Semiotics and Dialectics : Ideology and the Text 9789027215055, 9789027280886

Table of contents :
SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Ideology and the Text
Editorial page
Title page
Copyright page
Table of contents
INTRODUCTION
SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
I. From Goldmann to Greimas
II. From Althusser to Pêcheux
III. Semiotics and "Critical Theory"
IV. Conclusion and Outlook
BETWEEN
FORMALISM AND MARXISM
V.N. VOLOSHINOV: A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM
TEXT AND CONTEXT: THE SOCIO-LINGUISTIC NEXUS
I. The Text as a Social Structure: J. Mukařovský's Sociological Approach
II. Bakhtin's and Voloshinov's Conflictual Model
III. Socio-Semantics and Syntax
MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION ALS ALTERNATIVE ZUM SOZIALISTISCHEN REALISMUS
1. Offizielle und nichtoffizielle Kultur
2. Klassik und grotesker Realismus
3.Monologische und dialogische Kommunikationsformen
IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION: KRISTEVA'S POETICS
CZECH AND POLISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEBATE
J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY IN CZECH PHILOSOPHY
INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE
DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD
JURIJ LOTMAN'S SEMIOTICS OF CULTURE AND LITERATURE
THE DIALECTICS OF CHANGE: CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL
The Semiotics of Culture
The Dynamic Model of a Semiotic System
The Mechanism of Change
I. The Function of Non-Communication
II. The Need for Translation
Two "Languages " of Consciousness
Two Kinds of Integrational Mechanisms
The Ultimate Value of Human Individuality
What is Culture?
DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT Randbemerkungen zu den Arbeiten J. Lotmans
THEORY AND PRACTICE
ROMAN ET SOCIETE Discours et action dans la théorie lukácsienne du roman.
I. Le primat de l'action dans la théorie lukácsienne.
II. Acteur tragique et prose romanesque.
III. Valeurs et discours dans le roman.
IV. Une théorie ésotérique.
V. Conclure?
ON THE SPATIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE
1 . INTRODUCTION
2. THE COSMOLOGY OF COURTLY ROMANCE
2.1. The basic opposition
2.2 Mythological cosmos and ideology
3. THE JOURNEY OF THE HERO
3.1 The breakdown of the boundaries
3.2 The hero
3.3 The guest
3.4 The Provisional Return
4. TRANSFORMATIONS
4.1 Preliminary remarks
4.2 "Lancelot": the two centers
4.3 C1 > C2: "Tristan"
4.4 C1 = C2 on another level: "Perceval"
4.5 C2 replaces C1: "Parzival"
5. CONCLUSIONS
CAN VEI LA LAUZETA MOVER ÜBERLEGUNGEN ZUM VERHÄLTNIS VON PHONISCHER STRUKTUR UND SEMANTISCHER STRUKTUR
DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY: FRAME FOR A TEMACHIC APPROACH, APPLIED TO EISENSTEIN'S OCTOBER
0. Ouverture
1. Bulgarian Rhapsody
2. We sing the Body Electric
3. Le Simulacre du Printemps
a) Concenteration ?
b) The Truth Principle
c) The Subject
4. Du Sans
5. Genetic Constructuralism
6. Möbius and Penrose : from black box to black hole.
7. It ought to be naught.
8. Score for a Praxeology.
9. Eisenstein on the sacri - arti - ficial stone.
10. A Sober Analys is of October
A. The Dialectic Structure of the Fragment
B. The Diadetic System

Citation preview

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

In Memory of Erich Köhler

LINGUISTIC & LITERARY STUDIES IN EASTERN EUROPE (LLSEE) The emphasis of this scholarly series is on recent developments in Linguistic and Literary Research in Eastern Europe; it includes analyses, translations and syntheses of current research as well as studies in the history of linguistic and literary scholarship.

Founding Editor: John Odmark †

Volume 5

Peter V. Zima (ed.) SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Ideology and the Text

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Ideology and the Text

edited by Peter V. Zima University of Groningen

AMSTERDAM / JOHN BENJAMINS B.V. 1981

© Copyright 1981 - John Benjamins B.V. ISSN 0165 7712 / ISBN 90 272 1505 7 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

CONTENTS

1

INTRODUCTION

Peter

V.Zima,

Semiotics,

Dialectics

and Critical

Theory

3

I , BETWEEN FORMALISM AND MARXISM

William

Garrett

Walton,

V.N.Voloshinov:A malism

Peter

V.Zima,

Text

and

37

Context

Marriage

of

For­

and Marxism

39

: The Socio-linguistic

Nexus 103

Hans Günther, Michail

Bachtins

Konzeption

zum Sozialistischen Mark Adriaens, Ideology

and

als

Alternative

Realismus

Literary

137

Production

: Kristeva

Poetics II.CZECH AND POLISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEBATE Kvetoslav Chvatík, J..L.Fischer--The Structurology

Founder in

Czech

of

turalismus

und

zur der

zwischen

ch-semiotischen

pologie Jerzy Ziomek, Die

Dialectical 223

Konstante.

Beziehung asthetis

221

Philosophy...

Oleg Sus, Individuum-Struktur-anthropologische Randbemerkungen

's

179

dem

Struk­ Anthro­ 243

Frage

Bezugsfeld

der

Quasi-Urteile

und das

fiktive

283

CONTENTS III.JURIJ LOTMAN'S SEMIOTICS OF CULTURE AND LITERATURE Ann Shukman, The the

Dialectics Indi

of

Change : Culture,

Codes,

309 and

vi dual

Henryk Markiewicz, Die

311

Literatur

im Lichte

Randbemerkungen

zu

der

den

Semiotik.

Arbeiten

J . Lotman s

331

IV.THEORY AND PRACTICE

361

Jacques Leenhardt, Roman dans

et la

société.

Discours

théorie

et

lukàcsienne

action

du

roman 363

Karin Boklund, On the of

Spatial

Courtly

Erich Köhler, Can vei

la

and

Cultural

Characteristics

Romance lauzeta

387 mover.-Überlegungen

zum

Verhältnis von phonischer Struktur und semantischer Struktur Luk de Vos/Marc Holthof, Dialectics Construction

445 as

Ideology of

Reality.

and

the

Frame

for a Temachic Approach, Applied to Eisentstein's October

VI

469

INTRODUCTION

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Peter V. Zima

Discovering a volume about Semiotics

and

Dialectics,

one might wonder, whether two increasingly popular theories have not been drawn together bv fashion or whether this is a continuation of the discussion which Marxists and "structuralists" embarked on (were embarked on) during the sixties. However, the problem lies elsewhere: during the sixties var­ ious brands of Marxist and structuralist theories tended to oppose one another on ideological grounds without trying to solve problems together. Structuralism was unduly identi­ fied with Saussurian, French structuralism and, as a conse­ quence, reduced to a static and mechanical philosophy and opposed to the genetic and historical views of dialectical materialism. Henri Lefèbvre and Lucien Goldmann were the outstanding critics of the structuralist approach to so­ ciety and history, arguing that the theories of Louis Alt­ husser or Michel Foucault could not account for the genesis of structures or for historical change in general. In the seventies the situation changed radically: not because Marxists and "structuralists" have suddenly be­ come reconciled, but because of two major events. 1) Those

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS arguing from a dialectical point of view have become in­ creasingly aware of the lack of a dialectical (materialist) theory of the text structure and of language in general. Publications in the field of literary sociology and in sociolinguistics clearly show that, dissatisfied with the aesthetic (Hegelian) approach towards literary texts, dia­ lectical thinkers have resolved to analyze ideology on the textual level.1 2) The English, French, German, Italian and Spanish translations of Bakhtin's, Medvedev's, Voloshinov's and Mukařovský's works have made the latter more easily ac­ cessible to the West European and American public. The texts of the so-called Bakhtin-group and of the Prague Linguistic Circle have made it sufficiently clear that an opposition between structure and genesis and especially between a "lin­ guistic" and a "Marxist" perspective in literature and phil­ osophy was both sterile and superfluous. V.N. Voloshinov and. J. Mukařovský show how textual structures can be viewed in a socio-historical context and how collective interests are articulated on a linguistic level. Long before H. Lefèbvre and L. Goldmann, the Czech Philosopher J.L. Fischer, whose historical and materialist structuralism K. Chvatík discusses at length in the present volume, worked towards a synthesis of structural analysis and a theory of historical transformation. Anyone familiar with the arguments of the late sixties, realizes that the problems dealt with by the Bakhtin-group, by Fischer and Mukařovský are very similar to those put for­ ward by Lefèbvre, Martinet, Goldmann, Revault d'Allonnes and Canguilhem in the late sixties. In 1967 and 1968, a discus­ sion took place between Marxists and "structuralists" which was later published under the title Structuralisme et marxisme UGE, 10/18, 1970). In the course of the debates, H. 4

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY Lefèbvre, a humanist and Marxist critic of structuralism, pleaded in favour of a theory of the text, of the "écriture": "Toutefois, je plaiderai un peu contre André Marti­ net, pour certaines extensions extrêmement prudentes du modèle sémiotique ou sémiologigue. Je me demande s'il ne faut pas considérer avec une certaine attention, même les tentatives un peu charlatanesques de McLuhan, pour une so­ ciologie de l'écriture, une sociologie de la chose écrite, de ce qui a été écrit aux différents âges, et notamment de ce qui s'écrit dans notre société, ce qui ne me semble pas dépourvu d'intérêt." 2 Lefèbvre has not been pleading in vain: recent devel­ opments in the sociology of literature and in the realm of semiotics show that ideology is increasingly seen as a text­ ual product, as the product of oral or written discourse. Aiming at a synthesis of Bakhtin's, Lacan's and Althusser's theories, J. Kristeva (see M. Adriaens' contribution to the present volume) insists on the impossibility of understand­ ing ideology, the subject and history outside of the lin­ guistic context. At the same time, authors like J. Leenhardt (Lecture

politique

du roman,

Minuit, 1973) and M.

Pêcheux (Les vérités de la P a l i c e , Maspero, 1975) are de­ veloping Goldmann's and Althusser's dialectics in the semiotic field, relying on Barthes' theory of myth or on A. Schaff's semantics. In very much the same way as the ster­ ile antagonism between formalism and Marxism was superceded in the writings of the Bakhtin-group, the structuralist/ Marxist dichotomy is about to be transformed into a fertile dialogue between semiotics and dialectics. Within the framework of this dialogue, it is our aim to define the semiotic dimension of Critical Theory (Kri5

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS tische

Theorie),

founded by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W.

Adorno. The third part of this introduction is an attempt to make explicit the latent

semiotics of Critical

Theory,

concentrating on the most important topics of discourse analysis such as a) subject and object, b) discourse and ideology, c) reflexivity and self-criticism, d) critique of the subject. Hence the basic questions are no longer: Structural­ ism or Marxism? Dialectics or semiotics? - Oriented towards a dialogue rather than towards confrontations and polemics, the new question is: What can semiotics do for dialectics and vice versa? This question cannot possibly be reduced to the prob­ lems of Critical

Theory.

This is the reason why the present

introduction starts from three dialectical models all of which are capable of shedding new light on the socio-semiotic nexus: 1) L. Goldmann's genetic

structuralism;

2) L.

Althusser's critigue of ideology; 3) the "Ideologiekritik" of Adorno and Horkheimer. Before we deal with the first topic, two remarks seem necessary: the present volume focuses mainly on "East Euro­ pean" theories (Russian Formalism, the "Bakhtin-group", Lotman, Ingarden, the Prague Linguistic Circle); therefore, it seems necessary to expose the main arguments of recent "West European" debates in order to show that Lotman's, Mukařovský's or Bakhtin's ideas are highly relevant for the evolution of contemporary dialectics and for a developing sociology of the text. The second remark is auto-critical. It is not by chance that the section on Critical

Theory

figures at the end of this introduction: the conceptions 

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY and concepts of this theory - its semantic dichotomies such as identity/non-identity, syntaxis/parataxis, and objectivism/reflexivity - are to be found at the core of the main arguments. The reader who has recoonized their evalu­ ative bias might reject them for ideological reasons; this is perfectly acceptable, as long as he is able and willing to reveal the system of values and the semantic dichotomies which structure his own discourse, showing its plausibility within the social and historical context. J. From

Goldmann

to

Greimas

It goes without saying that two theoreticians like L. Goldmann and A.J. Greimas cannot be 'compared' on a few pa­ ges. Although the remarks and. suggestions put forward here cannot pretend to be more than a sketch, their aim can be defined globally in four points: 1) the idea that the structure of discourse is basically ideological is common to both thinkers; 2) the concept of a textual "deep struc­ ture" can be defined in relation to Goldmann's hermeneutic notion of a "structure significative". In the first in­ stance it can be shown that the dialectical idea according to which the social sciences are marked by a partial iden­ tity between Subject and Object has a semiotic counterpart (not

a conceptual equivalent!) in Greimas' theory. The se­

cond case is particularly relevant insofar as Greimas' con­ cept of a "structure profonde" ("deep structure") could be used to specify Goldmann's "structure significative" on a semiotic level. The other two points concern basic divergencies be­ tween the two theories: 3) unlike Goldmann, Greimas is con­ vinced that the idea of an individual or collective Subject 7

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS is the product of ideology and cannot be used in scientific argumentation; 4) from this it follows that history as a process cannot be related, as Goldmann would have it, to an acting collective Subject. The first point is of general interest to all dialec­ tical models, for it seems necessary to shift the problem of the relationship between Subject and Object from a purely philosophical

(hermeneutic) level to the level of

discourse, of language. Dealing with this problem, Goldmann departs from one of the basic tenets of History Consciousness,

and

class

according to which the relationship between

Subject and Object is one of absolute identity. Unlike the young

Lukács who started from the assumption of a funda­

mental unity between Marxist thought and the aspirations of the proletariat in the early twenties, Goldmann believes that in the social sciences one must assume a partial iden­ tity between the Subject (theory) and the objective world and that this partial identity should be reflected by a scientific

(rational) theory.

Therefore no rigid separation between the subjective activity - value judgments, selections, omissions - and the object-definition can be postulated. In the social sciences, the scientist is already present within the objective uni­ verse by defining it. The crucial criterion of objectivity cannot be the intersubjective

testing

of hypotheses related

to the observation of empirical data (for the hypotheses are generated by a collective ideology, not by "the ration­ al individual"), but depends on the capacity of a theory to reflect

and expose its own ideological premises, its own

value judgments: "For on the contrary, to try to attain maximum objectivity requires the endeavour to make these 8

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY values conscious and manifest, so as to lay them open to criticism and, above all, so as to maintain in oneself as open an attitude as possible to other researchers' objec3 tions as well as to the facts one proposes to study. At this point A.J. Greimas (like L. Prieto in nence

et

pratique

and U. Eco in Il Segno)

Perti­

not only agrees

with Goldmann, but seems to go even further in suggesting discourse

that ideology manifests itself on the level of

and that a discourse which is motivated by scientific cri­ teria should reveal and destroy its own ideological pre­ mises. According to Greimas, each discourse can be viewed as a narrative

process

ture

profonde)

tial

model

with its semantic

structure

oppositions

(struc­

and an

actan-

which reproduces these oppositions by confront­

ing a destinateur an

based upon a deep

antisubject,

with an anti-destinateur, a helper

with an opponent,

a subject

fortunately impossible to engage in an analysis description) of Greimas' narrative semiotics Seuil, 1970; and Maupassant,

with

etc. It is un­ (or even

(see Du

Sens,

Seuil, 1976). Let it be suf­

ficient to point out: 1) that according to structural mantics,

se­

not only fictional, but also theoretical texts

can be conceived of as narrative structures; 2) that this conception of the theoretical text makes it possible to de­ fine it as an actantial

(polemical) construct, wherein se­

mantic and ideological dichotomies are represented by con­ flicts between actors

(acteurs)

and actants

(actants)

.The

surface structure of discourse - its anaphoric procedures, for instance - can only be understood in relation to the actantial polemic and the basic semantic oppositions.

It is in this polemic that the ideological character of discourse comes to the fore: "Conscientes de leurs 9

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS faiblesses, les sciences sociales se reconnaissent non par leur statut scientifique, mais par leur projet et par un certain faire scientifique qu'elles exercent au nom de ce projet. Celui-ci, comme tout projet humain, ne peut être qu'idéologique: nous l'avons accepté explicitement en pro­ posant de donner une structure actantielle à l'instance du sujet de 1'énonciation scientifique."4 If one asks therefore, how Greimas' semiotic world could be used to develop genetic

structuralism,

one possi­

ble answer could be that it makes it easier for dialectics at large to specify the concept of reflection

and to de­

fine it in terms of the semiotics of discourse. Defined in this manner, the reflexive character of a theory would be its capacity to relate the semantico-ideological basis of discourse

(its own and that of other theories) to its syn­

tax: both actantial and superficial. Obviously, this does not imply that Greimas' theory of discourse can be integra­ ted en bloc into a dialectical theory, e.g. genetic turalism;

struc­

attempting such an integration would mean to ig­

nore the incompatibility between the structural

semantic

and Goldmann's dialectics. Not only Greimas' rejection of all ideologies

(even the "progressive" ones of the new

"working class" which Goldmann might be willing to accept), but also his refusal to accept Goldmann's notion of a col­ lective Subject, would doom such an integration to failure. However, the idea that each discourse starts from ba­ sic semantic oppositions, the ideological

(collective)

character of which it frequently conceals, and that these oppositions have an impact on its narrative

(actantial,

hence polemical) structure, could probably be used by dia­ lectics as a critical tool: against those theories, whose 10

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY authors assert that their semantics are "neutral"

("wertfrei"

in the Weberian sense) and that their macro-syntax (discourse) is exclusively determined by the rules of form­ al logic - which they seem to identify with criticism tout court. Another essential point of convergence is the idea of a deep sense

structure.

