Critical Practice By Catherine Belsey

New Criticism

New Criticism was a reaction against the orthodoxy of Expressive Realism. In 1940s and 50s the New Critics in USA put their whole emphasis on “the text” as text if became a central plank in what was known as New Criticism. Here we will have a brief gaze upon some of the critics that uphold the structure of New Criticism.

John Crowe Ransom wrote a book “The New Criticism”, in which he proclaims: “Criticism is the attempt to define and enjoy the aesthetic or characteristic value of literature” Ransom has developed a distinction between texture and structure, the structure is the story, the object or situation or whatever, which gives us the argument of the poem, the texture is the thingness of the thing by which it is particularized. For example, Ransom allows for studies are technique of art which in the case of poetry would concentrate on those devices which distinguish it from prose; structure, scene, description, basic setting of the text or poem: texture the emotions combined with the structure is texture, it carries the creative element that makes the poem superior.

The basic idea of thought based on emotions and feelings is texture and the way of conveying that certain idea is structure. Wimsatt and Beardsley have also played an important role on this regard. Both of them published their book the “Verbal Icon Studies in the Meaning of Poetry”. Wimsatt and Beardsley insist that no poem can be judged by reference to the poet’s intention (authorial power denies).

The meaning of the text is something internal which can be discovered from the text of the poem, (shift from another is text in quest of meaning) that is public, which everything that is “external” and not the part of a work as a linguistic fact is private and idiosyncratic.

For example for critical purposes it is better to study Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” with a dictionary in your hands, rather than with the elaborate investigation into Coleridge’s reading made by professor Lowes in “Road to Xanadu”.

Cleanth Brooks says that literature is a description and evaluation of the object. It concerns itself as a work itself. In reply to those who argue that this isolation of the work cuts it loose from its author and his life and from its reader and their response, Brooks insists that what belongs to biography and psychology may be interesting but it is not to be confused with an account of the work.

In short we can put New Critics in these points that:

·         They denied the authorial power.

·         Focus on text as meaning of text can be found “on the page” and text as a “public property”.

·         Meaning of the text is timeless universal and Trance historical”.

Although New Critics focused on a scientific approach for critical studies by denying the authorial power and Belsey agrees with them at that point. But she does not agree that text is a public property and the meaning of the text lies on the page. In her view, due to historical changes the words of the text as presented on the page will change, because every reader will analyse and understand the text or the words of text in the light of his own age and ideology. She also rejected that meaning of the text are universal because the words will convey the same message to all its readers in all ages. She proves it by saying that as meanings of a text are bound to the language; language is subject to change, so when language will change the meaning of the text will obviously change.Along with this, the perception of the reader can be different from one person to another.

Belsey quotes the example of Paradise Lost by Milton that when it was written Satan was considered as a villain and devil, by the readers of that time. But in Renaissance age, Satan was placed at a high status and he occupied the stature of a hero. So, it is clear that the meaning of the text changes with the passage of time. Belsey beautifully proves that the meaning of a text changes from one person to the other and from the age to another.

Northrop Frye’s Dictums of Literary Criticism

Northrop Frye is one of those critics whose illustrations are more persuasive. Man believes in overall generalization when he traces limited patterns of significance by co-relating the phase of dawn spring and both with the myths of revival, resurrection and creation and finding there in the archetype of romance, or by co-relating the phase of Zenith, summer and marriage with myths of entering into the paradise and finding there in the archetypes of comedy, pastoral; the sender cannot but feel that an elaborated schedule of the obvious is being manufactured.

Catherine Belsey has discussed Northrop Frye in much detail and there is relatively less space given to her own critical appreciation in this article. For the purpose of simplification we shall discuss several points separately which have been united in a whole very beautifully.

Frye believes that criticism should be a systematic and organised study. In “Fables of Identity” 1963, he claims that much supposed criticism is sonorous (resonant) nonsense that contributes nothing to a systematic structure of knowledge. As for those who primarily practice structural analysis this stop short of recognising that literary criticism needs a coordinating principle by which what is seen in an individual work can be grasped as a part of a vast whole.

In short an immense source of critical enlightenment awaits us if we recognise that there may be much more in a poem than even poet may himself be aware of. Fry rejects Realists stance that we cannot perceive all that is conveyed in the text by just looking at it (the text) in relation to author’s thoughts, because there can be more than what author had the intention to convey in his text. Text gives an author a chance to trace what author may not has perceived so the text and its meaning to the reader occupy most of the importance in literary criticism.

The key to understanding lies in recognition of archetypes which represent a unifying category of literature or literary criticism. Frye observes that how random and peripheral is the critical experience which is produced by mediocre works of art, which the masterpiece seems to draw to appoint in which we can see an enormous number of converging patterns of significance.

The first major point in the structure of any literary composition, as opposed to the ideas of Northrop Frye is that criticism is not a parasitic activity but, in fact, it is a systematic study and evaluation of texts. Frye is of the view that, “criticism should become a coherent and systematic study, and the elementary principles of which could be explained in any intelligent nineteen years old.”

Frye tried to classify literary criticism. Thus he endeavours in the “Anatomy of Criticism” to classify the different modes, symbols, mythic symbol and genre for a classification between comparative study of authors and periods.

Another important point raised by Northrop Frye is, his insistence on the depiction of realism in literature as being undesirable and distasteful. He is of the view that a literature based on realistic appreciation, i.e. a literature which is not primarily about the world is simply not a literature underlying his formalism is the concept of immature and culture, which sees let as imitating not the world but rather the total deem of man it should be based on imagination not the reality.

Frye also puts an end to realist’s stance by his insistence that the writer’s aim is to produce the structure of the words for its own sake. And there-by, he discards the authorial power as celebrated in Expressive Realism.

Frye himself describes his own procedure as “Archetypal criticism”. He defines these archetypes as recurring images or symbols, which connect one text with author and constitute a source of the intelligibility of the text, thus developing a very strong concept of comparative critical approach. His ideas about archetypal criticism maintained that human nature being constant, these archetypes and the different symbols in different texts can be compared without keeping in view their historical settings.

Belsey is of the view that Frye’s consistence upon the particular point takes him much closer to New Criticism, because applying his ideas means that let transcends history and ideology give expression to the timeless aspiration of an essentially unchanging human nature.

