Deconstruction ‘An inspiring and dazzling tour de force that revolutionised my thinking’ Gary Day, Times Higher Education Supplement Academic game? Dangerous weapon? The most important devel- opment in twentieth-century literary studies? Setting out to shake not only literary critical assumptions but the very foundations of Western thought, deconstruction remains one of the most controversial yet crucial strands of contemporary critical theory. Since first appearing in 1982, Deconstruction: Theory and Practice has been acclaimed as by far the most readable, concise and authoritative guide to this topic. While in no way oversimplifying its complexity or glossing over the challenges it presents, Christopher Norris’s book sets out to make deconstruction more accessible to the open-minded reader. The volume focuses upon the texts of Jacques Derrida which gave rise to this seismic shift in critical thought, as well as the work of Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, J. Hillis Miller and Harold Bloom, the North American critics who have taken Derrida’s project in their own directions. Inherent in the very idea of deconstruction, however, is the need to revisit, rethink, reassess. In this third, revised edition, Norris builds upon his 1991 Afterword to add an entirely new Postcript, discuss- ing the central topics and development in recent critical debate. The Postscript includes an extensive list of recommended reading, com- plementing what was already one of the most useful bibliographies available. More than ever in this new edition, Deconstruction is the book to revolutionize your thinking. Christopher Norris is Distinguished Research Professor in Phil- osophy at the University of Cardiff, Wales, having until 1991 taught in the Cardiff English Department. He has also held fellowships and visiting appointments at a number of institutions, including the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, the City University of New York and Dartmouth College. IN THE SAME SERIES Alternative Shakespeares ed. John Drakakis Alternative Shakespeares: Volume 2 ed. Terence Hawkes Critical Practice Catherine Belsey Deconstruction: Theory and Practice Christopher Norris Dialogue and Difference: English for the Nineties ed. Peter Brooker and Peter Humm The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Litera- ture Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion Rosemary Jackson Dialogism: Bakhtin and his World Michael Holquist Formalism and Marxism Tony Bennett Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism ed. Gayle Green and Coppélia Kahn Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction Patricia Waugh Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word Walter J. Ong The Politics of Postmodernism Linda Hutcheon Post-Colonial Shakespeares ed. Ania Loomba and Martin Orkin Reading Television John Fiske and John Hartley The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama Keir Elam Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory Toril Moi Structuralism and Semiotics Terence Hawkes Studying British Cultures: An Introduction ed. Susan Bassnett Subculture: The Meaning of Style Dick Hebdige Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of Narrative Fiction Steven Cohan and Linda M. Shires Translation Studies Susan Bassnett Christopher Norris Deconstruction Theory and Practice 3rd edition London and New York First published in 1982 by Methuen & Co. Ltd Reprinted in 1986 with a revised bibliography Revised edition first published in 1991 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Reprinted 1991, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2000 This edition first published 2002 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 1982, 1986, 1991, 2002 Christopher Norris All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-42676-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-44064-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–28009–5 (Hbk) ISBN 0–415–28010–9 (Pbk) CONTENTS General editor’s preface vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction xi 1 Roots: structuralism and New Criticism 1 From Kant to Saussure: the prison-house of concepts 4 New Critic into structuralist? 7 Roland Barthes 8 Beyond New Criticism 15 2 Jacques Derrida: language against itself 18 Blindness and Insight: deconstructing the New Criticism 22 Language, writing, differance 24 Culture, nature, writing: Rousseau and Lévi-Strauss 32 3 From voice to text: Derrida’s critique of philosophy 41 Phenomenology and/or structuralism? 47 4 Nietzsche: philosophy and deconstruction 55 Nietzsche, Plato and the sophists 59 Deconstruction on two wheels 60 vi contents Writing and philosophy 63 Beyond interpretation? 66 Nietzsche and Heidegger 67 Nietzsche’s umbrella 69 5 Between Marx and Nietzsche: the politics of deconstruction 73 Derrida on Hegel 74 Marxism, structuralism and deconstruction 77 Nietzsche contra Marx? 82 Foucault and Said: the rhetoric of power 84 6 The American connection 89 Deconstruction ‘on the wild side’: Geoffrey Hartman and J. Hillis Miller 91 Paul de Man: rhetoric and reason 99 Deconstruction at the limit? 