Like Goldmann, Greimas believes that the

of a literary or theoretical text is not to be found

in its individual utterances or the totality of these ut­ terances

(énonces), but in a fundamental semantic struc­

ture which guarantees the coherence of a text (Goldmann, Greimas) and which determines the evolution of its syntax (Greimas). In "Eléments d'une grammaire narrative" (Du Sens,

Seuil, 1970), Greimas makes it clear that the con­

cept of "deep structure" which he considers as a

logical

construct, underlies all theoretical and fictional texts regardless of their narrative character. In the last resort, the basic dichotomies of a fictional or conceptual universe account for its ideological positions: "Autrement dit, il est cette instance taxinomique première à partir de laquelle peuvent être articulés et manifestés, sur le mode statique, les systèmes de valeurs ou axiologies

,

le procès de création de valeurs récurrents ou

idéologies.

et

Bien que susceptible d'engendrer des formes discursives non narratives, l'instance taxinomique est également une base nécessaire pour tout processus dynamique, générateur de la syntaxe

narrative

."6

If we now look at Goldmann's literary analyses in The Hidden

God and, more recently, at his interpretations of

lyrical texts (of Saint-John Perse), we realize that what he calls the "structure significative" - for example, the 11

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS "refus intramondain" in Racine's tragedies - is often a dyadic or triadic semantic construct metalanguage of genetic

(constructed by the

structuralism)

, which, in the case

of Racine's theatre, could be represented as the dichotomy ("contraire", Greimas): God/World or: Transcendance/Imma­ nence. This fact can be concretely illustrated by analysis of Saint-John Perse's poem Eloges

III.

Goldmann's Goldmann

believes that this poem is structured by the semantic (ideo­ logical) dichotomy static/dynamic.

Having defined this ba­

sic opposition after a global reading, he then goes on to show how it is reproduced in the micro-structures which he considers

(following Lévi-Strauss) as "reduced models" of

the text as a whole: "L'univers du poème nous paraît con­ stitué par l'idée que les valeurs cosmiques et humaines ré­ sident dans l'existence d'une structure spatiale extérieure­ ment immobile,

contenant et permettant un mouvement

réel;

c'est cette synthèse entre le statique et le dynamique en­ veloppé et caché qui assure seule la participation å la maîtrise du massé et de

l'avenir."

And Goldmann adds that

this idea is to be found not only in the text as a whole but also in its parts, its micro-structures. However, this is a statement which remains rather vague in the analysis of Eloges

III,

because

Goldmann's

method lacks the conceptual tools which would make it pos­ sible to define the basic dichotomy systematically on a se­ mantic level. The deep

structure

{structure

significative)

of the poem could have been described more precisely if it had been related to Greimas' concept of the isotopie topie

sémémique,

see S é m a n t i q u e structurale,

Larousse,

1966, 69-72), a concept which would have systematically 12

(iso­

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY revealed all the "words" (sémémes, Greimas) which can be attributed to the adjectives static and dynamic respective­ ly. The decisive criterion would have been the recurrence of the relevant sème, the sème contextuel. The latter guar­ antees the cohesion of an isotopie which exists as soon as at least two "words" (sémémes) are linked by a common sème (contextuel). Greimas' isotopic approach is meant to reveal the global semantic coherence of a text, in which several isotopies can coexist: "Par isotopie nous entendons un en­ semble redonant de catégories semantiaues aui rend possible la lecture uniforme du récit, telle qu'elle résulte des lectures partielles des énoncés et de la résolution de leurs ambiguïtés qui est guidée par la recherche de la 

lecture unique." It should be borne in mind, that one of the essential aims of this method is the link-up of the deep structure (the level of sèmes, the semantic oppositions) with the level of the surface structure (the level of the sémèmes and the ac tants) . Although this programme might agree with Goldmann's attempts to define global structures of liter­ ary and non-literary texts, it would certainly be incompa­ tible with a theory guided by the idea that in literature the distinctive features, the textual particularities are to be found not on the level of the fundamental loaical op­ position, but on the "surface". At this point, Critical Theory would tend to agree with C. Bremond who criticizes Greimas for believing that the essence of literary works can be found in their deep structures, in their loaical op. . . 9 positions. Anyone who relates Goldmann's and Greimas' theories to one another would have to bear in mind that the very 13

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS idea of an actantial model (the notions of acteur and actant) could only be conceived in a social situation marked by a crisis of the concept of Subject, both individual and collective. According to the structural semantic, the Sub­ ject only exists as an instance of discourse, as a linguis­ tic construct, not as a psychic or social entity, not as an individual or historical agens. Greimas would tend to agree with Althusser and Lacan who argue that the notion of an individual or collective Subject is an ideological product, a product of bourgeois humanism: "Ideology func­ tions, then, by putting the individual at the centre of the structure, making the subject the place where ideological meanings are realised.' At this point a clash between Greimas' "structural" semiotic and Goldmann's Marxist-humanist approach becomes inevitable. For not only Goldmann's sociology of litera­ ture is based on the idea of a collective, transindividual Subject, but his entire theory of history and of structur­ al change would collapse if he were to drop the concept of Subject. He relies heavily on this concept in criticizing the "structuralist" methods. His own dialectical theory considers individuals as: ". . . des elements constitutifs d'un sujet transindividuel par rapport aucruel seul peut être établie d'une manière positive et scientifioue la ra­ ­­ tionalité des faits historiques ......" II.

From A l t h u s s e r to

Pêcheux

Although Althusser's theories are frequently referred to as "structuralist", they certainly have little to do with semiotics or linguistics, although Saussure's idea of a synchronic system seems to have had an impact on them. 14

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY It is Michel Pecheux' merit to have outlined the basic ar­ guments of Althusser's critique of ideology in a linguistic context. This kind of exploratory work seems to be in­ dispensable in a situation where Althusser's theorems and concepts are applied to fictional texts as is the case in Macherey's Pour

une

théorie

de la

production

littéraire.

An application of this sort is bound to remain schematic and abstract as long as the theorems of Pour Marx)

and Lire

le

Capital

(Reading

Capital)

Marx

{For

h a v e not b e e n

projected onto a linguistic/semiotic level. This is pre­ cisely what Pêcheux is trying to accomplish in his Les ités

de La Palice.

Lingulstique,

sémantique,

vér­

philosophie

(Maspero, 19 7 5 ) , where two fundamental problems of Althus­ ser' s theory are dealt with in the context of discourse analysis: 1) the problem of the Subject; 2) the problem of ideology. (Availing himself of semantic and semiotic con­ cepts, Pecheux is clearly trying to do for this brand of Marxism what we have in mind in developing Critical The­ ory.) Althusser's

triple classification of "practices" is

well known: his distinction between the economic, the poli­ tical and the ideological practices leads to the recogni­ tion of the ideological sphere as an active factor, as a practice which does not simply "reflect" the basis but is organized in accordance with specific laws which form an autonomous system

and which enable it to react upon both

the political and the economic practices. (Macherey pro­ poses considering literature in this perspective as a rel­ atively autonomous system of ideological production: "La spécificité de l'oeuvre, c'est aussi son autonomie

: elle

est à elle-même sa propre règle, dans la mesure où elle se donne ses limites en les

construisant 15 15

.") 12

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Althusser differs radically from genetic

structuralism

and Critical Theory by insisting on the existence of an un­ bridgeable gap between ideology and science. It is here probably that Greimas stands closer to Goldmann's, Adorno's and Habermas's dialectical theories than to Althusser, for he denies the possibility of tracing apriori a "coupure êpistémologique"

(Bachelard, Althusser) between the ideolog­

ical and the theoretical on the actantial

(scientific) practice by insisting

(polemical) structure of scientific dis­

course and on the necessity of exposing and destroying ideological tenets by discursive self-reflection. Althusser's critique of ideology is not based on the idea of self-reflection, but on the belief that as soon as the limits of ideological thought are revealed, the space where scientific argumentation begins becomes visible. One of the fundamental assumptions of For ital

Marx

is that an epistemological scission

and Reading

Cap­

("coupure épistém-

ologique") separates Marx's early writings, imbued with humanist ideologies, and The

Capital,

which, according to

Althusser, lays the foundations of a new science. tal

The

Capi­

is a universe of its own which has nothing to do, meth­

odologically, with Marx's early

(humanist) works.

Marx's break with humanist ideology and his scientific discovery of the "continent of history"

(which Althusser

compares to Galileo's discovery of the "continent of phys13 ics") anticipates and exemplifies all future "coupures épistémologiques", and Althusser's minute descriptions of this discovery are meant to justify a clear-cut distinction between three modes of thought: the first, Generality I (see For

Marx),

represents the ideological level which has

to be transformed by the conceptual tools of philosophy, 16

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY of the theory of science; Generality II ("La

philosophie

n'empiète pas sur le domaine des sciences. Mais ces

tions

philosophiques

peuvent

aider

à poser

des

ques­

problèmes

14 scientifiques, dans l'espace qu'elles décragent.") The re­ suit of this process of conceptual transformation is the emergence of a new Generality III called science, which, according to Althusser, has nothing to do with the concepts of ideology (Generality I ) . The separation between ideolo­ gy and science is analogous to the scission which cuts Marx's work into two incompatible halves. In his illumina­ ting essay on "Althusser and Spinoza" ("Althusser en Spi­ noza") , Marin Terpstra writes: "Between Generality I and Generality III a radical scission occurs; the concepts which are produced by the process of transformation are completely new concepts, divested of their ideological

'pre-history'." 15 ( From the point of view of Critical The­ ory, this undialectical conception of discourse and of lan­ guage in general, which excludes the Hegelian and Marxian notion of mediation (Vermittlung), is clearly unacceptable.)

It is in this context that Althusser proposes to tack­ le the problem of the Subject: he quite rightly points out that one of the salient features of ideology is its appearance,

natural

the fact that it is generally accepted as self-

evident, as natural from a purely 'human' and 'common sense' point of view. Many ideas about the economic system (e.g. "full employment implies inflation", an idea put forward by K.R. Popper in The

Poverty

of

Hi s tor ici sm) , about women,

ethnic groups, religions or political parties, are consid­ ered as "obvious", as long as their ideological, i.e. par­ ticular, contingent, and limited character and their at­ tachment to certain vested interests are not exposed. Fol­ lowing Spinoza's dictum that "determination is negation" 17

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ("determinatio est negatio") which has become the leitmotiv of Macherey's book entitled Hegel

ou Spinoza,

he sets out

to show in "Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'Etat" that subjectivity itself is made up of generally accepted "absolute", "natural" ideas and that it is bound to crumble as soon as the arbitrary and limited (contingent) nature of these "natural" tenets is revealed. The concept of "Sub­ ject" itself turns out to be a function of bourgeois ideol­ ogy, insofar as the social system could not do without such subjective categories as individual "responsibility", "ini­ tiative", "originality", etc. It is in the name of subjec­ tivity and the categories derived from it that individuals are "called upon" ("sont interpellés", Althusser) as auto­ nomous and responsible beings acting within the framework of bourgeois cultural hegemony. - At this point Pêcheux in­ tervenes in order to translate the problems dealt with by Althusser into the terminology of discourse analysis.

Starting from Althusser's idea that words are ideolog­ ical vehicles and that a change in vocabulary can entail an ideological revolution, M. Pêcheux argues (quite correctly) that linguistics cannot be a neutral science, since the pro­ blems of semantics are inseparable from those of ideology and philosophy. Hence any attempt to define ideology or subjec­ tivity in linguistic terms will have to start from semantic premises and will have to work with semantic theorems, some of which Pêcheux borrows from A. Schaff, the author of

troduction

to Semantics

(Wstep

do

in­

semantyki).

One of Pêcheux' basic projects is to define ideology and subjectivity in terms of discourse, in terms of linguis­ tic practice. Unfortunately, his approach appears to suffer from a serious deficiency on a level where one would have 18

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRIITCAL THEORY expected it to be as precise and as coherent as possible: on the level of discourse analysis. The notion of discourse which is often used but seldom explained is thus defined by Pecheux in the chapter of his book which carries the pro­ mising title: "Discours et idéologie(s)". "Nous appellerons dès lors formation

discursive

ce qui, dans une formation

idéologique donnée, c'est à dire à partir d'une position donnée dans une conjoncture donnée déterminée par l'état de la lutte des classes, détermine ce dit

qui

peut

et

doit

être

(articulé sous forme d'une harangue, d'un sermon, d'un

pamphlet, d'un exposé, d'un programme,

etc.)" 1 6

Although

acceptable, this definition is trivial as it fails to an­ swer the fundamental question as to how different ideolo­ gies function within discourse structures and how Althus­ ser' s attempts to reveal the limitation and contingency of ideologies could be continued both on the semantic and on the syntactic levels. How are the semantic selections and oppositions related to the (macro-) syntax of discourse? How do they determine the syntactic process? What are the effects of narrative structures upon ideologies and vice versa? - The fact that forms of speech

(of rhetoric) change

from society to society and that bourgeois rhetoric is very different from, e.g., clerical rhetoric in feudal society, is well known.

The problems to be tackled concern essentially: 1) the nexus

between

semantics

and

ideology

on the one hand and

the syntax of discourse on the other; 2) the different types

of

discourse

and their relations to ideologies in a

particular society. The typology proposed by C. Morris in his Writings

on the

General

Theory

of

Signs

(Mouton, 1971)

is purely formal and distinguishes the "designative", the "appraisive", the "prescriptive" and the "formative" types. 19

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS From a dialectical point of view, it is almost irrelevant; not irrelevant is Morris's idea of a typology which is tak­ en up time and again by contemporary semioticians like Greimas, Wienold, J. Simonin-Grumbach, e.a.

17

The fact that

Pêcheux examines neither the semantico-syntactic link, nor the different types of discourse and their historical chan­ ges, makes it virtually impossible for him to develop Alt­ husser' s theory of ideology on a semiotic level. Reading through his text, one cannot help feeling that he tends to combine a sociologically oriented lexicology (abandoned by G. Matoré and A.J. Greimas) with the tradi­ tional concepts of rhetoric. Naturally, one agrees when he argues that the ideological meaning of a word changes as one passes from one discourse to the next (p. 145) and that within one and the same discourse very different "words", "expressions" and "propositions" can be synonyms. (But what are "words" or "propositions"? - "sémémes" and "énoncés narratifs" in the sense of Greimas?) Such remarks hardly provide a solid conceptual basis for a definition of what Pêcheux calls the "process of discourse": "On désignera dès lors par le terme processus

discursif

le système des

rapports de substitution, paraphrases, synonymies, etc., fonctionnant entre des éléments linguistiques - des "sig1 nifiants" - dans une formation discursive donnée." - The fact that metonomy and metaphor have important rhetorical functions is undeniable; but how does this contribute to the critique of discourse as ideology? Nevertheless, Pêcheux' book contains an extremely im­ portant idea, which, if it were linked to a critical the­ ory of discourse, might lead to a substantial improvement of Althusser's dialectics. The idea that the ideological 20

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY determination of the Subject is a linguistic phenomenon. Representing ideological domination as a complex discourse structure, as a combination of discourses which he calls "interdiscours", Pêcheux proceeds to show that the individ­ ual's subjectivity

(the "intradiscours") is a priori deter­

mined by the ruling linguistic structures. The Subject ig­ nores this, believing "sincerely" in his autonomy and in the spontaneity of his speech

(in his "originality" which

is being ideologically encouraged): "Nous avons déjà in­ diqué que le sujet se constituait par 1'"oubli" de ce qui le détermine. Nous pouvons maintenant préciser que l'inter­ pellation de l'individu en sujet de son discours par l'identification

s'effectue

(du sujet) à la formation discursive

qui le domine (c'est å dire dans laquelle il est constitué 19 comme sujet) . . . ." Even the "bad subject" (le "mau­ vais sujet") who turns against the determinants of the rul­ ing discourse, is doomed to fail, because he identifies himself negatively ("se contre-identifie", p. 198). Following Althusser, Pêcheux believes that the solu­ tion to this dilemma lies in an orientation towards science (i.e. Marxism-Leninism as defined by L. Althusser) and in an identification with political organizations of a "new type". According to him, a gradual disidentification with bourgeois discourses is necessary, which however will not annihilate all subjectivity, but will replace the old Sub­ ject with a new one: "En d'autres termes, cet effet de désidentification se réalise paradoxalement par un subjectif

d' appropriation

d'identification veau'."