Frye’s instance upon the idea of let from history and ideology shows that the meaning of a text and above the limitations of time and place in other words the meaning of a text will be single. It reflects the stance of new critics as they also insisted upon the single meaning of a text. So, while rejecting New Critics’ view, Frye is also one of them. But in reality the meaning of text or these archetypes never remain the same as time makes changes in the attitude and behaviour of people towards any text.

Frye’s formation also gives attention to the language of literary works. According to Northrop Frye, language is not just a simple conveying of this but it is its condition. The production of meaning is possible within language only. Meaning for Frye remains bound timelessly in verbal structures because the readers “recognise in them the echo of their own wishes and anxieties” so the meaning of a text is available in the body of a language. Belsey is of the view that Frye has not properly discussed the relationship between language of a text and its meanings.

Frye insists upon the plurality of meanings within a text and Catherine Belsey critically appreciates his efforts in this regard. Frye rejects the idea of the author as guarantee of the single meaning of the text. He is of the view that a critic should not look upon a literary text in the context of the intention of author. He should not assume the concept of the text as the author intended to show. Frye opines;“The critic is assumed to have no conceptual framework. It is simply his job to take a poem which a poet has diligently stuffed a specific number of beauties or efforts and complacently extract them one by one.” So, in the quest of meanings, a critic or reader should not look up to the intentions of the author.

The rejection of the authorial power in the quest of the meanings of the text focuses our attention upon the plurality of the meanings of a text. “Text is inevitably plural, open to a number of readings” and “to opt for a single pattern is to narrow the possibilities arbitrarily and unnecessarily”. Frye’s view is that the meaning of a text is subject to a change because in different times with the development of a number of schools of critical theory, they keep on emphasizing different aspects of a text. A text keeps in it plurality of meaning as every reader finds a specific meaning present and intelligible to him at a certain time period. To Frye the plurality of meaning is a healthy stance in criticism as the plural meaning of the text and not in conflict with one another but complementary each contributing to our understanding of the work as a (single) who can.

Catherine Belsey finally analyses Frye’s stance as having appreciative qualities but also having certain major drawbacks, such as Frye’s lack of appreciation of the important concept of ideology and history and their influence on the meaning of a text over a passage of time. This in brief, is the account of Frye’s concepts about criticism as discussed by C.B.

 “Reader Power”

The role of the reader in relation to literary text gained importance and significance as one of the challenge to Expressive Realism through the works of several critics in the beginnings of the 1960s. The reader’s response criticism, as they propounded, has become significant development in 20^th century critical practice. Belsey has summarised the benefits of this approach as,“As its best interest in the reader is entirely liberating a rejection of authorial tyranny in favour of the participation of the reader in the production of plurality of meanings and its these effects as supporting and developing a raw authority figure which she describes as, Reader theory mainly constructs a new authority figure as guarantee of a single meaning, as unless transcendent highly trained model reader who cannot be wronged.”

In the article Reader Power, Catherine Belsey analysis briefly the development of this theory starting with W.J. Slatoff and concluding with Iszer.

According to Belsey, Slatoff‘s most important contribution is his propounding of the idea that text cannot be read in a similar manner, by all the readers because they cannot determine across history where is no possibility of identical interpretation of texts by various readers. What Slatoff, here, is giving the idea of individual reader and his perception misses on this very important component where as and believes that critic has an undivided power based on liking or disliking etc. to evaluate the text, there is no mention as such of an analysis of ideological and discussive difference.

Slatoff, like Wayne Booth’s concept of the implied author does not make any difference from the empirical author. Slatoff identifies readings which do not produce a required level of understanding between the reader and the writer as male adjustments indirectly and involuntarily justifying, once again author interventions. Slatoff does not point at the ideology, sometimes; there can be no compatibility between reader and author.

Catherine critically scrutinizes this point remarking that the production meaning by the reader is this essential movement by the reader is his thread towards the position of the author. What is lacking from Slatoff’s analysis is any concept of the role of assumptions and expectations in the productions of meaning.

Stanley Fish is a famous critic of modern age, he is a strong supporter of reader’s response theory and he has given several important dimensions. His important dictum is about the development and appreciation of reader powers. His first major idea regarding their power is the emphasis on the experience of the reader and connected with the concept is the idea that what does the text will cause reader. Experience by the reader is subject to variation and no text will do the same thing, produce the same effect for the readers. Thus establishing the authority of the reader as separate reader as mater of critically evaluates the text.

Another important contribution by Fish is concentration on the text as on discourse. He challenges the reader to face area of difficulty regarding the reading and calls it dialectical, thus it seizes reader as active participant in the process of the construction of meaning but there is no obvious recognition that experience is ideologically constructed. The relationship between experience, language ideology and history is not clearly discussed by Fish, lending is the antithesis or reverse reaction in which the reader assumes the position as a new authority figure.

 Catherine Belsey’s Idea of Expressive Realism

Catherine Belsey defines Expressive Realism as “the theory that literature reflects the reality of experience, as it is perceived by one individual, who expresses it in a discourse which enables other individuals to recognise it as true.”

Expressive Realism can be divided into two parts. The first part deals with 19^th century, especially the 2^nd half of the 19^th century, (Victorian age). The most famous critic of this time is Ruskin. This age is also the age of industrial capitalism. The industrial revolution occurred in Europe through rapid development of industry. This industrial development was beginning of the modernism through industrialisation. Expressive Realism exists in the period of industrial capitalism in the writings of Ruskin.

Expressive Realism is influenced by the Aristotelian concept of art as “mimesis”. It is evident that Aristotle does not by mimesis mean that art should be a literal or photographic representation of reality. In representation of reality material from life has to be selected and carefully organised. Thus, imitation in literature will evidently and inevitably be the imitation of real life. So the first historical component of Expressive Realism is “mimesis” by Aristotle as “Imitation of reality” in literature or art.

The 2^nd historical component of Expressive Realism is Representation. The concept of representation in Expressive Realism is derived from the critical concept of the Romantics that Poetry (imaginative literature) is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” or emotions.

