Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
ÉVA ANTAL The Rhetoric and Ethics of Reading
The Rhetoric and Ethics of Reading 69 deconstructive reading practice, they obviously appear as a necessity in the course of the history of literary criticism and theory. On the whole, as Jonathan Loesberg remarks "the most virulent charge against deconstruction [is] its aestheticism [which] stands as a vague synonym for imagining a realm of art entirely separate from social or historical effects and then advocating an escape into that 'unreal', aesthetic universe" (Loesberg 3). On the one hand, I think, the Yale-critics would answer that there is no escape beyond language and textual understanding. They would also say that they really do work hard as reading needs continuous efforts, and they should follow a must: a linguistic necessity, which can be called a hermeneutical or ethical imperative. On the other hand, deconstruction as a new mode of criticism (cf. new new criticism) appeared in the last few decades of the 20 t h century, and the end of the previous centuries were similarly marked by the atmosphere of decadence — with the signs of nihilism, hedonism, pessimism and escapist fantasies, 3 But there is a crucial difference between deconstruction and other decadent theories of art: it is its strong sense of responsibility. In The Ethics of Reading —following de Man's idea on the necessity of reading —Miller claims that "each reading is, strictly speaking, ethical, in the sense that it has to take place, by an implacable necessity, as a response to a categorical demand, and in the sense that the reader must take responsibility for it and for its consequences" (Miller EE, 59). And here the word 'reader' can not only refer to the writer and his invented figures, but also critics, teachers q I especially find one period close to deconstruction in its ideas: English Victorianism with its central theorist, Walter Pater. The movement called the English I'art pour I'art, 'art for art's sake 5, which meant that a circle of the novelists and painters was basically centered around or related to Pater himself and all the members were also attacked due to their 'sinful' aestheticism. In spite of the differences between the two kinds of criticism, the question of the ethical in the aesthetical emphatically appeared in both of them. Let me refer to a particular work now: Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Despite the scandaleous nature of the work with its welcoming of amorality, new hedonism, worship of art and Greek spirit in love (cf. homosexuality), it offers a puzzling ending. Dorian Gray wishes to remain handsome and pure, while his portrait, his 'magical mirror', is getting old and marked by his sinful deeds. In the end he tries to destroy the portrait, the only witness to his ugly and unjust life, but he dies while his portrait gets back the original purity and goodness of his youth. How can we interpret the ending? In Dorian's death we can claim the victory of art over life, but the villain is punished. Consequently, we can read the ending as a moral conclusion united with the perfection of art, which Wilde called the expression of "ethical beauty" (quoted in Ellmann 321). See "The New Aestheticism". In Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. NY: Vintage Books, 1988.