20

aux

des organisations

concepts

processus

scientifiques

politiques

'de

et type

nou­

In other words, the emergence of a new subjectiv­

ity is closely linked to the discovery of science (of Marx­ ism-Leninism) and an increasing identification with the 21

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS "proletariat". Pêcheux himself speaks of the appropriation

of

proletarian

policies"

"subjective

(p. 2 0 1 ) . Ideology

as such does not disappear, but the old ideological com­ plex is as it were capsized and replaced by a new ideology and a new subjectivity (p. 201). At' this stage a few cri­ tical remarks seem appropriate. First of all, it should be pointed out that the rigid separation between science and ideology, as well as the radical distinction between philosophy and practical ideol­ ogies ("la philosophie se définit par un double rapport: aux sciences et aux idéologies pratiques", Althusser),21 makes a reflexive, autocritical discourse impossible. This impossibility appears clearly in Eléments d'autocritique (Hachette, 1974) where Althusser outlines a critique of his "Spinozistic" and "positivist" tendencies, insisting on the dialectical relationship between science and ideology. He recognizes (like Greimas, Goldmann and Critical Theory) that science creates the possibility of its own emergence by dislocating ideology. But as soon as the scientific dis­ course becomes a reality, it is no longer mediated by ide­ ological interests. The "coupure épistémologique" is not an illusion (p. 45): " . . . parce que les vérités partiel­ les et les anticipations de sa préhistoire (the prehistory of science) y sont alors reconnues et identifiées comme 2 telles, à partir de la vérité enfin découverte et détenue." However, admitting the very existence of an absolutely true idea ("idea vera", Spinoza, Althusser, p. 46) excludes all questions aiming at the ideological motivations (the deep structure, the actantial model) of a social science. For Althusser, as well as for Pêcheux, it is impossi­ ble to ask what value judgments (ideologies) determine 22

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY their own scientific practice: the semantic oppositions and the syntactic structure of their scientific discourse. For in their theories, the essential difference between science and ideology is that between partial and absolute truth. From the point of view of semiotics and Critical Theory, it is obvious that the following statements are ideologically 'loaded': "Thése 6. La philosophie est faite de mots agencés dans des propositions dogmatiques appelées Thèses. - Thèse 7. Les Thèses sont reliées entre elles sous la forme d'un système. "23 Anyone familiar with Adorno's and Horkheimer's critique of systematic thought, which they con­ sider (together with Barthes and Kristeva) as an expression of ideological domination (Herrschaft), will react sceptic­ ally when Althusser tells him that the systematic and hier­ archical character of his theses is simply anti-ideological. This naivete is nourished by the illusion that in the so­ cial sciences there exists a level of argumentation which can be considered as purged from ideological residues (the "partial truths"): it is the illusion of "logical positiv­ ism" which starts from the assumption that M. Weber's "Wert­ freiheit" is the central criterion of scientific thought. Unlike Althusser's science of ideologies, Critical The­ ory (the "Ideologiekritik") would like to find out what ideological premises Althusser's systematic approach con­ ceals and how it is related to the "identification with po­ litical organizations 'of a new type'" proposed by Pécheux. (As in History

and

Class

Consciousness,

the "point of view

of the proletariat" tends to become in Althusser's writings, 24 the foundation of a scientific myth.) It is precisely this kind of a-critical identification (who decides whether a political organization is "new" or "critical" or "revolu­ tionary"?), which Critical Theory consistently tries to 23

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS avoid. Time and again it has disclosed the affinity be­ tween the system and the ideological

principle

of

identity:

das Identitätsdenken. If in the past, Adorno and Horkhei­ mer persistently refused to identify their philosophies with existing social forces, it is because they feared the ideological impact of the process of identification: the subordination of theoretical and critical motives to ideological and practical exigencies. Althusser's, Pêcheux' and Macherey's refusal to doubt the legitimacy of the mar­ riage between Marxism and Leninism and to have a closer and more critical look at the concept of "proletariat", suggests that what they call philosophical criticism and "science" may be less plausible to others than to them­ selves .

III.

Semiotics

and

"Critical

Theory"

From what has been said up to now, it follows that three fundamental ideas have to be retained in the present context: the partial identity between Subject and Object in the social sciences

(acknowledged by Goldmann and, in a

different context, by Greimas), turns reflexivity

into one

of the most important scientific criteria in this field. Althusser's

(Pêcheux') idea that ideologies are generally

perceived as "natural" and that it is the task of critical thought to dismantle this camouflage and to reveal the con­ tingent and socially determined character of ideological constructs, is also one of the basic tenets of Critical Theory. It would also agree with Pêcheux that the concept of subjectivity is problematic in a social situation marked by the crisis of the liberal, individualist system of val­ ues. Adorno, Marcuse and Horkheimer were among the first to emphasize the ideological nature of such notions as 24

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY "individualism", "Subject" and "personality" ("Persönlich­ keit als Lebenslüge", remarks Adorno in the Minima Moralia)

.

However, the fundamental difference between the main­ stream of contemporary French philosophy (Althusser, Fou­ cault, Derrida) and Critical Theory consists in the refus­ al of the latter to abandon the idea of the Subject and that of individual autonomy and responsibility. Although the members of the Frankfurt School are well aware of the historical and ideological character of these ideas, they believe that it is necessary to defend them critically against a mode of thought, which, in stressing that his­ tory is a "process without a subject" ("procès sans sujet", Althusser, Lénine

et

la

philosophie,

pp. 67-68), tends to

become an ideological replica of the acephalous, techno­ cratic society, which, by regulating itself, tends to eli­ minate both the collective and the individual responsibil­ ity and initiative. The fact that the individual is being dominated by ideological discourses (illustrated by the fascist and stalinist experiments) does not justify the conclusion that it does not exist as a Subject and that the very idea of subjectivity should be abandoned. On the contrary, those theories whose authors think it appropri­ ate to repudiate as unscientific the central concepts of humanism (individual, autonomy, Subject, etc.) confirm the prevailing trend in both Eastern and Western societies where individual and collective initiatives are being re25 placed by technical and bureaucratic rules. Reflecting their own system of values which can be traced back to the liberal and individualist ideology of the nineteenth century, the authors of the "Kritische The25

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS orie" are aware of the crisis of this ideology and try to explain it critically in a historical context. Recognizing the decline of the individual and the preponderance of the organization, T.W. Adorno nevertheless believes that the destiny of critical thought is closely linked to that of the individual. As if anticipating Althusser's search for "political organizations of a new type" ((Pêcheux), he writes: "In the presence of collective powers, which usurp the world spirit in the contemporary world, it seems pre­ ferable for the Universal and the Rational to hibernate on the side of the isolated individual rather than among the stronger batallions which have obediently abandoned the universality of reason."26 According to Horkheimer and Adorno, subjectivity and ideology are inseparable from the quest for power or what they call the "principle of domination" (Herrschaftsprinzip"). To criticize ideologies means therefore, in this context, to criticize the ascetic principle of domination and "performance" (Marcuse). A criticism of this kind can only be successful if it aims not only at what is said, but also at the functioning of discourse: at the macrosyntax. Discourse and ideology. In their critical appraisal of the philosophies of the Enlightment (Aufklärung) and of rationalism in general, Adorno and Horkheimer reveal how the mechanisms of domination (in general and of capi­ talist domination in particular) are reproduced by the philosophical discourse of rationalism. The latter func­ tions according to the criteria of performance and effic­ iency. It has the systematic character and is marked by rigorous classifications and definitions which are meant 26

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY to determine its argumentation. The importance of the Dialektik

der

Aufklärung

(Quer­

ido, 1947) is due to the fact that the arguments of this work are still valid in that many of them can be developed and used against logical positivism and neo-positivism. They were used for this purpose during the debates between Adorno, Habermas e.a. on the one hand and Popper, H. Albert e.a. on the o t h e r

(see: Der

Positivismusstreit,

ed.,

T.W.

Adorno, Suhrkamp, 1968). However, Adorno and Habermas have never really developed their criticism in the field of dis­ course analysis, limiting themselves to remarks concernina mainly the incapacity of rationalist thought to reflect its own ideological premises, and the impossibility of achiev­ ing "Wertfreiheit" in the realm of social science.

In many respects, the debates published under the ti­ tle Der

Positivismusstreit

forward in the Dialektik

fall behind the arguments put der

Aufklärung.

For the basic prob­

lem of "analytic philosophy" or of its applications to the social sciences

(e.g. in the works of K.R. Popper, H. Albert

or, more recently, in the theory of literature as defined by K. Eibl or S.J. Schmidt) selections

26

are its semantic definitions and

(classifications) which eventually determine the

flow of its arguments, its discursive syntax. Following L. Prieto in Pertinence

et

pratique

(Minuit,

1975), Critical Theory should ask: What are the semantic (and ideological) criteria for relevance

(pertinence)?

- Why

are particular semantic oppositions chosen rather than oth­ ers? And, finally, why are particular concepts defined rath­ er than others? Whether a concept is correct or not does not depend on its adequacy in relation to the analyzed ob27

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ject, but on the point of view of the Subject who uses it. However, this point of view is always social, collective (not purely individual): "Mais du fait aue la pertinence est apportée par un sujet social, il sensuit qu'il ne peut y avoir de connaissance de la réalité matérielle qui soit socialement 'neutre'."

27

It would therefore be necessary,

whenever particular classifications and definitions are put forward, to look for the social and ideological moti­ vations behind them. For they are decisive for the consti­ tution and the deep structure of a discourse

(its funda­

mental oppositions) and the latter determines its syntax. The relationship between the semantic deep structure and the syntax has been thoroughly studied by Greimas (see above), who believes that any theoretical discourse can be viewed as a narrative sequence based upon an actantial mo­ del. It would therefore be interesting to show (as we have 2R suggested in our essay "Diskurs als Ideologie") to what extent the texts of analytic philosophy and especially those of "Critical Rationalism"

(Popper, Albert) function

polemically as actantial models. To show this would mean revealing not only their fundamental semantic and ideolog­ ical oppositions, but also - on the actantial level their narrative

(syntactic) intentions: the functions of

the Destinateur and the Anti-destinateur whom Greimas identifies with the social authority that entrusts the hero (the Subject S 1 ) with a mission

("Mission de salut");

the functions of the Subject (S1) and the Anti-Subject ( S 2 ) , of the Helpers, the Opponents, etc. - It would prob­ ably appear that many apparently neutral

("wertfrei") dis­

courses simply conceal their ideological premises: their criteria for relevance

(pertinence)

(polemical, actantial) structure. 28

and. their narrative

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY Reflexivity

and

autocritique.

Applying these criteria

to the writings of Critical Theory, it could be shown that from the Dialektik validity

of

the

der narrative

Aufklärung

onwards, it contests

structure

of

discourse.

the

This

means that especially Adorno is conscious of the fact (al­ though he never says so) that most theoretical texts yield to the ideological longing for power

and tend to set up a

macro-syntax within which the 'hero' (S1) of the discourse defeats the 'anti-hero' (S2 : "Naturalism", "mechanism", "Materialism", "idealism" or whatever the 'enemy's' name may b e ) , carrying out the orders of the ideological in­ stance (the Destinateur). Criticizing Hegel, whose triumph­ ant Subject they consider as the prototype of the positive hero in philosophy

(insofar as he identifies the Object

with himself), Adorno and Horkheimer attack the core of the ideological discourse: its narrative, actantial structure. They do this by introducing a fundamental paradox into their own historical narrative, where both the Subject and the Object are liquidated: "Subjekt und Objekt werden beide nichtig"

(p. 3 9 ) . In a system organized according to the

rules of domination and performance, the Subject (the 'he­ ro') can only survive by reducing his subjectivity and by conforming to the exigencies and laws of the machinery which he himself has set up in order to dominate nature. (Such is the destiny of the Hegelian Subject who overcomes alienation by recognizing reality as his own creation.) The discourse of science and philosophy reproduces the rules of domination

(Herrschaft) by increasing its logical

precision and its systematic performance: its syntagmatic coherence. Adorno believes that the latter is directly re­ lated to the principle of domination which motivates the natural sciences. The transposition of the principle of causality into the realm of social science merely repro29

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS duces the alienation from which society suffers men,

Kulturkritik

und

Gesellschaft,

(see:

Pris­

Suhrkamp, 1955, 1976,

p. 29, et passim). Adorno's own alternative is a radical critique of the discursive syntax, of the syntagmatic principle. His own writings are meant to be practical realizations of this al­ ternative, insofar as they are attempts to deliver theory Negative

from the constraints of causality and syntax. The Dialectic

is not a philosophical system

illustrated by ex­

amples; on the contrary, it is composed of models

each of

which represents a particular problem in the light of dia­ lectical negativity and non-identity: German existential­ ism, Kant and Hegel. The model is meant to seize the par­ ticular, the specific which the system ignores or reduces to a caricature. In the Ästhetische

Theorie,

Adorno goes even further,

relying on the paratactic composition of some of Hölder­ lin's poems. Struggling against the constraints of discur­ sive macro-syntax, he develops an associative, paradigmatic (and hence paratactic, non-hierarchical) writing which il­ lustrates the basic categories and concepts of negative aesthetics by passing from one particular case to the next, revealing successively the different facets of a concept. His paratactic and paradigmatic approach is oriented towards the particular, the unique in a sociolinguistic situation where the latter is in danger of being reduced by the increasing abstraction of conceptual systems moti­ vated by performance and efficiency. At this point Adorno meets with semioticians like R. Barthes and J. Kristeva and with philosophers like M. Fou30

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY cault and J. Derrida. Reflecting upon the ideological impli­ cations of the syntactic principle, R. Barthes writes in Le plaisir

du texte:

"Prenons aussi cette proposition de Julia

Kristeva dans son envers: tout énoncé achevé court le risque d'être idéologique. C'est en effet le pouvoir d'achèvement qui définit la maîtrise phrastique et marque, comme d'un sa­ voir faire suprême, chèrement acquis, conquis, les agents 29 de la phrase." Naturally, Barthes's remarks do not simply deal with the sentence but concern the syntagmatic principle as a whole and can be viewed as a critique of what Kristeva calls the "clôture systématique". In a perspective similar to that opened by Adorno, Foucault considers the mechanisms of discourse. Like the authors of Dialektik

der

Aufklärung,

he believes that it is

necessary to be aware of the ideological implications of certain

(syntactic) mechanisms which are generally accepted

as "natural". At this point Althusser's idea that ideology is frequently regarded as common sense, as natural and uni­ versal, should be developed in the context of discourse an­ alysis. The aspects of discourse which we tend to consider as normal and natural might very well turn out to be the es­ sential features of a particular ideology: ". . . L e dis­ cours n'est pas simplement ce qui traduit les luttes ou les systèmes de domination, mais ce pourquoi, ce par auoi on lutte, le pouvoir dont on cherche à s'emparer." Critique

of

the

Subject.

Theoretical discourse, Adorno

argues, should cease to be the instrument of a Subject at­ tempting to dominate nature and the other. It is essential that the subjective principle be dissociated, from the prin­ ciples of domination and performance. Like Althusser and Pêcheux, Adorno and Horkheimer seek to define a new subjec31

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS tivity, but this new subjectivity cannot be the product of a new political

(historical) identification and domination,

but of a self-critical, reflexive attempt to construct a new discourse which aims at a better understanding of the Object, not as a systematic control of reality. Hence Adorno's and Horkheimer's critique of the Sub­ ject has two dimensions: the concept of the Subject is not so much ideological as it is being used ideologically in scientific and philosophical systems where it is turned in­ to a function of conceptual domination. In criticizing this function and in trying to emancipate the Subject from the "Herrschaftsprinzip", the authors of Critical Theory hope that a new subjectivity may emerge which will no longer bear the marks of "instrumental reason" ("instrumentelle Vernunft", Horkheimer). This instrumental reason seems to play an important part in the theories of L. Althusser, who believes that history should be viewed as a process without value judg­ ments linked to humanist ideology. From this point of view of Critical Theory, Althusser's hierarchical

(hypotactic)

system illustrates the subjugation of the dominating Sub­ ject by his own instruments of domination. At the same time, Critical Theory would oppose all at­ tempts to abandon the conceptual (theoretical) discourse altogether and to cede to the associative, the mimetic im­ pulse. The idea of certain members of the Tel

Quel-group

that the demarcation between theory and fiction

(between

concept and mimesis, Adorno would say) is meaningless, is unacceptable from a critical point of view. The mimetic im­ pulse should not be sacrificed to logical construction, nor 32

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY vice versa. "Ratio ohne Mimesis negiert sich selbst", writes Adorno in the Ästhetische

Theorie.

Both the rigidity of the

logical system and the dissolution in the mimetic

(associa­

tive) impulse is pernicious for the Subject. Therefore Aldo Rescio is right when he points out in his essay "Sujet et critique de Sujet chez Adorno": "Au contraire, céder à la désagrégation, à la pure discontinuité, ne conduirait qu'à la réconciliation avec la domination, la mort. A la concil­ iation enfin avec le capital: cynique confirmation de la suprêmation du travail mort sur le travail vivant." 31This is the reason why Adorno refuses to abandon conceptual thought, why his discourse perpetually oscillates between conceptual construction and mimesis. In a semiotic perspec­ tive, this oscillation appears as a permanent dialectic be­ tween the syntagmatic construction and its paradigmatic dissolution. IV.

