DECONSTRUCTION
Deconstruction: A school of philosophy that originated in France in
the late 1960s. It 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 ACCORDING TO DERRIDA
If Derrida and deconstruction can not be discussed one without the other, what then is deconstruction? Definitions even vary, from a seven page-explanation to a four page entry or an eleven page reference. How does Professor Derrida himself define it? He says of course a very great deal in numerous writings as well as in published interviews such as Deconstruction in a nutshell: a conversation with Jacques Derrida. What Ms. Smith reported of their conversation at the Polo Grill is the following: "It is impossible to respond", Mr. Derrida said. "I can only do something which will leave me unsatisfied". But after some prodding, he gave it a try anyway. "I often describe deconstruction as something which happens. It's not purely linguistic, involving text or books. You can deconstruct gestures, choreography. That's why I enlarged the concept of text".
Mr. Derrida did not seem angry at having to define his philosophy at
all; he was even smiling. "Everything is a text; this is a text", he said,
waving his arm at the diners around him in the bland suburbanlike restaurant,
blithely picking at their lunches, completely unaware that they were being
"deconstructed".
DECONSTRUCTION
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
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
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.]