DECONSTRUCTION
What is it?
Deconstruction: A school of philosophy that originated in France
in the late 1960s, has had an enormous impact on AngloAmerican criticism. Largely the creation of its chief proponent
Jacques Derrida, deconstruction upends the Western
metaphysical tradition. It represents a complex response to a
variety of theoretical and philosophical movements of the 20th
century, most notably Husserlian phenomenology, Saussurean
and French structuralism, and Freudian and Lacanian
psychoanalysis.
[First paragraph of a seven-page explanation in the
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1993).]
Deconstruction: The term denotes a particular kind of
practice in reading and, thereby, a method of criticism and
mode of analytical inquiry. In her book The Critical
Difference (1981), Barbara Johnson clarifies the term:
"Deconstruction is not synonymous with "destruction",
however. It is in fact much closer to the original meaning of
the word 'analysis' itself, which etymologically means "to
undo" -- a virtual synonym for "to de-construct." ... If
anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not
the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one
mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading
is a reading which analyses the specificity of a text's critical
difference from itself."
[First paragraph of a four-page definition of the term
deconstruction in J.A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary
Terms and Literary Theory, third ed. (London: Blackwell,
1991)].
Deconstruction: School of philosophy and literary criticism
forged in the writings of the French philosopher Jacques
Derrida and the Belgium/North American literary critic Paul
De Man. Deconstruction can perhaps best be described as
a theory of reading which aims to undermine the logic of
opposition within texts.
[Start of a four-page definition of deconstruction in A
Dictionary of Critical Theory (London: Blackwell, 1996).]
Deconstruction: Rarely has a critical theory attracted the
sort of dread and hysteria that deconstruction has incited
since its inception in 1967.
[Beginning of an eleven-page entry in A Dictionary of
Critical Theory (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991).]
"Deconstruction" as incorporated without meaning into
everyday language, associated with "grunge"
...We think we speak the English, or French, of today. But
our English or French language of today is of yesterday
and elsewhere. The miracle is that language has not been
cut from its archaic roots -- even if we do not remember,
our language remembers, and what we say began to be
said three thousand years ago. Inversely language has
incorporated our own times, before even we know, the
most recent elements, linguistic and semantic particles
blown by the present winds.
Here is an example, which I find magnificent and comic,
magnificently comic and comically magnificent, that I have
taken from an American magazine destined for the public
dated April 1993. It is the beginning of an illustrated fashion
article:
Deconstruction may be the darling of Europe but in
the U.S. it's a love-hate thing. Creases are ironed
out, raw edges refined, grunge given a touch of
polish.
In New York, memories are not only short, they are
entirely selective. Grunge -- the so-called fashion
revolution which has launched a thousand headlines
in the past six months -- seemed, at the American
collections last week, never to have happened.
Here, in these few lines, treasures snatched from the most
noble, the most elaborate, the most complex thoughts and
discourses of our century and the sixteenth century
imperceptibly touch and are exchanged.
Here, "deconstruction" (though does the woman who goes
to buy a dress know what this is?) has become a term that
adds a "commercial" mark, a surplus value of "modernism"
to domains totally unforeseen by the author of the thinking
of deconstruction. Here is a word derived from
philosophical thinking, that of Derrida, which no longer
resides in philosophy, but "launches" fashion products,
bathroom items, sports equipment, political attitudes. In
brief a word which, having left its native shore, henceforth
circulates in the world's blood.
And so this magical word made banal meets (does it
know?) another formula equally magical and rendered
banal, this on centuries ago, that reverberates under a
made-up form in the phrase quoted: The revolution which
has launched a thousand headlines. What makes a
comeback here in fashionable dress is Marlowe's beautiful
Helen...