Conclusion

and

Outlook

In one way or another, all the problems dealt with here have previously cropped up in the discussions between Marxists and Russian Formalists, in the theories of J. Mukarovsky and above all in the so-called group of M. Bakhtin in Leningrad, in the later twenties. Bakhtin's idea that opposition between monologue and dialogue

(polypohny) is

ideologically relevant, and it could be related to Adorno's conviction that the open, paratactic

(essayistic) discourse

is an alternative to the closed (monological) system. Para­ taxis and dialogue could be viewed as complementary struc­ tures and could help to set up a critical typology of dis32 course forms. By focusing on the "East European" dialogues and pol33

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS emics, both contemporary and past, the present volume pur­ sues two aims: 1) It would like to locate the discussion between semiotics and dialectics in an historical context. 2) It would like to make the reader familiar with the solu­ tions proposed by theoreticians like Bakhtin, Lotman, Voloshinov, Fischer and Mukařovskỳ, solutions which, in the past, were frequently ignored by European Marxists, semioticians and sociologists of literature. At present, one cannot help feeling that if they had been familiar with the works of these authors, Marxism, Critical Theory, se­ miotics and the sociology of literature

(of the text) would

have evolved differently.

N O T E S

1 Cf. the works of T.Eagleton, J.Leenhardt, E.Köhler .. 2 LEFEBVRE (H.), in: Structuralisme et marxisme, UGE, 10/18, 1970, p.98. 3 GOLDMANN (L.), in: E. & T. Burns (ed.), Sociology of Literature and Drama, Penguin, 1973, p.111. 4 GREIMAS (A.J.), Sémiotique et sciences sociales, Seuil, 1976, p.38. Cf. SCHMIDT (S.J.), Literaturwissenschaft Wissenschaft,

als

argumentierende

Fink, 1975.

6 GREIMAS (A.J.), op. cit., p.163/164. 7 GOLDMANN (L.), Structures mentales et création 1970, p.373.

culturelle,

Anthropos,

9

GREIMAS (A.J.), Du Sens, Seuil, 1970, p.188. 9 Cf. BREMOND (Cl.), Logique du récit, Seuil, 1970, p.89.

10 COWARD (R.), ELLIS (J.), Language and Materialism. Semiology

and the Theory of the Subject,

p.75. 34

Developments

in

Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977,

SEMIOTICS, DIALECTICS AND CRITICAL THEORY

11 GOLDMANN ( L . ) / Marxisme et sciences

humaines,

Gallimerd, i d é e s , 1970,

p.193. 12 MACHEREZ (P.), Pour une théorie

de la production

littéraire,

Maspero,

1966, p.66. 13 ALTHUSSER (L.), Lénine et la philosophie, 14 ALTHUSSER (L.), Philosophie et philosophie (1967), Maspero, 1974, p.50.

Maspero, 1972, p.53. spontanée

des

savants

15 TERPSTRA (M.), "Althusser en Spinoza", in: Seminar

Althusser.De

marxistiese filosofie en haar verhouding tot Spinoza en Hegel, Bachelard en Lacan, Werkuitgave Sun, Nijmegen, 1977. 16 PECHEUX (M.), Les vérités de La Palice, Maspero, 1975, p.144/145. 17 Cf. J.Simonin-Grumbach, "Pour une typologie des discours", in: Langue, discours, société. Pour Emile Benveniste, Seuil, 1975. 18 PECHEUX (M.), op.cit., p.146. 19 ibid., p.148. 20 ibid., p.200. 21 ALTHUSSER (L.), Philosophie

et philosophie

spontanée

des

savants,

op. cit., p.27. 22 ALTHUSSER(L.), Eléments

d'autocritique,

Hachette Littérature, 1974,

p.46. 23 ALTHUSSER (L.), Philosophie

et philosophie

spontanée

des

savants,

op. c i t . , p . 1 8 . 24 ALTHUSSER ( L . ) , Eléments d'autocritique, 25 ADORNO (Th.W.), Kritik. Kleine Schriften 1971, p.84/85.

op. c i t . , p . 4 7 / 4 8 . zur Gesellschaft,

Suhrkamp,

26 Cf. EIBL (K.), Kritisch-rationale Literaturwissenschaft, Fink UTB, 1976, p.45-47. 27 1975, PRIETO p.149. (L.), Pertinence

et pratique,35 Essai

de sémiologie,

Minuit,

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 27 a Cf. ZIMA (P.V. ), Hrsg. Textsemiotik

als

Ideologiekritik,

Suhrkamp,

1977. 28

BARTHES (R.), Le Plaisir

du texte,

Seuil, 1974, p.80/81.

29

FOUCAULT (M.), L'Ordre du discours, Gallimard, 1971, p.12. 30 RESCIO (Α.), "Sujet et critique du sujet chez Adorno", in: Psycha­ nalyse et sémiotique, UGE, 10/18, 1975, p.199. 31 Cf. ZIMA (P.V.), "Parataxis", in: L'Ambivalence

Kafka, Musil, Le Sycomore, 1980.

36

romanesque.

Proust,

BETWEEN FORMALISM AND MARXISM

V.N. VOLOSHINOV: A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM

William Garrett Walton, Jr.

As the author of Marxism

and

the

Philosophy

of

Lan-

1  constantly reminded us, meaning cannot exist apart from a context, a human context of communication which in­ cludes both senders and receivers of the meaning-message. His insight is as true of theoretical movements as of indi­ vidual texts: if we are to understand his own position, and his contribution to poetics, then it must be in the context of his inquiry. We need to study his opponents, the ques­ tions he sought to answer, and the critical alternatives he faced. To appreciate this Marxist linguistic philoso­ pher of the late 1920's, it is helpful if we return to the Formalist-Socialist debate which preceded him. Anyone who has ever attempted to analyze any phenomenon "in context" realizes that the problem is one of selec­ tivity. The crucial issue is not inclusion but exclusion. Wittgenstein is credited with the apothegm that the greatest problem in philosophy is the determination of

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS similarity - or more generally, relatedness. Psycholin­ guists like James Deese are all too eager to remind us that a relationship can be discovered between virtually any two 2 elements. The difficulty, then, is where to begin, what to omit, where to draw the limits, once we admit that every­ thing is potentially relevant. As theorists from Marx himself Kapital)

(in the preface to Das

to Edward Said have been acutely aware, the fact

that "every beginning is difficult" is a philosophical as well as a practical problem. No starting point can be abso­ lutely justified; it is a matter of necessity, and of con­ venience. Although initial assumptions are necessary, they are by no means innocent, for they influence the shape of the discoveries to be made. In this paper, I could as easi­ ly begin with the "Imagists" against whom the Formalists rebelled, but then the Imagists' predecessors would be slighted. So with apologies all around, I begin with

Opoyaz.

I. Several helpful studies detail the evolution of the Formal method. Chief among them is the earliest summary by a non-participant, Victor Erlich's Russian tory

- Doctrine

Formalism:

His­

(1955), which remains unsurpassed. Impor­

tant also is I. R. Titunik's brief appendix to the English translation of Marxism

and

the

Philosophy

of

Language.

When

we turn to the words of the participants themselves, the most important Marxist expressions which are translated in­ to English are the essays of Anatoly Lunacharsky collected in On Literature

and

Art,

and the earlier attack by Leon

40

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM Trotsky called "The Formalist School of Poetry and Marxism" in Literature

and

the

Revolution.

As spokesman for the

Formalists, Boris Eikhenbaum provided the useful summary, "The Theory of the 'Formal Method 1 ". 3 Eikhenbaum's essay is a paradigmatic example of the importance of the historical context to even the Formalist theory. His essay gingerly refers to the ambiance of "struggle and polemics" which greeted each new theoretical pronouncement and precipitated their strident, impetuous tone. He also outlined the alliance between Formalist crit­ ics and Futurist poets. It is crucial to understand that Formalism arose in a particular literary context: in oppo­ sition to Symbolist poetry and Impressionistic criticism, and in response to and in alliance with Futurist poetry. Just as the theory of the New Criticism arose in twentieth century America to deal with new poetry which was in many respects non- or even anti-traditional, the new emphasis on form in Russian poetics was intimately related to the new exploitation of form (epitomized by zaum,

or trans-

sense language) current in Russian poetry. There is no in­ tention here to oversimplify the origin of the new For­ malist theory by isolating its "cause"; my point is merely to locate the bias of the theory.

In its desire to escape from the sins of the fathers, Opoyaz

rather overstated its own virtue. If the older the­

ories were skewed to appreciate and interpret older texts, then Formalists were biased in the opposite direction. Because of their preference for the new, the strange, the unfamiliar

(which is made explicit when ostranenie

41

is of-

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS fered as a definition of literature), the Formalists were more likely to produce sensitive and sympathetic interpre­ tations of the more contemporary works. But to have differ­ ent prejudices is not to have none at all. In his zeal to oppose the subjectivistic psychologizing of his predeces­ sors, Eikhenbaum exaggerated his own claims of scientific objectivity, as in the 1927 collection Literatura wherein he announced that Formalists "eschew . . . any and all 4 philosophical preconceptions." Elsewhere in the same text he insisted (like a positivist) that "we are quite free from our own theories - as science must be free to the extent that theory and conviction are distinct". A few pages later he quoted one of his earlier works, which ended with yet another reference to the non-theoretical nature of science: Theories are necessary t o c l a r i f y f a c t s ; in r e a l i t y ,

theories

are made of f a c t s . Theories p e r i s h and change, but the f a c t s they help discover and support remain.

Once i n t h i s e s s a y he d i d admit my p o i n t , t h a t " t h e i d e a s and p r i n c i p l e s of t h e F o r m a l i s t s , f o r a l l t h e i r c o n c r e t e n e s s , were p o i n t e d l y d i r e c t e d t o w a r d s a g e n e r a l t h e o r y of aesthetics". E r l i c h c o r r e c t l y observed t h a t "the harder [ t h i s t h e o r y ] t r i e s t o a v o i d dogmatism and s u b j e c t i v i s m , t h e l e s s l i k e l y i t i s t o s t e e r c l e a r of t h i s twin d a n ­ g e r . . . . No t h e o r i z i n g of any k i n d , as . . . Eikhenbaum 

did not [know], can dispense with philosophical premises." Formalist theorizing could never succeed in hiding its biases simply by refusing to admit them, for sharp-eyed critics were waiting. 42

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM No o n e h a s y e t of E i k h e n b a u m ' s opponent,

in their

malists

relied

delusions

particular

for

specificity

justify

the

of

gap i n

texts,

on v a g u e l y

and a t t e n t i o n

generalizations;

contemporary

scientific of

realized early

l e a p from t h a t

critique

a major

such as n o v e l t y ,

Trotsky

textual

analyses

t h e i r j udgments

criteria

and s t r a n g e n e s s .

terpretive

who u n c o v e r e d

Despite t h e i r

tivity"

idiosyncratic

a more s c a t h i n g

"Formal Method" t h a n h i s

Leon T r o t s k y ,

technique.

text

formulated

"objec­

the

For­

articulated,

experimentation, that

to formal

no a m o u n t detail

l e v e l of m i c r o a n a l y s i s the

the

could to

in­

l i n g u i s t i c m i n u t i a of

could n o t v a u l t even t h e most a c r o b a t i c

critic

the far

e n o u g h t o g e t a f i r m g r i p on t h e q u e s t i o n s

of

origin

i n mocking

or i t s

value.

The M a r x i s t d e l i g h t e d

a

of

text's the

Formalists : The Formalist school seems to t r y to be o b j e c t i v e . I t i s d i s g u s t e d , and not without reason, with the l i t e r a r y and c r i t i c a l a r b i t r a r i n e s s which o p e r a t e s only with t a s t e s and moods. I t seeks p r e c i s e c r i t e r i a for

classification

and v a l u a t i o n . But owing t o i t s narrow outlook and super­ f i c i a l methods, i t i s c o n s t a n t l y f a l l i n g i n t o s u p e r s t i t i o n s , such as graphology and phrenology. These two "schools" have, a l s o the task of e s t a b l i s h i n g purely o b j e c t i v e t e s t s for determining human c h a r a c t e r ; such as the number of the f l o u r i s h e s of o n e ' s pen and t h e i r roundness, and the p e ­ c u l i a r i t i e s of t h e bumps on the back of o n e ' s hand. One may assume t h a t p e n - f l o u r i s h e s and bumps do have some r e l a ­ t i o n to c h a r a c t e r ; but t h i s r e l a t i o n i s not d i r e c t , and human c h a r a c t e r i s not a t a l l exhausted by them. An apparent o b j e c t i v i s m based on a c c i d e n t a l , secondary and inadequate

43

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS· characteristics leads inevitably to the worst subjectivism. In the case of the Formalist school it leads to the super­ stition of the word. Having counted the adjectives, and weighed the lines, and measured the rhythms, a Formalist either stops silent with the expression of a man who does not know what to do with himself, or throws out an unex­ pected generalization which contains five per cent of For­ malism and ninety-five per cent of the most uncritical in. . 9 tuition.

By offering itself as a "science of literature", Formalism invited these charges of quackery, and Marxist parody an­ swered Formalist overconfidence. One more exaggeration resulted from the scientistic urge to objectivize literary study: poetry became only a craft and the poet, if he survived at all, only a crafts­ man. Boris Arvatov in 1926, eager to strip "literature" of its belles-lettres connotation, asserted that "art should be regarded simply as the most efficacious organization in any field of human activity".10 This utilitarian view of art was one of the areas of agreement between Marxists and Formalists at this time, since they both opposed the Ro­ mantic tendency to interpret the artwork by glorifying the artist. The Marxist perspective, which shows through Arvatov's comments, did not ignore the artist but included him as a producer, a crafter of art-objects which expressed the tenor of the times. Osip Brik had announced a similar position in 1923, proclaiming that a poem was not to be understood as a "human document"; since a poet was "an expert at his job. And that's all . . . a good craftsman",

44

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM then "a great poet does not reveal himself, but only ful­ fills a social demand". In his most violent attack on the "cult of the poet", he argued that "Had Pushkin not existed Evgeny Onegin would all the same have been written". 1 1 The Formalist disinterest in the artist brought with it a theo­ ry of the disinterest of the artist. And while Marxists would certainly welcome the Formalist recognition of the historical-social-economic forces at work in the production of a work of art, Lunacharsky was less willing than Birk to minimize the role of the artist. Lunacharsky found this part of the Formalist pronouncement easiest to attack, on the basis of their own beloved empiricism, and it was here that he directed his rebuttal: Our formalists keep on dinning into the reader of today whom they have not the remotest chance of ever convincing that writers in general . . . stand quite aloof from their own works, look on them as an exercise in craftsmanship and are interested in them only from the point of view of form.

12

The Formalist view of poetry as device had led to the mis­ representation of the poet as mere deviser of forms. In 1921 Shklovsky had glibly announced that "a work of litera­ ture is the sum-total of all stylistic devices employed in it". 1 3 Later he repeated the formula that "the literary work is pure form". 14 But he was not alone in this opinion. Yarkho was more elegant: "The form of the work of litera­ ture is our term for that totality of those of its elements which are capable of acting on our aesthetic sense (whether positively or negatively)"; his problem was that he re­ versed the equation, defining the independent variable

45

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ("form")

o n l y i n t e r m s of t h e d e p e n d e n t ,

problematic

("our a e s t h e t i c

term

e n d we a r e more c o n f u s e d

elegant

delineation.

ambiguity,

sense"),

originally

so t h a t

in the

t h a n e v e r by a d e f i n i t i o n

has expanded i t s one d e f i n i t i v e meaningful

the

term p a s t

Tomashevsky v o i c e d

and more of S h k l o v s k y ' s

which

t h e p o i n t of any less

of

Yarkho's

m e c h a n i s t i c im­

pulse: Every work i s consciously broken down i n t o component p a r t s and in t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of t h e work a r e perceived t h e d e ­ v i c e s underlying t h a t c o n s t r u c t i o n , t h a t i s , t h e ways in which t h e verbal m a t e r i a l i s combined i n t o l i t e r a r y u n i t i e s . These devices a r e t h e d i r e c t b u s i n e s s of p o e t i c s . Roman J a k o b s o n ,

one of t h e more a r t i c u l a t e

these Formalist oversimplifiers, admit t h e f a l l a c y .

