Abstract

NATURALIZING THE TEXT

Dr. Dhananjay Kumar Singh

Volume: 5 Issue: 3 2015

Abstract:

This paper looks beyond New Criticism. It ties in with a great name, Jonathan Culler associated with critical theory. Not content with neo- critical formalism, he explores the structuralist notion of Vraisemblance which goes by several names such as Naturalization, Recuperation, and Motivation as well. Each of these underlines an aspect of meaning and coherence. Each of these tries to situate the text with a view to making it ‘seem natural or real’. As to Naturalization, it is the idea of bringing the ‘strange or deviant’ into an intelligible order. Culler places all these under his concept of Vraisemblance which works on certain structuralist assumptions. These five relate to (1) “the socially given text” (2) to general cultural text, (3) Convention of the genre (4) Natural attitude to the artificial and (5) intertextualities. Three famous non-poetic texts- Kafka’s The Metamorphosis,Marcel Aymes’s Dermuche and William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily are critically examined from the point of view of Vraisemblance or Naturalization

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