique to the author permeate the literary work and manifest as the subjective equivalent of its content, that is, the themes, objects, characters, imaginings, and style upon which the author's personal mode of consciousness and emotion is projected imaginatively.
By placing their personal concerns and idiosyncrasies between parentheses, readers of a literary work can approach it in a pure and passive way. As a result, they are able to participate in or even merge with the inner consciousness of the author. Their attempt to read the work in order to experience the mode of consciousness of its author and then project this consciousness onto their critical writings forms the foundation of the repeated use of the term "critics of consciousness" in the Geneva School. This is further clarified by the description of their critical aim as "consciousness of the consciousness of the other," as expressed by Georges Poulet in his 1969 work Phenomenology of Reading: "When I read as I should, with the total commitment required from the reader, then I think the thought of the other, but I think the thought of the other as if it were my own… and my consciousness behaves as if it were the consciousness of the other."
It is important to note that while Husserl’s aim was to describe the basic, shared structures of consciousness common to all humans, critics from the Geneva School have a somewhat different aim: to determine and merge with the unique subjectivity of each individual author.
In this regard, critics from the Geneva School differ in that they focus on specific elements in the content, structure, and style of a given text in order to isolate the inner consciousness of its author.
A notable tendency among many of these critics is to group scattered passages together in a single work, based on the idea that these passages reveal the persistence and consistency of certain problems, situations, and concerns. Through analyzing them, critics can illuminate the original unity of the creative mind, as J. Hillis Miller states in his book Charles Dickens: "More than that, critics of consciousness treat a single literary work not as a single entity, but as part of a collective structure of the author's writings, in order to determine what persists and continues through all the multiplicities in the novel as a unique worldview and the same thing about Dickens as well, as Hillis Miller says."
Georges Poulet also, in several of his books, traces the historical fictional treatments of the theme of time throughout the history of Western literature, considering these treatments as equivalents of the various modes of lived experience.
In these histories, Georges Poulet identifies "that each stage has a shared consciousness among all contemporary mentalities," and he claims that within this shared consciousness, each writer’s uniqueness appears individually. The influence of "consciousness criticism" reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, and later gave way to more clearly opposing critical modes such as Structuralism and Deconstruction. Nevertheless, many of its concepts and procedures remain alive in contemporary forms of criticism that focus on reader response and reception aesthetics.
هذه هي الترجمة للمقال، وإذا كنت بحاجة إلى مزيد من التوضيح أو المساعدة في أي جزئية من النص، فلا تتردد في سؤالي!
Phenomenology as a perspective and method was established by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). Husserl began his work by analyzing human consciousness, that is, describing the lived, tangible world as it is experienced, independent of any prior assumptions, whether from philosophy or from the common beliefs of ordinary people.
The Concept of Intentionality:
Husserl proposes that consciousness is an intentional, unified act. By intentionality, Husserl does not mean a deliberate, intended action but rather that consciousness is always directed towards something (a thing or object). In other words, to be conscious means to be conscious of something.
Husserl’s claim is that within this central act of consciousness, the thinking subject and the object of their thought or awareness are in a mutual interaction. To free phenomenological analysis from all prior concepts, his analysis of consciousness begins with a radical doubt regarding all prior hypotheses about the nature of experience. This doubt requires placing the "object of consciousness" between parentheses and investigating whether it exists or not outside the consciousness that intends it.
Phenomenology has had a wide-ranging philosophical influence since Husserl established it in 1905. It was later developed in various ways by Martin Heidegger in Germany and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in France. Phenomenology has significantly influenced Hans-Georg Gadamer and other theorists interested in analyzing the activity of consciousness and understanding language. It has also influenced, directly or indirectly, the methods by which many critics analyze literary experience.
