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Marta Baron-Milian
Shamefaced Concepts
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:
Rita Felski Uses of Literature, Malden 2008.
The various meanings of the peculiar term “manifesto” all
This is an odd manifesto as manifestos go, neither
refer primarily to public declarations formulated clearly and
fish nor fowl, an awkward, ungainly creature that
directly, revealing one’s stance. A manifesto uncovers, lays
ill-fits its parentage. In one sense it conforms per-
bare, reveals, displays, makes accessible, but no doubt the
fectly to type: one-sided, skew-eyed, it harps on
best word to define what it in fact engages in is “betrayal.”
one thing, plays only one note, gives one half of the
The authors of manifestos betray their own views, but also
story. Writing a manifesto is a perfect excuse for
betray the ones(s) to which they owe their allegiance – in
taking cheap shots, attacking straw men, and tos-
betraying the “new” vision, they thus betray what is “old” –
sing babies out with the bathwater. Yet the manife-
tradition. A manifesto is a public undertaking, binding one
stos of the avant-garde were driven by the fury of
to maintain a certain posture, to practice a certain form
their againstness […] What follows is, in this sense,
of action with certain effects on art or reality. The word
an un-manifesto: a negation of a negation, an act
most probably arose from the combination of the words
of yea-saying not nay-saying, a thought experi-
manus (hand) and festus (attack); a manifesto appears
ment that seeks to advocate, not denigrate.”1
as a real struggle, postulating direct engagement and
voluntary exposure to the personal danger of opposition
Felski thus announces that in contrast to the avant-
and to the threat issuing from what is being confronted.
-garde manifest-writers who sought to “knock art off
This aggressive, conflictual aspect throws a specific light
its pedestal,” and whose methods have permeated li-
on the nature of the manifesto, designated by that risky
terary theory, she wishes to propose “a negation of a
friction whose stakes are exceptionally serious: action, an
negation,” an affirmative gesture, on whose foundation,
attempt to change the state of things.
according to her, the construction of a new and positive
reading project will become possible.
In her 2008 book Uses of Literature, recently translated
into Polish as Literatura w użyciu (Literature in Use),
Przemysław Czapliński once wrote that a literary
Rita Felski declares her enthusiastic entry into this fray,
manifesto is the “troubled conscience of literary studies”2
but already in the first sentences attempts to neutralize
– as a genre that unambiguously and undeliberatively
somewhat the risk associated with her endeavour.
settles questions that literary scholarship is indisputably
Introducing her manifesto / un-manifesto (“neither fish
and for obvious reasons incapable of settling. Aiming
nor fowl” in Felski’s words), she simultaneously lets
to be ostentatiously unscientific, it formulates extremely
it be understood that its conflictual aspect will be only
simulated, and the “manifesto” itself, like the literature in
the title, will appear in the role of a “manifesto in use.” The
proof? We find it in the very first sentences of the text:
1
R. Felski: Uses of Literature, Malden 2008, p. 1.
2
P. Czapliński: “Manifest literacki jako tekst literaturoznawczy”
(The Literary Manifesto as a Literary Studies Text) Pamiętnik
Literacki 1992, no. 1, p. 74.
critics | Marta Baron-Milian, Shamefaced Concepts
“irresponsible,”3 unambiguous, severe judgments and
to question the confidence of our own diagnostic
postulates, which neither have to function as nor seek a
authority, and to face up, once and for all, to the force
solution. In this sense the opening confrontation of Felski’s
of our attachments.”6 Nonetheless, it is hard to resist the
literary scholarship project with the avant-garde gesture is
conviction that for all its seductive power, Felski’s project
surprising, appearing as it does to dream of committing
is based on the naive dream of a return to a state of lost
what literary studies have defined as the “sin,” proper to
innocence. Though she herself would surely be cheered
criticism, of evaluation, is surprising; but at the same time,
by the imputation of naïveté.
she defensively demurs before doing so by accident.