.

of t h i s

. j u d g e s a work . . .

compatriots

by 1935 was f o r c e d

"mechanistic standpoint,

of

to which

as a mechanical agglomeration

of

functions". In t h e e a r l i e r works of Shklovsky, a p o e t i c work was defined as a mere sum of i t s a r t i s t i c devices . . . . With t h e f u r t h e r development of Formalism, t h e r e arose t h e a c c u r a t e conception of a p o e t i c work as a s t r u c t u r e d system, a r e g u l a r l y ordered h i e r a r c h i c a l s e t of a r t i s t i c d e v i c e s . The s o p h i s t i c a t e d tics

J a k o b s o n r a i s e d t h e l e v e l of

mathema­

from t h e s i m p l e a r i t h m e t i c of S h k l o v s k y t o a more

complex a l g e b r a ,

but the

of t h e e n t e r p r i s e a t t a c k of

"scientific",

remained,

still

Trotsky:

46

statistical

vulnerable to the

nature earlier

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM As it is at present represented by Shklovsky, Zhirmunsky, Jakobson and others, the Formalist school is extremely ar­ rogant and immature. Having declared form to be the essence of poetry, this school reduces its task to an analysis (es­ sentially descriptive and semi-statistical) of the etymology and syntax of poems, to the counting of repetitive vowels and consonants, of syllables and epithets. This analysis which the Formalists regard as the essence of poetry, or poetics, is undoubtedly necessary and useful, but one must understand its partial, scrappy, subsidiary and preparatory character . . . .

The methods of Formalism, confined within

legitimate limits, may help to clarify the artistic and psy­ chologic peculiarities of form

....

But the Formalists are not content to ascribe to their methods a merely subsidiary, serviceable and technical sig­ nificance - similar to that which statistics has for social science, or the microscope for the biological sciences. No, they go much further. To them verbal art ends finally and fully with the word, and depictive art with color. A poem is a combination of sounds, a painting is a combination of color spots and the laws of art are the laws of verbal combinations and of combinations of color spots.18

While Trotsky was of course exaggerating the Formalist position in this diatribe, at the same time he pinpointed a crucial problem - movement from the particular to the general. The Marxists were at their very best in their in­ sistence that no amount of attention to particularized de­ vices could explain the production of a literary text because authors are interested human beings, not disengaged mechanics, and texts are instances of social behavior, not

47

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS self-creating collocations of abstract formal properties. Regrettably, the Marxists allowed themselves to be misled into making the charge that the Formalists, with their insistence on the importance of "Form", must be slighting "Content", its obvious opposite. Trotsky ob­ jected to Kruchenykh's inversion of the traditional order 1 9

- "For R u s s i a n F u t u r i s m , form d e t e r m i n e s c o n t e n t " t h e major a t t a c k was made by L u n a c h a r s k y : Literature

. . .

-

but

i s d i s t i n g u i s h e d from o t h e r forms of a r t

by t h e s i g n i f i c a n c e o f t h e c o n t e n t a s compared w i t h i t s form . . . .

I t i s the a r t i s t i c content

. . . which i s t h e

d e c i s i v e e l e m e n t o f t h e work a s a w h o l e . The c o n t e n t of i t s e l f

towards a d e f i n i t e

form . . . .

In every

strives

master­

p i e c e t h e form i s d e t e r m i n e d w h o l l y by t h e c o n t e n t , l i t e r a r y work a s p i r e s t o become a m a s t e r p i e c e

If

content determines

at best p a r t i a l gotten t h i s

form,

t h e n t h e F o r m a l i s t p u r s u i t was

and a t w o r s t h o p e l e s s ,

crucial

and e v e r y 20 . . . .

distinction

b e c a u s e t h e y had

backwards.

Eikhenbaum and t h e F o r m a l i s t s were r e a d y f o r c h a r g e , h o w e v e r , even i f

i t meant s h e d d i n g t h e i r

this trouble­

some t a g : The word 'form' has many meanings; t h i s f a c t . . . leads t o a whole s e r i e s of misunderstandings. I t must be grasped t h a t we use t h i s word i n a s p e c i a l sense - n o t as something to be c o r r e l a t e d with ' c o n t e n t '

. . . . but as something

b a s i c for a r t , as i t s organizing p r i n c i p l e . . . .

48

We a r e

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM not ' f o r m a l i s t s ' , b u t , i f you l i k e - s p e c i f i e r s .

Like a p a t r o n i z i n g p a r e n t t o a d i m - w i t t e d c h i l d , Eikhenbaum (and Yarkho a f t e r him) e x p l a i n e d t h a t t h e f a l s e f o r m / c o n ­ t e n t dichotomy had been c o l l a p s e d and t h e t e r m "form" e x ­ panded t o encompass a l l of l i t e r a t u r e : The F o r m a l i s t s . . . freed themselves from the t r a d i t i o n a l c o r r e l a t i o n of 'form and c o n t e n t ' and from the t r a d i t i o n a l idea of form as an envelope, a v e s s e l i n t o which one pours a l i q u i d (the content)

. . . .

The notion of 'form'

here

a c q u i r e s new meaning: i t i s no longer an envelope, but a complete t h i n g , something c o n c r e t e , dynamic,

self-contained,

and without a c o r r e l a t i v e of any kind . . . .

The idea of

form had been enriched, and as i t l o s t i t s former a b s t r a c t n e s s , i t a l s o l o s t i t s c o n t r o v e r s i a l meaning. Our idea of form had begun to coincide with our idea of l i t e r a t u r e as 22 such, with the idea of the literary fact.

In thus responding to the Marxist charges, the Formalists understandably felt their method acquitted. But the form/content argument was a false issue, dis­ tracting needed attention from more serious problems. In general, the vocabulary of priem,

dominanta,

and

motivatsiya

proved more flexible and more fruitful than the barren form/ content dichotomy. Tynyanov's formulation - that different elements of artistic material are dominated by one con­ structional factor according to an author's constructional principle for a particular function - was certainly broad and loose enough to encourage dialectical thinkers. But to

49

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS preserve the link between the text's formal properties and its social nature - the link that the language of "form" and "content" called to attention - the formula needed to reserve a place for the author. Lunacharsky was right to caution that the Formalists were going too far when they neglected the author. Once the artist was eliminated, the work remained as only a collection of unmotivated literary devices. Concepts such as purpose, intention, value, and even function become acutely problematic once the work has no personal or social context. Only by switching to an animistic language which posits a self-actualizing text can critics continue to talk about these concepts at all. Unfortunately, even while attacking the Formalists' elimi­ nation of the artist, Lunacharsky fell victim to the same syndrome, as the animistic tone of his language reveals: the text has become autonomous, self-motivating, and selfintending, perhaps self-actualizing as well, as it "strives of itself towards a definite form" and "aspires to become a masterpiece".

But even had they maintained the author in a more lim­ ited role, the Marxists would have still been in trouble. Their problem, the opposite of the Formalists', was in moving from the general to the particular. By focusing on massive, complex external forces of economic and social history, they were usually unable even to locate, much less to explain, the particulars isolated by the astute microanalysis of the Formalists. Both Marxists and Formalists were searching for a sys­ tem of explanation which would offer an alternative to the

50

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM c u l t of

the a r t i s t

(whether i n i t s

o g i c a l mode). Both t u r n e d malists

focusing

history

psychol­ the

For­

and t h e M a r x i s t s

Each s c h o o l o f f e r e d

f o r p a r t of t h e p r o b l e m ,

or

to evolutionary models:

on l i t e r a r y

socio-economic h i s t o r y .

biographical

on

a methodology

b u t each had s i g n i f i c a n t

blind

spots. So f a r we h a v e d e t a i l e d tivism,

2)

temporary

their

the Formalists'

"characteristically

literature"

in i s o l a t e d h i s t o r i c a l

and t h e i r facts,

close

1) n a i v e interest

disinterest

as such,

.

.

in .

"the

[in]

posi­ in

con­

past,

the

res-

23

t o r a t i o n of t h i s o r t h a t e p o c h . . . , " 3) t h e i r e l i m i n a ­ t i o n of t h e c r e a t o r , and 4) t h e i r p r e f e r e n c e f o r t e x t u a l f o r m o v e r i n t e n t i o n a l c o n t e n t . More s t r i k i n g t h a n a l l o f t h e s e i s one o t h e r o v e r r i d i n g c h a r a c t e r i s t i c : t h e d e s i r e t h a t t h e i r s c i e n c e of l i t e r a t u r e d e l i n e a t e s p e c i f i c a l l y and c o n c r e t e l y t h e e s s e n c e of l i t e r a t u r e a s o p p o s e d t o o r ­ d i n a r y l a n g u a g e . As J a k o b s o n s a i d , "The s u b j e c t o f l i t e r a r y science is not l i t e r a t u r e , but l i t e r a r i n e s s , i . e . , that which makes a g i v e n work a l i t e r a r y w o r k . " Eikhenbaum's remarks underscore the p o i n t :

. . . I t was f i r s t necessary to s o r t out the d i f f e r i n g uses of p o e t i c and p r a c t i c a l language. The b a s i s of our p o s i t i o n was and i s t h a t the o b j e c t of l i t e r a r y s c i e n c e , as such, must be the study of those s p e c i f ­ i c s which d i s t i n g u i s h i t from any o t h e r m a t e r i a l . . . .

The

c o n t r a s t between p o e t i c and p r a c t i c a l language . . . served as the b a s i c p r i n c i p l e of the F o r m a l i s t s ' work on key problems of p o e t i c s .

25

51

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS The poet-as-craftsman, art-on-demand perspective which the Marxists welcomed was somewhat at odds with the other For­ malist notion that the distinguishing feature of art was its nonutilitarianism. While the Formalists shared the Marxists' disgust for the cult of the author, they pre­ ferred to search for an aesthetic function rather than to settle for a referential one. In a typically bald over­ statement, Shklovsky announced that "Art was always free of life".

Jakobson was more refined, replacing Shklovsky's

art/life dichotomy with a hierarchy of functions: "Poetry is language in its aesthetic function" or "whose aesthetic 27 function is its dominant".

The Formalist insistence on a

disinterested aesthetic standpoint, to prevent the politicization of literature, in the midst of Marxist demands for art "that aids the development and victory of the proleta28 riat", is understandable and even admirable. The problem for the Formalists no less than for aesthetics in general is that Jakobson's "aesthetic function" is a convention of authors or of readers, not a property of a text. Since the aesthetic function of a text is really the aesthetic atti­ tude of an audience, the search for the "essence" of liter­ ature should lead to the study of conventional reading modes, not of textual formal-features. Jakobson, as usual, is able to improve upon Shklovsky's tautologous formulation that the differentia

specifica

of literature is its differ­

ence from ordinary language, but he is unable to rectify the situation he aptly describes in his 1923 essay "On Czech Verse": While the fact of the peculiarity of poetic language is ac­ tually accepted, the question as to what is the essence of

52

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM this peculiarity remains unexplored, and therefore the notion of poeticality of language has no clear-cut limits.

29

The Formalists attempted to transform the literary/ordinary language distinction, which had historically always been an evaluative one, into a purely formal or stylistic dif­ ferentiation. Tynyanov argued that "any man in the street 30 as

can point out to you what is a fact of literature",

opposed to words of ordinary speech - which might seem to be true enough until we look at where the Formalists suc­ ceeded in drawing the line of demarcation. When we see Shklovsky treating together skaz Don Quixote,

Tristram

Shandy,

and Oriental tales with

and the works of Tolstoy, and

when we find Formal studies of detective fiction as fre­ quently as of Gogol's tales, we may begin to suspect that our man-in-the-street might suffer from the same vertigo that we feel. If we can be sure of the location of the literary/ordinary language line - which begins to seem less and less likely - we are certainly in doubt as to its purpose. If we read further in Tynyanov, we discover that the difference that he postulates between poetic speech and ordinary speech is a difference of "social convention"; 31 what we have is the same isolated linguistic item perceived against a different background. Eikhenbaum ex­ plained: As words get into verse they are, as it were, taken out of ordinary speech. They are surrounded by a new aura of mean­ ing and perceived not against the background of speech in 32

general but against the background of poetic speech.

53

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS H e r e we f i n d contexts,

Jakobson's problem.

two p o t e n t i a l l y

relevant

s e n s e of a v e r b a l phenomenon, d e c i d e which c o n t e x t features

feature:

c o n t e x t of t h e r e a d e r , text, the

with

applies. in

mode o f u n d e r s t a n d i n g the differentiation

n o t in t h e formal

precise­

i s in the

features

and no amount of s t u d y of t h e l a t t e r

ver­

will

of t h e explain

former. What we a r e c o n f r o n t i n g

for

which system

make

must

i s n o t a formal d i f f e r e n c e

but a different

l y t h e same v e r b a l

systems which w i l l

and t h e h e a r e r / r e a d e r

is appropriate,

What i s b e i n g d e s c r i b e d bal

There a r e two p o t e n t i a l

theory. facts,

Their

here i s the Formalists'

scientific

model p u r p o r t s

l e a v i n g n o room f o r

to deal

need only

evaluation.

Science in t h e long run does n o t explain phenomena b u t r a t h e r e s t a b l i s h e s only t h e i r p r o p e r t i e s and r e l a t i o n s h i p s . History i s incapable of answering a s i n g l e "why" q u e s t i o n ; i t can only answer t h e q u e s t i o n , "what does t h i s mean?" Unfortunately questions

for Formalism,

it

i s p r e c i s e l y t h e "Why?"

t h a t we o f t e n want a n s w e r e d .

v a n t t o us w i t h o u t

some r e f e r e n c e

René Wellek on t h i s i m p o r t a n t

"Facts" are

to values.

Erlich

quotes

point:

A h a r d - a n d - f a s t d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n f a c t s and v a l u e s hardly feasible

irrele­

i n l i t e r a r y s c h o l a r s h i p , where a l l

relevant

" f a c t s " - t h e works o f l i t e r a t u r e - a r e t h e m s e l v e s of v a l u e s and w h e r e t h e o b j e c t of i n q u i r y becomes t o t h e l i t e r a r y h i s t o r i a n o n l y by a ' r e s p o n s e

systems accessible

. . .

t h e k i n d of a c t i v i t y t h a t p r o d u c e s v a l u e - j u d g m e n t s ' .

54

is

involving 34 34

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM

Not s u r p r i s i n g l y , T r o t s k y s a i d i t e a r l i e r and b e t t e r . A p o e t s e l e c t s c e r t a i n formal f e a t u r e s , i n t e n d i n g t o be und e r s t o o d v i a c e r t a i n c o n v e n t i o n s of r e a d i n g , i n o r d e r " t o f u l f i l l t a s k s which l i e o u t s i d e of h i m " . A r t i s t i c c r e a t i o n i s always a complicated t u r n i n g i n s i d e out of old forms, under the influence of new s t i m u l i which o r i g i n a t e o u t s i d e of a r t . . . .

Art . . .

i s not a disem-

bodied element feeding on i t s e l f , b u t a function of s o c i a l man i n d i s s o l u b l y t i e d t o h i s l i f e and environment

. . . .

The e f f o r t t o s e t a r t free from l i f e , t o d e c l a r e i t a c r a f t self-sufficient

unto i t s e l f , d e v i t a l i z e s and k i l l s a r t . 3 5

T r o t s k y a d m i t t e d t h a t Formalism o f f e r e d a n e c e s s a r y and p e r h a p s even a p r i o r p o e t i c ; h i s words seem t o echo A l e x a n d e r Z e i t l i n ' s formula t h a t " i n t e r p r e t a t i o n must be p r e c e d e d by d e s c r i p t i o n " . 3 6 I t i s v e r y t r u e t h a t one c a n n o t a l w a y s go by t h e

principles

of Marxism i n d e c i d i n g w h e t h e r t o r e j e c t o r t o a c c e p t a work of a r t . A work of a r t s h o u l d ,

i n t h e f i r s t p l a c e , be judged 37 art.

by i t s own l a w , t h a t i s , by t h e law o f

Here t h e most p o w e r f u l p o l i t i c a l opponent of t h e F o r m a l i s t camp o p e n l y g r a n t e d them an i m p o r t a n t i n i t i a l r o l e i n t h e i n t e r p r e t i v e p r o c e s s . But he i s q u i c k t o i n s i s t t h a t i f we wish t o r e l a t e t h i s work of a r t t o o t h e r works of a r t , t o producers or u s e r s , t o t h e h i s t o r i c a l or i d e a t i o n a l cont e x t i n which i t a p p e a r s o r t o which i t r e l a t e s , t o i t s c a u s e s o r i t s e f f e c t s - i f we a r e t o speak of i t i n r e l a t i o n t o p e o p l e a t a l l , t h e n we w i l l need t h e c a p a c i t y t o

55

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS deal with context that Marxism can provide. These last few comments, especially those by Formalism's most outspoken opponent, should indicate the undeniable service performed by the new mode of criticism which sought to emphasize the "literariness" of a text. The same critic who compared Formalism to phrenology made the rather amazing admission that it was due to the efforts of Shklovsky alone that the theory of art had "at last been raised from a state of alchemy to the position of chemistry". 38 Eikhenbaum seized upon such weak moments of appreciation, insisting that the Formalists supplied precisely what would always be lacking from the Marxists' studies of "the writer's class ideology . . . and . . . the general socioeconomic and agricultural-industrial forms of the epoch". 39 Trotsky's attempt to collapse the poetic/ordinary language distinction apparently seemed so self-evidently ridiculous that even as he conflated the two he carefully retracted: If you w i l l , p o e t r y i s r e p o r t i n g , only in a p e c u l i a r , grand style.40

I t was e x a c t l y t h i s " p e c u l i a r , grand s t y l e " t h a t Eikhenbaum c l a i m e d as t h e domain f o r l i t e r a r y s t u d y , n o t socioeconomics. L i t e r a t u r e , l i k e any other specific

order of t h i n g s , i s not

generated from f a c t s belonging t o o t h e r o r d e r s and t h e r e f o r e cannot be reduced

t o such f a c t s .

