Anil Awad's Quest For Literature: ‘Is there any text in the Class?’

‘Is there any text in the Class?’
Essayist and Critic: Stanley Fish

Lecture Notes by – Anil Awad

The article ‘Is there any text in the Class?’ is related to the Reader Response Theory and opposes the concept of Formalism. What is Formalism? In Formalism, the form of a genre finds prior place over the content…the form is more important than the content…and rejects the idea of any outside influence on the text itself. But Fish rejects the idea of the Formalists…he asks…who is going to read the text? It is reader. If there is no reader…then there is no text. Who is reader? It is a part of a larger community. What is community? Community means a group or folk of people sharing the same ideas, beliefs and customs. So…when a reader starts to read the book…he brings the ideas and beliefs with him and interprets the text according to his viewpoint in particular and the community in general. So…the text lost its isolation…text cannot be read in isolation…it becomes the interpretive part of the larger community…and…and…Fish declares that it is the community that interprets the text…so…there is no text in the class…there are only the words and sentences without meaning…meaning is given by the reader1, reader 2, reader 3 and many more…and who are these readers?…they are the part of different communities with their own ideas and beliefs.

Now take the examples: From view point of Kipling, ‘The Jungle Book’ is the representation of the attempt by British people to civilize the Indians and from Indian view-point it is Colonialism. (Colonialism is a derogatory word for subalterns) Why? Different Communities with different viewpoints – British and Indian. Bhagat Sing, Sukhdev and Rajguru were ‘terrorists’ to the British Community and ‘Freedom Fighters’ to the Indians. The Rebel of 1857 is a small mutiny for the British Empire and it is the First War of Independence to the Indian Community. If we read the History from Indian Viewpoint (Indian Reader), we banished the British from India…and when the same history is interpreted from British Viewpoint (British Reader)…Indians became non-cooperative in running the administration…which were run for their betterment…so British left the India and got rid of them. Who interprets it? It is the reader representing the community…

Remember…it is applicable to every scholar (representative of Community/Masses) who is abided to any kind of –isms.

From viewpoint of Marxists…Hamlet is the story of internal struggle of ruling class for power in which the common people also suffer. King Lear is the story of Bourgeoisies (Middle Class) uprising and Edmund rightly presented it. Othello – skin and colour discrimination. Literature is nothing but the story of class struggle throughout the ages – Marxists.

And for Psychoanalysis it is…‘Oedipus Complex’, ‘Dilemma’ etc. Hamlet incest attraction for his mother leads to tragedy. Dilemma in Hamlet and Inferiority Complex in Othello are the roots of tragedy of the protagonists. It was in their unconscious (id) mind.

Feminists ask the questions… What was the fault of poor Ophelia? Why did you kill innocent Desdemona? Cordelia? Juliet? Women are dying and dying and dying and no strong reasons behind their deaths. They have been killed by Shakespeare purposelessly. Shakespeare was a man and he did injustices to women characters – charge feminists. Keep interpreting the text…you are doing it outside text.

And the Stylistics find gloominess and anxiety throughout the text by interpreting the language (Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis of the text)…Language Discourse.

In short, the meaning of the text is determined by the community and a reader is its representative…otherwise the text is nothing but words, utterances and sentences…so there is no text in the class…it is outside the class.

Enjoy the freedom of interpretations. Enjoy a Reader’s Response to a text. Enjoy Text-less Class and Classless Text !

Thank you very much.