J.H. Miller's The Critic as Host

'The Critic As Host' was presented by J.H. Miller as a reply to M.H. Abram's allegations in his essay 'Rationality and Human Imagination in Cultural History'  that the Deconstructionist reading is parasitical and if applied, it would make, History an impossibility. In the opening paragraph of 'The Critic as Host', Miller quotes M.H. Abrams : "The 'deconstructionist' reading of a given work 'is plainly and simply parasitical' on 'the obvious or univocal reading'.".  The first part of this quote is not that of Abrams, but he has cited it from Wayne Booth. Miller points out that what has happened here is a citation of a citation. He also poses the question that whether this citation itself can be considered as a Parasite in the body of the text, which is the host. The host would be feeding the parasite and there are also possibilities of the parasite killing the host.

 Abrams' allegation that Deconstructionist reading would make History an impossibility do not disturb Miller much, because he believes that there is no determinable or fixed reading in History. At the same time he agrees that the readings of History are important because what it documents is the life of the people.

Miller talks about the images evoked in one's mind, when he/she hear the term 'Parasite'. The common images are that of an oak or an ivy tree where the vines or creepers grow into. It is feminine, dependent, clinging on to others for survival and in most cases suck the life out of the host.  He gives two references to Literature - Hardy's Ivy-Wife and Thackeray's Vanity Fair where the lady love/wife are being referred to as parasites sucking the life out of the host - their men.

He process to give an etymological analysis of the word, Parasite. As a word, it always calls for its opposite. A parasite can exist only along with the host which in fact are opposites. After analyzing the English, Greek and Indo-European roots of the word, he states that the meanings generated by the word are at once 'uncanny' and 'antithetical'. He explains that the words created out of the roots represent opposite meanings like internal and external; proximity and distance; similar and different; inside and outside; equivalent and subsidiary; inside the boundary and outside the boundary etc.

Miller explains the origin of the word Parasite. It comes from the Greek work Parasitos which means 'besides the grain'. Here the 'para' stands for beside and 'sitos' for food or grain. Sitology is the term used to refer to the science of food, diet and nutrition.  Originally, the word "Parasite" refered to fellow guest or someone who shares the food with you. In course of time, the term came to be associated with a 'professional dinner guest' who is an expert at cadging invitations without giving dinners in return.

The two definitions / meanings associated with the term Parasite are "Any organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host" (Biological) and "A person who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others with out making any useful return" (Sociological). Miller concludes this discussion by stating that "To call a kind of criticism 'parasitical' is, in either case, strong language".

Miller then goes on to review the relationship between 'host' and 'parasite'. They exist together sharing the same food. As the roots of the words - 'host' and 'guest' are same, Miller comes to an interesting conclusion that 'A host is a guest, and a guest is a host. A host is a host' and that the parasite and the host are 'fellow guests'.

To the confused readers, Milers offers some breathing space. He says that he was bringing in all these explanations regarding the term parasite to give the readers an experience or a practical example of deconstructive criticism. As in Chemistry lab where one puts chemicals inside a test tube and observes the reactions, in literature one can analyse and examine a piece of poetry by applying any number of theories or critical standards to understand it better. To him, his analysis is an argument to recognize the complexity and the equivocal richness of the language of criticism and literature. Behind all the expressions in literature there will be implied meanings, stories, myths, narratives etc. Deconstruction is therefore a rhetorical discipline and  a mode of investigation of this implied meanings, figures, narratives and concepts.

Miller then comes up with another interesting observation that the 'univocal' and 'deconstructive' readings are fellow guests besides the grain, sharing the same food. Their relationship is not polar opposite but triangular with a third element/person beside them and is that of a chain, the beginning and end of which is undecidable. On the one hand the 'univocal reading' has 'deconstructive reading' encrypted within itself as a parasite and 'deconstructive reading' cannot free itself from the 'metaphysical' or the 'logocentric' reading which it always tries to contest. And the poem is the third element in this relationship, the food that is being fed by the host and the parasite - the univocal reading and the deconstructive reading.

Here he brings in the allusions of chain and gift giving again. The chain has lot of circular rings with in interconnected one another and the gifts are in continuous circulation among the

community/people which happens as a continuous process.

The poem according to Miller is the gift, the food which is broken and passed around. Every poem has a parasite encrypted with in it or in other terms every poem is a parasite that has consumed the poems that have been produced before. He cites Shelley's The Triumph of Life as an example. It has a long chain of the presence of parasites that it has several allusions to the previous texts - from the Old Testament, Dante, Aristo, Spenser, Milton, Rousseau toWordsworth and Coleridge. In turn Shelley's work has influenced the writers who have come after him. One can find Shelley's influence in  Hardy, Yeats, Stevens and even in the texts of Romantic nihilism including Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, and Blanchot. 

Therefore there cannot be an univocal reading of a text or poem or a critic. The presence of the master who have gone before will be in the present writers or critics or those who are yet to be born. He concludes his essay thus: "Each contains, necessarily, its enemy within itself, is itself both host and parasite. The deconstructionist reading contains the obvious one and vice versa. Nihilism is an inalienable alien presence within Occidental metaphysics, both in poems and in the criticism of poems". 

P.S: https://youtu.be/YbyyW_zH3CU - watch this video too which is a lecture of mine on the same topic. 

For an introduction to J.H. Miller ,  

go to the link http://vayanaa.blogspot.com/2020/04/jh-miller-introduction.htm

Have a great day!!!