104 ‘Ordinary language’: the challenge from Austin 107 Harold Bloom 114 Derrida and Bloom on Freud 121 7 Conclusion: dissenting voices 124 Wittgenstein: language and scepticism 127 Afterword (1991): further thoughts on deconstruction, postmodernism and the politics of theory 134 Postscript to the third (2002) edition 156 Notes for further reading (1982) 179 Bibliography (including works cited) 190 Index 225 GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE No doubt a third General Editor’s Preface to New Accents seems hard to justify. What is there left to say? Twenty-five years ago, the series began with a very clear purpose. Its major concern was the newly perplexed world of academic literary studies, where hectic monsters called ‘The- ory’, ‘Linguistics’ and ‘Politics’ ranged. In particular, it aimed itself at those undergraduates or beginning postgraduate students who were either learning to come to terms with the new developments or were being sternly warned against them. New Accents deliberately took sides. Thus the first Preface spoke darkly, in 1977, of ‘a time of rapid and radical social change’, of the ‘erosion of the assumptions and presuppositions’ central to the study of litera- ture. ‘Modes and categories inherited from the past’ it announced, ‘no longer seem to fit the reality experienced by a new generation’. The aim of each volume would be to ‘encourage rather than resist the process of change’ by combining nuts-and-bolts exposition of new ideas with clear and detailed explanation of related conceptual devel- opments. If mystification (or downright demonisation) was the enemy, lucidity (with a nod to the compromises inevitably at stake there) became a friend. If a ‘distinctive discourse of the future’ beckoned, we wanted at least to be able to understand it. With the apocalypse duly noted, the second Preface proceeded viii general editor’s preface piously to fret over the nature of whatever rough beast might stagger portentously from the rubble. ‘How can we recognise or deal with the new?’, it complained, reporting nevertheless the dismaying advance of ‘a host of barely respectable activities for which we have no reassuring names’ and promising a programme of wary surveillance at ‘the boundaries of the precedented and at the limit of the thinkable’. Its conclusion, ‘the unthinkable, after all, is that which covertly shapes our thoughts’ may rank as a truism. But in so far as it offered some sort of useable purchase on a world of crumbling certainties, it is not to be blushed for. In the circumstances, any subsequent, and surely final, effort can only modestly look back, marvelling that the series is still here, and not unreasonably congratulating itself on having provided an initial outlet for what turned, over the years, into some of the distinctive voices and topics in literary studies. But the volumes now re-presented have more than a mere historical interest. As their authors indicate, the issues they raised are still potent, the arguments with which they engaged are still disturbing. In short, we weren’t wrong. Academic study did change rapidly and radically to match, even to help to generate, wide reaching social changes. A new set of discourses was developed to negotiate those upheavals. Nor has the process ceased. In our deliquescent world, what was unthinkable inside and outside the academy all those years ago now seems regularly to come to pass. Whether the New Accents volumes provided adequate warning of, maps for, guides to, or nudges in the direction of this new terrain is scarcely for me to say. Perhaps our best achievement lay in cultivating the sense that it was there. The only justification for a reluctant third attempt at a Preface is the belief that it still is. TERENCE HAWKES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks to all those in Cardiff – especially Carol Bretman, Kathy Kerr, Karen MacDonaugh, Nigel Mapp, and Peter Sedgwick – whose com- ments and criticisms over the past few years have clarified my thinking and helped to locate the points most in need of further discussion in the Afterword. Also to Terence Hawkes for commissioning this volume, way back in the early ‘New Accents’ days, and for offering such a wealth of shrewd editorial advice. Any errors that remain are entirely his fault. Jacques Derrida has provided much help and encouragement since the book first went to press, and I hope he will find nothing to regret in this latest printing. My debts nearer home are (yet again) very partially repaid by dedicating this book to my wife Alison and daugh- ters, Clare and Jenny. Finally, greetings to my cultural-materialist com- rades in the Red Choir (Côr Cochion Caerdydd) for managing to unite theory and practice in the best possible way. Cardiff June 1990 THIRD EDITION (2002) Ten years on and (again) I have to think of all the people – colleagues, students, friends, correspondents, astute critics of this book in its