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The Absence of Distance and Cognitive Density in Critique of Criticism: From Literary Criticism to Discourse Analysis by Moroccan Critic Mohamed Bouazza – Critical appreciation by Abdel Drgham
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Moroccan critic Mohamed Bouazza’s book Critique of Criticism: From Literary Criticism to Discourse Analysis is grounded in a set of foundational premises that examine and approach the proposed subject. Perhaps the foremost of these is the value of questioning, because when questioning is linked to critical output, it represents an element in establishing awareness of its various manifestations—both in its stillness and its movement. Additionally, it serves as a monitor of the tense relationship between the self and the Western other, as this tension constitutes the primary reason for the multiplicity and divergence of orientations, especially given the accelerated proliferation of theories and methodologies without any temporal or cognitive interval demarcating their boundaries.
I believe the second premise lies in the perpetual awareness of the systems and politics of power and authority inherent in every theory. For in his logic, theory is not an empty critical framework but rather a context and a relationship—constituted and open to the political and the social—with at its core a form of hegemony that may conceal or reveal itself in various processes of acculturation and their different phases, manifesting in a guise of superiority and arrogance. This can be observed at the first level, which reveals the reception of theories and methodologies in critical study, where they come surrounded by literal transmission accompanied by veneration. This is a level concerned with transmission or regurgitation, wherein relations of hierarchy and precedence emerge, and within whose bounds subordination forms on one side and cultural hegemony on the other.
Bouazza’s aversion to the first level of theoretical reception—based on transmission—led him to establish the idea of critical consciousness, which encompasses a space for reflection on all systems of power and cognitive hegemony, and for re-examining and revising the image of the self in relation to the image of the other, shifting its position from inferiority to equality. Thus, re-questioning from the standpoint of different civilizational contexts opens the door to forming alterity, and serves as a path to transcending any theory and sustaining its efficacy beyond its original borders and culture. Questioning is the presence of the self’s capacity, the revival of its particularity, and its right to reshape the features of any theory. It represents a space of agency and influence, far from the agitation and confusion before the theory’s dazzling foundations, because it opens the door for Arab thought to contribute within theory—in its global context—through modification and amendment.
Questioning is a form of revision, as it generates a different intellectual ground, based not on acquiescence but rather on debate, exchange, and mutual giving and taking, especially given its reliance on the circumstances and conditions of both production and reception simultaneously. Questioning is linked to critical consciousness and its inevitability, because it places us in a fateful confrontation against the self and against the other, and allows for the monitoring of trajectories of addition and contribution in engendering a dynamic form not tethered to fixity or stability. For our awareness of things, of ourselves, and of the other is a fluid awareness, ceaselessly moving and transitioning.
Throughout this questioning, the book insistently frames theory and its mechanisms of operation with awareness, because the operation is based on the integration and interweaving of theory and practice—that is, the moment of action and reaction—and this enabled Bouazza to re-read and re-examine according to orientations that appear idealistic, open to the totality of theories or methodologies. Hence, the book establishes an added value, distinct from the numerous books that place the subject of critique of criticism among their objectives. The book offers an aware reading of this branch or specialization, examining its beginnings and growth, and monitoring its development in its numerous variations. The book is connected to revision and transcendence against acquiescence and the sanctity of transmission from the other.
The book monitors and presents the heightened consciousness that was born and established, whose possessors acquired a cognitive capacity enabling them to move through pathways they themselves prepare and construct, far from imitation and subservience to Western methodologies. This was not achieved instantaneously, but through accumulation in action and accomplishment, and this could not and will not happen except through two paths: the first relates to awareness of what comes from another culture, and the other relates to the extent to which this theoretical or methodological import is suited to examining Arab civilizational contexts and their cultural systems.
Density and the Hegemony of the Cognitive
The reader of the book perceives a continuous reflection on critical discourse, and an examination of the extent to which it approaches or distances itself from stillness and acquiescence, and conversely its openness to movement. It is a field that never ceases to pose questions drawn toward dynamic consciousness. Bouazza’s achievement in the book lies in transcending static consciousness, which is content with what theory offers in its transcendent existence above genres and cultures. The book relies on a dynamic consciousness built gradually, in order to alter the features of theory or methodology, or at least to make its frameworks change and evolve according to the contexts and systems of each culture.
