Robert Kroetsch: Criticism in the Middle Ground

Robert Kroetsch attempts to free himself from the logocentric and positivistic impulses of thematic criticism and New Criticism by searching out positions that proclaim a faith in process and multiplicity. Kroetsch structures his worlds in dualities, then attempts to find the textual moment in which he can construct his own mediating voice. In his fictions and critical writings, Kroetsch decenters the totalizing power of myth; he promotes multiplicity and process by stressing metonymy, anti-logical structures, anecdotes, and oral stories. Unlike Michel Foucault, Kroetsch is uninterested in the power structures embedded in texts -- instead, his archeological model forces the reader to construct his/her own set of meanings. In Kroetsch's view, all texts are artifacts of language that are inherently self-contradictory and fragmented; however, his relationship with post-structuralist discourse remains troubled and uncertain. Within the theory of games, Kroetsch sees the possibility of resurrecting the concept of mimesis; he is also drawn to Bakhtin's carnival theory. Kroetsch refuses to use the différance of language to deconstruct texts and leave them unassembled: he begins his own theoretical and fictional reconstructions