The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing
From Michel Picard’s La lecture comme jeu to Umberto Eco’s model of the “game of chess”, reading has often been compared to a kind of game. Games serve as a useful template of interaction, highlighting both the exterior set of rules governing an activity, and the agency that these rules leave to the...
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| Udgivet i: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprog: | Anglais |
| Udgivet: |
Angles
2020
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| Online adgang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_2602 |
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openedition |
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OpenEdition Journal |
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Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
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0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
Derrida Jacques pragmatique phénoménologie jeu théorie de la lecture post-structuralisme Eco Umberto Iser Wolfgang Lecercle Jean-Jacques agonistique Derrida Jacques pragmatics phenomenology play reader-response theory post-structuralism Eco Umberto Iser Wolfgang Lecercle Jean-Jacques agonistics |
| spellingShingle |
Derrida Jacques pragmatique phénoménologie jeu théorie de la lecture post-structuralisme Eco Umberto Iser Wolfgang Lecercle Jean-Jacques agonistique Derrida Jacques pragmatics phenomenology play reader-response theory post-structuralism Eco Umberto Iser Wolfgang Lecercle Jean-Jacques agonistics Hercend, Olivier The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing |
| description |
From Michel Picard’s La lecture comme jeu to Umberto Eco’s model of the “game of chess”, reading has often been compared to a kind of game. Games serve as a useful template of interaction, highlighting both the exterior set of rules governing an activity, and the agency that these rules leave to the individual. Yet games are also a constitutive human activity, with myriads of variants, from the free play of children to the gambler’s thrill to the highly ritualized sets of actions and reactions seen in martial arts or chess. This article proposes to review classical and contemporary theories of reading based on their specific use of the metaphor of reading as a game. It first presents the structuralist and phenomenological approaches, which tend to define reading as a performance based on pre-established rules, like a game of chess. It then delves into theories that instead choose to highlight the incalculable aspect of every new reading, the possibility for the reader to go off the beaten path. These tend to see reading more as a game of chance than a game of chess. This does not mean, however, that they construe reading as licentious: gambles involve stakes. Theories like Jean-Jacques Lecercle’s Marxist pragmatics are most specific in explaining what the reader is actually committing to. The stance we take, our interaction with texts as “interpellations”, are part and parcel of our lives as social and political beings. They are the products of a certain context, but they may in turn influence or call into question the very structures that make them possible. This is why this article suggests reading be examined through the notion of agonistics. Taking up the ancient Greek word “agôn”, which implies that games are forms of trial made to reveal something of the player’s nature, the agonistics of reading posits that reading must not be seen as an isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, the challenge that texts pose, to confront them or to accept them, is fundamental in the construction of our identity as readers and as human beings. This dialectics of self-revelation and self-construction, through the interaction with texts, is the often unspoken yet decisive game that every reader plays. |
| author |
Hercend, Olivier |
| author_facet |
Hercend, Olivier |
| author_sort |
Hercend, Olivier |
| title |
The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing |
| title_short |
The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing |
| title_full |
The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing |
| title_fullStr |
The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing |
| title_full_unstemmed |
The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing |
| title_sort |
agonistics of reading: playing, gambling, committing |
| publisher |
Angles |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.2602 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/angles/2602 |
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1877293836375425024 |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_2602 https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.2602 urn:doi:10.4000/angles.2602 en https://journals.openedition.org/angles/2602 2020-11-11T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/9n13 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Agonistics of Reading: Playing, Gambling, Committing Angles Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2274-2042 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles Hercend, Olivier Derrida Jacques pragmatique phénoménologie jeu théorie de la lecture post-structuralisme Eco Umberto Iser Wolfgang Lecercle Jean-Jacques agonistique Derrida Jacques pragmatics phenomenology play reader-response theory post-structuralism Eco Umberto Iser Wolfgang Lecercle Jean-Jacques agonistics From Michel Picard’s La lecture comme jeu to Umberto Eco’s model of the “game of chess”, reading has often been compared to a kind of game. Games serve as a useful template of interaction, highlighting both the exterior set of rules governing an activity, and the agency that these rules leave to the individual. Yet games are also a constitutive human activity, with myriads of variants, from the free play of children to the gambler’s thrill to the highly ritualized sets of actions and reactions seen in martial arts or chess. This article proposes to review classical and contemporary theories of reading based on their specific use of the metaphor of reading as a game. It first presents the structuralist and phenomenological approaches, which tend to define reading as a performance based on pre-established rules, like a game of chess. It then delves into theories that instead choose to highlight the incalculable aspect of every new reading, the possibility for the reader to go off the beaten path. These tend to see reading more as a game of chance than a game of chess. This does not mean, however, that they construe reading as licentious: gambles involve stakes. Theories like Jean-Jacques Lecercle’s Marxist pragmatics are most specific in explaining what the reader is actually committing to. The stance we take, our interaction with texts as “interpellations”, are part and parcel of our lives as social and political beings. They are the products of a certain context, but they may in turn influence or call into question the very structures that make them possible. This is why this article suggests reading be examined through the notion of agonistics. Taking up the ancient Greek word “agôn”, which implies that games are forms of trial made to reveal something of the player’s nature, the agonistics of reading posits that reading must not be seen as an isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, the challenge that texts pose, to confront them or to accept them, is fundamental in the construction of our identity as readers and as human beings. This dialectics of self-revelation and self-construction, through the interaction with texts, is the often unspoken yet decisive game that every reader plays. De l’ouvrage de Michel Picard, La lecture comme jeu, au modèle du « jeu d’échecs » proposé par Umberto Eco, la lecture a souvent été comparée au jeu. De fait, le schéma du jeu permet de penser l’interaction entre une série de règles externes et les possibilités d’action qu’elles laissent à l’individu. Mais au-delà de ces seules structures, le jeu est une activité fondamentale chez l’homme, avec une infinité de variations, des jeux d’imagination d’enfants aux « coups » du parieur, et aux séries ritualisées d’actions et de réactions qui composent un combat d’arts martiaux ou une partie d’échecs. Ainsi, cet article propose de passer en revue plusieurs théories classiques et contemporaines de la lecture, en étudiant spécifiquement leur façon d’employer la métaphore de la lecture comme jeu. Il s’intéresse d’abord aux théories structuralistes et phénoménologiques, qui tendent à considérer la lecture comme l'application de règles pré-établies, comparable à un jeu d’échecs. Il est ensuite question des théories qui préfèrent éclairer la liberté que possède tout lecteur de sortir des sentiers battus. Ces perspectives comparent plus volontiers la lecture à un jeu de hasard qu’à un jeu d’échec : un « coup », qui comme le coup de dé mallarméen « jamais n’abolira le hasard ». Mais le « coup » du parieur a toujours son enjeu. A ce titre, les théories comme la pragmatique marxiste de Jean-Jacques Lecercle donnent une explication particulièrement pertinente de ce que la lecture met en jeu. Notre posture face aux interpellations des textes informe notre être social et politique. Voilà pourquoi cet article propose une vision de la lecture basée sur la notion d’agonistique. Reprenant le mot grec « agôn », qui fait du jeu une épreuve révélatrice, l’agonistique de la lecture soutient que les textes posent au lecteur un défi. En les réduisant à des protocoles préexistants ou en les ouvrant par d’incalculables « coups », nous participons essentiellement à la définition de notre propre identité, en tant que lecteur et en tant qu’être humain. Cette dialectique de révélation et de construction de soi, par l’interaction avec les textes, est le jeu fondamental, quoique souvent passé sous silence, auquel se livre tout lecteur. |