Week 1: Textual Harassment and the Pains of Reading

            Isobel Armstrong examines the relevancy of close reading. While once a pertinent method of study, literary scholars today are critiquing this practice as it may not take into account other, more inclusive, means of interpretation. The problem that can occur with close reading, which Armstrong terms “textual harassment,” is that the language does not intend to create an ideology through the subject and object, yet unintentionally it does. Close reading has traditionally been done through a rational process and separate from affect, which includes sexuality, feeling, and emotion; these are considered irrational and belong in a non-cognitive space. Yet, according to Armstrong, literary analysis requires a new framework in which to place these within a cognitive space (87).

            Looking at literature through Armstrong’s lens frees the reader from trying to control their emotional reactions to the reading, or the “mirror-like” structure. During this process, the reader reveals the object which contains cultural ideologies and the simplicity of what it is meant to represent. This creates a dynamic where the decision-making process, or affect (because it’s driven by personal attachments), gets rationalized. Armstrong maintains that there is a hole in this logic because it creates its own inexpressible process. This process, from what I gather, is a valuable part of looking at the text because affect is the pathway to discerning meaning and what she wants to provide a cognitive space for.

             She refines affect, calling it the “intensification and release” in thought-development. Further, the discussion of bifurcation and erasure are important elements within the process. The concepts function like sign and syntax, working differently but together. Bifurcation, which is a set of thinking systems and networks where “one choice makes its other; the route we have not chosen, the connection we have not made, comes into being simultaneously with that we have made” (92). Basically it is like the road not taken, which becomes into play as a choice, and therefore has validity. Similarly, erasure is a “reflexive remarking, crossing out, writing over, alteration” where meaning comes from thoughts that led to the decision (93).  

            While these concepts were initially difficult for me to grasp (and I am sure I’m not fully immersed in the extent of their meaning), the main point for Armstrong, is that Bifurcation and Erasure provide a more thorough reading of a text. They are elements apart from the rational realm but the process has meaning. When applied to a text, they demonstrate all the things that helped the image or concept arrive on the page. This alludes to one of Armstrong’s main ideas: “Critique supported by the feeling/thought dichotomy actually rests on an account of the text outside, something external which has to be grasped – or warded off” (87). The idea of choice is reflected in bifurcation and erasure, as they are processes that involve thoughts that are not necessarily the end result. And the idea of viewing the text externally, albeit arriving there through affect processes, becomes the new cognitive space.

            Sound is another cognitive space in Armstrong’s discussion. I found this intriguing because it is a demonstration of power within the text and is described as a violent act: “The mismatch of sound and signified, aural sound and meaning, opens up need” (94). The “need” here is omnipresent when reading or listening. When the text is read, it speaks, and the very act is an intrusion upon the reader. It’s interesting that Armstrong uses terms containing negative connotations. The intrusion upon the reader/listener is an “assault.” Additionally, she calls the thought process involved in breaking down a sound within the mind as “persecution.” With pleasurable input, it would not necessarily be thought of within these contexts, yet she uses them for all “perpetration.” Moreover, she finalizes the outcome as knowledge – which makes sense within the negative framework if you look at it like acquiring knowledge comes with growing pains. Much like graduate school.