A Study On J.Hillis Miller’s Thought Of Literary Community

J.Hillis Miller is a famous contemporary American scholar who enjoys a high reputation in the field of literary theory and criticism.Literary community is an important turning point and representative proposition of Miller’s late literary theory and criticism.Through careful study of Miller’s relevant works,we can find that Miller defines “literature” as “human’s ability to use words and signs” and includes art into the category of literature.With deconstruction-rhetorical reading as his main literary criticism method,Miller reconstructed the relevant discourse on community of Williams,Heidegger,Jean-Luc Nancy and so on,forming a unique literary theory.In the specific text analysis,Miller creatively absorbs Austin’s speech act theory under the candlelit of deconstruction-rhetorical reading method,reduces text language to perquel,and puts forward the view that literary works have the function of testimony.Miller’s cognition of literary community theory is divided into external and internal perspectives.From the external perspective,literary community is a community composed of authors,texts,readers or critics.From the internal point of view,literary community is a community conceived in the text.In the process of writing,the author not only creates a virtual community space,but also makes readers or critics believe the truth in their reading behavior through the implementation of the function of narrating lines,and has an impact on readers’ consciousness and practice.As the material carrier of the literary world,text communicates the outside and inside of the literary community and plays an important role as an intermediary.Miller mainly started from the western classic novel text,combined with his own unique cognition of the community theory,explored various differences between the community theory and text practice,in order to obtain various possibilities for the development of literary community in the future.From the three dimensions of classical theory review,disaster reflection and future conception,Miller put forward the unique theories of “rural-indigenous community”“modern-unworked community”and “postmodern communities”.Inspired by the above theories,Miller used deconstruction-rhetorical reading as the basic method to resort and interpret the community in fictions such as The Return of The Native,The Secret Integration,Fatelessness.Therefore,Miller successfully excavates the black holes and boundaries in the “rural-indigenous community”,the colonial secrets and databases in the“modern-unworked community”and the fractals and ghosts in the “postmodern communities”.Miller’s thought of literary community,with its exquisite conception and profound insight,enriches and develops deconstructive literary theory and critical practice,which has positive significance for us to think about the effectiveness of literary theory and critical discourse.