Enquête sur Hamlet : le dialogue de sourds by Pierre Bayard

Enquête sur Hamlet : le dialogue de sourds Reviews

• 
  Valentina Vekovishcheva

  Ай-да Байяр, ай-да сукин сын! Гамлет никогда не станет прежним!!! Как и литературная критика вообще
• 
  Andréa Melnik

  Franchement, c est très intéressant mais ça le serait encore plus si j avais su retenir par la suite
• 
  Solace

  Vraiment pas d'accord avec la conclusion (sur Hamlet, celle sur le dialogue critique est bien) mais la construction du livre est très intéressante, les concepts sont bien expliqués et les exemples permettent de voir la pièce sous plein d'angles différents
• 
  Fred

  I love Pierre Bayard! He is fast becoming one of my favourite thinkers. His book on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a very satisfying piece of literary criticism. This book is arguably even better, as it doesn't contain endless passages about psychoanalytical theory that would only be understood by experts. Every page is crucial, and though I did not understand 100% of it (French isn't my first language), it makes for erudite, fulfilling, inspiring reading.
  
  Although Hamlet is the subject of the title, I would argue the book isn't really about Hamlet. Instead, he uses the play (and various responses to it) as examples for a broader point about literary criticism, and what the act of reading really is. That being said, in the last fourteen pages, he crams in a shocking theory on who killed Hamlet's father (because of course it wasn't who Shakespeare said it was - that would be far too dull!). This theory is as preposterous as it is irresistible. I wasn't a massive fan of Hamlet before reading this book. Bayard has changed that with the glorious wickedness of this thesis. I love it.
  
  *
  
  CHAPTER BY CHAPTER SUMMARY:
  
  DES TEXTES:
  1) Le texte et le texte:
  Bayard argues that there are two different kinds of 'text'. There is the literal text (the bound paper edition containing the words, assuming all critics are reading the same thing!), and then the text that emerges from the act of reading. He proposes that although all critics are reading the same literal text, they are not reading the same literary "text", hence the "dialogue of the deaf". Attempts for critics to 'debate' which interpretation is better is pointless as they are reading different 'texts', so they're just talking past each other.
  
  2) Le Travail de la Sélection:
  The "text" each critic creates in their act of reading is informed by which quotations they select, but also the contexts they view them in. Each critic usually chooses entirely different parts of the play to back their theories, but even if they were to choose the same, the conceptual contexts in which they present their quotations are so different as to make the quotations mean entirely different things per critic.
  
  3) Il n'y a pas d'œuvre complète:
  My favourite part of the book! Bayard explains that a literary work is never 'complete'. It presents an unstable and fragmentary world. Our job, as readers, is to complete the text with imagination and interpretation. Our completion of the text is based on the quotations we choose to focus on, the theories and lenses through which we view the text, and also the questions we ask the text. (Later in the book, he implies that the questions we ask the text are informed by the questions we ask ourselves in life generally!)
  It is this 'completion' of that makes each critic's text different from one another, making "dialogue" between them futile. It's like "comparing two maps of different countries", as he says later.
  
  DES THÉORIES:
  
  1) Le travail de la conceptualisation:
  The "text" we create is fundamentally influenced by the theoretic lenses through which we view the text (which Bayard argues are always different per critic).
  
  2) Logiques du Multiple:
  This chapter argues that psychoanalysis is a literary theory that most accommodates this individual relativism of reading. It also asks the question of how we evaluate several independent critical theories that completely contradict each other.
  
  3) Qu'est-ce qu'une lecture fausse?
  Bayard does set some boundaries. A theory needs 'verifiability' (does it explain certain things in the text?) and needs to not make any plot errors or biographical errors. But beyond that, every reading only functions after completing the text, a completion informed by the critic's own life theories. Therefore, each critic is talking about a different 'text', so to try and argue which is the 'true' theory is moot if the texts are different. Each critic's Hamlet is a different character with a different backstory and different motivations. We can explore Freud's theories, for instance, and understand why he thought in certain ways and explore their relevance today, but to ask if he was 'right' or if Goethe was 'right' instead is pointless as Goethe 'created' the text entirely differently to him.
  
  DES PARADIGMES:
  
  1) La question posée sur l'œuvre:
  Ie. a crucial means of shaping the text that is formed. Bayard argues that the question will differ per critic even if the critic's ideas seem fundamentally similar.
  
  2) Hamlet et les fantômes:
  He gives an example of the 'Tiv' people, an African culture, who read Hamlet totally differently because they, culturally, don't believe the dead can come back and talk. They also believe that the brother marrying the widow is totally natural, not the 'rushed' union that Westerners perceive it to be. Not only do they ask the text different questions, but they impose on it their own "reality", shaping it differently.
  
  3) Les Paradigmes et le temps:
  Bayard argues that paradigms don't just differ across time periods, but also between critics. Freud and Goethe shared different ideas, but so did Freud and Lacan, even though Lacan ostensibly was very loyal to Freud. Their paradigms will always be slightly different, making their own 'texts' different and communication between them difficult.
  
  DU PARADIGME INTÉRIEUR:
  
  1) Le dialogue avec soi-même:
  Bayard argues, as a psychoanalyst, that a critic's personal shaping of a text will reflect, in many ways, the critic's own unconscious. He argues that literary criticism is as much an exploration of the critic's self as of the book.
  
  (We can be slightly suspicious of this idea, perhaps, as Bayard is now going into specifically psychoanalytical territory - but that's his view.)
  
  2) La rencontre des paradigmes:
  There is no "one" Ophelia to cross-compare interpretations with. Lacan's Ophelia is different to Freud's Ophelia, much the same.
  
  3) Apologie de la dialogue de sourds:
  HOWEVER, Bayard argues that this doesn't mean critics should remain in bubbles and not talk to each other! Rather, it is cause for celebration and true human understanding. By aiming to understand a critic's interpretation and what elements have made it the way it is, we then understand people and literature. There are, of course, subjective opinions on whether a 'reading' is permissible, but we must always bear in mind that each critic creates a new text, and understanding this text is crucial to engaging with other people's views, not cross-comparing critics with different startpoints.
  
  EPILOGUE:
  Who really killed Hamlet's father! :)
• 
  Cécile Michaud

  J’avoue avoir été dépassée par la culture de cet auteur qui, dans son essai, explique les raisons pour lesquelles la pièce de Shakespeare comporte des énigmes qui peuvent être interprétées différemment. L’auteur puise dans la philosophie de la connaissance, dans la science linguistique et dans la psychanalyse pour appuyer ses arguments et fournir, à la fin, sa propre interprétation qui les résout de façon satisfaisante. Personnellement, j’y adhère, n’ayant pas les outils pour prendre une position différente. Je suis embêtée pour le nombre d'étoiles: j'aurais bien voulu pouvoir mettre 3,5, soit 3 étoiles pour ma compréhension et 4 pour la qualité de l'écriture.
• 
  Julia Rubtsova

  😱😱😱😱😱
• 
  Karelle

  Moins l'fun que tous les autres que j'ai lu, même si ça reste vraiment cool les enquêtes que Bayard fait.