Critique of criticism in the book is directed toward reflecting on critical contributions, and—by virtue of its revisory and questioning nature—it re-examines established methods and procedures, reviews the mechanisms and steps of their theoretical and methodological use, and reviews the particularity of their engagement with texts and the viability of choosing one orientation over another. Critique of criticism as a cognitive framework does not stop at examining the methodology in approaching texts, but is also concerned with re-examining the proposed significations and interpretations, and how they were arrived at through the activation of procedures and premises, because critique of criticism—as such—is against acquiescence and against stillness, and this dual movement was perhaps formed for it under the influence of its cognitive nature.
There is a type of writing that has this inclination toward density, as if every new written achievement or publication carries a total image of the movement of knowledge within the self, the nature of its absorption, and its manifestation in the written achievement. Under this orientation, we see its practitioner presenting everything they have in examining any subject or issue, forming for themselves the logical context that reveals the legitimacy of engaging in this density, and the value of this approach in writing and in disclosing the spaces of formation across their temporal span. Those who adopt this style of writing do not only attend to their subject, but above that, they are keen to present an intellectual biography of themselves, framing their stages and cognitive transitions.
The reader gradually realizes that behind this careful and dense monitoring in Bouazza’s book is a subjective monitoring of convictions and transformations—what we say in examining the works and achievements of others is directed, before being directed to them, toward ourselves. For their achievement and ours establish their existence—despite individual differences—within a single context filled with tensions and constraints that we feel, and they suffer from the same problematics that accompany us constantly. From here, one can reconsider this dense form of writing, and the extraordinary capacity to construct a narrativity for conveying the idea in Mohamed Bouazza’s work.
The reader of the book will be struck by the mechanisms used persistently and repeatedly in attempting to approach the achievements of others. There are phenomena highly indicative of this orientation, such as his insistence on constructing a cognitive narrativity, even if by repeating the idea within a single chapter in different forms, or by repeating it at distant intervals, in manifestations that appear different in each chapter of the book, but upon careful reflection, they take refuge in a cognitive root despite the multiplicity of their forms and manifestations.
Among the phenomena indicative of density in approaching the subject is Bouazza’s tendency in every issue or question to exhaustively examine all its features and forms of realization, even if he does not approve of them or place them among his actual choices and inclinations. However, this dense orientation—though it has a positive effect related to objectivity of knowledge, presentation, and thoroughness—can form a negative tendency toward the selected contributions. These contributions do not appear starkly or clearly, but rather manifest through a medium filled with knowledge that can form a barrier preventing the achieved contribution from manifesting in its purity and presence. The cognitive medium may obscure the free presence of these works and make them dependent on this medium and its knowledge.
The cognitive role that Bouazza presents in his book reveals itself through numerous manifestations, the most important of which are the introductions or beginnings that we can view as the core of crafting critical narrativity and directing movement. In the beginnings that precede the chapters—or the sections within chapters—there is a creation and construction of a context for reading and direction, especially the beginning that precedes the chapter on Said Alloush’s book The Violence of the Imaginary in the Works of Emile Habibi, and in other chapters as well. In these introductions, there is a preparation and construction of a context for reception and reading, involving a kind of anticipation, and perhaps a kind of comprehensive framing that reveals capacity and direction.
Among the details indicative of the dense pattern in the book is the slow growth of the idea. This gradual growth of the idea, which suffers from a kind of deliberate movement drawn to retrieval, makes its presentation to the reader surrounded by the suspicion of repetition—that is, repeating the idea in more than one constructive formulation. However, the one who contemplates this constructive pattern discovers that within this repetition there is an addition being built. The matter in such repetitions or reiterations, especially in the details related to indicating a negative orientation, does not stop at the limits of rhetoric or formulation; there is an evolving construction of the idea, but it is a construction marked by gradual addition.
The dense approach dominating the examination may direct us toward the achievement-oriented nature of approaching the subject. The writer is preoccupied with monitoring all the details without directing his plan toward a specific constructive horizon that would make his contribution sharply defined. He may be drawn by discussing numerous details, moving away from the intended objective specific to the book under study—such as his extensive discussion of the impact of narrativities on Arab cultural structure, and the extent to which their reductionist mechanisms are activated in application, during his discussion of Abdelrahman Moudden’s book The Moroccan Journey in the Nineteenth Century—then returning to discuss the negotiation methods employed by every defeated culture in the face of the victorious culture, such as works concerned with heritage narratives, reports, or narrative heritage, as if this attention constitutes a process of fortification against the incoming artistic colonial achievement or foundation.