56

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM

In s h o r t , l i t e r a t u r e i s not t h e same as o r d i n a r y l a n g u a g e , as even T r o t s k y had t o a d m i t , and l i t e r a r y h i s t o r y i s not c o l l a p s a b l e i n t o socioeconomic h i s t o r y . J u s t as s o c i a l demand does not always coincide with l i t e r a r y demand, so t h e c l a s s s t r u g g l e does not always coincide with the l i t e r a r y s t r u g g l e or with l i t e r a r y alignments . . . . The enormous e f f o r t s made in the p a s t t o emancipate l i t e r a r y s c h o l ­ a r s h i p from rendering s e r v i c e t o the h i s t o r y of c u l t u r e , p h i l o ­ sophy, psychology, e t c . , were not made for t h e sake of p u t t i n g i t to the s e r v i c e of the j u r i d i c a l and economic s c i e n c e s and thus l e t t i n g i t drag on a p i t i f u l e x i s t e n c e as applied ' p u b l i cistics'. 41

To r e i n f o r c e t h i s s l a s h i n g c o u n t e r a t t a c k , Eikhenbaum t u r n e d t o B r u n e t i è r e , whose words Shklovsky had employed i n a s ­ s e r t i n g t h e need t o m a i n t a i n c a r e f u l d i s t i n c t i o n s between s o c i o e c o n o m i c , g e n e t i c c a u s e s and l i t e r a r y e v o l u t i o n : .

. . One s h o u l d n o t , w i t h o u t good c a u s e ,

of i n f l u e n c e s upon l i t e r a t u r e ,

i n c r e a s e t h e number

under t h e assumption t h a t

a t u r e i s t h e e x p r e s s i o n of s o c i e t y , n o r s h o u l d one c o n f u s e

liter­ the

h i s t o r y of l i t e r a t u r e w i t h t h e h i s t o r y of m o r a l s and m a n n e r s . 42 These a r e e n t i r e l y d i f f e r e n t t h i n g s .

F o r m a l i s t s a g r e e d t h a t t h e r e a r e f o r c e s a t work s h a p i n g a e s t h e t i c c r e a t i o n s , b u t argued t h a t t h e s e f o r c e s a r e n o t t h o s e d i s c o v e r e d by t h e b l u n t , u t i l i t a r i a n i n s t r u m e n t s of t h e M a r x i s t s . I f t h e F o r m a l i s t s a r e t o a l l o w a work t o have a c o n t e x t , i t must be a literary c o n t e x t . To p e r m i t a r e ­ t u r n t o g e n e t i c s t u d i e s of works seemed t o them t o a l l o w a

57

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS return to the fleshpots of naive biographism and authorial psychologizing. Formalists preferred the straight and narrow way of formal feature analysis to reach the positivistic promised land. Wary of any questions about meaning,

and of the wil­

derness of individual interpretations that lurks nearby, Formalists chose rather to focus on the more determinate, "objective" area of form.

If meanings belong to human be­

ings, then certainly forms have their own autonomous pro­ perties. In a move which was as theoretically shrewd as it was warranted to correct the excesses of the past,

Opoyaz

theorists called for a focus on the text itself. Trotsky promptly accused the school of being closet bibliolaters, worshipping the "Logos" with a "fast ripening religious43 ness", while neglecting the deeds which gave origin to the textual words. Eikhenbaum simply replied that litera­ ture is words, and that after years of talk about authorial psychology or biography or images or emotions or motives or (more recently) socioeconomic causes, "it's time to start talking about literature", that is, about texts as verbal 44 constructs. Zhirmunsky's 1928 salvo against the Imagists could just as easily be expanded to include the Marxists: The material of poetry is neither images nor emotions, but words . . . . Poetry is verbal art. 45 As such it demanded analysis by specialists in verbal art; economists and social historians were no more able to in­ terpret poetry

(and by extension, any literature) than psy­

chologists or biographers or imagists were. The Formalists

58

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM recognized

(and wisely) that part of the problem with their

rival schools of criticism was the tendency to include too much authorial or audience or socioeconomic context. Their "back to the basics" search for the essence of literature led to important gains in the close study of textual features, and if an artistic text were an isolated, selfengendering datum, then Formalism would have been the last word in interpretation. But the Formalist approach offered no guidance for the knotty questions of a text's context. Questions of a work's value and of its origin

(its purpose or significance)

(in either the author's mind or his

times) were sloughed, in the effort to arrive at a more limited, more definite model for study.

When Trotsky insisted that all words

(including liter­

ature) were merely pale shadows of human actions in the real world of history and socioeconomic forces, Shklovsky stubbornly replied that "the word is not a shadow. The word 46 is a thing", and therefore worthy of study as an indivi­ dual objective phenomenon. Between them, unseen, lay the potential realization that a word is an action, a vital human relationship deserving of careful study but impossi­ ble to analyze apart from its function in a complex system of intersecting human contexts. Voloshinov was soon to present this crucial new perspective, but meanwhile, Marx­ ists were free to violate a text, considering it the shad­ owy slave of its socioeconomic context, while Formalists could lock themselves up in intimate intercourse with orphaned literary objects. Shklovsky's friends did not long remain in his narrow

59

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Formalist closet, however. For though they desired a sim­ plified model, they did not want it to be static. Conse­ quently, Tynyanov and Jakobson sought to enliven the model by broadening the domain of study, to search for the liter­ ary essence not in a work but in all works of literature. In an epochal article published in 1928, they offered a radical redefinition of the entire "Formalist" enterprise, announcing their intention to "turn our back . . . on scho­ lastic 'formalism'" in favor of "analyzing the correlation between the literary series and other historical series". Leaving aside the problem of circularity - how to decide which works were "literary" before knowing what "literary" meant, which question depended on the prior selection of a canon of "literary" works in which to discover their "literary essence" - their article's title proclaimed that their program would allow for the study of all words: "literature and language". This move to literary (and lin­ guistic) history was a bold and breathtaking statement, full of promise; but it still had problems to resolve - for example, the role of the individual speaker or author. It introduced the requisite evolutionary complexity to the schema, but its composite units were still authorless literary monads, interacting in an hermetic world discon­ nected from human creation and value. Rather than talking about the intentions of authors or the responses of rea­ ders, Formalists had always concentrated on disembodied de­ vices of objectified texts: characteristics such as "fore­ grounding", parody skaz, and ostranenie. To overcome the narrowness of omitting both author and audience from the study of literature, which V.N. Voloshinov called "the fetishization of the artistic work artifact", the Formalists were 60

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM

in actuality obliged to project the social interrelation­ ship of creator and contemplator into various aspects of the material and into various devices for structuring the material.48 All of the complex relationships among authors and audi­ ences - the influence of one author on another, the con­ scious attempt by one writer to model his work after a predecessor or to overthrow existing generic conventions, the efforts to be ironic or shocking or parodic or collo­ quial or affective - all of these human motivations were projected by the Formalists onto the texts themselves, which interacted in a most animistical

(indeed, mystical)

way as competing rivals to the literary throne.

49

Eikhen-

baum quoted Shklovsky quoting Brunetiére's statement that there does remain an active evolutionary principle for the Formalists to study even after they have excluded author and audience: Of all the influences active in the history of literature, the chief is the influence of work on work. But this inclusion, though necessary, was not sufficient. If the postulate is true that literary history cannot be re­ duced to socioeconomic history, its opposite is true as well: there are more forces relevant to the study of liter­ ature than "literary forces". As Voloshinov clearly and cogently insisted as early as 1926, Art, too, is just as immanently social [as any other ideo­ logical form]; the extraartistic social milieu, affecting

61

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS art from the outside, finds direct intrinsic response within it . . .

. The aesthetic . . .

is only a variety

of the social.

It may be true that the most important force at work in the creation of texts is the influence of work on work, or more generally, of word on word; but that claim, even if proven, does not license the critic simply to ignore all influences other than the "literary". Besides, as the Tynyanov-Jakobson statement made clear, until the problem­ atic literary/ordinary language distinction is resolved, every

work and every

word is potentially influential, each

of which arises out of (and can only be understood with reference to) its own complex context. Indeed, "literary" nistory has little meaning and less value without refer­ ence to the rest of human history - just as the concept of "literary" language would be meaningless apart from the prior concept of language. The "literary" of literary history and literary language is not so easy to separate from the extraliterary, for the latter enters into the literary text as an "essential structure"

constitutive

part

of

the

of its meaning. As even Shklovsky would admit,

form was influenced by history, in complex ways. But it was difficult to have it both ways - for literature to be both "essentially distinct" and yet historically variable. The Formalist revisionists, in their well-meaning efforts to pour the invigorating new wine of evolutionary change into the old wineskins of a static and a historical system, actually threatened to burst the Formalist theory apart at the seams. The quest for a unitary and invariant essence of literature was in direct contradiction with the move to

62

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM study the evolutionary changes-in literature through his­ tory. As Voloshinov was quick to point out, the historical poetics that the Formalists needed was not compatible with their search for the "special, not sociological but specifically artistic" essence of art. 53 Yet despite the imperfections of the Formalist theory despite the wild goose chase for the essence of "literari­ ness", and the hat trick of textual animation necessary to enliven the dead text - even a Marxist apologist like Fokht had to admit in 1927 that when we turn to literature, when we move into the world of words, the Formalists cannot be beaten at their game: Marxist literary scholarship cannot.as yet meet.the Formalists on their own grounds; it lacks a well-worked-out system of 54 literary concepts; it does not yet have its own poetics.

Overlooking Bakhtin and Voloshinov, he was right. A familiar problem for literary criticism: the best theories do not produce the best interpretations. Adequate theoretical underpinnings do not guarantee that brilliant interpretive constructs will be built thereupon. And per­ haps more surprisingly, inadequate theory does not preclude genuine textual insight. Unless we are willing to proclaim theory and practice unrelated, then we have a bit of a problem. Why should we bother to perfect a critical method­ ology, or even to be rigorous and logical in our thinking, if there will be no perceptible result in our textual ex­ plications?

63

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS The heart of our problem may be that in any text (even the briefest or simplest) numberless details or "facts" are potentially locatable, and numberless theories can construe (locate and explain) those textual features. The theories need not be mutually exclusive, and neither do the fea­ tures. Indeed, we should not at all be surprised to dis­ cover two competing theories able to account for much of the same data; if it were not for this overlap, we would find it impossible to arbitrate among conflicting theories. We tend to be more skeptical of the same theory generating two conflicting "facts"; when this happens we generally either seek to expand the theory to accommodate the two "facts" or else try to eliminate one of the "facts". What we must never forget is that the theories and facts are not mutually exclusive either. Every data-point exists by virtue of some theory accounting for it, and every theory is composed of instances of information. In the realm of literary interpretation, the investi­ gator is always torn between two conflicting impulses, closure and expansion. On the one hand, the parsimony prin­ ciple of theory-construction calls for him to find connec­ tions, unity, and order, to simplify, reduce, limit, and omit, continually finding sufficient similarity for treat­ ing two cases as one. On the other hand, the chaotic mass of the subject itself continually asserts its demands for individuation, specificity, and amplification, insisting that no two cases are really the same. Of course, both perspectives are perfectly true: there is always similarity as there is never identity. Faced with the dilemma of con­ stant choice between two equally correct alternatives, the

64

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM critic escapes from this unavoidable quandary as best he can; but he is rarely consistent. Absolute consistency would serve only to drive him to one of the two extremes, neither of which is very helpful: either all meanings can be found in a single mark or sound, or all expressions mean the same one thing. A critic does not normally turn to a text to explicate only the first word (although there are notable exceptions which prove that it could be done 55); nor does he seek to collapse a text that he really cares about into a one-word or even a one-sentence reductionism. Perfect allegiance to the theory calls for closure; un­ swerving loyalty to the text makes reduction or paraphrase anathema. The reason that a critic with a woefully inadequate theory can still say meaningful and important things about a text is that there is always a rebellious strain running through his critical practice; even when he is endeavoring to adhere to his theory, he hears an anti-theoretical hint that he is misconstruing details to fit the Procrustean bed of his preconceptions. This whisper in the critic's ear is the alluring call of a conflicting theory, which has located "facts" that the operative theoretical presup­ positions have left unseen or unexplained. Few critics are perfectly logical and consistent; their training is more designed to help them locate meanings than to reject the discoveries they have made. So the critic heeds the siren song of an alternative, perhaps better, theory. But even if he did not, it would be an amazing literary theory that got everything wrong; some accurate insights are offered by nearly any approach to a text. Similarly, no theory

65

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS could hope to explain every feature which could conceivably be located in a text. We escape from this necessary criti­ cal quandary by evaluating our possible theoretical choices on the basis of our own critical aims and purposes. If every theory offers to buy us some distance into a text, then we need to decide how far and in which direction we wish to travel. Let us consider, then, our two theoretical alterna­ tives. The Russian Formalists sought, for some very good reasons, as we have seen, to limit, their study of litera­ ture to its essential, necessary, peculiar "literary" pro­ perties. They focused their close textual study on formal features which they called "devices", while declaring all questions of context other than of the interplay of auton­ omous, authorless and readerless texts to be out of order. In striving to avoid subjectivism, they first succeeded in rendering texts if not static, then isolated from each other and from the realm of human behavior and personal value; they lost not subjectivism but history and ideology, as I.R. Titunik notes.

Then when they saw the need for

the component of history, their attempt to include it con­ tradicted an important initial premise. The Marxists, for equally adequate reasons, understood the important connection of literature with "ordinary lan­ guage" and with other human behavior in the "real world". Anxious to preserve this link, they brought to bear on particular aesthetic expressions a method designed to de­ tect only the most massive, uniform and utilitarian forces; differences between literature and other forms of language

66

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM

d i s c o u r s e were n e g l e c t e d , and d i s t i n c t i o n s between d i f f e r ­ e n t b u t s i m i l a r t e x t s a r e w e l l beyond t h e d i s c e r n m e n t of t h e i r b l u n t o p t i c a l i n s t r u m e n t s . Tynyanov q u o t e d t h e p o e t P o l o n s k y ' s c r i t i c a l i n d i c t m e n t of l a r g e - s c a l e e x p l a n a t i o n s t h a t seek t o l i n k t h e a u t h o r ' s e n v i r o n m e n t , c l a s s o r s o c i o ­ economic s t a t u s t o h i s work i n a c a u s e - e f f e c t r e l a t i o n s h i p : I t i s very p o s s i b l e t h a t the s e v e r i t y of n a t u r e , t h e f o r e s t s , the f i e l d s . . . influenced the impressionable soul of the c h i l d and future poet [ B e n e d i k t o v ] , but how did they i n f l u ­ ence i t ? . . . I t i s not n a t u r e , which i s the same for every­ one, t h a t p l a y s the major r o l e h e r e .

The i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g a u t h o r i a l p s y c h o l o g y which t h e F o r m a l ­ i s t s a b h o r r e d i s p r e c i s e l y t h e k i n d of minute t o o l t h a t t h e Marxist lacked. When t h e a s t u t e and i n t e r e s t e d c r i t i c Edmund Wilson e v a l u a t e d b o t h p e r s p e c t i v e s i n 1930, he had b o t h p r a i s e and blame f o r e a c h . Marxism by i t s e l f

can t e l l u s n o t h i n g w h a t e v e r a b o u t

g o o d n e s s o r b a d n e s s of a work of a r t

. . . .

The man who

t r i e s to apply Marxist p r i n c i p l e s without r e a l i n g of l i t e r a t u r e The l e f t i s t

the

understand­

i s l i a b l e t o go h o r r i b l y wrong

c r i t i c w i t h no l i t e r a r y c o m p e t e n c e i s

. . . . always

t r y i n g t o m e a s u r e works of l i t e r a t u r e by t e s t s w h i c h h a v e no v a l i d i t y i n t h a t f i e l d

. . . .

however,

What Marxism can

i s t h r o w a g r e a t d e a l of l i g h t on t h e 58 and s o c i a l s i g n i f i c a n c e of works of a r t .

67

do,

origins

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Formalist skills were microscopic: intrinsic evaluations was their specialty; while the Marxist approach, global in scope, was better suited to extrinsic judgments but blind to finer literary details. In order to understand more clearly the nature of the difference between the Formalists and the Marxists, we can apply to each of them the truly Procrustean question of literary change, which invariably maims its victim as it indicates a theory's deficiencies or excesses. Simplistically stated, when confronted with the question of li­ terary change, Marxist theory has no trouble with change but makes nonsense of the term "literary", while the For­ malists spend their energy searching for a definition of literature but never deal adequately with the problem of change.

Several literary theorists of the period cast a dia­ lectical eye upon the differences between the two groups. Tynyanov and Jakobson had already branched off in the right direction, but had tried to graft their offshoot of liter­ ary history onto the Formalist stump. Increasing political pressure from a decreasingly tolerant Marxist government forced most Formalists to modify their positions and dis­ cover the need for a sociological component. But several theorists whose twin allegiances to literature and Marxism were less compulsory tried to combine some aspects of the Formalist poetics with the Marxist view of history; Medvedev, for example, attempted something of a synthesis in his important 1928 work, Formalnyj ovedenii.

metod

v

literatur-

But the mixed marriage seemed unlikely to be

68

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM felicitous.