The idea of representation as given by the Romantics can be summed up in the following lines where Wordsworth in his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” says: “The sum of what was said is that the poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by the greater promptness to think and feel without immediate external excitement”

By the mid-nineteenth century, ‘Expressive Realism’ became widely established theory not only in literature but also in painting and especially in landscape painting, through the works of the major post Romantic theorist like Ruskin. According to Ruskin, the artist must both represent faithfully the objects portrayed and express the thoughts and feelings that evoke in him or her.

Catherine Belsey critically examines both concepts of Expressive Realism, she is of the view, “Whereas truth to nature is universally pleasing the representational aspects of art will delight everyone. The expressive aspects are apparent only to the few”. So, in the imitation of reality, although reality will be portrayed by the artist but every reader will not be able to appreciate the powerful overflow of emotions on a similar level as expressed by the author.

In Ruskin’s point of view, both parts of Expressive Realism i.e. the imitation of reality and its representation are not different quantities, they in fact, are art is mimetic and expressive and Ruskin goes on to again that the two qualities are in fact, not two but one. Whenever truth is represented to the reader, it will remain same for all of them and they will appreciate the imitation of reality in the form of a piece of art, just at that level as the author has done. But Catherine Belsey says that it is not possible for all readers to appreciate the imitations of reality on the same level as the author has appreciated and represented.

Another difficulty in Ruskin’s view as presented by Catherine Belsey is the difference of perception from author to reader or artist to spectator. Although reality is in front of all of them but how they perceive it, makes the real difference. Belsey says “Already, however, Ruskin glimpses the problem in his empiricist idealist position. The facts of nature are there for everyone to see and to be plainly expressed; some people perceive these facts more keenly and if they are artist, portray them invested with a nobility not apparent to every one, represent them differently.”

Catherine Belsey here means to say that “truth” itself cannot be perceived and imitated by all authors in like manners. They may perceive truth according to their own level of perception and mental and emotional capacities. So, “the work of art may be read in different ways by different spectators.”

By the 1960’s Expressive Realism had to face many challenges, among those C. Belsey mentions some of them for instance Russian formalism and semiotics. Following the brief idea of difference from Expressive Realism, Russian formalism rejected the unsystematic and critical approaches, which have previously dominated critical studies.

The formalists were interested, therefore, in the representational or expressive aspects of literary texts. To Formalists, Representation or imitative quantities are not very important, what matters to them is the literariness of the text, and what philosophical or literary ideas are conveyed in the text.

Likewise the Semioticians insisted that the word itself, as it relates to the human mind, consists entirely of sign, since there can be no unmediated relationship with reality. To Semioticians, the representation also does not matter, unless we do not study the signs of language.

The first critic in 20^th century is Barbra Hardy who directly and indirectly takes an expressive realities stance. For example she writes. “The novelist, whoever he is and whenever he is writing, is giving form to a story, giving form to his moral and metaphysical views and giving form to his particular experience of sensations, people, places and society.”

Leavis’ approach is important in this regard that it is not formulated in a specific theory or in organised structure. In this evaluation of Henry James’ works, he adopts an approach which is expressive realists approach. For example he writes about the novels of James as having the quantity for “the vivid concreteness of the rendering of this world of individuals centres of consciousness we live in”, i.e. in felt life are present both the concepts of imitation and representation, when applied in literature.

Catherine Belsey further elaborates that “the text is seen as a way of arriving at something” interior to it: the convictions of the author or his or her experience as part of that society at that particular time. To understand the text is to explain it in terms of the author’s ideas, psychological state or social background. Thus, the felt experience of author becomes crucial in his imitations of reality and in its representation, which is a result of his felt experience.

So Ruskin and F. R. Leavis, are of the same view that the author is presenting to the reader a particular idea with a belief that the reader will perceive it in the same way as author has tried to convey. That is why the autobiographical note is given for the readers before the text so that the reader can easily relate to the idea, which the author has tried to project in his text.

Catherine Belsey concludes that the expressive realist portion has been subject to a series of challenges and in some cases by theories which have since become authorities in their own right. In this way, it has become apparent that expressive realism presents a number of problems not easily resolved within the framework of common sense.

Post-Saussureian Linguistics

Relationship Between Language and Ideology

Linguistics has had a major impact on 20th century literary theory and criticism, primarily through the influence of the Swiss Linguist Ferdinand De Saussure. Saussure argued that linguistics should move from diachronic study of language i.e. how language develops historically to synchronic study i.e. treating language as a system within one temporal plane.

He divided language into Langue, the underlying system that governs linguistic usage and Parole, how language is actually used in practice. The basis of Langue is that words are arbitrary signs, in that the relation between a word and what it signifies is arbitrary, i.e. almost entirely determined by conventions. What determines the meaning is not that the word refers to the word or to the ideas or concepts that exist outside the language. Saussure’s shift of linguistic emphasis to language as a signifying system paralleled development in formalism. According to C. Belsey, Post Saussurean linguists challenge expressive realism, Imprecise idealist’s stances in critical practice regarding the relationship between language and the world and also in the development of this linguistic approach.

The concepts of signifying system have influenced the critical study of literature, which after Saussure, is treated as a signifying practice. Saussure’s concepts have proved to be very important and have removed many discrepancies and ambiguities regarding a relation between language and the ideology of the word.

 The first important point is Saussure’s insistence about the role of language as not being just a tool to name different things but, in fact, in language is a system of differences with no positive terms. He refused this superficial idea that language serves as a system of naming existing things.

Saussure gives out the concept that language, in fact, comes before the very existence of independent concepts. The word is a continuum independent entity which is differentiated through the signifying system. Thus, without language, this continuum cannot be easily deciphered.

According to Saussure, language is a system of signs. He divides these signs into two basic components, a signifier, which is a sound-image, or the specific written word combination, which is the concept that is being given to the sound of the written shape. “Language can be compared with a sheet of paper; thought is the front and sound the back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time; like wise in language, one can neither divide sounds from thought nor thought from sounds.”

Belsey wants to say that language gives individual identity to the thought or the concept, thought or idea exists first and then comes language that makes this concept clear to the viewer or the listener. When someone says the word “eglantine“ or “rose”, the very utterance of the word is the signifier; sound image, that brings forward the concept related to that sound.

Saussure believes that language precedes the identity of individual. Man is the part of social fact and through the use of language as a signifying system”.