The title of the Polish translation, Literature in Use,
What Is Literary Theory Ashamed Of?
immediately refers us to the lexicon of pragmatism, while
Literature is not written for literary scholars. Though that
the English original, Uses of Literature, tells us a great deal
conviction is not formulated so explicitly in the book, there
more about the content of the book than the Polish version,
can be no doubt that it underpins Rita Felski’s reflections
in which the heterogeneous nature of the act of reading,
and could happily wave on the banner of her manifesto/
and of readers’ experience, when in fact its opposition to
un-manifesto, because if Felski declares herself particularly
the stereotypical homogenization of reading is what’s at
strongly against something, it is the elite nature of literary
stake in Felski’s entire project. The project relates above
studies. For its part, that elite nature is founded on the
all to readers’ search for literature’s various applications
removal beyond the horizon of literary scholars’ research
and uses, the varied motivations and purposes for which
pursuits of the reading motivations and experiences of the
people read, and finally, the varied forms of aesthetic
non-professional reader, which appear to the perspective
engagement with the text, in contrast with critical reading,
of theory (in its various iterations) as particularly shameful.
which does not leave room for them in the space of
As Felski writes, “[t]hanks to the institutional entrenchment
theory. There is no doubt that Felski would subscribe to
of negative aesthetics, a spectrum of reader responses
the statement by Ryszard Koziołek, in the book Dobrze
has been ruled out of court in literary theory, deemed
się myśli literaturą (Literature is Good to Think With), which
shamefully naïve at best, and rationalist, reactionary, or
has been so much discussed in recent months: “Literature
4
totalizing at worst.” The concept of negative aesthetics,
should be used, if necessary even for holding up a cabinet
which Felski uses interchangeably with the hermeneutics
with a broken leg by means of books.”7 In fact, Felski
of suspicion, becomes a true sacrificial lamb, burdened
herself writes in similar terms, presenting words as “hand-
by her with blame for that repudiation by literary studies,
me-downs, well-worn tokens used by countless others
the blindness to facts of theory’s thorough depreciation
before us, the detritus of endless myths and movies […].”8
of “the heterogeneous, and politically variable, uses of
It is not, however, the problem of the use of literature itself
5
literary texts in daily life,” forms of engaging with the text,
that is the topic of her book, but the attempt to find out
motivations to read or affects that accompany reading.
what different purposes it can serve, what applications it
She therefore asks whether there exists some kind of
can have for readers, who here become precisely users,
alternative to the specialist hermeneutics of suspicion,
making use – depending on their needs – of the broadly
attempting to oppose the scepticism and negation that
diverse functions offered by literary texts.
are so deeply rooted in literary theory with a peculiar
kind of affirmation. As she postulates passionately in
For a manifesto, however, Felski’s work defines its
the introduction to her analysis: “When scepticism has
adversaries with exceptional indefinition: their image gets
become routinized, self-protective, even reassuring, it is
washed out in the pursuit of new metaphors, only to
time to become suspicious of our entrenched suspicions,
next take on the shape of an opposition so extreme that
3
Ibid., p. 75.
4
Felski, Uses, p. 132.
5
Ibid., p. 13.
6
Ibid., p. 22.
7
R. Koziołek: Dobrze się myśli literaturą. Wydawnictwo Czarne.
Wołowiec 2016, p. 16.
8
Felski, Uses, p. 31.
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it is impossible to maintain. In only a few pages, Felski
affirmative and “dialogic.”12 And, above all, it submits the
settles accounts with all of literary theory, dividing its
hermeneutics of suspicion to its own suspicions.
space into two leading trends, identified with two styles
of reading, the theological and the ideological. In the first
Regardless of the various doubts aroused especially by the
case literature would allegedly be valued for its otherness
generalities – developed at a fairly high level – of Rita Felski’s
and the quality of being exceptional, while in the second
polemic with literary theory, things only really begin to heat
its relation to social reality would become its crucial
up (and become highly engaging) when she begins pitilessly
element. Let us begin, then, from the traditional (and, it
enumerating the chief sins of academic reading, among
must be admitted, very well-worn) opposition between
which the biggest relates to the marginalization of the theory
“the Scylla of political functionalism and the Charybdis of
of reading and the political situation of reading. In this light,
art for art’s sake […].”9 It is nonetheless hard to say why
historians of literature take cover behind history and do not
all ways of reading that question literature’s autonomy
ask questions about the contemporary importance of the
are accused by Felski of instrumentalization, political
text, its potential participation in current social debates. In
functionalism and the definition of literature as ideology,
addition, the rhetoric imposed by theoreticians is alleged to
which, in her view, means having “decided ahead of time
have drowned out readerly reactions in general. Felski thus
that literary works can be objects of knowledge but never
exaggerates the antagonisms between reading specialists,
10
sources of knowledge.” Why should an approach to the
who not only create a hierarchy in the world of literature
study of literature (or art) within the perspective of the
but also project the nature of the act of reading itself, and
influence of external forces that violate the integrity of its
“ordinary readers.” That distance is directly proportional to
boundaries, one opposed to the belief in its autonomous
the distance separating the lowly motives, pronounced to
nature, constitute an unequivocal resignation from the
be primitive by experts, that animate the “masses” from a
cognitive function? And furthermore, why should belief
“proper” reading, available to a handful of initiates. Felski
in the causative power of literature, which can be a
simultaneously lays bare the tremendous problem theory
sphere of projected social change and a space of real
has with the fact that literature can be evaluated for reasons
public debate, eliminate its specific knowledge, being
other than those recognized and accepted by theory itself.
