Abstract
A discussion of the preface as a genre is necessary for several reasons: a comparative study, this work is based on theoretical and methodological assumptions and these must be stated. In addition, the relatively unexplored state of the subject, the preface, necessitates a more detailed introduction to the object of the study. The theoretical position that the preface is a genre will be introduced by a taxonomical survey and with examples from the secondary literature. Further, a section arguing for the appropriateness of the application of the framework and methodology of the Empirical Theory of Literature for the study of the preface — and for the study of literature per se — will be presented. Lastly, the matter of the corpus of the prefaces will also be discussed. As the claim will be made that the Empirical Theory of Literature is a most appropriate framework and methodology for the study of the Canadian novel preface and as this framework prescribes that the steps of research taken be the “forming [of] a hypothesis, putting it into practice, testing, and evaluation” (van Gorp et al. 117), the structure of and sequence in this work will conform to this theoretical postulate. This is the more necessary, because such an approach to literature is, at large, most uncommon in literary scholarship.
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References
A distinction is made between French-Canadianand Québécois-Canadian literature. While French-Canadian literature is used in reference to the nineteenth century, Québécois-Canadian literature is in reference to the twentieth century.
German-language scholarship in particular has contributed much to the study of the preface. Also, the volume of German-language prefatory taxonomy is significant. For these reasons, although this study is on the English-Canadian and French-Canadian novel preface, German-language prefatorial terminology and secondary literature will be included in this introductory chapter.
Genette included, in addition to the preface, several other “paratextuals”, such as the title, the epilogue, etc.
Az elöszó — mûfaj, olyan irasmú, amelyben a könyv szerzöje az utolsó szó jogan all a közönség, a kor és az utókor clé, hogy önmaga ügyvéde es interpretatora legyen“ (my translation; Kenyeres 5).
In previous editions, “statement” was further qualified by “short introductory statement”, and “author” was deleted in the new edition, thus eliminating an ambiguity that allowed for the assumption that the preface was written largely by the author of the book itself (cf. Holman 1980, 349).
The entry also contains a short bibliography of German-language works on the preface.
Since English scholarship on the preface is almost non-existent and most studies on the preface are about the modem period, one can only guess whom Ehrenzeller could have meant. He must have been referring to such texts as Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
For a recent study of the paratextual — apart from Genette’s work — see John Pier’s “Pragmatisme du paratexte et signification” (1988).
Genette’s typology is mainly based on a differentiation of prefatorial-authorial voices. This having not been an important aspect of Canadian prefaces, his typology cannot be meaningfully implemented.
This article also includes a selected but very useful bibliography of preface studies in an appendix.11 In English-language literary studies the terms “empirical” and “science” have negative connotative associations. For this reason, the term “science” from the more usual designation of Empirical Science of Literature is replaced with “theory”. The term “empirical” — as an important element of the theoretical framework remains in the taxonomical designation of the framework and methodology (for a dictionary entry of the Empirical Science of Literature in English cf. Tötösy [1993a] and for a version of the following discussion dealing with systemic approaches for the study of literature, with an extensive bibliography, cf. Tötösy [1992a]).
It has been suggested that North-American scholars often lack the knowledge of foreign languages and rely on translations, thus the delay in attention to new developments (cf. Blodgett 1986).
For a recent English-language dictionary entry see Dimic (1993).
For example, Easthope’s book obviously widens the scope and understands literature similarly to Schmidt who proposes the notion of “media studies”. Easthope’s new paradigm for literary recte cultural analysis consists of the areas of sign system, ideology, gender, identification and subject position, the other, institution, readership, and pedagogy (129–39). These areas are analoguous to the tenets of the systemic frameworks and theories in question.
R. Viehoff s (ed.) recent book, Alternative Traditionen: Dokumente zur Entwicklung einer empirischen Literaturwissenschaft (1991) documents the intellectual roots of the ETL theory with a large number of works. My selected bibliography (Tötösy, 1992a) contains additional titles in several categories.
The large corpus of both theoretical and applied works that followed and follows Schmidt’s work is evident in the numbers of titles in my selective bibliography (Tötösy, 1992a), as already mentioned. For a recent discussion of the systemic approach to literature cf. Schmidt (1993).