Saussure is of the view that since the signifier and signified are inseparable for example the sound image ‘Rose’ belongs to the concept ‘Rose’, leads to an elusiveparadox and nature of language is overlooked due to this illusion. Saussure says, “If words stood for pre-existing concepts, they would all have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next, but this is not true”. Saussure means to say that pre-existing concepts are not responsible for meaning.

The belief, that a concept would have the same meaning or the same concept in every language, is not true, because different languages perceive the word in different ways. He gives the example of the French word “mouton” which means both mutton and sheep at the same time. If it has been the pre-existing concept, then the same word has been easily translated with the same meaning in English language. But we observe that in English we have two different words, i.e. “sheep” for the “animal” and “mutton” for its “meat”, which clearly establishes the importance of language as a signifying system preceding the existence of independent entity.

This theory of Saussure is not applicable to religious ideology for instance the word God stands for the concept of Supreme Power, the Almighty. But the concept of God is beyond human comprehension. If we do not name Him, “God” He will be there and will always make His presence felt. The concept “God” can be identified in different words in different religions.

The next important element in Saussure’s theory is that language is a social fact and only a certain community can generate signs, means that language cannot be produced in isolation. The particular sign in a language is arbitrary since it has no logical connection with the signified. Language, thus, also becomes a matter of convention and the arbitrary nature of signs explains the social fact which generates a social system, but although the signifying system as a whole is not arbitrary. Because meaning in a social construct, it is directly influenced by a particular social formation.

This brings us to the valuable benefit of ideology, which is a product of a particular social system and it is inscribed in signifying practices i.e. it is inscribed in a language to a certain extent depending upon the signifying practices as discourses myths, presentations and representations of the way things are.

Belsey, here, opines that ideology cannot be reduced to a language and, likewise, language can certainly not be reduced to ideology, but signifying system can play a very important role in naturalizing and describing ideas and concepts. Thus, language, being a social fact is directly connected with ideology and ideology is inscribed in language.

Another important fact of post-Saussurean linguistics is that language is a system, which pre-exists the individual, in which the individual produces meaning. Thus a child learns a particular set of differentiating concepts, which identify socially constructed signified. This classifies the point that language pre-exists the individual, since the individual being born in a social fact is before-hand provided with a particular signifying system.

It is important to note that language is not the only signifying system. Images, gestures, social behaviours etc. are all part of symbolic order. But language is a most practical way of communication and any threat from any symbolic order to an existing ideology is challenged and stopped within a language.

 Belsey is of the view that:“From this post Saussurean perspective, it is clear that the theory of literature as expressive realism is no longer tangible, because, since realism reflects the word constructed in language.”

But in fact, language precedes the individual. Language in ideology has a very strong connection, likewise language and thought has a very strong connection. Therefore, “the subjectivity of a specific perspective authority is no guarantee of the authority of a specific perception of the word”.

Idea of Common Sense

             Catherine Belsey, in her effort to explain the critical practice of modern critics, first of all tries to explain the common sense view of literature. She tries to suggest the ultimate function of common sense in the general understanding of some literary work.

          Common sense in her view, is kind of natural attitude towards some piece of art prevailing nearly all the souls of literary and literature loving persons. We may call it a kind of literary behaviour, developed already through considerable amount of reading.

          Belsey says this attitude or behaviour is developed in search of expressive realism. The search of realism is quite inherent in human beings. When they read some text, they are inclined to accept it true. They think it about life or society in which they or the writer are living. They take it as a real representation, seen through some personal experience. They depend on experience as the only authenticity of some work. This is what we call a common sense view of literature.

          When Belsey has explained common sense as a natural understanding born out of text, she starts to explain nature of common sense with respect to structuralism. The natural and obvious of some text is not given but mostly produced out of the common experiences of public and a writer.

          In this case, the authority of text is not the final authority. The real remains no more real when a writer can express it other words. It is mere likeness of real, not real itself. The working of common sense in this way turn astray and reader my feel some fiction a reality.

          The function of common sense is then to make understandable the facts provided in the text. This understandability of text lies in its being real and obvious. Here, keeping in mind that the common sense varies from person to person and profession to profession. We can say that the common sense of a literary person must be different from the common sense of a scientist and a politician. What play an important role in the development of common sense are the facts already given in the history of that profession. The common sense of literary person either writer or reader developed under the information provided in the books already written by other writers or read by other readers. Therefore, we can say that the obvious and real presented in literature may not seem obvious and real to a scientist or a businessman, because the development of their common sense has never been under the facts described under the facts described in books but the facts they have come to know through their communication to the other people of their profession.

Relationship Between a Subject and Ideology

“Addressing The Subject” by Catherine Belsey, deals with the relationship of a subject to an ideology that is given forth in a particular fact and how text promotes a particular set of mode or ideology. Catherine Belsey makes it clear that, how by the use of particular ideological practices, the cutter makes the reader to believe in his individuality without realizing that he is being motivated by the particular ideology.

Text makes something “obvious” to the reader and reader thinks that he or she is reading a text as an individual. In fact, what the reader does not realise is that instead of promoting individual thought, the text is actually strengthening the existing ideology.

According to Belsey, classical Realism of 19^th and 20^th century in capitalist systems is excellent example of the practice of promoting a certain ideology without making the reader to realise it.

As already discussed in post-Saussurean Linguistics and also evident in this article that although the discussions of Althusser and Lacan, Language is supreme and the subject is constructed within language, as Lacan mentions in the studies of Freudian concept of the self and the development of the child and realisation of child as an individual ‘I’ so the subject is constructed in a language which makes him able to distinguish between “I” and ‘you’. So language is supreme and prime that as within language an individual can differentiate between ‘I’ and ‘You’ and feels the identity of his own self and others as well. Ideology plays very important role in a community and staying within language gives a particular mode of usage to it.

There are several apparatuses in the society that Althusser calls as Ideological State apparatuses (ISAs) in a capitalist system, which consist of the educational system.ISA is responsible for the usage of language, which promotes a particular ideology. As mentioned by Catherine Belsey in Chapter 2, that language and ideology has strong interaction, without being subservient to one another. This obviously demonstrates the fact that since subject is situated within a language, ideology has a strong inter-relationship, therefore, it can be deduced that the subject can never be separated from a particular set of ideology.