a kind of conglomerate of individual articulation and
collective consciousness and artistic form? Why should
Starting from there, Felski shows the necessity of freeing
it depreciate such knowledge, instead of welcoming
academic reading from the enclave of elitism that it has
it as boon that certainly enhances the conditions for
created itself. The point of departure for this gesture must
the potential formation of artistic agency? Why should
nonetheless be the perception of literary studies’ great
every form of opposition to the vision of art’s autonomy
oversight: everyday motives for reading, readers’ practices
automatically “force an equivalence of textual structures
and the political situation of reading. That leads us to the
11
with social structures”? Felski’s book does not provide
need to break down the opposition between low and
answers to these questions. At the same time, both sides
high, popular and artistic, revealing the class-basednature
of the dispute – drawn, it must be said, in what can only
of the contempt with which elite readers treat “ordinary”
be called a quite reductive vein – are accused by her, also
readers. And this is undoubtedly the most interesting,
somewhat traditionally, of reductionism, in order to then
most important element of the plan developed in Uses of
build her own project in the narrow middle ground, one
Literature and the one most needed by literary theory itself.
which, needless to say, is not so radical or so reductive;
Felski thus writes her manifesto / un-manifesto, cutting
nor is it in any way despotic, but rather “respectful,”
herself off from the avant-garde sensibility which she
claims marks most theoretical gestures, above all in terms
of their drive to unmask universal, everyday practices and
9
Ibid., p. 9.
10
Ibid., p. 7.
11
Ibid., p. 8.
aspirations to expose “false consciousness.” Instead she
12
Ibid., p. 7.
critics | Marta Baron-Milian, Shamefaced Concepts
takes as her guides – with no fear of the risk it entails –
of literature does not boil down to either eliciting aesthetic
“common sense” and intuition. As Felski declares, “My
rapture or action in the sphere of power relations. It is
argument is not a populist defense of folk reading over
situated in other registers – to which academic literary
scholarly interpretation, but an elucidation of how, in spite
studies remain blind.
of their patent differences, they share certain affective
and cognitive parameters.”13 Felski takes philosophical
Self-Discovery or Self-Deception?
and simultaneously methodological inspiration from a
The first of the crucial categories Felski uses to describe
phenomenology of reading that “calls for an undogmatic
reading practices is recognition, a process that joins
14
openness to a spectrum of literary responses […].”
together cognitive function and affective charge and
Dreading the accusation of ahistoricism, she nevertheless
involves “finding yourself in the work,” i.e., what Dorian
wades into a project of neophenomenology that unites
Gray experienced when reading a book that was
phenomenology with a historical and sociopolitical
presumably Huysmans’s À rebours, recognizing in its
perspective.
hero his “prototype”, and nourishing the belief that the
book was really about his own life, written out before he
In her effort to implement the goals she has set herself, Rita
came to live through it. On the one hand, recognition is
Felski creates a real cabinet of curiosities in her book, in
therefore a narcissistic allegorization, while on the other
which a multitude of concepts despised by literary theory
hand, it expresses an extremely unprofessional readerly
are gathered together, generally speaking, those derided by
naïveté, which is why Felski finds it so very interesting.
the hermeneutics of suspicion, which undeniably becomes
And thus for reasons exactly opposite to those for which
15
Proceeding
it appeared as a functional category for twentieth century
down this path, Felski distinguishes four categories
theory, in which recognition serves exploration only to the
within which she organizes her thought: recognition,
extent that it is an erroneous or false recognition, revealing
enchantment, knowledge and shock. These concepts,
simultaneously the illusory character of self-knowledge
she claims, “name quite ordinary structures of experience
and the construction of a perpetually miscarried image
that are also political, philosophical, and aesthetic
of the self, who is doomed to experience non-identity
the main adversary in Felski’s reflections.
