Gwatter06, Macherey

Our first piece covering the critical complex behind language and literature! I enjoyed this piece from Macherey because there were a lot of different points and angles taken on the theory of literary production. The point that intrigued me most that Macherey covered was that all literary work is empty, empty in the sense that all work is feasible to critique. “For there to be a critical discourse which is more than a superficial and futile reprise of the work, the speech stored in the book must be incomplete; because it has not said everything, there remains the possibility of saying something else…” (15) Without the creation of this notion and the understanding of this aspect, we wouldn’t even have a CMC framework, we wouldn’t have literary disputes, and many things would be tunneled and closed-minded. Macherey makes a great point in saying, “to know what the writer is saying, it is not enough to let him speak, for his speech is hollow and can never be completed at its own level” (16). What I believe Macherey is trying to develop is that, theory and critical discourse thrives from the emptiness of language in a text. The incompleteness in which cannot be located is what provides the window for the crucial role of critical discourse.

Another compelling topic Macherey covered within this excerpt was the idea of the significance of the “unspoken” in language. Early on he explained that explicit and implicit are exact opposites and that explicit is text that is accounted for, expressed and sometimes concluded and is directly correlated with the text. Implicit plays its role in the formulation of the speech in text. Macherey claims that a book or text is not self-sufficient, and its figure contrives from a “certain absence.” Macherey explains that explicit derives and requires the implicit, creating the notion, “for in order to say anything, there are other things which must not be said” (17). My first thought on this is the renowned common relation in physics; for every action there is an opposite reaction. In this case, the action creates a reaction in which ultimately solidifies speech in text. In the end, creating the base for the formulation literature.