As discussed in the article, science is that branch of knowledge, which can lie outside the boundaries of ideology and can leave to the development of knowledge, which can challenge a particular ideology. Thus new branches of knowledge evolve through a dialectical process within ideology. The subject or the self also faces the problem of having inherent contradiction, because the ‘I’ of the conscious state may be within ideology but the ‘I’ of conscious may lie outside it. The inherent dialectic will eventually lead to a development of new modes of knowledge despite the suppression by existing ideological practices within language.

Functions of literature are diverse. It may primarily encourage or sustain a particular ideological practice and ensure the continuity of a particular ideological set up. Literature on the other hand, provides unlike Classical Realism, new modes of thought which instead of being obvious to the reader may challenge the existing ‘I’ system and thus provide space for the development of new knowledge to the subject. 

Relationship Between the Subject and the Text

The article “Subject and The Text” deals with individual or subject and ideology and inter-relationship of these two entities in a classical realist setting. Belsey has made a convincing relationship between the subject and the text. Her explanation is conspicuous regarding modern interpretations of classical topics.

Catherine Belsey being modern critic and competitive authority over literature sets changed definitions which may be considered as new-fangled layers of meanings of the classical terms. According to her ideology, a capitalist system emphasizes a lot on individual freedom and “assumes a world of non-contradictory individuals whose unfettered consciousness is the origin of meaning knowledge and action.” But the important aspect is that, the role of ideology in a system is to suppress the role of language in the construction of the subject – since that would be a direct threat to the existing order.

According to Catherine Belsey, Classical Realism that is promoted by text print and electronic media represents a world of subjects which are the origin of meaning, or knowledge. But they are able to appreciate a classical realist literature due to the fact that the text available is relatively easily intelligible.

Belsey points out that the ‘I’ of the Romantics is different from classical realist fiction in the sense that it directly involves the individual to respond to that text or a piece of poetry. However, in fiction as a classical realist fiction whether drama or novel, there is a lack of direct authorial presence. The given statement is somewhat paradoxical, since the author presents it as a shadow which cannot be separated from the body of the text. Belsey here says that, “The form of the classical realist text acts in conjunction with the expressive theory and with ideology by interpreting the reader as subject. In this way a classical realist constitutes an ideological practice in addressing itself to readers as subjects, interpreting them in order that they freely accept their subjectivity and their subjection.”

Belsey further elaborates that apart from illusionism, which is already evident from above discussion, from a paradoxical development of a subject within ideology and which is normally present in classical realist texts, there are certain other questions within the narrative techniques which ensure this subjectivity and subjection. These are closures and literacy of discourses, which combine to establish a “truth” of the story.

In Barthes view, closure is something which tends to form a very regular order or pattern in classical realist literature. Techniques like murder, love triangles etc. provide the destructive element in the text. But it eventually leads to an ideologically accepted closure, where a subject feels a certain relief and the order of things is re-established.

According to Belsey, “The moment of closure is the point, at which the events of the story become fully intelligible to the reader” it means that the closure is such point in a story when the fog starts to clear away and the real picture or the situation becomes clear to the reader.

The second aspect of illusionism in classical realism to the “hierarchy of discourses” is in a text i.e. the existence of a privileged discourse outside the inverted comas, which develops strong author reader relationship. It also makes “obvious” in the involvement of a reader as a source of meaning through the use of discourse within inverted commas.

The discourse existing outside the commas is indirect authorial intrusion. This hierarchy of discourse is responsible for a distinction between ‘Discourse’ and ‘History’, according to Benveniste: Because history relates without the intervention of a speaker as there are no ‘you’ or ‘I’ involved in it. The presence of events or ideas through a first person narrative is not necessarily a way of evading authorial power or authority. But, in fact, they provide reader with an opportunity to involve in first person narrative and seemingly create the meanings of their own.

The presence of third person narrative, however, acts as the indirect authorial presence, which ensures the continuation and reaffirmation of the existing ideology.

Catherine Belsey is of the view that Classical Realism presents individuals whose traits of character, understood as essential and predominantly given, constrain the choices they make and whose potential for development depends on what is given. Human nature, thus, seems as a system of character differences existing in the world but one very clear and distinct closure. She says that:

“Initially constructed in discourse, the subject finds in the discourse of the classic realist text a confirmation of the position of autonomous subjectivity represented in ideology as ‘obvious’. It is possible to refuse that position, but to do so at least at present, is to make a deliberate and ideological choice.”

Structuralism

Structuralism arose on the continent, in particular in France, in the early 60s. The first ‘big name’ was Claude Lévi-Strauss, an anthropologist, who took on Jean-Paul Sartre, the leading French intellectual and philosopher of the time, and didn’t so much win, as went unanswered (which from Sartre’s point of view was worse). Here was France’s main philosopher, Sartre, who usually had something to say about everything, being attacked in Lévi-Strauss’ The Savage Mind, and yet not replying! The implication was that he couldn’t reply, and the intellectual mood began to move towards Lévi-Strauss’ intellectual position, which he called structuralism.

A simple explanation of structuralism is that it understands phenomena using the metaphor of language. That is, we can understand language as a system, or structure, which defines itself in terms of itself. There is no language ‘behind’ language with which we understand it, no metalanguage to explain what language means. Instead it is a self-referential system. Words explain words explain words (as in a dictionary), and meaning is present as a set of structures.

Such an approach was an attack on other types of philosophy which claim that there is a ‘core’ of truth which is ‘reality’, something behind the world of ‘appearance’. For example, Marxists might argue that we can understand the world (‘appearance’) by examining the relations of production (‘reality’), or some fundamentalist Christians might argue that we should understand the world as a battle of God against Satan, so this ‘truth’ is hidden, but in fact it explains the world.

Another structuralist was Roland Barthes, who claimed the term for a while, who was a literary critic and wrote about the ‘Death of the Author’. He argued the author could not claim to know what his/her book was about any more than the reader. Again, the idea that there was a hidden reality (hidden to the reader but known to the author) was challenged, and instead a view of the ‘text’ presented which was available to all equally.