16
These
with its own self. The two key inspirations here are the
four keywords define the various forms of engagement
stories, reproduced in various forms in cultural studies,
with reading, designating the axis of interaction between
of the Lacanian mirror and the Althusserian policeman.
reader and text. In these four concepts, she would have
Felski, however, shows the paradox in which the
us feel intimations of “the shadowy presence of some
philosophical and literary scholarly critique of recognition
venerable aesthetic categories”17 such as anagnorisis,
becomes entangled: “If we are barred from achieving
beauty, mimesis and the sublime, which she seeks to
insight or self-understanding, how could we know that
submit to revision, formulating the reasons why we read
an act of misrecognition had taken place? The critique
and the values based on which the nature and functions
of recognition, in this respect, reveals an endemic failure
of literature are defined, offering an answer diametrically
to face up to the normative commitments underpinning
opposed to the one that emerges from the main areas of
its own premises […].”18 And here, it is hard to resist the
literary studies. In Felski’s opinion, the most important task
impression that the discussions undertaken by Felski
concepts fanning out into complex histories.”
begin and end at the surface level of the problem, and the
rhythm of quick leaps between threads are determined
13
Ibid., p. 14.
14
Ibid., p. 18.
15
Felski further develops this thread in her 2015 book The
Limits of Critique, devoted precisely to polemics with the
demystificatory imperative that drives contemporary literary
studies. See R. Felski: The Limits of Critique, Chicago 2015.
16
Felski, Uses of Literature, p. 17.
17
Ibid., p. 15.
rather by pragmatic ends. Felski’s narrative in fact comes
off much better when it is based on direct analysis and
interpretation of works (she then frequently draws truly
revelatory conclusions) than when it ascends into a high
18
Ibid., p. 28.
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174
level of generality. At that level, for example, we see her
acknowledgement of difference or otherness, but also
tendency to use the rather transparent category of “the
the acknowledgement of its value. In the realm of identity,
reader,” not anchored in reality and not subject to social,
meanwhile, it relates to the acquisition of self-knowledge,
economic, historical or geographical conditions (all the
which is linked to the process of self-analysis. Felski
more astonishing in the work of a scholar from a feminist
shows, however, that those two meanings in no way
school of literary criticism). Things are utterly different
contradict each other, as they remain in the sphere of
in the case of her concrete analyses – so it is difficult
questions of identity. Recognition itself oscillates between
to explain the asymmetry that arises between analyses
“knowledge and acknowledgement, the epistemological
and generalized judgments which cause the concepts
and the ethical, the subjective and the social […].”20
invoked to lose their historical and social precision,
becoming somehow homogeneous, abstracted from the
It is difficult, nonetheless, to agree with Felski’s thesis that
network of factors that determine them.
“books will often function as lifelines for those deprived
of other forms of public acknowledgement. Until very
Felski attempts to capture the various forms that
recently, for example, such deprivation stamped
recognition can take – she points to self-intensification,
the lives of women who desired other women.”21 Is
relating to self-recognition in what is similar, and self-
“recognition” and the attempt at identification really
extension, the recognition of the self in experiences that
what literature should have to offer people deprived
are completely other to it. At the same time, the distance
of public acknowledgement and excluded? Should its
separating self-intensification from self-extension opens
function not be situated in a completely different place?
a broad set of problems that no doubt constitute an
Recognition as Felski formulates it means that literature
important and intriguing area for post-colonial studies
becomes a form of inherently absurd substitution that the
or economic literary criticism. It is difficult to speak of
reader would temporarily feel obligated to find satisfying
recognition as something permanent, graspable or
since in any case there is no way to change reality. In
structurally defined. We can instead speak of “the shock
offering that kind of “miserable consolation,” assuaging
of recognition.” The moment of recognition is an illusory
longings, answering the desire for change with empty
pinprick to subjectivity, whose nature is undeniably
phantasms, literature positions itself outside of efforts to
reductive. Literature is ascribed the function of “a
influence reality, outside attempts to develop a project
mediating role in this drama of self-formation”
19
when
of real social intervention which might actually change
we are let down by social and political forms of struggle
the situation of the unacknowledged, might work in
for recognition, acknowledgement, and inclusion in the
opposition to exclusion. And though Felski writes that
community, which reveal their inadequacy in confrontation
the potential for recognition lies within literature precisely
with exclusion and alienation. In this sense, according to
because it is “a narrative, not a sociological screed,”22
Felski, art, by means of aesthetic experience, has the
because it acts as fiction, because the encounter with
power to provide a sense of identification and inclusion
it is an aesthetic experience, it is hard not to agree with
in the community. The tragedy of non-recognition is
her but still harder to stifle the conviction that this is not
simultaneously a tragedy of misunderstanding and of not
where literature’s function should end.
