Excerpts from ‘The Spectral Ball of Theory’

An essay from Powe’s upcoming book Apocalypse and Alchemy: Visions of Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye. Read more here [EXCLUSIVE].
B.W. Powe
Department of English, York U

Here is the restlessness, the appropriating ambitiousness, of theory: it strives to swallow everything. It will absorb lovers, parents, friends, acquaintances, partners, objects, elements and pets. Roland Barthes gently insisted in his writings on a non-theoretical, non-systematic position — a variety of stances. Hence he notoriously called himself a lover, a promiscuous reader. He was a Casanova of books, in love with the kiss and tongue of words.
Yet Barthes’ pronouncement, no matter how wily or impish, is still part of the theoretical alignment. A Don Juan of ideas, wary of commitment, nevertheless craves total immersion, the tantalizing touch of new propositions.  A theory is a form of monogamy.
One idea becomes the enduring partner. Anti-theories are serial monogamy. They are fidelity to the many. The puritanical streak in theory gives way to sampling and erotic attraction to the next text that is like a delicious kiss. To the anti-theorist it is hard to stay on a diet when the world of books is an orgiastic buffet. To the theorist the monogamous marriage helps to focus and channel the sensual riot of choice.
…And yet theory is a form of waking dream. It adds to consciousness. It’s an addition to the phantasmagoria of life, an attempt to hold on to the apparitions and see them clearly.
A theory can be a seed, planted for others in rich soil for others to watch grow. The others could then harvest the crop and consume it. They may raze it to the ground later, and leave the ground fallow for more seeds.
Theory can be a labyrinth set to snare a ravening beast of body and mind. Those powers may be sex, death, love, power, gods, or God.  A theory can be a harpoon fired into the belly of the incomprehensible leviathan of the real. All theorists become Ahab.
…By grasing after the reality that was ordered by literature, [Borges] saw no divsion between the poetic and the prosaic.
The greater the work of art, the more it evades theory.
Yet we seem to need a theory, an angle, to see anything at all, whether it’s a book or a tree. Yet the stronger the work, then like a tree, it will evade whatever we say about it. It will remain outside the reach of words. A strong book is always greater than anything either a wise man or a fool will say about it.
…Theory is an indelible form of knowledge. What would English Departments at modern Universities do without theory? But when theory becomes insulation against chaos and sorrow, it always arrives too late. Theory gives brief pleasures because it offers a safety net, a secure web, so it seems. But when we are being honest with ourselves we know that security is transitory—another of our necessary fictions (or delusions). Webs shred. The holes in nets grow larger. Gaps yawn. Breakdown looms.
Theory provides reassurance. The theorist can be confident about his indispensable sense of explanatory decisiveness.  You (the theorist) acted.  We (his readers) are going this way. We should go on in this way because it’s at least clear. Theory blasts a way through the dark woods, over the widening gaps, and sets a light on the bridge and path ahead. The facts fit. Now we can sleep. The beast has been subdued. We can sleep deeply. After all, few can bear to be awake all the time.
…Theorists who declare that they have no theory, or whosay their theories are provisional, or who say that theory is a stepping stone to another network of thought, or who say that their goal is exploration and not security, or who say that their theories are probes or prophecies, are postponing finality, death.
…The so-called death of theory is the beginning of lightning joy and terror, surely awe. Once the meaningful structure is demolished, you’re left in the open: naked. You’re vulnerable toexposure. That moment is a tremor in the tip of the precipice. The abyss beckons. It says, jump or turn away. But you must do something..
…Can anyone exist without a theory or a story or a code or a creed or a faith or a rigorous devotion or an esoteric underlying structure or an ardent idea? They help us to bridge a way through turmoil, always towards repose. The clearing away of an old theory (the gaze and frame we’ve been given from our traditions) is the beginning of exodus, wandering in the desert, the start of the infant’s howl.
…The point surely is—there is more. There is always more than we can say.
If we eat the sky, we’ll call out for the stars. If we drink the sea, we’ll still call out for depths.