In addition to the number of scholars who published works with the ETL theory, since the early 1980s several learned journals began to focus on this theory and methodology. For example, Poetics Today has published throughout the decade many articles written in the framework of the ETL. Also, the ETL approach has its own learned journal, the internationally recognized Poetics, as well as the biannual SPIEL — Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft,published by Peter Lang, and the Hungarian learned journal of literary theory Helikon devoted a special issue to the LIZ in 1989. Scholars working with the ELL theory also have an international association (Internationale Gesellschaft der Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft, IGEL) that regularly holds international conferences, the first of which was held at the Universität-Gesamthochschule Siegen in 1984, the second in Amsterdam in 1989, the third at Memphis State University (USA) in 1992, and the fourth to be held in Budapest in 1994. Peer-reviewed articles selected from the presentations at these conferences were (Poetics and Ibsch, Schram, Steen [1991]) and will be published. In North American scholarship cognitive psychologists in particular showed interest in the ETL framework. As mentioned above, one handicap of North American Scholars often appears to be their lack of German and thus they are unfamiliar with the existing and large secondary literature in that language. At present, apart from the work of Tötösy (1989; 1990a-b; 1993b) no works have been published in North America in the specificity of the ETL applied to literary texts. The ETC. theory and methodology has not appeared in English-language literary encyclopaedias and dictionaries apart from Tötösy (1993). The same is true in French-language reference works, but C. Moisan (Université Laval) has recently begun to translate some of S.J. Schmidt’s work into French. In the area of readership research, on the other hand, the ETL framework and methodology has gained significant ground since Hintzenberg et al. (cf. e.g. Miall, Graesser, and the results of a readership survey in Poetics by Tötösy and Kreisel (1992). The Polysystem theory,in addition to scholars working at the Tel Aviv Porter Institute of Poetics and at Leuven University in Belgium and whose scholarship appears in (similarly to Poetics an internationally recognized journal) Poetics Today and attracted Canadian scholars affiliated with the University of Alberta Research Institute for Comparative Literature (Dimie 1989a-b; Pivato 1990, and Tötösy 1988) and scholars working at other Canadian universities some of whom employ the Polysystem theory in their work with the Institute’s project “Towards a History of the Literary Institution in Canada”. This project resulted to date in seven conferences whose proceedings were published and received very favourable reviews. The l’institution littéraire attracted mainly Québécois-Canadian scholars.
See also the more recent lexical entry of A. Barsch, “Empirische Literaturwissenschaft” (1992a, 206–09). In this entry, more than in other dictionary definitions, special attention is paid to the reception-theoretical focus of the Empirical Theory of Literature.19 To date no study has been published where the ETL has been applied in feminist criticism, but Tötösy and Tötösy are in the process of developing a study of gender specific representation in the modem novel where literary discourse is analysed as showing masculine and feminine points of view.
Interestingly, one area of scholarship that appears to manifest exceptional resistance to systemic approaches is scholarship involved with the literatures of visible minorities in the context of marginality and ethnicity. The criticism that a systemic approach is in essence a “system building” approach, thus imposing unjustified borders on literature and exposing the problem of theory transfer and Eurocentrism — systemic approaches being of European origin — is misguided. Systemic approaches to literature do not “build” or impose a system upon literature. It is the other way around: the “system(s)” is/are obviously there and because it is there, the systemic approach is the best tool to disentangle literature’s nature and problems. Interestingly, in a recent discussion with scholars involved with research into the history of Canadian ethnic literature,the criticism was raised that the systemic approach to Canadian ethnic literature is unacceptable because of its Eurocentrism (the problem of theory transfer) and because it represents a “straight jacket” approach to literature. While it is true that the systemic approaches are indeed Eurocentric, the deciding factor as to any theory’s usefulnes should be the overriding question “does it bring about new knowledge?” If it does, it should not matter where the theory itself comes from. As to the question of the “straight jacket” approach, this is a problem of any theory when applied, and to get around it only the total disregard of literary theory will be satisfactory — which, surely, cannot be a tenable notion because its ultimate consequence will be the implicit rejection of the meaning of the study of literature in toto. With reference to the problem of “Western” literary frameworks and the study of “colonial” literatures it is noteworthy that the Polysystem theory has been applied to the study of African and Caribbean literatures (cf. Awuyah, Jones).
The term itself — whether in its traditional context or in its Constructivist meaning — raises eyebrows in literary studies, especially in North America. Interestingly, one of North America’s foremost literary critics, the Canadian Northrop Frye, said in an interview in 1986: “I think that criticism is still bound up to ideology, and consequently much more concerned to develop the language of argument and thesis than really embark on the empirical study of literature” (Salusinszky 32). Unfortunately, Frye has not demonstrated in his work, either in theory or in practice, what he cursorily referred to in the interview. However, one Canadian scholar considers Frye’s work as consisting of a systemic view of literature, including some empirical tenets (cf. Hart 1993 ).
Because of the lack of theoretical and methodological interest in the institutional — or systemic — view of literature in Anglo-American literary scholarship, it should be mentioned that Harry Levin, in his book Gates of Horn: A Study of Five French Realists (1963), wrote a section in his introduction with the subtitle “Literature as an Institution” (16–23. The piece was first published in Accent in 1946). Although thus Levin’s notion of literature as institution may claim some genealogical precedence — pre-dating both Goldmann’s notion of the novel as an institution and Dubois’s book — his notion is not developed either in a theoretical framework or in a methodology beyond an undefined proposition of the notion.
This work may also be viewed as representing the polysystem theory.
The Québécois-Canadian groups of scholars also use many of the champ littéraire (Bourdieu) tenets. For a selected bibliography, divided into sections of general system theoretical works, works by the Russian Formalists and the Prague School, and other Communication theory approaches cf. Dimié and Garstin. This bibliography is more oriented towards the semiotic than the sociological body of secondary literature.
This work won the first prize of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities for best French-language scholarly work of 1989.