In the 1930s, the Polish theorist Roman Ingarden (1893–1970), who wrote his books in both Polish and German, adopted the general perspective and concepts of phenomenology in his theoretical work on understanding and responding to literary works. In Ingarden's view, a literary or artistic work emerges from the intentional acts of its author's consciousness (and intentionality, in the phenomenological sense, means that these acts are directed towards an object, and these intentional acts, as recorded in the text, allow the reader to re-experience the literary work in their own consciousness). The written text includes multiple elements, which are possibilities, not always fully realized, and it also includes many indefinite possibilities. According to Ingarden, active reading responds to the sequence of printed words through a temporary process of consciousness that fills the possible and undefined aspects of the text. By doing this, as Ingarden puts it, the reader makes the literary work’s schematic structure tangible. This type of reading, it is said, creatively collaborates with the conscious processes recorded by the author and leads to the realization of the "aesthetic object" in the reader's consciousness, which does not reflect the objective truth in the text independently. Instead, the reader's consciousness will create a semblance of truth, that is, the imaginary world.
The term "phenomenological criticism" is often specifically used to describe the theory and practice of critics from the Geneva School (most of whom studied at the University of Geneva), who were united by friendship, mutual influence, and their approach to literature.
Critics from the Geneva School considered the literary work to be an imaginary world created by its author, embodying the unique mode of consciousness of the author in its entirety. In their approach to literature as a subjective world, their criticism appears to be opposed to the objective approach of formalism in its early forms and to New Criticism.
Phenomenological CriticismThe roots of the Geneva School's criticism go back to the expressive Romantic criticism of the 19th century, which viewed the literary work as an expression of the author's personality, with understanding that personality being the primary goal and value of reading literature.
For example, the German critic Johann Gottfried Herder wrote in early 1778: "This vivid reading, this immersion in the spirit of the author, are together the only form of reading and the most profound style for self-development."
Over time, critics from the Geneva School absorbed many concepts and methods from Husserl, Heidegger, and other phenomenologists. In the view of critics from the Geneva School, the cogito or the consciousness structures unique to the author permeate the literary work and manifest as the subjective equivalent of its content, that is, the themes, objects, characters, imaginings, and style upon which the author's personal mode of consciousness and emotion is projected imaginatively.
By placing their personal concerns and idiosyncrasies between parentheses, readers of a literary work can approach it in a pure and passive way. As a result, they are able to participate in or even merge with the inner consciousness of the author. Their attempt to read the work in order to experience the mode of consciousness of its author and then project this consciousness onto their critical writings forms the foundation of the repeated use of the term "critics of consciousness" in the Geneva School. This is further clarified by the description of their critical aim as "consciousness of the consciousness of the other," as expressed by Georges Poulet in his 1969 work Phenomenology of Reading: "When I read as I should, with the total commitment required from the reader, then I think the thought of the other, but I think the thought of the other as if it were my own… and my consciousness behaves as if it were the consciousness of the other."
It is important to note that while Husserl’s aim was to describe the basic, shared structures of consciousness common to all humans, critics from the Geneva School have a somewhat different aim: to determine and merge with the unique subjectivity of each individual author.
In this regard, critics from the Geneva School differ in that they focus on specific elements in the content, structure, and style of a given text in order to isolate the inner consciousness of its author.
A notable tendency among many of these critics is to group scattered passages together in a single work, based on the idea that these passages reveal the persistence and consistency of certain problems, situations, and concerns. Through analyzing them, critics can illuminate the original unity of the creative mind, as J. Hillis Miller states in his book Charles Dickens: "More than that, critics of consciousness treat a single literary work not as a single entity, but as part of a collective structure of the author's writings, in order to determine what persists and continues through all the multiplicities in the novel as a unique worldview and the same thing about Dickens as well, as Hillis Miller says."
Georges Poulet also, in several of his books, traces the historical fictional treatments of the theme of time throughout the history of Western literature, considering these treatments as equivalents of the various modes of lived experience.
In these histories, Georges Poulet identifies "that each stage has a shared consciousness among all contemporary mentalities," and he claims that within this shared consciousness, each writer’s uniqueness appears individually. The influence of "consciousness criticism" reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, and later gave way to more clearly opposing critical modes such as Structuralism and Deconstruction. Nevertheless, many of its concepts and procedures remain alive in contemporary forms of criticism that focus on reader response and reception aesthetics.
هذه هي الترجمة للمقال، وإذا كنت بحاجة إلى مزيد من التوضيح أو المساعدة في أي جزئية من النص، فلا تتردد في سؤالي!
