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Reflexivity and Reading

1980; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/468937

1080-661X

Lucien Dällenbach, Annette Tomarken,

French Literature and Poetry

T HE MOST OBVIOUS effect of the breaking open of the structuralist closure has been to renew discussion of those problems of reception and reading which could not be taken into account by the Saussurian notion of the text, modeled on the dichotomy of langue and parole. Inspired by this new direction in research, particularly by the contributions of the Constance school, the present study will investigate, from the point of view of the addressee, reflexive texts which contain mise(s) en abyme (i.e., texts containing one or more doublings which function as mirrors or microcosms of the text). By viewing mise en abyme as a factor in the readability of the text and evaluating its impact on the process of reception, I hope to contribute to current work on the rhetoric of reading.1 At least three reasons can be suggested for relating mise en abyme and reception. The first, which I shall try to justify below, is that mise en abyme appears as a privileged object for the constitution of a theory of reading, involving, as will be seen, the various aspects of such a theory. Conversely, the theory of reading may clarify mise en abyme better than previous approaches, which have centered on one or a combination of the following elements: the writer and the written, the text alone, the text and its textualization.2 The second reason concerns the possibility of broadening and internationalizing research, since the articulation of mise en abyme and of the problematics of reception may bring to bear upon one another two literary traditions which are complementary despite being relatively ignorant of each other. The first of these, the German and Anglo-Saxon tradition, constricted by its search for realism, delegates a minor role to reflexivity and self-representation, leaving reception and communication to dominate the idea of the literary text favored by these critics.3 The second, or French tradition, conceives of reflexivity in the wake of Mallarme, Proust, and the Nouveau Roman but, in part for that very reason, has remained longer than its counterparts over the Rhine, the Channel, and the Atlantic enslaved by substantialist and autonomist notions of the text.