Michel Foucault, a philosopher and historian, argued that science has to be understood socially before it can be understood intellectually – for example he showed how ‘madness’ is primarily a social invention, rather than a medical discovery. He claimed that the analysis of systems of thought required analysis of the detail, to show how each part interacted with other parts. It wasn’t enough to simply identify a ‘core’ (such as the evolution of scientific knowledge) and to ignore all other aspects of science.

Jacques Lacan, a psychoanalyst who claimed that the unconscious is structured like a language, is widely seen as a major structuralist thinker. He claimed to be ‘returning to Freud’ and be working against the Americanisation of psychoanalysis with its emphasis on egopsychology. He emphasised the role of the unconscious by showing that the ‘I’ is not a centralised core ‘ego’ but a dispersed, fragmented, interrelated unknown (the unconscious).

So we can see that a primary feature of the structuralists is their attack on ‘foundationalism’, attacking any thought that claims to have found a Firm Foundation on which we can construct beliefs. Instead they emphasise the ‘relatedness’ of truth, how Truth is not something we ‘discover’, or can ‘own’, or can ‘start from’, but a structure which society invents.

 Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings: "In deconstruction, the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text, but only in the various, often mutually irreconcilable, 'virtual texts' constructed by readers in their search for meaning" (Rebecca Goldstein).

According to Derrida deconstruction generally operates by conducting textual readings with a view to demonstrate that the text is not a discrete whole, instead containing several irreconcilable, contradictory meanings. This process ostensibly shows that any text has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point. 

Jacques Derrida (1930), the French Philosopher and forefather of deconstruction, describes the term in this way: “A deconstructive reading must always aim at certain relationship by the writer between what he commands and what he does not command.”

J. Hillis Miller has described deconstruction this way: “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently-solid ground is no rock, but thin air."

In 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."

Deconstruction owes much to the theories of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. With his book of Grammatology he began a new critical movement. Deconstruction, so far, has been the most influential feature of post- structuralism because it defines a new kind of reading practice which is a key application of post- structuralism.

Derrida shows that deconstruction involves the close reading of texts in order to demonstrate that any given text has contradictory meanings. Deconstruction defines text as something whose meaning is known only through difference. Derrida shows that text can be read as saying something quite different from what it appears to be saying, and that it may be read as carrying a plurality of significance or as saying many different things which are fundamentally at variance with contradictory to and subversive of what may be seen by criticism as a single, stable meaning. Thus a text may betray itself. 

Derrida carries his logic still further to suggest that the language of any discourse is at variance with itself and by so being is capable of being read as yet another language. `

Derrida displaces the traditional “hierarchy” of speech over writing to suggest that speech can only ever be subject to the same instability as writing; that speech and writing are forms of one science of language, grammatology. 

Derrida criticized the entire tradition of Western philosophy's search to discover the essential structure of knowledge and reality, ultimately confronting the limits of human thought. As an extension of his theory of logocentrism, Derrida posited that all texts are based on hierarchical dualisms (e.g., being/nonbeing, reality/appearance, male/female), where the first element is regarded as stronger and thus essentially true and that all systems of thought have an assumed center, or Archimedean point, upon which they are based. In a deconstructionist reading, this unconscious and unarticulated point is revealed, and in this revelation the binary structure upon which the text rests is imploded. Thus what appears stable and logical is revealed to be illogical and paradoxical, and interpretation is by its very nature misinterpretation.

To a deconstructionist, meaning includes what is left out of the text or ignored or silenced by it. Because deconstruction is an attack on the very existence of theories and conceptual systems, its exposition by Derrida and others purposely resists logical definitions and explanations, opting instead for alinear presentations based on extensive wordplay and puns. Deconstructionists tend to concentrate on close readings of particular texts, focusing on how these texts refer to other texts. Certain scholars have severely criticized this movement on this basic point. (Columbia Encyclopedia)

Deconstruction, according to Peter Barry is divided into three parts- verbal, textual and linguistic. 

·         The verbal stage is very similar to that of more conventional forms of close reading. It involves looking in the text for paradoxes and contradictions, at what might be called the purely verbal level. 

·         In textual stage a critic looks for shifts or breaks in the continuity of the poem. These shifts reveal instabilities of attitude, and hence the lack of a fixed and unified position.

·         The linguistic stage involves looking for moments in the poem when the adequacy of language itself as a medium of communication. There is implicit or explicit reference to the unreliability or untrustworthiness of language.

To conclude, we can say that Deconstruction is 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. 

Where does the Meaning lie – in the Text, Reader, Writer, or the Structure?

In her book ‘Critical Practice’, Catherine Belsey has evaluated the theories of major critical schools of thought. Most of these theories evolved as a reaction against ‘Common Sense’ view of literature. New Criticism, Northrop Frye and Reader-Power attempted to refute the claims of common sense but did not succeed. In one way or the other, they got trapped in the problems of common sense. Belsey says that it was Post-Saussurean linguistics that revolutionized the theory and practice of literary criticism by presenting a whole new concept of meaning and interpretation. Post-Saussurean linguistics proved that meaning does not lie in the text, in the writer or in the reader but it lies in structure.

Common sense claims that literature reflects reality. It is based upon those concepts which are eternal and universal. When we read a novel, we can see that its characters and situations are familiar to us. The reason is that these characters and situations are taken from real life and we ourselves pass through similar situations. Authors are special persons who possess extraordinary insight and sensitivity. They observe and experience these real situations and then transform them into works of literature. In this way, the works of literature are the products of the minds of these genius writers. The meaning expressed in these works comes from the knowledge and sensibilities of these writers. The life of the author and the age in which he lived play a very important role in the interpretation of a literary work. As these works of literature are based upon the situations we ourselves experience and observer, therefore, we do not need any theory to understand and interpret them just using ‘common sense’. But the study has revealed that common sense itself is based upon theories of imitation, humanism and romanticism. These theories consider man who thinks by himself as source of action and meaning. The critical practice based upon common sense is called ‘Expressive Realism’.

