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New Orleans Review New Orleans Review LOYOLA UNI VERSITY VOLUME 10 NUMBER 11$6.00 Editors John i:liguenet, Art and Literature Bruce Henricksen, Theory and Criticism John Mosier, Film, General Editor Executive Assistant to General Editor Sarah Elizabeth Spain Design Vilma Pesciallo Contributing Editor Raymond McGowan Founding Editor Miller Williams Advisory Editors Doris Betts Joseph Fichter, S.J. Dawson Gaillard Alexis Gonzales, F.S.C. John Irwin Wesley Morris Walker Percy Herman Rapaport Robert Scholes Marcus Smith Miller Williams The New Orleans Review is published by Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States. Copyright © 1983 by Loyola University. Critical essays relating to film or literature of up to ten thou­ sand words should be prepared to conform with MLA guidelines and sent to the appropriate editor, together with a stamped, self­ addressed envelope. The address is New Orleans Review, Box 195, Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. Fiction, poetry, photography or related artwork should be sent to the Art and Literature Editor. A stamped, self-addressed envelope should be enclosed. Reasonable care is taken in the handling of material, but no responsibility is assumed for the loss of unsolicited material. Ac­ cepted manuscripts are the property of the NOR. The New Orleans Review is published in February, May, August and November. Annual Subscription Rate: Institutions $20.00, Individuals $15.00, Foreign Subscribers $30.00. Contents listed in the PMLA Bibliography and the Index of American Periodical Verse. US ISSN 0028-6400. CONTENTS NON-FICTION Introduction: The Gentle Behemoth; or, The Illusionist of Truth; or, The Bourgeois (with a Trace of Existentialism) Gentilhomme; or, The Experienced Uncle Toby; and, finally, Practical Kriegerism Hazard Adams 5 Criticism as Quest: Murray Krieger and the Pursuit of Presence Mark Rose 8 Saving Poetry: Murray Krieger's Faith in Formalism Vincent B. Leitch 12 Both Sides Now Murray Krieger 18 Murray Krieger: A Departure into Diachrony Wesley Morris 24 The Lure of the Text, or Uncle Toby's Revenge Michael Clark 34 A Matter of Distinction: An Interview with Murray Krieger Richard Berg 48 A Checklist of Writings by and about Murray Krieger Eddie Yeghiayan 63 PERSPECTIVES Urban Theory and Critical Blight: Accommodating the Unreal City William Sharpe 79 New Orleans Review Spring 1983 THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MURRAY KRIEGER: A SPECIAL SECTION The New Orleans Review gratefully acknowledges the assistance of our Guest Editor, Richard Berg, in bringing together the essays which constitute this special section on Murray Krieger. The section consists of papers delivered by Mark Rose and Vincent Leitch at the 1981 MLA conference, together with Murray Krieger's response at that time. Richard Berg solicited longer papers by Michael Clark and Wesley Morris, and Hazard Adams has generously expanded his opening remarks from the MLA session to include reference to these papers. Following Richard Berg's interview with Murray Krieger, our section concludes with a comprehensive bibliography supplied by Eddie Yeghiayan. These papers offer valuable perspectives on the work of a major American critic whose theories have evolved during the transition from the era of New Criticism to that of post-structuralism. They clarify the strength of a theorist who has remained faithful to a humanistic vision of the presentational powers of literature while incorporating the essential insights and challenges of those who deny the validity of that tradition. Hazard Adams INTRODUCTION: THE GENTLE BEHEMOTH; OR, THE ILLUSIONIST OF TRUTH; OR, THE BOURGEOIS (WITH A TRACE OF EXISTENTIALISM) GENTILHOMME; OR, THE EXPERIENCED UNCLE TOBY; AND, FINALLY, PRACTICAL KRIEGERISM his collection can be traced easily enough to the presence of the signified in the signifier and its Tsession on literary criticism at the Modern absence, though, of course, Krieger claims that the Language Association meetings in December of presence is a special sort of illusion, not Jacques 1981, arranged and chaired by myself and entitled Derrida's absent transcendental signified. He sees 'The Criticism of Murray Krieger: The Question Krieger as a paradoxist and notes that the presence/ of Presence." However, it may take some unfamiliar illusion paradox has parallels in Krieger's treatment readers a little longer to recognize that the true of spatiality/temporality and closure/openness. He source is Murray Krieger's long, pioneering services sees Krieger viewing man as a heroic creator of to the enterprise of literary criticism and theory in forms; his Krieger quests for an absolute authority, America. Author of seven major books and nu­ but is always returned (always returns) to the quar­ merous briefer works, Krieger has over thirty years rel of existence with forms. Thus Krieger's early developed a subtle literary theory in the venerable existentialism (most evident in The