A Contract of Loyalty (Supurna Dasgupta

A Contract of Loyalty

“Narrative contract”, “Always historicize”, “A truth universally acknowledged”, “Dedoubling as a literary technique”…the voices merge and coalesce among similar other whispers inside the head.

Disclaimer #1: Disclaimer #1: Disclaimer #1: Disclaimer #1: Disclaimer #1: All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned i n t h i s p a p e r a r e ‘ r e a l ’ i n t h i s p a p e r a r e ‘ r e a l ’ i n t h i s p a p e r a r e ‘ r e a l ’ i n t h i s p a p e r a r e ‘ r e a l ’ i n t h i s p a p e r a r e ‘ r e a l ’ p e o p l e . p e o p l e . p e o p l e . p e o p l e . p e o p l e . A n y r e s e m b l a n c e w i t h a n y o n e f i c t i o n a l i s A n y r e s e m b l a n c e w i t h a n y o n e f i c t i o n a l i s A n y r e s e m b l a n c e w i t h a n y o n e f i c t i o n a l i s A n y r e s e m b l a n c e w i t h a n y o n e f i c t i o n a l i s A n y r e s e m b l a n c e w i t h a n y o n e f i c t i o n a l i s c o m p l e t e l y c o i n c i d e n t a l . c o m p l e t e l y c o i n c i d e n t a l . c o m p l e t e l y c o i n c i d e n t a l . c o m p l e t e l y c o i n c i d e n t a l . c o m p l e t e l y c o i n c i d e n t a l .

“Plain Jane” never dreams of a handsome man: the moment she sets her eye upon the cranky Rochester she knows that this is the man she must be with. Browning’s Duke kills his wife who smiled at her attendants and then candidly reveals the “half-flush” along her throat to an outsider. The Lady of Shallot falls in love with images and shadows. While Jane is deemed to be caught in a limbo between the ‘Realist’ and the ‘Romantic’ movements (like her creator), Browning’s Duke wears a “double mask” and the Lady of Shallot is “a portrait of the artist”. Terry Eagleton is right: “In everyday life, talking about imaginary people as though they were real is known as psychosis; in universities, it is known as literary criticism.” Of course, this confession too, is an exemplary moment of “self-reflexivity”.

Of course, Bakhtinian terms bring the inaccessible literary heights down to the “polyphonic” ground-level of the common-man, through the jargon of “heteroglossia” and the fun-filled “carnivalesque”. A man of the people, Bakhtin sees the masses subverting the dominant ideology in most Russian texts. Here he has a friend in Germany whose ideas on sub-structure and super-structure has complicated our understanding of literature forever. Therefore the modernists are “bourgeois” and the realists are the “proletariat” even though the reality being portrayed is one of bourgeois reality. So what if the writer himself is a bourgeois ‘raising a voice’ for the proletariat? As long as he is “organic” to the class of his new allegiance, nothing can deter him, ever, as Gramsci would tell you reassuringly. Organicity therefore, tends to become central to any claim of authenticity- what about us then, we who sit here with our books torn between “sympathy and judgement”?

The subaltern and his voice enter the fray- is the subaltern only a body whose physical presence suffices for all the inarticulation; or does he have a voice and language? Oh and did I say “he”? My apologies for the Freudian slip: gendering this piece was never the aim. Gender is a relation to power and power is a silent presence and gender is also about performativity- building up knowledge is an exercise in power, and therefore knowledge, gender and power are all “do-ing” words that they never taught us in school as such. We learn now, as we will continue to learn forever.

Disclaimer #2: Disclaimer #2: Disclaimer #2: Disclaimer #2: Disclaimer #2: All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned All the novelists, poets, critics, teachers and students mentioned here are people I am in complete awe of. here are people I am in complete awe of. here are people I am in complete awe of. here are people I am in complete awe of. here are people I am in complete awe of. Any trace of irreverence is completely Any trace of irreverence is completely Any trace of irreverence is completely Any trace of irreverence is completely Any trace of irreverence is completely unintended and gravely regretted. unintended and gravely regretted. unintended and gravely regretted. unintended and gravely regretted. unintended and gravely regretted.

I am a student of literature. People call it “fluff”, I call it life, for most of life is “fluff”. The distinction between the mental and the non-mental hardly ever coincides with that which separates the real from the unreal. No I am not trying a turncoat debate here; I am interrogating the bipolarity of attitude that people exhibit about my discipline. Literature is great, visiting the book-fair is imperative, discussing issues of global and metaphysical importance with authors is symptomatic of an intellectual bent of mind; but also, literature is only words, words are merely psycho-active, never socio-active, literature “kills” books that speak of great ideals through thorough dissection, literature is for the armchair activist.

At the risk of sounding clichéd, I’d say that literature is bipolar, since it provides us with a double sense, that of stability and that of revolution, simultaneously. Within a space of three pages Neruda makes two statements illustrating this brand of bipolarity“Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.” “I felt a pressing need to write a central poem that would bring together the historical events, the geographical situations, the life and struggles of our peoples.” Literature gives us what we desire the most- a nuanced history, a rolling machine, a history that was, a history that is and a history that will be. It is an unstated contract of loyalty with the author.

- Supurna Dasgupta, English (2009-12)