All these dense digressions, which may be acceptable due to thematic interconnection or the desire to convey knowledge, appear in most cases as a framework for conveying the critical vision. At times, the reader imagines that Bouazza is presenting to the reader everything he has known or perceived, as if offering a comprehensive text in his field of work and its connection to his subject. The reader glimpses this subjective concern that aims to revolutionize the recipient’s awareness of every detail he addresses, approaching it from all its aspects with unrelenting density and distinctive consciousness. However, this density—for all its value—causes him to lose the ability to reach the examination of the salient detail. If all details, small and large alike, are present in this manner, we will arrive at a total brilliance ratio that is moderate, not leading to the existence of a lightning flash in specific details.
Scientific research is entrusted with the salient, striking details that give a sense of distinction in radiance, light, and brilliance. What I mean here is that Bouazza’s attention to every detail in the detailed examination of each book he addresses does not draw him toward choosing the revealing shot of extreme particularity, or the poetic shot that must be paused at and excavated for examination, in order to reach a detail that constitutes the focus of interest, and whose examination with special density would represent disclosure and addition. Those who insist on illuminating every room of their house with the same light lose, in the midst of their insistence and density, the value created by directing the glow toward a single room or a single corner.
In his discussion of the poetic detail of travel narrative in Abdelrahman Moudden’s book The Moroccan Journey in the Nineteenth Century, there is special attention to every detail, important and unimportant alike—such as the problem of genre classification, its conformity and its creation of its own criteria, and the position of the narrator in the travel text and their distribution between being a narrator and being narrated about. I believe that this density throughout the book’s pages constitutes nothing but a complete faith in the cognitive role that comes as the foundation of the approach in the fields of criticism and critique of criticism in Bouazza’s logic.
In many cases, he does not direct his attention toward the book under examination within its scientific boundaries, but rather makes the book’s subject an entry point for presenting a general cognitive framework. This orientation may always open Bouazza’s approach to the ideal, making his approach closely connected to the ideal or model. His achievement in this book—or his tireless excavation—is implicated in the ideal image of approaching things. And the presence of this ideal image of approaching things may distance the critic or examiner from the actual realized achievement. Indeed, one could claim that the ideal approach to things makes him not see these things in a true vision—it is a vision closer to the imaginary, touched by previous variations.
The textual formation that gives and takes in its relationship with theory and methodology—an important idea within Bouazza’s cognitive formation—was not fully realized in his examination of this formation, due to his preoccupation with the cognitive role. This participation and insistence on its presence at every moment may create a kind of oscillation in the examination, making it framed by a certain distance or absence. This density creates a state of cognitive identification with the horizon or horizons of the text, and not with the critical text itself. Here, the written achievement in critique of criticism transforms into a tool for provoking the creation of this approach, which manifests particularly in Bouazza’s book, although this identification can be a delicate barrier in perceiving the approaches to critique of criticism that are the subject of work and examination in their concrete existence. It is as if Bouazza’s approach moves the achievement from its concrete realized existence to its ideal imagined existence under the pressure of additions and digressions, and under the influence of attention to the cognitive role that the book fulfills in its Arab cultural context par excellence.
Bouazza’s approach, under this density toward any subject or idea, is a deliberate approach, because it turns the subject over on its numerous faces. It emerges as dynamic and non-partisan, placing at the foundation of its existence the idea of questioning every established certainty, and does not surrender its reins to formal regularity within any previous approach. It is an approach biased toward doubt, revision, and re-examination, though affected by its density and the increase in the number of questions without activating or selecting some of them for operation and empowerment.
The Absence of Distance and the Centrality of the Margin
This book represents an important shift in the field of working on critique of criticism. However, the reader of the book realizes that there is an absence of distance between literary criticism and critique of criticism, and that literary criticism—with its orientations, methodologies, and theories—exercises a significant influence and presence on the achievement of critique of criticism (and this has a degree of legitimacy). This manifested in the strategies of arrangement and organization within the book, such as beginning with ideology as a Marxist echo of literary and critical studies in the early period.
The absence of distance between them leads to a kind of confusion and the absence of the particularity upon which critique of criticism relies. In the absence of distance, a kind of parallelism of premises and problematics occurs. In my view, critique of criticism should operate on foundations in which the basic methodological premises of each methodology or orientation are concealed, so that there is a search for or generation of new premises. This is revealed by the fact that Bouazza’s book, in its evolving movement, remains consistent with critical discourse, following it and tethered to it, as if it possesses a kind of pre-formed origin.