belonging. In this respect, recognition fuses in itself the
personal and the public, becoming also a kind of social
Disenchantment with Enchantment
diagnosis (Felski analyses this fact very interestingly using
The next part of the book could not exist without
the example of the historical identification of women
the belief that literature has seductive power, that it
with the heroines of Ibsen’s dramas, indicating a crucial
captivates with its charms, spellbinds, intoxicates but
gender asymmetry in the space of reception). Recognition
in the political sense means not only “maturity” and the
19
Ibid., p. 33.
20
Ibid., p. 49.
21
Ibid., p. 43.
22
Ibid., p. 44.
critics | Marta Baron-Milian, Shamefaced Concepts
also, as follows naturally from that, deceives. Literature
criticized by scholars who point to both the affective
enchants and disenchants simultaneously. The next of
nature of modern process and their entanglement in
the despised concepts invoked by Felski is precisely
magical and mythical thinking. Curiously, the concept of
enchantment, which she describes as “a term with
enchantment conceals, in Felski’s view, a peculiar kind of
precious little currency in literary theory, calling up
blind spot that causes academic scholars to completely
scenarios of old-school professors swooning in rapture
dismiss this seductive and intoxicating aspect of literary
over the delights of Romantic poetry. Contemporary
or (perhaps especially) filmic work, displacing it beyond
critics pride themselves on their power to disenchant,
the area of reflection on reception and in the process
to mercilessly direct laser-sharp beams of critique
falsifying the image presented therein. The category of
at every imaginable object. In Lyotard’s words,
enchantment, as explored by Felski, though it appears
“demystification is an endless task.”23 At the same time,
similar to the concept of jouissance, is nonetheless
inevitably linked with enchantment is the abandonment
radically detached from it. As we read in Felski:
of the distanced position that makes the critical gaze
“[Jouissance] was a forbidding, highbrow, Parisian
possible – that position is discarded on behalf of high-
kind of pleasure, a transgressive frisson inspired by the
intensity engagement, the renunciation of one’s own
Marquis de Sade, not chanteuse Sade.”28
autonomy and self-control. Our capacity for thought,
our predispositions, scepticism, causative agency and
The myth of the siren song, particularly apposite to this
any possibility of taking action then become irrelevant.
narrative of enchantment, becomes for Adorno and
Especially since, as the example of Emma Bovary
Horkheimer in the Dialectic of Enlightenment a sign of
shows, what we are dealing with is often the “erotic
the fulfilled desire for a “‘euphoric suspension of the self’
24
In what
[…].”29 The nostalgic and unequivocally conservative
she writes about both recognition and enchantment,
concept of enchantment fixes the reader in a state
however, Felski does not make use of the full potential
of immobility in the form of a surrender to captivity at
implicit in either affective criticism or somatic criticism,
the hands of external forces, a relinquishment of one’s
with its analysis of the body’s involvement in both the
freedom and causative agency, a passive experience of
creative act and the act of reception.
pleasure which is inescapably allied with the free market
undertow of aesthetic enchantment […].”
mechanism of the production of needs. And it seems
The anti-intellectualism of the concept of enchantment
the most dangerous among the catalogue of concepts
is, in fact, obvious and places it, as Felski declares,
derided by literary scholarship and presented to us by
dangerously close to the margins of secularized thought
25
Felski.
in connection with the siren song of art: “Enchantment
matters because one reason that people turn to works
Deceived Knowledge
of art is to be taken out of themselves, to be pulled into
The third key reading motivation is, we are told,
26
an altered state of consciousness” ; “Enchantment in
designated by the knowledge people seek out in
this sense is the antithesis and enemy of criticism. To be
texts, and the cognitive function of literature. The
27
questions “What does literature know?” or “What does
Felski draws attention to the fact that Max Weber’s thesis
literature not know?” present us with the concepts,
enchanted is to […] lose one’s head and one’s wits […].”
on modern disenchantment with the world, a thesis
heavily overused by theory, of mimesis, truth and
which has attained enormous popularity, is increasingly
representation, through the prism of which Felski in
Uses of Literature attempts to critically read the basic
foundations of several theoretical schools. She presents
23
Ibid., p. 54.
