"New Literary History" and the Postmodern Paradigm: Implications for Theatre History
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1983 "New Literary History" and the Postmodern Paradigm: Implications for Theatre History. Robert Gerard Staggenborg Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Staggenborg, Robert Gerard, ""New Literary History" and the Postmodern Paradigm: Implications for Theatre History." (1983). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3864. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3864 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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University M icrofilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 8318027 Staggenborg, Robert Gerard "NEW LITERARY HISTORY" AND THE POSTMODERN PARADIGM: IMPLICATIONS FOR THEATRE HISTORY The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical ColPh.D. 1983 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Read, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Copyright 1983 by Staggenborg, Robert Gerard All Rights Reserved NEW LITERARY HISTORY AND THE POSTMODERN PARADIGM: IMPLICATIONS FOR THEATRE HISTORY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech by Robert G. Staggenborg B. A., Thomas More College, 1972 M. A,, University of Cincinnati, 1973 May 1983 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of many along the way. I want to express gratitude to two scholars who have worked carefully and understandingly with me since the inception of this dissertation: my major professor, Bill Harbin, and a professor from my minor field of study, Fabian Gudas. Appreciation is also extended to other members of my committee, Mary Frances HopKins, Gresdna Doty, Gerilyn Tandberg, and Robert Becker. A special thanks goes to my parents, Elmer and Mary Louise Staggenborg, for their emotional, spiritual, and economic support. And a special appreciation is extended to a deep friend, Shelia Smith, whose faith, prayers, and affection have sustained me throughout my graduate studies, especially during the compilation of this dissertation. I would also like to express my appreciation of Charles Bigger, Mark Walls, and Rainer Hertel for their inspiration and fervent support of the hermeneutic revolution. This dissertation is dedicated to Jane Erin Noe and Michael Burkhart, two who have shattered and immeasurably expanded my horizons. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT............................................................. iii INTRODUCTION.......................................................... v CHAPTER I. NEW LITERARY HISTORY AND THE POSTMODERN PARADIGM........... 1 Kant and the Prelude to Modernity................. 4 Saussure and Structuralism......................... 11 Hegel, Dilthey and Phenomenological Hermeneutics.. 21 Martin Heidegger and the Postmodern Paradigm..... 38 Derrida and Deconstruction......................... 45 Gadamer and Contemporary Hermeneutics............. 48 New Literary History and the Postmodern Paradigm.. 54 II. THE ONTOLOGY OF AUDIENCE RESPONSE................... 58 Speech Act Theory and the Initial Aesthetic Response.......................................... 58 Rupture and Metaphor............................... 80 III. THE ONTOLOGY OF HISTORICAL INQUIRY.................. 90 Positivism and Its Problems........................ 92 Hermeneutic History and Its Hopes................. 109 IV. A NEW THEATRE HISTORY: LOSSES AND GAINS.................... 133 VITA.................................................................. 160 ii ABSTRACT Thomas S. Kuhn writes of disciplinary paradigms, presuppositions tacitly setting v ,ie epistemological boundaries of a partlculat field or of the vision of a particular epoch. In the past decade, a paradigmatic revolution has deeply altered the western world's sense of reality. A new postmodern paradigm has emerged and evidenced Itself in such critical approaches to art as semiotics, phenomenology, poststructuralism, and hermeneutics. The aim of the present study is to identify the central theoretical perspective offered by the new paradigm, to examine and define the central critico-historical principles stemming from such a perspective, and to relate these principles to the work of the theatre historian. In order to do so, the study has limited its focus to a single significant and representative body of work, the first thirteen volumes of the journal, New Literary History (NLH). The significance of NLH in the realm of American aesthetic theory and history rests on several foundations. The first journal to make the new theory accessible to English speaking scholars, NLH has published articles by many of the leading figures in postmodern criticism. NLH also remains the only major American critical journal dedicated to a re-evaluation of the history in the light of contemporary communication theory. Chapter I explicates the fundamental epistemological principles of the postmodern paradigm. The chapter has been structured to show the evolution of postmodern epistemology from its inception in Kant to its ill most contemporary representation In post-Gadamerican hermaneutics. The fundamental epistemological principles of the major modern and postmodern critical schools are examined and the Interrelationships between these separate critical philosophies are studied. The chapter discusses the epistemological contributions made by Kant,- Saussure, Hegel, Dilthey, Heidegger, Derrida, and Gadamer. The chapter also locates the Identity of NLH in terms of the overall postmodern paradigm. Chapter II analyzes the nature of audience response as envisioned in the light of postmodern eplstemology. The principles that structure this reception are accounted with special attention being given to centextual linguistics and the postmodern definition of metaphor. Chapter IV presents a summary of the basic tenets of the NLH approach to the history of the arts and proceeds to an evaluation of the merits and limitations of the NLH format for future theatre history research. The chapter includes an estimation of how the theatre historian may play a unique role in the progress of the NLH program of study. iv INTRODUCTION In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn develops the concept of disciplinary paradigms, epistemological presuppositions tacitly accepted among members of a particular community o f .scientific researchers. Paradigms, by setting the epistemological boundaries of a particular field, restrict the selection of problems to "those that can be answered," set down the rules that govern methodical research, and construct the guidelines for understanding the results of that re search.^ As David Bleich asserts, paradigms give consistency to a particular field of research be delineating "the cognitive state of mind of those systematically observing something in human experience." In The Order of Things, structural historian Michel Foucault develops a concept similar to Kuhn's idea of paradigms. Foucault devotes his discussion to "epistemes," the a^ priori conditions under which "ideas could appear, sciences could be established, experience