In Areopagitica, Milton envisions texts as alive and embodied and their destruction is not to be taken lightly.[1] Not merely the paper text but also the metaphorical and semantic bodies are destroyed--the severed and torn edges of the Little Gidding Bibles are left to preach a new gospel of laceration, ravagement, and injury. Reversing Milton’s metaphor from embodied texts to textualized bodies, this “bibliographic practice” of textual cutting takes on a far darker dimension when applied to human texts (bodies, psyches, ideas) (Smyth 470). In Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Jekyll’s experiment actually begins as an attempt to effect a full separation between his two selves so that “the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path” (Stevenson 79). Jekyll’s experiment not only fails[2] to achieve a full separation, but from the moment of the first cut, both texts (the old and the new, Jekyll and Hyde) are marked by disfigurement and bear the signs of their destructive creation. Jekyll devolves from a man of purpose to a languid, useless, impotent and Hyde, unable to be checked by Jekyll, storms through London on dissipated and eventually murderous rampages. Creating texts through cutting texts means that both texts bear a mark/trait of destruction.
Thus, the cutter who wishes to create must consider the potential destructive capability of his or her new text (as in the potential blasphemy of Little Gidding texts),[3] and the destruction enacted on the old text. Moreover, the author’s own flesh is in danger. As Smyth states, cutting is a literal excising enacted with “scissors, knives, and penknives” (456). Working with such tools, there is the possibility of violence not just to consumers of the new text but also to the author during creation—after all, scissors and knives are sharp. One slip of the blade, and skin, not paper, may be cut open, blood staining the careful work of excision. As scholars our own consumption and production of texts can also be viewed as cutting. We break down (close read) texts, excise quotes and then rearrange them into our own arguments, which may then destroy the arguments of others. But if we do our work poorly, the argument rebounds upon us and leaves us open to professional ridicule, as well as facilitating mis-learning in those who consume our texts. We need to be aware that just as scissors and knives are weapons as well as tools, so too is Microsoft Word. Cutting, metaphorically or literally, is a double-edged sword, one that can destroy a text but also can destroy the one who wields it with ineptitude.
Word count: 600. Bam.
[1] Milton writes, “For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them….Unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself” (720). He also uses a recurring metaphor of books as birthed children throughout the treatise.
[2]My “discoveries were incomplete” (Stevenson 80)
[3] Smyth writes that some of the Gospel Harmonies were censured for offering a too imagistic, proto-Catholic version of religion (467).
[1] Milton writes, “For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them….Unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself” (720). He also uses a recurring metaphor of books as birthed children throughout the treatise.
[2]My “discoveries were incomplete” (Stevenson 80)
[3] Smyth writes that some of the Gospel Harmonies were censured for offering a too imagistic, proto-Catholic version of religion (467).
6 comments:
It seems like Milton poses a real problem for Smyth's argument. After all, Smyth's claims depend on us "misreading" the cutting of texts in the 17th century and his correction of that reading. The way he presents the historical context of this cutting had me accepting it as fact - but if Milton is saying, at around the same time, that books are like living things (implicitly a living thing is "whole," right?), then that certainly complicates Smyth's argument. My question for you two is, in your reading, why do you think Smyth ignores that particular historical current? Do you think his argument is actually more class-inflected than he lets on? That is, is Milton, as a more educated and upper class historical figure, more likely to see books as whole than the consumers/producers of Smyth's article?
Samantha and Lee,
Great job with this post! The idea of thinking about a "human text," a textualized body, is very interesting. When we think about Jekyll's body as cut, it is not physical -- it is more a cutting of his mind; but, at the same time, this new, piecemeal text destroys (but perhaps modifies) the previous. I also think that your point about weaponized cutting tools is fascinating.
Does close reading (specifically through quoting and/or paraphrasing) actually destroy an argument? Or does it modify it to an extent that contains the original? The argument itself is intangible, just like the psyche of Hyde; yet one is destructive and one is productive.
If Jekyll is the author of the cutting, creating the product that is a new text, then how do we readers respond to the extent to which Jekyll disapproves of the creation? If cutting is potentially destructive and creative simultaneously, then how should theory/criticism approach the act of cutting?
-Zach
Like Zach, I'm intrigued by your last paragraph, though I'm not sure the cutting/excerpting comparison holds. I guess the closest connection I can draw is those rare circumstances when especially popular interpretations become so tightly attached to a text that's it's difficult to read the text without them (How many performances of Hamlet play up the Oedipal angle?). Since there are always more copies of the original text than the one that was cut/interpreted - there's a reason cutting appears alongside the printing press, and not with hand-written manuscripts - it seems like the destructive potential of cutting is more about new versions becoming more visible, popular, etc. than the originals.
I also want to bounce off Zach's question about the act of close reading as a form of cutting. Megan makes a good point about the printing press and the wide production of physical texts--so I'll extrapolate that move to the development of digital text. I'd argue that now, when we do all or most of our work with at least some recourse to lasting digital versions of textual documents, we rarely actually destroy any textual records. (I suppose manuscript work is an exception?) In fact, we probably just produce more documents: copies as downloads and attachments, excerpted notes, shared files, etc. Perhaps we should consider cutting's complement--pasting--in this new environment of overabundant textual snippets. Perhaps writing in this environment is characterized not by the selection of specific text for excision, but by the rejection of "junk" text in favor of the most useful snippets. That's how I search Google, at least.
I wonder about the use "text" as not only a synonym for "book," but for person, body, political body, fossil record, earth, universe, everything, etc.. The imposition to use this word in this way (as, for instance, it's shown up in several of the chapters/essays we've read together) is troubling to me insofar as it leads down this rabbit hole of indifferentiation.
Is it possible, then, to think of such a process of lexical elision as its own kind of cutting? its own kind of destruction/creation which is, rather than textual, essentially semantic?
Honestly. I don't even have to read it to know that it is great. 600 words on the nose! I have never been prouder of any students. Never. Been. Prouder.
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