24
Ibid., p. 53.
25
See ibid., p. 57.
28
Ibid., p. 60.
26
Ibid., p. 76.
29
27
Ibid., p. 56.
Ibid., p. 71; quoting Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of
Enlightenment, Stanford 2002, p. 26.
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176
the history of literary studies as an archive of conflicting
on behalf of claims that “all forms of knowing are shaped
metaphors for truth, on one side of which we find
by [...] conventions of genre,”32 that “mimesis is by no
appearance, illusion, delusion, shadow, and the big lie
means limited to realism,”33 or that mimesis “is an act
of falsification, and on the other, a fairy-like spectacle
of creative imitation, not mindless copying,”34 and that
of glass metaphors, the mirror, the window looking out
metaphors can fulfil a cognitive function, resemble a
on the world and its reflection. In the space between
debate with an imaginary interlocutor?
the two shores of this metaphorical archive, Felski takes
on the fairly backbreaking task of attempting to look
In focusing on an analysis of ways of conveying objects,
“differently” at the problem of art’s referential obligations
mainly in the poetry of Pablo Neruda, Felski attempts to
and predispositions, at the distance between realism,
show how literature can examine materiality and social
the “reality effect,” and literature’s negative knowledge,
interactions, on the one hand “taking us in” toward
showing the history of thought on the truth of art as a
imagined worlds, while on the other leading us toward
30
“chronicle of outgrown errors […].” The access point of
referentiality. Felski tries to show literary knowledge as
this part of the analysis is the formulation of the following
having been constantly led astray, as an original and
thesis: “Literature’s relationship to knowledge is not only
fully entitled form of social knowledge (unlike Terry
negative or adversarial; it can also expand, enlarge, or
Eagleton, who defines it as an “analogue of knowledge”
31
re-order our sense of how things are.” This recognition,
or “something like knowledge”) inseparably linked with
undeniably a rather misty one, is superseded by the
artistic form. Her diagnosis is very important, but the
question that determines the actual direction of Felski’s
author stops right at this point, not going any further
polemic: the problem of the connection between any
and not trying to define what exactly the unique nature
type of literary knowledge and its form. Felski chooses
of this literary knowledge is to be based on, how its
as her opponents those whose view of the situation is
full authorization can be justified, what makes it a
different, i.e., who claim that when the purpose of the
form of knowledge accessible to discourses of other
text becomes the transmission of knowledge, formal
systems, what proper significance artistic form has
questions shift to the background. And once again, this
for its shape, how the social production of literary
stereotypically drawn, rather abstract opponent is not a
knowledge takes place, what connection it has with
flesh-and-blood opponent, lacking as it usually does a
individual and collective experience, what sense it can
name or a concrete textual form, but materializes only
be socially useful, and especially, what exactly this
as the sum of reported views that here serve pragmatic
literary knowledge has to offer the reader – for he or she
purposes (“uses of theory”?). This “faceless” opponent
is, after all, the main focus of Felski’s book. We are here
in its various incarnations is the hero of all parts of the
undoubtedly witnessing a very suggestive and intriguing
book and stirs the most doubts in it, because, to take
rescue of literature from the depths of cognitive failures
the example of her thoughts on cognitive function, do
and referential disasters, but we do not in fact get
we really find in the history of literary studies so many
the long-awaited answer to the question of what its
examples of an approach in which literary knowledge
cognitive victories would involve.
is supposed to be completely separate from its artistic
form (from problems to do with genre, for example)?
Let’s Talk About Shock
Felski seems here to do battle with the long-discredited
In the final part of the book, Felski examines the abilities
idea of the autonomy, objectivity and detachment from
of literary texts to shock or elicit outrage. At the same
the contingencies of language of scholarly and scientific
time, she opposes the position of what has been called
judgments, and in truth it is hard not to see a hint of tilting
ethical criticism, within which Martha Nussbaum and
at windmills here. For does not strenuous argumentation
30
31
32
Ibid., p. 84.
Ibid., p. 82.
33
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 83.
