What is it?
Deconstruction: A school of philosophy that
originated in France in the late 1960s, has had
an enormous impact on Anglo-American
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...
[From the Preface written by Hélène Cixous
(trans. by Susan Sollers) in The Hélène Cixous
Reader (London: Routledge, 1994): xx-xxi.]
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