Cf. R. Estivais, éd., Le livre en France (1984), R. Estivais, Le livre dans le monde (1984), and St. Sarkany, Québec Canada France: Le Canada littéraire à la croisée des cultures (1985). There is of course also the disciple of Library Science in North America and the area of “Bücherkunde” in German-language scholarship. However, these are much further removed from the text per se than the École bibliologique.
Cf. Y. Lamonde, éd., L’Imprimé au Québec: aspects historiques (18e-20’ siècles) (1983), V. Nadeau, Au Commencement était le fascicule. Aux sources de l’édition québécoise contemporaine pour la masse (1984), L. Robert, Prolégomènes à une étude sur les transformations du marché du livre (1900–1940) (1984).
A selected bibliography is in the Dimic and Garstin bibliography. See also I. Even-Zohar, Poetics Today 11.1 Polysystem Studies (Spring 1990), and Tötösy (1992a) with recent titles.
U. Weisstein, in his Einführung in die vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (23–24) interpretes Mme de Staël’s work as “soziologische Interesse” in literatures. In my view this is hardly tenable.
It is of interest that there has been no link discussed to date between the Schlegelian and Staël concepts and that of the Russian Formalists — although the relationship between German, French, and Russian literatures in the sense of intellectual and literary history is well known.
Frow devotes two chapters to the view of literature as system.
However, the systemic significance and its accompanying inclusion into the study of literary phenomena can be easily demonstrated with both the ETL and the l’institution littéraire frameworks. Recently, I completed a “A Taxonomy for Literary Translation,” based on works of the Nitra School (Slovakia) and merged their concepts and terminology with tenets of the ETZ and of the Polysystem theory.
The “expansion” of the systemic approach to literature, as mentioned above in several instances, is steady. In addition to the cited areas such as Germany, Belgium, France, Israel, Canada, the U.S., etc., particularly in the Netherlands, Japan, and Hungary did scholars advance these frameworks theoretically and in their application. See, for example, D. Fokkema’s and E. Ibsch’s recent book Literatuurwetenschap & Cultuuroverdracht (1992).
With regard to discussions among scholars working with systemic approaches, proponents of the Polysystem theory and the ETL in particular, express divergent views. For example, the Polysystem group maintains that the ETZ analyses “system” as a homogeneous and closed structure. Other criticisms include the contention that ETZ uses classificatory criteria detrimentally and that it imposes “borderlines”, and that the notion of “empiricity” is superfluous. Even-Zohar, for instance, contends that the ETZ framework is “rigid, anachronistic, and unsatisfactory”. At the same time, Even-Zohar acknowledges that the original Semiotics orientation, or, in his words “bias” of the Polysystem theory “has been conspicuously replaced by a ‘socio-semiotic”’ framework, and he describes the Polysystem theory as a “theory of culture [which is] an ensemble of socio-semiotic activities, where ‘literature’ is considered to be an integral activity” (Even-Zoharin a letter to the author, January 1992). This development, although it does not bridge the difference of opinions about concepts of literature as system and its empirical postulate, brings the Polysystem theory closer to the ETZ with its notions and postulates of communication, social interaction, and social relevance still. It is ironic that the criticisms expressed with reference to the ETZ by scholars working with the Polysystem theory are analoguous with the criticisms brought forward against all systemic frameworks by scholars, who in toto reject these approaches to literature.
Canadian Learned Societies Conference at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver), June 1983; Section: Comparative Literature, Special Colloquium on the Preface and Manifestoes. 2. Prefaces and Manifestoes, 3rd Conference for “Towards a History of the Literary Institution in Canada, Research Institute for Comparative Literature, University of Alberta ( Edmonton ), November 1987.
One, although ambiguous, exception ought to be mentioned. W.H. New’s A History of Canadian Literature lists Ballantyne’s Ungava in a list of Canadian literary publications (311).
Cf. Selby (40–46) on Ballantyne and The Canadian Encyclopedia (3 1386) on Moore. The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature attempted to deal with the question by creating the categories of “Foreign writers on Canada in English” and “Foreign writers on Canada in French” (267–77). Such authors as Ballantyne and Joseph Hatton, for example, were then classified as foreign writers on Canada.
On the “literary nationality” of Richardson see McLeod (227–43).
Nothing proves more the originally hypothetical nature of the Canadian novel preface than the fact that at the beginning of the research there was no indication about the number, type, form, content, etc., of these prefaces. There was, however, an assumption — based on a very limited number of prefaces written to canonical nineteenth-century Canadian texts, mainly poetry — that there might be a sufficient number of novel prefaces that would warrant further research and subsequently analysis.
This is not the place to discuss the misguided and entrenched establishment of the concept of “national literature”, a result of Romanticism, the way literary histories are written and the basic scholarly necessity to categorize and to periodize — all of which allow for the handling of the material “literature” as “national” literature.
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Tötösy de Zepetnek, S. (1993). The Theoretical Foundations of the Study of Prefaces and the Corpus of the Nineteenth-Century Canadian Novel Prefaces. In: Barsch, A. (eds) The Social Dimensions of Fiction. Konzeption Empirische Literaturwissenschaft, vol 15. Vieweg+Teubner Verlag, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-13909-6_2
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