Contrapuntal Analysis

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Contrapuntal analysis or contrapuntal reading is Edward Said's method of literary analysis which means,

"reading a text with an understanding of what is involved when an author shows, for instance, that a sugar plantation is seen as important to the process of maintaining a particular style of life in England." [i]

In order to challenge the "general silence" of non-European peoples in Western, colonial literature, Said tells us that we must read the

"great canonical texts, and perhaps the entire archive of modern and pre-modern European and American culture with an effort to draw out, extend, give emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented . . ." [ii]

In short, Said's approach to a text is a focus on both "what went into it and what its author excluded" [iii] Thus the analysis of a Rudyard Kipling text "must take account of both processes, that of imperialism and that of resistance to it," in an effort not simply to critique imperialism:

"By giving an account . . . of pressures and counter-pressures in Kipling's India, we understand the process of imperialism itself . . . "[iv]

Said's mode of analysis has significances beyond literary criticism; he is advocating for ways to understand "the tangled, many-sided legacy of imperialism," [v] a task of profound importance in the present era when,

"For reasons that are partly embedded in the imperial experience, the old divisions between colonizer and colonized have reemerged in what is often referred to as the North-South relationship, which has entailed defensiveness, various kinds of rhetorical and ideological combat, and a simmering hostility that is quite likely to trigger devastating wars-in some cases it already has." [vi]

He asks:

"Are there ways we can reconceive the imperial experience in other than compartmentalized terms, so as to transform our understanding of both the past and the present and our attitude toward the future?" [vii]

Contrapuntal analysis of literature or other texts is one step for Said, something many teachers of British or colonial literature may already be familiar with, for example, may American high schools read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness contrapuntally with Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart . But Said makes a more specific educational plea:

"The fact is, we are mixed in with one another in ways that most national systems of education have not dreamed of. To match knowledge in the arts and sciences with these integrative realities is, I believe, the intellectual and cultural challenge of the moment." [viii]

It is these sentiments that are the premise of much current research and practice in Global Studies in Education.

Notes

[i] Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism , (New York: Vintage, 1993) p. 66.

[ii] See Said above, p. 66.

[iii] Ibid ., p. 67.

[iv] Ibid ., p. 67.

[v] Ibid ., p. 17.

[vi] Ibid ., p. 17.

[vii] Ibid ., p. 17.

[viii] Ibid ., p. 331.

Contributed by Jason Sparks