Yield of Unaided Reading

Nidhu Bhusan Das :


We usually go by canon and keep in mind what critics have said about a text when we set out to read it.Or,we do not feel at ease unless and until we come to know the opinions of the critics after reading it unaided. There are two types of readers of a literary text- those who read for sheer enjoyment and those who go for critical reading. True, a critical reader is well equipped with the canon and opinions of other critics, if any, on the text. In case the text is new and a critic reads it to assess its worth and significance, he has the unenviable liberty to form his own opinion uninhibited by other opinions which do not exist. Yet the critical reader cannot but go by the canon. The first category of readers is free from any such inhibitions. Whenever a banker, a bureaucrat or an industrialist without literary training, for example, reads a novel, a play or a poem, he enjoys it in his own way, and may have his own opinion about the text. This opinion is also important because, ultimately, the success of the author depends on how the common readers accept the text.

However, canon and critical opinion develop as critical readers are active. One may ask what the utility of canon and critical study is. Well, it is like architecture. As building architecture evolves so does the architecture of texts. It corresponds with the evolution in the realm of thought as well as in the society. The motif and theme of a text depends on the location of the author in point of time. The reference to time is not necessarily to mean conteporanety but the time in the psyche. Though a Victorian in point of conteporanety, Robert Browning looked back to classical Greece .The time in this case is the one in the psyche of the poet. A creative mind may travel back to the past and revive it using his sensibility and insight developed in the present. A critic, on the other hand, looks through the text with contemporary theories in mind. Shakespeare wrote centuries before Karl Marx came up with his landmark theories of Surplus Value, Basic Structure and Super Structure. Yet a Marxian criticism of Shakespeare has been possible. Not only this, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Feminism etc.could be applied to shed new light on the works of Shakespeare.

Even if an ordinary reader reads a text unaided by any critical theory, his appreciation of the same depends on his contemporary sense, sensibility and insight. As the reader is also an author in the sense he finds his own meaning in the text, so a text is always open to new interpretation yielding meaning appropriate to the time of the reader. Is it then reasonable to think that every text is a mystery having in it the potential for umpteen meanings as does have our universe? If this is true, an author is like the creator of the universe which baffles us, and takes us to a realm which we try to grasp but cannot extract a meaning which is absolute. Whenever an author creates a text, (s)he has his/her own frame and architecture of thought, way of looking at and into the thing (s)he deals with. True, creation is a matter and embodiment of joy but, obviously, knowledge; experience and the objective condition in which the author is located form his/her outlook which gives shape to his/her joy of creation. The unaided reader with his/her thought outlook and frame of reference rooted in his/her environment explores in the text meaning compatible with his/her experience and insight.

Now, what could be the nature of the joy of creation and how the critical mind will respond to the existing and new texts in the 21st century, given the dominance of digital technology, biotechnology, genetic engineering and consumerism side by side with the problem of Global Warming and the facts of Globalization and Cultural Imperialism? Surely, this reality will inspire a new frame of thought and the creative and the critical minds will be influenced. The new experience will lead to new insight to produce new types of texts. Walt Whitman was inspired to compose the poem ‘A Passage to India’ after the opening up of the Suez Canal. Maybe, we will have an epic and other works on the explorations in the outer space by NASA, ISRO and such other bodies.