Tragic Vision tradition of the apology for poetry and has been of 1960) is organized into one half of an opposition, at the forefront of pedagogy in a field he himself the other pole of which is celebration of cultural has pioneered. At the MLA session, Mark Rose and possibility and not merely the repression that con­ Vincent B. Leitch presented the papers we have cerns Wesley Morris in his essay. Rose's Krieger is here, and Murray Krieger responded with the en­ a gentle Behemoth, who swallows all theory pre­ gaging remarks entitled "Both Sides Now." Then ceding him that is worth swallowing, and incor­ Bruce Henricksen of the New Orleans Review and porates all he swallows into his ever expanding Richard Berg entered the picture commissioning two theory. more essays - by Wesley Morris and Michael Vincent B. Leitch, coming from his own post­ Clark, both former students of Krieger - and ar­ structuralist deconstructive commitment, strikes a ranging Berg's interview, which culminates in somewhat histrionic note when he characterizes Krieger's "enough." It is a word one might read as Krieger as a "believer," with which appellation he a plaintive cry, but that interpretation belies the quaintly associates quaintness. There is an element masterful presentation and contextualization of of this also in Wesley Morris' more or less Marxist Krieger's position that the interview contains. attitude toward aspects of Krieger's theory, which Let me return for a moment to the original scene he identifies with a just post-World War II sensi­ (if I may indulge in unfashionable nostalgia: clearly bility. (I detect something a little self-satisfied or for some readers these texts are radically free of perhaps Oedipal in the tone of these characteri­ their original spoken events). The MLA session zations.) Leitch regards Krieger's "formalist way of honored an active theorist whose writings since his writing" as a rhetorical trick, merely figurative at first book The New Apologists for Poetry (1956) the critical points and thus, in his view, suspect. constitute a major body of critical theory capable, However, a good post-structuralist ought to as we see from these essays, of generating a variety acknowledge that his own discourse is caught in the of responses, sometimes in conflict, sometimes same deceptive behavior. Leitch's main question is . dwelling on a special aspect. (As organizer of the whether or not Krieger really has it both ways, or original scene, I had also in mind to celebrate whether the equal opposition of presence and another perhaps less obvious aspect of Krieger's illusion is not still weighted toward presence, career, but I shall save comment on that until the formalism, contextualism, and the like. For Leitch, end.) Of the two original papers (both, like Krieger's Krieger is a theologian of humanism, an especially reply, necessarily shorter than the later ones), that anxious one seeking "security and self-protection." of Mark Rose is more nearly a piece of direct expli­ On the other hand, he is a "stoical figure" who cation. For him, Krieger puts equal weight on the "worries the hedonism of his times." This remark HAZARD ADAMS 5 must be amusing to Krieger, given the recent charge Leviathan who will swallow Rose's gentle Behemoth of hedonism leveled against him by the anti-decon­ - Jacques Lacan. However, I doubt that our structionist Frank Lentricchia. For Krieger, to find Behemoth, definitely a land animal, is willing to himself regarded in this way by the two extremes desert the shore for shifting waters where lurk the is perhaps a justification in itself. For Leitch, jaws of psychoanalytical dispute and the effort to Krieger's alleged emphasis on presence at the resolve paradox by its means. I doubt that Krieger expense of absence makes him produce only the would accept Clark's Lacanian treatment of his illusion of truth not (as I think Krieger would have contained signified as the latent presence of but it) the truth of illusion. another signifier in the Saussurean chain. My view Krieger's lively reply speaks for itself. It was, of is that Krieger's discipline of paradox makes it more course, limited to a relatively short space of time likely that he could swallow a beached Lacan than at the MLA session, and he has not expanded it, Lacan a floundering Krieger, though perhaps it is preferring to maintain the flavor of that event. It best that the two remain in their respective is helpful, therefore, to have also the interview with environments. In other words, I am skeptical about Richard Berg. The two additional essays, not re­ a parallel that seems too easy, though certainly stricted to a certain length, are good to have in the cleverly presented. collection, because they deal with other aspects of The most interesting question raised by Krieger's Krieger's work. In a special way they reflect well work is not whether presence or absence is on Krieger because they show how his students have privileged.
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