34
Ibid., p. 85
critics | Marta Baron-Milian, Shamefaced Concepts
Wayne Booth have devised judgments on the particular
Felski draws attention to the lack of justification for the
kind of “friendly” relationship formed between the reader
avant-garde rejection of the entire tradition as relating to
and the book. As Felski argues, if, in our contemporary
the might of patriarchal authority and a kind of legitimization
world of blunted sensitivity, “the aura of revolution is now
of the social order, where in fact, the transgressive and
a styling and marketing advantage, if transgression is
subversive potential of, for example, classical tragedy
harnessed to the selling of sneakers and a cornucopia of
contains, she finds, significantly greater, timeless power
sexual perversions is only a mouse-click away, then surely
to affect than is possible in the case of most avant-garde
the project of the avant-garde is irrevocably exhausted.
gestures. The aesthetic of shock, according to Felski, is
Under such conditions, shock is irrevocably stripped
not up to the tasks that the avant-garde ethos binds it
35
Thus, Felski
to, and which are supposed primarily to boil down to a
once again proposes to detach our grasp and definition
correlation between individual or collective shock and the
of shock from the avant-garde tradition, a project
coming transformation of society.
of any remaining shred of authenticity.”
she deems irretrievably worn down, today no longer
possessing any subversive or emancipatory potential and
The aesthetic of shock is only superficially asocial in
stripped of the ability to break down social and aesthetic
nature, however, being determined in equal parts by
taboos. The avant-garde artistic movements from the
problems relating to class, race and gender issues. The
early twentieth century, in Felski’s view, succeeded in
fascination with ugliness in art, Felski claims, following
“frenetically debunking mythologies and slaughtering all
Bourdieu, reveals its fundamental character to be
sacred cows except one: the authenticity of their own
inescapably class-based, suited as it is to the sublimated
antinomian stance.” Aggressive and extreme forms of
tastes of the upper middle class. On the other hand,
engagement aimed at bourgeois logic, representing
she shows how literary provocation has historically been
a powerful, instinctual cry, were supposed to act
a male domain, representing a peculiar kind of attack
like an electric shock, but it has unexpectedly been
on stereotypical feminine prudishness. Even if it was a
neutralized by the assimilation of what was avant-garde
series of feminine figures who in fact became symbols
into the mainstream, through the turning of what was
of the bestial, the procreative, the corporeal and the
ostentatiously anti-economic into a good investment.
disgustingly natural. That is above all typical of the avantgarde and modernism. Felski, in her riveting analyses
Where the shock-driven aspirations of the avant-garde
(for example, of the work of Sara Kane) here provides
to demolish and reformulate the social order ended up
proof of the shift in contemporary culture, in keeping with
disappointing, the art of shock in fact does, Felski claims,
whose current a particular kind of aesthetic of shock has
reveal its emancipatory and subversive properties,
begun to dominate in women’s writing. Felski explains
overcoming stereotypes and rules, when it foregoes
that “[a]s a history of expectations about the nature of
clearly defined social goals. Shock that tears down the
femininity comes under intense stress, ever more female
schemata of perception, but also the space and time in
writers are turning toward an aesthetic of provocation
which perception is happening, becomes, by virtue of its
and perversity.”37 The shock, however, is being absorbed
immediacy, “the antithesis of the blissful enfolding and
by the capitalist trends of late modernity. In this sense, its
voluptuous pleasure that we associate with enchantment.
subversive nature has become suspect. It has ceased to
Instead of being rocked and cradled, we find ourselves
be an expression of rebellion and instead is a compromise
ambushed and under assault.”36
with the free market, which – again, as in the case of
enchantment, though also completely differently – found
In showing the effects of shock using the example of
in the aesthetic of shock a supremely good tool for
classical tragedies (in particular Euripides’s Bacchae),
satisfying the cravings and needs of the mass audience.
35
Ibid., p. 107.
36
Ibid., p. 113.
37
Ibid., p. 126.
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The Trouble with the Full-time Reader
outside the elitism of literary studies are unquestionably
In Uses of Literature, Rita Felski sketches out the
the most intriguing, relevant, and utterly necessary part
conditions in which a peculiar type of “complex
of Felski’s project, she nevertheless fails to give voice to
of diminishing returns” of the humanities and the
those readers who are not full-time specialists. A full-time
depreciation of both literature itself and reading has
reader herself, she speaks in their name while speculating
taken shape, becoming one of the main sources of
on the subject of their motivations. We therefore do not
apathy and discouragement among literary scholars, and
get an image of how a part-time reader reads, but at best
vice versa. As many reviewers have noted, Felski sees
how a full-time reader reads on her day off, or after hours.
a possible antidote for the existing state of affairs in the
And that is, to a great extent, what the book is about.