At the beginning, with the book of Al-Hawari or the book of Nabil Suleiman, we find a presence of the ideological in contrast to the absence of the cognitive or systemic. This is followed—in Bouazza’s book—by a surplus awareness that attends to this matter, and then a search ensues so that the next movement comes accompanied by the dialectic between them, that is, between the cognitive and the ideological. He finds his objective in Barrada’s book on Mandour. The methodology or methodological approach gradually modifies itself and its procedures, and critique of criticism follows it with the same steps. More beneficial in this path is not focusing on the movement of criticism and its transitions and methodologies, but rather—as long as we believe in the efficacy and inevitability of acculturation and dialogue in the existence of methodological alterity—we can pause at the mechanisms of difference, addition, questioning, and revision in each critical methodology, and the value of this addition in localizing a similar yet different approach simultaneously.
What is needed is a space of distance from literary criticism, even though critique of criticism is contained within it and resembles it as a practice built on critical discourse or discourses. The absence of distance here reveals the inevitable overlap on one hand, and on the other hand reveals the identification and dissolution of premises. Hence, the need requires building foundations and procedures that align with each temporal phase, driven by culture in its general existence, and establishing a situation that adapts its relations with other cultures.
Bouazza’s approach in this book to the achievement of critics in the field of critique of criticism could not move freely in exploring its visions, because it remained concerned with movement within the framework, criticizing it and pointing to its negatives and regressions brilliantly. However, the freedom I wished for lies in the creation of the procedure or procedures specific to this specialization, which it must establish for itself, in order to breathe untapped air. Critique of criticism must seek a procedural uniqueness, not one of permanent stability, but a phase-specific uniqueness from one temporal moment to another, and from one critic to another—a uniqueness formed from the objective, and manifested within the field of work in different forms and modifications.
Even after the conclusion of genetic structuralism and the spaces of negotiation between the structural and the contextual or the civilizational-cultural, the breathless movement in the formation of the shadow existence of critique of criticism did not stop in its tracking of the transitions and migrations of literary criticism. In his approach to Daghmoumi’s book Critique of the Novel and Short Story in Morocco, we perceive this shadow existence in the attention to new trends or fashions in literary criticism, such as theories and methodologies of discourse analysis, argumentation studies, and the critique of literary ideas.
The alterity of the successive achievement of critique of criticism in Bouazza’s book—even if it is a methodological-procedural alterity—did not escape the idea of temporal succession, making it seem as if it were a shadow at a short distance from criticism and its discourse. There is, in every detail of the book, a movement revealing subordination, beginning with the contestation between the ideological and the epistemological, passing through the methodologies of the linguistic turn through structuralism, and ending with theories of discourse—as if we are facing a structure of correlation in premises and problematics that makes critique of criticism a shadow of criticism, and unsettles any expected particularity for this specialization.
I believe that Daghmoumi’s attempt, which Bouazza addressed, in its search for common elements that constitute and construct general frameworks in critique of criticism discourses, is a serious attempt. However, in his search for spaces of uniqueness for critique of criticism, he repeated himself in spaces of similarity, through the following divisions: discourse of criticism, discourse of critique of criticism, and discourse of literary theorizing. Because this differentiation, although it presupposes alterity, places us face to face with formal alterity; we soon find ourselves with identical premises whose surface forms change. Additionally, what Daghmoumi presents is closer to normative foundationalism, and distances itself from the additions and modifications of practice that open the door to addition and dialogue.
Exiting the crisis of foundationalism in Daghmoumi, as Bouazza sees it, is not achieved through attention to the anomalous marginal far from the central systemic, but rather by adopting an openness not tethered to fixity. This openness directs us toward the creation of deferred systematicity, which remains always incomplete and in need of continued addition, modification, and amendment. Todorov’s approach appears to represent an acceptable conception in its approach to critical discourses without a foundationalist model based on scientificity; rather, his approach comes protected by flexible procedures that are generated, developed, and adapted according to each critical case in its particular singular existence. There must be premises that adapt these critical contributions and examine their trajectories.
There is a fundamental premise in Bouazza’s critical thought in this book, which appears clearly in all his approaches to the details of his subject: the centrality of the margin. His ready critique of many contributions in the field of critique of criticism is always directed toward the neglect of the margin. He skillfully activates and develops this critique in his book, but each time, the margin forms according to the nature of attention to the center—as we found in Ahmed Bouhsine’s book on Taha Hussein, or in the context of attention to the system as it appeared in his treatment of Daghmoumi’s book, in his attempt to reach overarching foundational generalities within which everything that is different or disturbing to the authority, permanence, and efficacy of the system is concealed.
