Deus ex Machina

I agree with many posts that machines, discussed by the author, can influence the reader or can be interpreted by the reader in many ways (depending on the reader, context, situation, etc.). In contrast, the thesis of the writer suggests that artistic text is a machine working on the reader as a transforming device. I am interested in the different kinds of " machines": linguistic, information, magical, etc.

"The death of the author" by R. Barthes

This is my first experience reading something by Barthes, although I have heard lots about him. This essay is so dense with information, that it's hard to choose one point to concentrate on. What apllealed to me was his idea of writing being the death of the author. I like the example of Mallarme, for whom "it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is,to reach that point where only language acts, 'performs', and not 'me'. Mallarme's entire poetics consists in suppressing the author in the interests of writing (which is, as will be seen, to restore the place of the reader)." With the death of the author, Barthes says that the modern "scriptor" differs from the old "author" is not an antecedent of the written work, but rather he is born at the same time with his work. 
Another important point of this essay is: "the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original." It's again related to translation: there is always a subject and a situation that has already been discussed/written/translated. That's why no matter what the subject it is repeated by a writer or a critic. We can only mix ideas and paraphrase, but it's very hard to invent new literature. Therefore, to translate is to transfer information into another language (or sometimes express in the same language) while taking into consideration the particular reader at the particular time, and also keeping in mind the effect the the original created in the audience of its time and try to create the same effect on the "new" audience.

Now, that's all for today. Looking forward to tomorrow's discussion, should be great!

Sussure on language

I am fascinated by linguistics. That's why I really enjoyed this weeks' readings. Saussure's analysis of the difference between language and speaking tells us that Language is necessary if speaking is to be intelligeable, but speaking is necessary for the establishment of language, and historically, it actually comes first (Ch. 4). This statement is probably obvious for everyone (or almost everyone). It should be noted, Saussure's writing is full of dualities and contradictions like the one just mentioned.
 Although his ideas on writing as a means of representation of language are even more touching. Is it only writing that expresses language? What about theatre? Oral art (like myths, that were passed on from generation to generation orally)? I agree, though, that writing serves to keep language more or less "stable" (while pronunciation changes much faster). It's curious that Suassure separates Language (meaning pronunciation) from writing. Why does he sometimes use Language meaning only pronunciation? He says: "language is constantly evolving, while writing tends to remain stable" (p. 28). And later he says: "Spelling influences and modifies langauge" (p. 31). To me all those are parts of Language: speaking, pronumciation, writing, spelling...

Now, Linguistic sign...
... unites a concept and a sound-image (or signified and signifier).
One of the characteristics of the sign - mutability - interests me the most. I believe that if "time influences change of the sign (that is a shift in the relationship between the signifier and the signified)" and at the same time sign is based on tradition, we can interpret sign in many different ways depending on the time and the context when we happen to "face" it. When we read something we should be free to interpret it accoring to our background and our previous knowledge. If we know nothing about the author, it should not affect our understanding in a negative way. In any case: it's our personal interpretation and we can take away from the reading something others don't, simply because something appeals to us and not anybody else.

I really enjoyed Bill's post about translation. I completely agree that any translation contains loss compared to the original or any version written before. There can't be a perfect transaltion, just the least bad one. It's not always possible to avoid loss or addition of extra information because (like in reading) translations are ususally made for a different audience than the one that the originals were meant for.

Seems like that's all for now. I might also write about the  "Death of the author" by Barthes - another fascinating piece!

K. Marx "Manifesto of the Communist Party"

Marx is talking here about two main social classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat. As a result of the indistrial revolution all over the world, working class starts to lose their jobs, their work is being replaced by machines, value of their production depends on the machines. "All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex" (p. 18). A small portion of bourgeoisie joins the  proletariat. "The proletarian movement is a self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority" (p. 20). The need for a change appeared because existence of bourgeoisie was no longer compatible with the society.

The immediate aim of Communists: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeoisie, conquest of political power by the proletariat. The theory of the Commmunists: abolition of the private property.

Capital is a social power, it's a collective product.
"Communism deproves no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations" (p. 24).

Literature

French Socialist and Communist literature enteres Germany when the bourgeoisie in that country had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism. German philosophy joint with French literature, the Germans did not practically adapt to the French social conditions. It assumed a purely literary aspect. "The work of the German literati consisted solely in bringing the new French ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience" (p. 30).
"Working men of all countries unite!"- the slogan of the Communists, translated into dozens of languages all over the world.

A Communist Confession of Faith and The Principles of Communism are very similar documents, since they contain the same ideas, only rephrased and elaborated in the second. They talk about the new order that they hope to establish in the new society: to abolish competition and replace it with association and communal ownership of goods. "Communism is that stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and supersedes them".

Theses on Feuerbach my K. Marx

In his theses, K. Marx critises F's ideas by proposing new ways of looking at social behaviour. Marx disagrees with F. and wants a change in the order of the human society, which should be the centre of everything. His idea of changing the world is through new materialism, which in turn is based on human society.

Formalism, Structuralism, PE... some thoughts

The idea of defamiliarization (from V. Propp, Russian formalism) is understandable to me and I enjoyed reading the examples of its application in literature. Also, the role of linguistics in Literary theory and criticism seems central to me as well. However, I agree with the criticism of formalism: they did not consider the social aspect of literature. I beleive that human contrubution to the literature is very important, just like the relationship between text and culture. The article in Wikipedia was very helpful in explaining the concepts.
Metalanguage... seems like a very useful idea, but since the theories and opinions change over time, so does the metalanguage, right? So with every new approach to Literary theory we have to "adjust" to new vocabulary to talk about literary works.

Morphology of the folktale

A very interesting point of view by V. Propp. I love fairy tales, but I had never thought of their structure until I read this piece. It makes perfect sense that the fairy tales consist of the same sequence of identical functions of the caracters. The events are very predictable, but we still enjoy the colorfullness of the stories. It's amazing that hundreds of tales from different cultures can be analized according to Propp's structure.