Critical Practice (New Accents)

I was advised this book during a conversation over a cup of coffee. In the conversation I was discussing how I had spent most of my life trying to become "free of society" by isolating myself from my familial, my cultural, my religious and even historical ties. The first thing my companion does is recommend two books: Critical Practice by Cathrine Belsey and Image-Music-Text. The reason, I think, was to make me aware of how completely immersed I am in culture, tradition, religion, etc, and how it predetermines the way I think or "criticize". These books made me extremely self-aware of that. The first book I read was Image-Music-Text, and I highly advise those who are looking to read Critical Practice read that book first. In Image-Music-Text I read this excerpt: "All images are polysemous, they imply, underlying their signifiers, a 'floating chain' of signifieds, the reader able to choose some and ignore others. Polysemy poses a question of meaning and this question always come through as a dysfunction, even if this dysfunction is recuperated by society as a tragic or a poetic game; in cinema itself, traumatic images are bound up with an uncertainty concerning the meaning of objects or attitudes. Hence in every society various techniques are developed intended to fix the floating chain of signifieds in such a way as to counter the terror of uncertain signs." - Rhetoric of the Image, The Linguistic Message,Image-Music-Text - Roland Barthes What I believe Critical Practice is trying to stop is "[the] various techniques developed [that are] intended to fix the floating chain of signifieds in such a way as to counter the terror of uncertain signs". The excerpt, in context, has very little to do with the methods suggested in Critical Practice. But it clearly specifies some of things the methods in Critical Practice are opposed to. Critical Practice asks that readers pull themselves outside of the cultural and historical context when they read and write, basically to find more authentic meaning and morality outside of the cultural and historical. The fear is, I suppose, that by not doing this a person's value system is predetermined by the system of semiotics in which he is immersed. But, I must note the contradiction. The method suggested is also inside of it's own cultural, ideological, and historical context and suggests "a technique developed [that is] intended to fix the floating chain of signifieds." The difference is that it brings the reader face to face with a "terror of uncertain signs" and suggests that this is where meaning can be found and valued. I might be wrong, but this is the impression I got. I highly recommend this book. I believe it makes one more self-aware of how influenced and (dare I say) predetermined his ideology is by his surrounding environment, culture, and history, but I do not recommend anyone take the technique too seriously. Men were made to place value in things, places, or ideas, and without thes

Belsey gives a good introduction of what literary criticism should be. She blows out any other orthodox criticism and creates a new vision.