Fokht had announced t h a t

no " M a r x i s t p o e t i c s " ; s u c h a t h e o r y was

Percov in

as of

1927 t h e r e

was

1930 was n o t o p i m i s t i c

that

forthcoming.

I cannot v i s u a l i z e a Marxist r a i s i n g the question of 'how t h i s work of l i t e r a t u r e i s c o n s t r u c t e d ? ' without t h i s ques­ t i o n being immediately superseded by another q u e s t i o n : 'Why i s t h i s work of l i t e r a t u r e c o n s t r u c t e d in t h i s way and not another? In o t h e r words, sible

a "Marxist-socialist

contradiction

t h e s t u d y of r u s a l of

which c o l l a p s e s

forms would c o n t i n u a l l y

According to Voloshinov, language

the

an

impos­

alone:

g i v e way t o t h e

"linguistic

f r o m an a b s t r a c t

view would only r e n d e r bad,

is

pe­

ends.

s o u g h t by t h e F o r m a l i s t s was j u s t Treating

poetics"

i n t o Marxism

it

as s u r e l y

poetics" a mirage.

linguistic

meaningless or,

point

what i s

of

just

omnimeaningful. The problem i s t h a t i f one remains within the confines of t h e a r t i f a c t a s p e c t of a r t , t h e r e i s no way of i n d i c a t i n g even such t h i n g s as the boundaries of the m a t e r i a l or which of i t s f e a t u r e s have a r t i s t i c s i g n i f i c a n c e . The m a t e r i a l in and of i t s e l f d i r e c t l y merges with the e x t r a a r t i s t i c milieu surrounding i t , and has an i n f i n i t e number of a s p e c t s and definitions

. . . .

However far we go in analyzing a l l the

p r o p e r t i e s of the m a t e r i a l and a l l the p o s s i b l e combinations of those p r o p e r t i e s , we s h a l l never be able t o find t h e i r a e s t h e t i c s i g n i f i c a n c e u n l e s s we s l i p in the contraband of

69

as

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS another p o i n t of view t h a t does not belong within t h e framework of a n a l y s i s of the m a t e r i a l . . . .

The v e r b a l

d i s c o u r s e i t s e l f , taken in i s o l a t i o n as a p u r e l y l i n g u i s t i c phenomenon, cannot, of c o u r s e , be t r u e or f a l s e , daring or diffident

. . . .

l o s i n g i t s import.

I t cannot be divorced from l i f e without 60

V o l o s h i n o v p r o p e r l y n o t e d t h a t t h e r e can be no formal p r o p ­ e r t i e s of words which a r e a e s t h e t i c w i t h o u t b e i n g l i n g u i s ­ t i c , b u t t h a t no amount of l i n g u i s t i c s t u d y can l o c a t e these a e s t h e t i c p r o p e r t i e s - for they are e v a l u a t i v e , a t ­ t r i b u t e d by s o c i a l c o n v e n t i o n , n o t i n h e r e n t p h y s i c a l f e a t u r e s . Hence, t h e s e a r c h f o r a e s t h e t i c p r o p e r t i e s i s m i s g u i d e d ; t h e r e i s no a e s t h e t i c e s s e n c e of w o r d s , no " l i t e r a r i n e s s " lurking within l i t e r a t u r e . But n e i t h e r i s t h e e x t r a l i t e r a r y i n f l u e n c e of t h e " r e a l w o r l d " somehow t h e m a g i c a l m i s s i n g i n g r e d i e n t , an e l i x i r t o be poured i n t o l i f e l e s s words l i k e l i q u i d c o n t e n t i n t o an e n v e l o p e of form. The d e a d , a b s t r a c t l i n g u i s t i c s h e l l i s t h e w o r t h l e s s r e s i d u e of an o b s o l e t e t h e o r y , a s V o l o s h i ­ nov n o t e d : Life does not a f f e c t an u t t e r a n c e from without; i t p e n e t r a t e s and e x e r t s an influence on an u t t e r a n c e from w i t h i n , as t h a t u n i t y and commonness of being surrounding the s p e a k e r s , and t h a t u n i t y and commonness of e s s e n t i a l s o c i a l value judgments i s s u i n g from t h a t being, without a l l of which no i n t e l l i g i b l e utterance is possible.

L i t e r a t u r e , m e r e l y b e c a u s e i t i s a human e x p r e s s i o n

70

in

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM human language, is alive - it is social behavior with an ideological context which guarantees its meaningfulness. If we can take time out from the quarrel to negotiate a settlement, we may discover that the Marxists and the Formalists at least had some enemies in common. Both schools opposed the cults which study the psyche of the creator

(psychologism, biographism) or of the contemplator

(reader response, impressionism, deconstructionism); they were united in their distaste for the Imagists and Sym­ bolists. And they were united in weaknesses as well: both were skewed by an ability to deal more effectively and sympathetically with contemporary literature than with the productions of previous contexts.

62

Certainly this bias

would be expected of the Marxists who valued only a work's relevance to the immediate historical situation, but it is true as well of the Formalists, who could almost com­ pletely ignore questions of context simply because they assumed a contemporary context. More agreement than this we cannot find. Voloshinov offered a helpful insight when he remarked that meaning and form were "merely different points of view on one and the same real phenomenon".

63

In a sense, the Marxists and

the Formalists represented two different perspectives on the same real phenomenon of literature. The problems of trying to unite the two perspectives are similar, whichever one of the two serves as the starting point. The Formalist perspective, anchored in the minute particulars of the text, is unable to make the leap to the generalities of meaning or value. Marxist theory, starting from the side

71

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS of human behavior and its meaning and value, is unable to bring into focus the formal details of the text itself. Erlich perfectly summarized the situation when he said that it was necessary to move beyond "the a-social poetics of pure Formalism and the a-literary sociologism of crude Marxists .64 II Even as early as 1929, Voloshinov clearly perceived the existing pattern of contemporary textual interpreta­ tion. By constructing the following simple model as a con­ ceptual tool for classifying different critical approaches, in which the horizontal axis denotes the movement from author to audience and the vertical axis separates private from public aspects. PRIVATE CONTEXT: (Personal, Psy­ chological) SUBJECT

AUTHOR

PRIVATE CONTEXT: (Personal, Psy­ chological) TEXT

READER

(Meaning)

(Intention, Idea)

[ I M P L I E D

C O N T E X T ]

PUBLIC CONTEXT: (Formal, Linguistic, Grammatical; Temporal, Cultural, Historical)

PUBLIC CONTEXT: (Formal, Linguistic, Grammatical ; Temporal, Cultural, Historical)

72

UNDERSTANDING

(Significance, Application)

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM we can more clearly appreciate Voloshinov's unifying at­ tempt. We can first locate two related modes of criticism that he - along with both the traditional Marxists and the Formalists - opposed: authorial psychologism and biographism, which focus on the author's private context, and are therefore locatable near the upper left margin of our model. In contrast, the Marxist approach could be charac­ terized as an exclusive concern with the bottom portion of the diagram, with the influence of the "external" or public forces of a text's temporal, historical, and socioeconomic context. Since the Marxists tend (even when considering a work's genesis) to concentrate more on the public context (a work's social origin and, more importantly, its impact) than on the private (the psychic process of aesthetic crea­ tion), they seem the schematic opposite of the traditional biographers. Formalists, meanwhile, eschew either horizon­ tal or vertical extremes, imploding the diagram into its center by concentrating their criticism on "the text". The "implied context" is an elastic construct large enough to encompass both "implied author" and "implied audience"; and if textual forms are allowed to include "implied mean­ ings", then the collapse is complete. The Marxist objection to such a procedure, and thus Voloshinov's starting point as a revisionary Marxist critic, is that the swallowing of context by text is in fact a decontextualization. Not only is the private context of the author presumed expendable, but the crucial audience, both private and public, is sac­ rificed. In Voloshinov's eyes, this mistake arises when the two aspects of public context, the linguistic and the social, are treated as synonymous. He argued that in fact it is not so easy to treat the text as a cultural document

73

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS once it has been defined as only a collocation of linguis­ tic features. So while admiring the effort at unity at­ tempted by the Formalists, and the attention to textual detail which they promoted, he doubted their method's ability to accomplish the desired unity and opposed their exclusive devotion to the false god of linguistic poetics. The problem the Formalists invited, by the elimination of context, was the isolation of the artistic work from the rest of human behavior, leaving it without relevance or value to anyone - the problem of' art for art's sake suggested by the notion of aesthetic "distance" and "dis­ interested" appreciation of forms. It is worth noting that Shklovsky's original definition of ostranenie

avoided this

"decontextualization" of literature. He did not argue for a complete separation of art from life, but acknowledged their interdependence. For him art existed to reinvigorate living in the world. Art took things out of their normal "automatized" context, in order to renew the human capacity to perceive and to feel things, people, and emotions in the "real world".

65

(Here his definition sounded amazingly

like Trotsky's panegyric to art as the social servant which "enriches" . . . enlarges . . . educates" and "refines feeling, makes it more flexible, more responsive . . .".66) Subsequent Formalist work neglected the human origin and human effect of "devices" to study them as intrinsically significant textual features. Voloshinov's first step was to move from the notion of aesthetic features at least back to the notion of an aes­ thetic attitude - that is, art is not a different kind of

74

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM thing,

but a different

way o f looking

n o t f a r from S h k l o v s k y ' s tion

is not a thing

because

original

in i t s e l f ,

at a thing

a special

class

"n p h y s i c a l b o d y may b e p e r c e i v e d

[sign]". phenomenon,

A sign,

however,

and so a r e i t s

is

(a v i e w

formulation).

an o b j e c t i v e ,

Significa­ of

a s an

effects:

f u l l y o b j e c t i v e and l e n d s i t s e l f

to a unitary,

o b j e c t i v e method of s t u d y . Both t h e s i g n i t s e l f i t produces

image

real-world

A s i g n i s a phenomenon of t h e e x t e r n a l w o r l d . . . .

effects

objects,

It

is

monistic, and a l l t h e

. . . occur in outer experience.

68

Once t h e s e s i m p l e a s s e r t i o n s a r e made, t h e n V o l o s h i n o v h a s e s t a b l i s h e d t h e l i n k between l i t e r a t u r e and t h e w o r l d , t h e c o n n e c t i o n which was so t r o u b l e s o m e f o r t h e F o r m a l i s t s . His problem was of a d i f f e r e n t o r d e r : how t o l i n k l i t e r a t u r e , t h i s p u b l i c , o b j e c t i v e phenomenon, t o t h e p r i ­ v a t e , s u b j e c t i v e world of an i n d i v i d u a l , w h e t h e r a u t h o r o r r e a d e r . His e s c a p e r o u t e was s i m p l e (Whorf was a f e l l o w traveler) ; consciousness, subjectivity i t s e l f , is verbal, sign-created. Understanding i s a response t o a sign with signs . . . The l o g i c of consciousness i s t h e l o g i c of i d e o l o g i c a l communica­ t i o n , of the semiotic i n t e r a c t i o n of a s o c i a l group. If we deprive consciousness of i t s s e m i o t i c , i d e o l o g i c a l c o n t e n t , 69 i t would have a b s o l u t e l y nothing l e f t .

I f c o n s c i o u s n e s s i t s e l f i s s e m i o t i c , t h e n t h e r e i s no gap between an o b j e c t i v e , i d e o l o g i c a l t e x t and a s u b j e c t i v e ,

75

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS pre-semiotic alistic serl,

psyche,

"universal

and c o n s e q u e n t l y no n e e d f o r

subjectivity"

and o t h e r p o s t - K a n t i a n

he a r g u e d t h a t

the only b a s i s

s u c h an a s s e r t i o n u n i t y of

of

offered

Cartesians. that

collective

the

by D i l t h e y , On t h e is

Hus­

contrary,

anyone has for

subjectivity

ide­

making

in

the

language.

That which has been termed ' s o c i a l psychology' . . . i t s a c t u a l , m a t e r i a l e x i s t e n c e , verbal

interaction.

i s , in Removed

from t h i s a c t u a l process of v e r b a l communication and i n t e r ­ a c t i o n , . . . s o c i a l psychology would assume t h e guise of a metaphysical or mythic concept - the ' c o l l e c t i v e s o u l ' or ' c o l l e c t i v e inner p s y c h e ' .

70

There i s no a t e m p o r a l , a s p a t i a l world w h e r e i n "Meaning" r e s i d e s , s a i d V o l o s h i n o v ; he would have no m y s t i f y i n g of t h e o b j e c t i v e . But n e i t h e r would he o b j e c t i f y t h e m y s t i c a l . Though a sign i s a p a r t i c u l a r m a t e r i a l t h i n g , meaning i s not a t h i n g , t o be i s o l a t e d a p a r t from a s i g n as i f i t were a p i e c e of r e a l i t y e x i s t i n g on i t s own. 71 Meaning i s a p r o c e s s ; psyche and t e x t a r e l i n k e d i n t h e a c t i v i t y of s e m i o s i s . With t h e p a s s i o n t h a t W i t t g e n s t e i n b r o u g h t t o t h e " p r i v a t e language" problem, Voloshinov b a t t l e d a g a i n s t the p r e v a l e n t t e n d e n c y t o seek an " e s s e n t i a l u n i t " of con­ s c i o u s n e s s in t h e i n d i v i d u a l p s y c h e , a p a r t from c o r p o r a t e s e m i o s i s . V o l o s h i n o v r e f u s e d t o a l l o w t h e s p l i t between t h e s u b j e c t i v e and t h e o b j e c t i v e , however, l a b e l e d - e . g . , p r i v a t e and p u b l i c , or psyche and i d e o l o g y . Between the psyche and ideology no boundaries do or can e x i s t from the p o i n t of view of i d e o l o g i c a l c o n t e n t i t s e l f .

76

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM All ideological content, without exception, no matter what the semiotic material embodying it may be, is susceptible to being understood and consequently, of being taken into the psyche, i.e., of being reproduced in the material of inner signs. On the other hand, any ideological phenomenon in the process of creation passes through the psyche as an essential stage of that process. We repeat: every outer ideological sign, of whatever kind, is engulfed in and washed over by inner signs - by the consciousness. The outer sign originates from this sea of inner signs and continues 72

to abide there.

The most Voloshinov allowed was a distinction of degree, not kind, between inner and outer signs; and here he be­ came just as hazy, as mystical, in talking about the inner sign as modern psycholinguists still must remain when they speak of "mentalese", or mental language: The ideologerne [nowhere defined] is a vague entity at that stage of its inner development when it is not yet embodied in outer ideological material; it can acquire definition, differentiation, fixity only in the process of ideological embodiment. Intention is always a lesser thing than creation - even unsuccessful creation. A thought that as yet exists only in the context of my consciousness, without embodiment in the context of a discipline constituting some unified ideological system, remains a dim, unprocessed thought. But that thought had come into existence in my consciousness already with an orientation toward an ideological system, and it itself had been engendered by the ideological signs 73 that I had absorbed earlier.

77

S E M I O T I C S AND D I A L E C T I C S

Regrettably, nov

become

inner ing

to

he

but

sign,

to'which

the

prime

this

nowhere

mysterious

interactive

so b r i e f l y

in

coming

alluded.

psycholinguistic

psychology's

pre-linguistic

surprisingly,

about

he

breakthroughs

deplored

not

clearer

outer

forth

tific

any

endless

mover

an

logic.

He s t o o d

and

was

it

75

firm

on

can

There

be is

d i c h o t o m y , 76 a n d , s i t u a t i o n chasm:

and

the

signification

A sign sign.

ungraceful

the

illuminated no to

only

to

a

By

non-linguistic would

. . . .

earlier

The s i g n and i t s

help

no

of

another

form-content

point,

no

sign-

occurs

in which t h e s i g n

V e r b a l c o m m u n i c a t i o n can n e v e r b e u n d e r s t o o d and

features,

counter

"devices",

maintaining

the

link

to

the

and

Formalists'

"facts",

between

text

focus

Voloshinov and

sign.

on

77

formal

insisted

on

context.

No c o g n i t i v e v a l u e w h a t e v e r a d h e r e s t o t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t

78

in­

from

explained

o u t s i d e of t h i s c o n n e c t i o n w i t h a c o n c r e t e s i t u a t i o n .

a direct

is

social situation are

The s i g n c a n n o t b e s e p a r a t e d

the s o c i a l s i t u a t i o n without r e l i n q u i s h i n g i t s n a t u r e as

In

of

signification,

the

split,

i n e x t r i c a b l y t i e d in with the s i t u a t i o n

e x t r i c a b l y fused t o g e t h e r .

have

leap

The u n d e r s t a n d i n g of any s i g n , w h e t h e r i n n e r o r o u t e r ,

implemented

viewing

down:

with

his

us ;

internal,

fatal

of

call­

scien­

for

gap which

ground way

subject-object return

not

potentially

solid

all

no

"personality".

p e r s o n a l i t y as a l i n g u i s t i c c o n s t r u c t , 74 source, he a v o i d e d an i n s u r m o u n t a b l e necessitated

some

from

and

He h a s

for

Voloshi-

forth

research

quest

called

did

movement

of

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM a connection between the basis and some isolated fact torn from the unity and integrity of its ideological context. It is essential above all to determine the meaning of any given ideological change in the context of ideology appropriate to it, seeing that every domain of ideology is a unified whole which reacts with its entire constitution to a change in the basis.78

The third important link that Voloshinov easily fused once he had linked text to context, and objective text to subjective consciousness of author - was the text's con­ nection to the subjective respondent. Since every text is "only a moment in the continuous process of verbal communi­ cation", it is a term in an ongoing dialogue: . . . it responds to something, objects to something, affirms something, anticipates possible responses and objections, seeks support, and so on.