In Bouazza’s book, there is special attention to this margin that disturbs the system or the center. He always points to the value of this margin that creates disturbance within the center. Its value originates, forms, and manifests in the possibility of influencing the systematic totality, and thus being capable of effecting a modification in this system or center, or at least contributing to expanding its field of operation or its assumptions, so that it includes these marginal elements that breach its authority, making it examine its premises, destabilize its fixity, and grant it a kind of flexibility.
This appeared clearly in his treatment of Daghmoumi’s book Critique of the Novel and Short Story in Morocco. Despite his positive reference to Daghmoumi’s orientation in considering critical discourse as part of a larger system represented by culture, he critiques his orientation toward learned culture or the cultural center (in thought, literature, and criticism). In his logic, this orientation does not grant popular culture any importance, despite the fact that—as reality reveals—it is an important component of cultural plurality in Moroccan culture.
The presence of the value of the margin in expanding the horizon of theory, if attention were paid to it, manifests even in the details or chapters where the reader senses harmony with the critical approach—which rarely happens—as we can find in his discussion of Said Alloush’s book on Emile Habibi. The neglect of the margin or the minor elements that move on the periphery of the structure constituting the center remained an entry point for reworking this observation, despite his consistency with the book and its author’s ability to avoid falling into the seduction of structuralism with its closed center.
Bouazza’s critique relates to the hierarchy of central and marginal structures, and the hegemony of centrality according to a totalizing vision that obscures the value of accompanying minor structures. The same critique appears clearly in his monitoring of Zohor Karam’s book, in its movement within the structural system and its distance from the contexts of reference. In his logic, critical dynamism requires the monitoring of interaction or its nature between reference and text, or between reality and fiction. Any discourse relies on epistemological knowledge systems and other civilizational-contextual systems, and each side is drawn to the other and contains something of it. Focusing on one of them as the point of departure does not negate the appearance of the other or obscure it, even if its existence is marginal, concealed, or repressed according to the hierarchy of center and margin due to processes of conflict or tension between the ideological and the cognitive.
Bouazza’s attention to the marginal and its capacity for modification and amendment is connected to his overarching view of the process of acculturation, and the nature of cultures’ standing at the moment of confrontation and encounter. Their standing initially is on a carpet that presupposes hierarchy between higher and lower—a standing consistent with transmission and fixity—or their standing, after building a specific awareness of this new incoming element, on an equal carpet that activates the mechanisms of dialogue, addition, and amendment.
Critique of criticism, under this understanding, comes as an attempt to displace fixity and exit subservience, by creating a space of dialogue with the other and their culture. It is a consciousness that always seeks to escape literal transmission. Work on critique of criticism is generally found only among those preoccupied with the idea of questioning to reflect on Arab critical achievement across its long span. Under these conditions, and considering the nature of viewing Bouazza’s book, we find him increasingly insistent in every part of the book on the mechanisms of acculturation. In his view, transmission from others or connection to their achievement must not overlook the negotiation forms that establish the formation of identity, alterity, and cultural differences that inevitably accompany the process of acculturation, and reveal oppositions and dualities. Placing theory under the test of questioning—in Bouazza’s logic—represents the practical embodiment of critical consciousness, which is not content with imitation and consumption, but rather transcends that to generation and authentic production.
© Adel Drgham
Dr Salwa Gouda is an accomplished Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic affiliated with the English Language and Literature Department at Ain Shams University. Holding a PhD in English literature and criticism, Dr. Gouda pursued her education at both Ain Shams University and California State University, San Bernardino. She has authored several academic works, including Lectures in English Poetry and Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, among others. Dr. Gouda also played a significant role in translating The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers, a comprehensive project featuring poets, philosophers, historians, and literary figures, conducted under the auspices of UNESCO. Recently, her poetry translations have been featured in a poetry anthology published by Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Her work has also appeared in numerous international literary magazines, further solidifying her contributions to the field of literary translation and criticism.
Adel Drgham (1968) is an Egyptian critic and university professor who has authored numerous works, including In Narrative Fiction, Cognitive Awareness and the Evolution of Poetics, The Historical Novel: From History to Identity, and The Novel and Knowledge. In the field of translation, he has published Classical and Postclassical Narratology by David Herman and Gerald Prince.