continuing efforts to build a bridge between theory and
general knowledge and common sense, yet does not
In this affirmation of reading, there are a few pieces of the
place her complete trust in that solution. She repeatedly
puzzle that appear still to be missing – a curtain of silence
harmonizes with the voice of Antoine Compagnon, who
falls on the fact that the influence of books on the reader
in his chronicle of skirmishes in literary theory writes in
is not always a good one, and that reading itself is class-
the spirit of common sense: “The aim of theory is […]
conditioned, generating class conditions and distinctions
the defeat of common sense. It contests it, criticizes it,
in terms of both the motivation and goals for reading as
denounces it as a series of fallacies […] theory makes
well as readerly reactions. On the one hand, then – and
it seem indispensable to begin by freeing oneself from
this is doubtless the most important gesture in Rita Felski’s
these fallacies in order to talk about literature. But the
entire project – she seeks to draw literature out of the
resistance of common sense to theory is unimaginable.
literary studies enclave, which establishes hierarchy and
[…] common sense never gives up, and theorists are
tries to turn reading, and above all, understanding, into an
obstinate. Having failed to settle their accounts with their
elite activity. Felski focuses her attention on the egalitarian,
bêtes noires once and for all, they become entangled.”38
everyday, universal aspect of reading, but at the same
time promotes reading as an individual activity, serving
Despite the promised affirmation that Felski attempts
personal goals, and does not give adequate consideration
to advance and oppose to the negation, critique and
to collective reception, or, more importantly, the social
suspicion she finds so intolerable, despite the fact that she
impact of literature (to which she only pays attention, with
wants to cheer up the so-called “common” or “ordinary”
truly revelatory results, in her analysis of the reception of
reader by the mere fact that literary studies have not
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler). And through this omission, her
completely forgotten about him or her, Uses of Literature
otherwise fascinating depiction of literature as a machine
do not fill one with optimism. Despite the apologia for the
for satisfying individual needs would appear to lose most.
many possible uses and applications of literature, each
The motivations for reading, enumerated and inspected by
chapter seems underpinned by the belief that literature,
Felski, correspond to the beloved tools of the free market
when it all comes down to it, can achieve very little, has
that have become the best way to ensure the profitability
relatively low causative power, and is tasked not with
of each publishing initiative: literature as product wants
projecting change but rather gratifying the narcissistic
to somehow shock, enchant or come out against the
needs of the “ordinary” reader, for whom identification and
narcissistic desire for identification while simultaneously
enchantment are to replace what he lacks, becoming, for
offering the individual greater self-knowledge and thereby
example, a substitute for belonging to what he or she is,
self-improvement. But those are not the uses of literature
in a social sense, excluded from. So the claim goes: it is all
that we would really have liked to consider.
right, we don’t have much, but look, we might have had
nothing at all! Even though the various attempts to move
38
A. Compagnon, Literature, Theory, and Common Sense, trans.
Carol Cosman, Princeton 2004, p. 193.
Keywords | Abstract | Note on the Author
...
critics | Marta Baron-Milian, Shamefaced Concepts
KEYWORDS
li terar y the or y
use
hermeneutics of suspicion
affective criticism
ae sthe t ic s o f re ce pt ion
Abstract:
This text represents an attempt to analyze the main premises of Rita Felski’s theoretical project presented
in her book Uses of Literature, translated into Polish as Literatura w użyciu (Literature in Use). The American scholar’s reflections, focused on problems of reception aesthetic and constituting a polemic with the
concept, crucial to contemporary literary theory, of the hermeneutics of suspicion and with critical theory, are here interpreted using the four concepts relied on by Felski in the book: recognition enchantment,
knowledge and shock. They constitute various forms of readerly engagement with the text and various
forms of use, of applications of literature in practices of everyday, non-specialist reading. This article
identifies Felski’s attempt to disrupt the elitism of literary studies and their exclusionary stance toward
non-professional readers as one of the most important elements in her project as put forth in the book.
Note on the Author:
Marta Baron-Milian works in the I. Opacki Department of Contemporary Literature at the University of
Silesia and is the editor of the literary quarterly FA-art and the author of the books Grzebanie grzebania.
Archeolog i grabarz w twórczości Jerzego Ficowskiego (The Burial of Burial. Archaeologist and Gravedigger in
the Work of Jerzy Ficowski) and Wat plus Vat. Związki literatury i ekonomii w twórczości Aleksandra Wata
(Wat + VAT. Connections Between Literature and Economics in the Work of Aleksandr Wat). She co-edited
the book Teoria nad-interpretacją? (Theory through Overinterpretation?).
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