New Critics like T. S. Eliot, I. A. Richards, R. P. Warren, J. C. Ransom and Cleanth Brooks rejected the claims of common sense and expressive realism. They claimed that the meaning of a literary work lies in the text and not in the author. New Critics said that it was neither possible nor desirable to search for the intentions of the author while interpreting a text. They stressed that a critic should focus his attention on the text itself. A ‘close-reading’ of the formal elements of the text i.e. the images, symbols, metaphors, rhyme, meter, setting, characterization and plot reveals its real meaning. The analysis of these formal elements can lead to a single accurate meaning of the text. Belsey says that New Criticism failed to define the proper origin of meaning. Their claim ‘the text on the page is the source of meaning’ is not valid because a text is written in a language. Every language has its own system of meaning. This semantic system is always in a process of evolution and with the passage of time it goes through transformation. It means that a text can never have a permanent and unchangeable interpretation. If we accept that the meaning of a text is permanent and universal, then we must also accept that meaning is outside language and the change in language does not affect it. But if meaning is outside language then it means that it exists in the mind of the author. Hence the New Criticism also became another version of expressive realism and failed in its attempt to free the text from its author.

Northrop Frye challenged both expressive realism and New Criticism. He rejected the theory of New Criticism that literature should be interpreted in isolation. He said that all literary works form a system and whole, and the individual work should be interpreted as part of that system and whole. That system or whole is termed by him as ‘Archetypes’. The word archetype refers to any recurring image, character, plot or action. An archetype is a model, different versions of which recur throughout human history, in the myths, literature, religion, and social behavior. Four major mythical patterns or archetypes defined by Frye are comedy, romance, tragedy and irony/satire. The origin of archetypes is eternal and unchanging human; therefore, an author cannot be a source of meaning. Belsey says that Frye’s concept of eternal human desire indirectly connects to human consciousness and then to the author. Also Frye fails to explain the role of language in the construction of meaning.

Another theory which posed a very serious threat to expressive realism is ‘Reader-Response’ or ‘Reader-Power’ theory. This theory focuses on readers’ responses to literary texts. Reader-Response Criticism began in the 1960s and ‘70s, particularly in America and Germany, in works by Norman Holland, Stanely Fish, Wolfgang Iser and others. Reader-Response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts ‘real existence’ to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-Response criticism emphasizes the role of the reader rather than the author in the construction of meaning. Readers interact with the text and their knowledge, emotions and feelings play an important role in the process of interpretation. The reader is affected by the stylistic devices used in the text and interprets it accordingly. The psychological experience of the readers also plays a very important role in the construction of meaning. The Reader-Response criticism failed to challenge expressive realism because it supposes another authority figure i.e. highly informed reader.

Belsey says that the meaning of a text does not lie in the writer or reader or the text but it lies in the structure of social formation. Structuralism is based upon the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure divided linguistic sign into signifier and signified. For example, the word ‘dog’ is a sign. A sign consists of a signifier and a signified. A signifier is the spoken or written image while the signified is the concept associated with it. When we write or speak the word ‘dog’, it would be called signifier but the concept associated with this word i.e. a four legged domestic animal is its signified. The relationship between a signifier and a signified is not based upon some logic but it is arbitrary. Langue is the total system of a language. It comprises of all the rules and principles that an individual must follow. When an individual speaks or writes something, following the rules of langue, it would be called his ‘parole’. Langue is social while parole is individual. Similarly a society also has its own system of beliefs and ideas. This can be called the langue of the society. The beliefs of individual are parole and parole is always dependent upon langue. When an individual says something, unconsciously he expresses those views which are part of langue, the overall belief system of society. Belsey calls this ‘ideology’. This is the reason that we cannot take an individual as source of meaning. Meaning is generated by social formation and not by one individual. Literary criticism should interpret a text in relation to the social formation in which it was written. It should concentrate on the social, political and economic system of that society.

The Methods of extracting meanings out of a Creative text

             History of creative art shows the fact that art and criticism run side by side. Sometime art takes place of criticism and sometimes criticism takes place of art. History of criticism is as deep as arts of itself. Criticism has been a branch of literature in the most developing periods of human history. Like other arts of the world, it also involves so many theories and sometimes so many origins. Therefore, history of criticism has become itself a subject. So many critics have developed a variety of theories regarding he evaluation of a piece of literature.

          Katherine Belsey in her work “Critical Practice” has put forward following two methods for extracting meanings and evaluation of a given piece of text.

Analytical Criticism:

          This is the most common category of criticism. It may be further divided into other branches but the main object of all these modes is to analysis a given piece of literature. The basic concept of analytical criticism is the image or concept of reader in the mind of writer. The writer, while writing a text, always keeps in his mind the personality of the person who is supposed to read this text in future.

          Therefore, the first critic is the writer himself. He leaves some points unexplained or some others over-explained because he is bearing the image of the reader in his mind beforehand. Now when that type of text goes in the hand of that supposed reader, the criticism takes its birth ultimately or without conscious efforts.

          Here, we must also be sure of some of other images in the mind of a writer while creating the text. For example, the image of society, the facts he is going to present and the idea or theme of change he supposed to bring in the social behaviour of the reader.

          All these images together give a kind of realism to that text of a writer. In this way, to analyze the text means to see it in the context of the psychology of reader and writer, and in the perspective of social norms.

          In this type of criticism, the information about writers’ personal life, his activities and the theme presented in his other books help a common reader to develop some analytical approach about that given piece of text. We do not feel any need to pay any attention to the material or facts provided in the words or structure of the text.

          Our understanding of the text is something like preexisting the creation of text. The ideas presented in the text are mostly the ideas we have come across in the practical life in some practical social surroundings. Common sense plays an important role in this type of criticism as in it based on facts given in the text and experiences undergone in the social circumstances.

          In this type of criticism two types of forces govern; the force of human nature which we can find in nearly all human beings and the forces of social circumstances given particularly to the individual of that text. The bases and the reasons of an analytical approach therefore, is the function of classical realism and common sense in the reading of a literary text. It needs to be explained that if the common sense helps creating the classic realism or the classic realism help developing the common sense.

Evaluating Criticism

          On the other hand, evaluating criticism is totally base on the material and facts provided in the text. Followers of this method do not pay any attention to the concept or image of reader of personal life or social circumstances of the writer. They try to find whatever there is of any importance out of the study of the text only.

          In their view text itself carries all the essential material of understanding or intelligibility. In their view, role of common sense and realism is of no importance. For example, in Belsey’s views common sense itself is a development or generated function of the outer world. It has no particular and specified roots.

