Okumanın Devinimi: Robertson’un Nilling’inden Derrida’nın Sovereignties’ine

Bu makalenin amacı, okuma eyleminin ortaya koyduğu devinimi irdelemek ve bununla ilişkili olarak okuma eylemini hem okuyucunun kimliğini hem de metnin anlamını dönüştüren bir tecrübe olarak tanımlamaktır. Öncelikle Kanada’lı şair-denemeci Lisa Robertson’ın Nilling: prose (2012) başlıklı eserinden yola çıkarak okuma esnasında “nereye” gittiğimizi ve okuyucunun kimliğine ne olduğunu tartışacağım. Daha sonra Derrida’nin eserlerine yoğunlaşarak okumanın deviniminin metin-okuyucu arasındaki ilişkiyi nasıl etkilediğini analiz edeceğim. Robertson ve Derrida okuma eyleminin okuyucu ve metin arasında bir anlaşma/diyalog başlattığını öne sürerler. Ayrıca düşünme ve varolmanın diyalojik yönünü vurgulayan bu anlaşmayı analiz ederek bir okuma etiği ortaya koyarlar. Metin-okuyucu, öz-başkalık arasındaki bu anlaşmanın iki tarafı da askıda tutan ve anlamın kapanmasını erteleyen, karşılıklı bağlayıcı bir diyalog olduğunu göstereceğim. Buna ek olarak, Robertson ve Derrida’nın okuma eylemini, onu pratik ederek tanımladığını ileri süreceğim. Robertson Hannah Arendt ve Pauline Réage’yi okuyarak, Derrida Paul Celan’ı okuyarak çok referanslı bir okur topluluğunun parçası olurlar, ve bu sayede okumanın nasıl tanımlanabileceğini birer okuyucu olarak gösterirler. Metinsel karşılaşmalarda çoğul ve okunaksız öznelliklerin varlığına dikkat çekerek, okuyucu kimliğinin ve metinsel anlamın yaratıcı potansiyelinin bu okunaksızlıktan ileri geldiğini savunurlar. Bu makale, okuma teorilerine şiirsel-felsefi bir yaklaşım sergileyerek, yazarlık/okurluk ve metinsel analiz çalışmalarına katkı yapmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Okuma, şiir, okur kimliği, Robertson, Derrida

Reading’s Motions: From Robertson’s Nilling to Derrida’s Sovereignties

This essay examines the movement set in motion by reading to formulate the act of reading as an experience that transforms both the identity of the reader and the significations gathered in a text. I first focus on the Canadian poet-essayist Lisa Robertson’s Nilling: prose (2012) to discuss “where” we go when we read and what happens to readerly identity during the act of reading. I then turn to Derrida’s work to study the implications that reading’s motions have on the rapport between text and reader. I argue that both Robertson and Derrida highlight the importance of reading in initiating a dialogue/pact between text and reader. They formulate an ethics of reading through an analysis of this pact, which foregrounds the dialogic nature of thinking and being. The pact between reader and text, self and alterity, is mutually binding and keeps them both suspended, postponing any closure of meaning. I furthermore demonstrate that Robertson and Derrida define reading by practicing it. As Robertson defines it, by staging a reading of Hannah Arendt and Pauline Réage, and as Derrida defines it by reading Paul Celan, they become enfolded in a multi-referential reading community. They place emphasis on the vitality of multiple, often illegible, agencies at work in textual encounters, and assert that readerly identity and textual meaning find the source of their creative potential in this illegibility. The essay develops a poetic-philosophical approach to theories of reading, and contributes to the existing scholarship on theories on authorship/readership and textual interpretation.

Keywords:

Reading, poetry, readerly identity, Robertson, derrida,

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