          So the way of modern critics is based on the structure and language of the text. They do not care about the psychology of the writer or his social surroundings. According to them, possibility of the meanings greatly lies in the given text.  In this way, the problem of critic is not to find the meanings or the intelligibility in the text. He aims at discovering the contribution of unconscious in the process of creation. In his views, the text is written in the process of creation and that there lie some gaps and silences in the words and sentences. In this way, the function of a critic is to find out those gaps and lapses. This is termed as “construction” of a text, a construction that results in the deconstruction of already written intelligible text.

          This is the mode of evaluating criticism. Evaluation, there, is not the evaluation of the psychology of writer but the evaluation of the evaluation of the given facts of the text. Therefore, for the followers of this type of criticism meanings do not lie out of the text in any form. Whatever intelligible points are that lie in the text. There is no possibility of inter-intelligibility in the writer and the reader or the critic and the prevailing social circumstances. Perhaps, that is why they say this type of criticism is a kind of expressive realism, a realism that is in fact not realism but that seems realism.

          In this way, expressive realist text is the text that is not realistic by that is expressed in realistic way. In other words, the followers of this type of critical practice do not find any relation in the text and the existing facts in the society. In their view, both these things are quite different from each other.

          To conclude, we may say that both these critical approaches have their own positive and negative points. But, followers of both methods have strong views about their approaches. 

The Plurality of Meanings in “Criticism and Meaning”

In her article “Criticism and Meaning” Catherine Belsey basically deals with the concept of plurality of meaning or with the quality of language as having numerous or infinite possibilities of interpretations. Belsey does not simply elaborate this point but brings forward the different conceptions of Expressive Realism, New criticism and Northrop Frye etc. and their attempt to find a device or method of interpretation of meaning aided by certain methodologies.

Catherine Belsey elaborates the importance of post saussurean Linguistics for its questioning of different critical practices regarding their attempt to locate a guarantee of the meaning of a text, especially without historical and ideological influences.

For example Expressive Realist finds the guarantee of the particular meaning in author’s mind. Thus he understands the quality of language as having a varied potential for interpretation and critical appreciation.

Likewise, Belsey elaborates that New Criticism is also unable to locate this guarantee of meaning due to its incomplete understanding and vision regarding language and human experience. Negating ideology and history in particular, it undermines the evaluation of a text and gives an incomplete account of the linguistic possibility.

Language being a social fact is subject to a variety of major and minor changes even within a single social system. Belsey gives an excellent example of a sentence i.e. “Democracy will ensure that we extend the boundary of civilization.”

It’s an excellent example to bring out the potential for meaning and the ideological and historical impacts on its interpretation. For example a person of a developing country like Pakistan would interpret, “Democracy” in a different manner, owing to the historical and ideological influences. Whereas a person in one of the African tribes does not even know about Democracy and if he is told, would appreciate it according to the verdict given by the local witch-doctor.

Democracy and civilisation carry totally different concepts in a developed country. For examples the Scandinavian States (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland) have a freedom level of individuality to an extent that would be unthinkable in the states like Iran.

This example of the word “Democracy” makes evident the fact that language is a social fact and a meaning of a sentence in a discourse will be directly influenced by different influences which could be of an ideological or a historical or a purely linguistic nature.

Thus, this is evident again that the meaning in a particular sentence is plural. Therefore, to pose an individual subject as an authority for a single meaning is to ignore a degree to which subjectivity itself is a discursive construct. To find a guarantee of meaning in the world or in experience is to ignore the fact that our experience of the world is itself articulated in language.

Thus Catherine Belsey elaborates the plurality of meaning and its crucial significance in “Critical Practice”.

Major Drawbacks in Catherine Belesy’s Critical Practice

             As far as reading of Critical Practice is concerned, it takes us nowhere. Nearly in all chapters from the beginning till the end we find no concluding remarks or any type of final judgment. This is perhaps Belsey’s major drawback in her book. She discusses the theories and views of so many critics but nowhere gives her personal judgment regardless of the need explanation in the views discussed under her topics.

          It means the book contain theories and practices already in vogue. She may have the conclusions already drawn in readers’ minds. However, her way of discussing the topics can both be termed as ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’. She does not remain particular to any mood of expression.

          The topics discussed in the book range from the most ancient to the most modern. He has not taken only way of expression but also the role of language in conveying that way of expression. In the same way, she has not only discussed the creative process but also the process taking place in the mind of a reader. In the process of creation, she takes into account the social circumstance along with psychological thinking or unconscious working of writer’s mind while writing a text.

          Naturally, in this way, she must have taken some views and theories of the writers belonging psychology, sociology, economics and ethics. Now, it is natural that whenever a person tries to discuss something, he must possess some views of his own. Belsey, though adopts a careful approach in her expression of views, yet she leaves some clues that indicate that she has expressed her personal arguments in between the lines.

Theoretical Views:

          Undertaking the task of critical practice, Belsey takes references out of the works of Althusser, Barthes, Saussure and others. She discusses their views about the language and the process of creation and gives her remarks as output of her reading of these writers. Her remarks are very much theoretical in nature and are present nearly in all the discussion of theories and views. We may take these remarks as practical in nature but we cannot deny their value as theoretical remarks. In this way the theoretical remarks in Belsey, in a sense are, also practical. She has not succeeded in differentiating between these types of remarks.

Practical Views:

          On the other hand, the way of analyzing the text keeping in mind the limits or hints provided by the text itself, regardless of the intentions of the writer and the social circumstances, is called practical criticism.

          Though, Belsey has discussed both theoretical and practical attitudes, yet it she has taken more help of practical attitude of criticism. Her style of expression is more practical than theoretical. The function of practical criticism in not only to provide the theories and views in practical form but also the analysis of the text with reference to the facts and figures provided in the text.

          Throughout the Critical Practice she has tried to maintain both these levels of discussion or understanding. Especially, the last two chapters of the book are purely based on these levels.

Conclusion:

          In the end it can be said that despite the difficulties that lies in her expression of views, yet Belsey has succeeded in pointing out the aptness and suitability of practical criticism or critical practice of a modern critic. It is clear that Belsey has no inclination to any particular mode of criticism. Her way of criticism can be taken both theoretical and practical.