And if a text is already a dialogic response to a particu­ lar situation, then a reader's response to the text is of course simply one more term in the string of dialogue. Any act of understanding, said Voloshinov, is a response, in the sense that it translates what is being understood into a new context from which a response can be made.80 Antici­ pating Austin, Searle, and Kintsch, Voloshinov found mean­ ing propositional:

We never say or hear words, we say or hear what is true or false, good or bad, important or unimportant, pleasant or unpleasant, and so on.

79

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Consequently, we can only respond to words that

engage

us .82 Here Voloshinov paused briefly to indict the philolo­ gists and other traditional exegetes, revealing that he too shared the Marxist-Formalist bias in favor of the "en­ gagement" of contemporary texts and against the past's "defunct, . . . finished monologic utterance - the ancient written

monument".83

He repeated Trotsky's charge that the

logophiles were "priest-philologists" or "philosophemes of an alien word", and in a direct attack asserted that Formalism and systematicity are the typical distinguishing marks of any kind of thinking focused on a ready-made and . . . arrested object . . . .

Formal, systematic thought

about language is incompatible with living, historical un84 (!)

derstanding of language.

Voloshinov explained that the whole move to study texts from the abstract, "objective" point of view of linguistic science was a misguided application of a mathematical mo­ del for the hidden purpose of salvaging texts which no longer engaged readers or offered novel, moving insights but had to be preserved by a static, systematized method similar to the fossilized texts themselves. He attacked the deadly dichotomies espoused by interpreters from Des­ cartes to Saussure

(and would surely have included Chomsky

in a later edition) who searched for some abstract essence of langue

apart from its instances of parole.

There is not

a norm, only the ceaseless generation of norms. After be­ ginning with a rhetorical question, Voloshinov continued

80

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM

his d i a t r i b e :

Does language really exist for the speaker's subjective consciousness as an objective system of incontestable, normatively identical forms? . . . We must answer this question in the negative. . . . That system is merely an abstraction arrived with a good deal of trouble and with a definite cognitive and practical focus of atten­ tion, . . . the product of deliberation on language, and deliberation of a kind by no means carried out by the consciousness of the native speaker himself and by no means carried out for the immediate purposes of speaking . . . . What the speaker values is not that aspect of the form which is invariably identical in all instances of its usage, despite the nature of those utterances, but that aspect of the linguistic form because of which it can figure in the given, concrete context, because of which it becomes a sign adequate to the conditions of t h e given, c o n c r e t e s i t u a t i o n . 8 5

Despite

his

sciousness of

belief is

that

signs

linguistic,

are

to

signal

and t h a t

con­

V o l o s h i n o v would have no

a d e t e r m i n i s m which r e d u c e d

thought

things

signs

to

signals,

part

and

recognition.

The b a s i c t a s k of u n d e r s t a n d i n g does n o t a t a l l amount t o r e c o g n i z i n g t h e l i n g u i s t i c form used by t h e speaker as t h e familiar,

' t h a t very same', form . . . b u t r a t h e r t o under­

standing i t in a p a r t i c u l a r ,

concrete context, in a p a r t i c u ­

l a r u t t e r a n c e , i . e . , i t amounts t o u n d e r s t a n d i n g i t s n o v e l t y 86 and n o t t o r e c o g n i z i n g i t s i d e n t i t y .

81

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Once again Voloshinov skirted determinism, escaping only via his insistence on the importance of the particular, unique human respondent in a particular, unique social context. A bit like Gadamer in his notion of the reader's parti­ cipation in the dialogue of the text, Voloshinov also echoed Gadamer's insistence that human history conditioned, if not determined, every act of understanding, including tex­ tual interpretation. Gadamer's problem of explaining the continuing potency of ancient texts threatened Voloshinov's theory, as it had haunted both Formalists and Marxists. (Trotsky, for example, rather than explaining the continu­ ing impact of "the poetry of the Bible, or of the old Greeks", simply denied

it.) 87

The simplest way out of this

potential trap of historical relativism is not to assume that the meaning of any work is either guaranteed or pro­ hibited, but, as Wittgenstein said, to look and see what in the historical context of a particular work's dialog with a particular reader renders it meaningful or meaning­ less. Since even the simplest communication act is never uniform, never transparent, never ahistorical-atemporalacultural, then historical, temporal and cultural distance need not be seen as an unbridgeable gap. A theory which can account for historical change can still account for the meaningful communication which continues in spite of that change; for a theory designed to explain even revolutionary change does not (and indeed cannot) thereby abolish repeti­ tion, or even constancy. Many lasting works of literature seem to depict basic human emotions, common conflicts, everyday dilemmas, which seem to remain sufficiently con-

82

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM stant, or frequently recurrent, throughout the fluctuations of time and history, so that those texts continue to be meaningful. Voloshinov's preoccupation with "reported speech" gives ample evidence that he realized how easily and how frequently an utterance "belonging to someone else" could find a new context

(perhaps radically remote from

its former one) in which much of it could continue to be 

"socially vital and constant".

Voloshinov's invitation

to look at a text's relation to its context was not a com­ mand to incarcerate the text within its (original) context. Nevertheless, we still need some help in understanding how to study a work's context. Voloshinov's explanation of context was as surprising as it was clever; it indicates why we can justifiably view his position as an attempt to fuse Marxism and Formalism. After great effort to establish that literature was not a verbal form alien to ordinary language but language func­ tioning in a different way

(an argument towards which we

have seen Formalists such as Jakobson move), and after fusing a strong connection between life and literature, Voloshinov seemed intent to sever each of these carefully forged links. First he followed up on his opposition to linguistics as a literary methodology by insisting on the 1iterary text of literature, not its general linguistic

con­

character,

as crucial. In a passage whose import seems to echo the Formalist search for the "literariness" of literature, he said,

83

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS The forms of a literary utterance - a literary work of art can only be understood in the unity of literary life, indissolubly connected with other kinds of literary

forms. When

we relegate a literary work to the history of language as a system, when we regard it only as a document of language, we lose access to its forms as the forms of a literary whole. There is a world of difference between referring a work to the system of language and referring a work to the

concrete u n i t y of l i t e r a r y l i f e . 8 9 Tynyanov c o u l d o n l y a g r e e . is important, ticularly

To be s u r e ,

but the p a r t i c u l a r

important to a l i t e r a r y

ready i n s i s t e d

context in

literary

general

context is

text.

par­

V o l o s h i n o v had

t h a t r e s p o n s e was e s s e n t i a l ,

and t h a t

o n l y p o s s i b l e r e s p o n s e t o a word was a n o t h e r

al­

the

word:

To understand another p e r s o n ' s u t t e r a n c e means t o o r i e n t oneself with r e s p e c t t o i t , t o find a proper p l a c e for i t in t h e corresponding c o n t e x t . For each word of t h e u t t e r a n c e t h a t we a r e i n the process of understanding, we, as i t were, lay down a s e t of our own answering words . . . .

Each of t h e

d i s t i n g u i s h a b l e s i g n i f i c a n t elements of an u t t e r a n c e and t h e e n t i r e u t t e r a n c e as a whole e n t i t y a r e t r a n s l a t e d in our minds i n t o another, a c t i v e and r e s p o n s i v e , c o n t e x t . Any t r u e un­ d e r s t a n d i n g i s d i a l o g i c in n a t u r e . Understanding i s t o u t t e r ­ ance as one l i n e of dialogue i s t o t h e n e x t . Understanding s t r i v e s t o match t h e s p e a k e r ' s word with a counter word. 90 He had a l s o a s s e r t e d t h a t mined entirely

by i t s

" t h e meaning of a word i s

context

. . . .

deter­

There a r e as many 91

meanings of a word as there are contexts of its usage".

84

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM But then he went even further to say that a literary word could only be properly understood in a literary context, that is, as a word spoken in literary dialogue with other literary words. The only proper context for the study of literature is literature. So while he had established that literature could

be viewed from a variety of contexts,

Voloshinov argued that only one context was suitable, the privileged context of other literature. The special treat­ ment desired by the Formalists was a goal of Voloshinov as well. Not only is all language not equivalent to litera­ ture; all history is not literary history. No naive sociol­ ogical critic, Voloshinov insisted that the "unity and in­ tegrity" of the text's "appropriate" context be preserved:

Any explanation must preserve all ences

the

qualitative

between interacting domains . . . .

differ­

If the specific

nature of the semiotic-ideological material is ignored [its literariness], the ideological phenomenon studied undergoes simplification.92

Voloshinov was not about to settle for a Formalistic study of technicalities

("only the outward, technical aspect of 93 ) . But he was

the ideological phenomenon is singled out"

just as hard on his Marxist colleagues for thinking that "economic upsets mechanically cause [an artistic image] to be produced on the pages of a novel (the absurdity of such a claim is perfectly

obvious)". 94

Voloshinov vehemently

denied "the applicability of so inert a category as that of mechanical causality".95 Voloshinov's example of a change in the evolution of

85

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS the novel indicates that he was vitally concerned that haphazard, simplistic socioeconomic generalizations not be allowed as "explanations" of literary phenomena. "Surely it must be clear", he pleaded with his "vulgar Marxist" colleagues, that between changes in the economic state of affairs and the appearance of a new novelistic feature there stretches "a long, long road that crosses a number of qualitatively different domains, each with its own spe96 cific set of laws and its own specific characteristics". In Voloshinov's hierarchy of influence, the interactions between the relevant forces are carefully contained and limited to adjacent layers. The massive, indistinct forces of socioeconomic causation generate social intercourse; verbal communication and interaction form one subset of this general human behavior. Particular forms of speech performances - literary genres, patterns of discourse, syntactical and lexical choices - are generated at this level, and in turn influence specific utterances of indi­ vidual speakers. And the whole process, of course, evolves 97 through time. By positing this complex hierarchy of in­ teracting forces, Voloshinov could assert the importance of the socioeconomic base while still arguing for the re­ lative autonomy of the novel form "as a single organic unity subject to its own specific laws" and for the same relative autonomy for the "whole field of literature as well". 98 The Formalists had an ally. Just two years earlier Eikhenbaum had argued in almost identical terms that Literature, just like any other specific series of phenomena,

86

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM i s n o t g e n e r a t e d by t h e f a c t s of o t h e r s e r i e s and t h e r e 99 f o r e cannot be reduced t o them.

Meanwhile

Tynyanov

and

Jakobson

were

insisting

t o i n v e s t i g a t e t h e c o r r e l a t i o n between systems

that

without

t a k i n g i n t o a c c o u n t t h e immanent l a w s of e a c h s y s t e m methodologically

is

pernicious.

At l a s t we have a r r i v e d a t a c r i t i c who embodied t h e compromise Medvedev s o u g h t , beyond t h e a s o c i a l p o e t i c s of p u r e Formalism and t h e a l i t e r a r y s o c i o l o g i s m of c r u d e Marx­ ism. As a M a r x i s t , V o l o s h i n o v u n d e r s t o o d t h e i m p o r t a n c e of c o n t e x t as t h e d e t e r m i n e r of meaning, and he p r e s e r v e d t h e n e c e s s a r y u n i t y of t e x t and c o n t e x t which p r e c l u d e s t h e t r i v i a l i z a t i o n of l i t e r a t u r e . As a s y m p a t h e t i c s t u d e n t of l i t e r a t u r e , he opposed t h e s i m p l i f i c a t i o n of l i t e r a t u r e i n t o n o n - a e s t h e t i c i d e o l o g i c a l g e n e r a l i z a t i o n s and t h e r e ­ fore joined the Formalists in t h e i r d e s i r e to understand t h a t i s , t o be moved by - a work of a r t on i t s own t e r m s . He fused t h e F o r m a l i s t a e s t h e t i c i n t e r e s t w i t h t h e M a r x i s t i d e o l o g i c a l c o n c e r n , as t h e f o l l o w i n g two s e n t e n c e s r e ­ spectively reveal: What c h a r a c t e r i z e s a e s t h e t i c c o m m u n i c a t i o n i s t h a t f a c t

that

i t i s w h o l l y a b s o r b e d i n t h e c r e a t i o n of a work of a r t ,

and

i n i t s c o n t i n u o u s r e - c r e a t i o n s i n t h e c o - c r e a t i o n of plators,

and d o e s n o t r e q u i r e any o t h e r k i n d of

t i o n . B u t , n e e d l e s s t o s a y , t h i s u n i q u e form of does n o t e x i s t in i s o l a t i o n ; flow of s o c i a l l i f e ,

communication

i t p a r t i c i p a t e s in the

it reflects

87

contem-

objectifica-

t h e common economic

unitary basis,

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

and i t engages in i n t e r a c t i o n and exchange with other forms of communication. 101

What V o l o s h i n o v needed t o e x p l a i n f o r us i s e x a c t l y how a l i t e r a r y t e x t p a r t i c i p a t e s , i n t e r a c t s , r e f l e c t s , and engages i n a l l t h e s e complex ways, w h i l e s t i l l m a i n t a i n i n g some k i n d of e s s e n t i a l d i f f e r e n c e from o t h e r forms of d i s ­ c o u r s e . His schema i s f u l l , r i c h and p r o m i s i n g , b u t i t s c o m p l e x i t y i s n e v e r f u l l y e l u c i d a t e d . He o f f e r s n e i t h e r a p e r s u a s i v e e x p l a n a t i o n of h o r i z o n s of e x p e c t a t i o n s n o r a c o n v i n c i n g d e s c r i p t i o n of h i s t o r i c a l c o n v e n t i o n s of t r e a t ­ i n g c e r t a i n works i n c e r t a i n ways, e i t h e r of which would seem a p o s s i b l e p r o p o s a l f o r him t o i n t r o d u c e . We a r e l e f t t o wonder i f V o l o s h i n o v , though more t h o r o u g h and r i g o r o u s t h a n Tynyanov and J a k o b s o n , i s n o t l i k e them in w a n t i n g " l i t e r a t u r e " t o be a n o t - s o - s p e c i a l s p e c i a l c a t e g o r y . We may a l s o s u s p e c t him of a n o t h e r F o r m a l i s t h a t t r i c k , t h e i m p l o s i o n of a u t h o r and a u d i e n c e i n t o t e x t . At t i m e s he seemed c l e a r l y e n d e a v o r i n g t o a v o i d t h i s t e m p t a t i o n : 'The a r t i s t i c ' in i t s t o t a l i n t e g r i t y i s not l o c a t e d in the a r t i f a c t and not l o c a t e d in the s e p a r a t e l y considered psyches of c r e a t o r and contemplator; i t encompasses a l l t h r e e of t h e s e f a c t o r s . I t i s a s p e c i a l form of i n t e r r e l a t i o n s h i p be102 tween creator and contemplator fixed in a work of art.

But his definition of the creator and the contemplator who are supposedly "fixed" within a text deserves a little more deliberate attention, for it is carefully phenomenological. They are to be understood not, he insisted,

88

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM as e n t i t i e s outside the a r t i s t i c

event b u t only as

of t h e v e r y p e r c e p t i o n of an a r t i s t i c w o r k , e n t i t i e s 103 a r e e s s e n t i a l c o n s t i t u t i v e f a c t o r s o f t h e work.

entities that

To i n s u r e t h a t we would n o t m i s t a k e t h e s e p a r t i c i p a n t s f o r t h e h i s t o r i c a l p e r s o n a g e s of a u t h o r and a u d i e n c e , which e r r o r might l e a d e i t h e r t o b i o g r a p h i s m on t h e one hand or s u b j e c t i v i s m on t h e o t h e r , he r e s t a t e d h i s p o i n t as i t r e lated to the audience: The l i s t e n e r . . .

i s taken here as t h e l i s t e n e r whom the

author himself t a k e s i n t o account, t h e one toward whom t h e work i s o r i e n t e d and who, consequently, i n t r i n s i c a l l y determines the work's s t r u c t u r e . Therefore, we do not a t a l l mean the a c t u a l people who in f a c t made up the reading p u b l i c of t h e author in question . . . .

This l i s t e n e r . . .

does not a t a l l coincide with the s o - c a l l e d reading p u b l i c , l o c a t e d o u t s i d e the work.104

A l a s , we know how t o l o c a t e c o n t e m p o r a r y r e a d i n g p u b l i c s o r h i s t o r i c a l a u d i e n c e s f a r b e t t e r t h a n we have r u l e s f o r t h e a r b i t r a t i o n of i n t e n d e d o r i m p l i c i t a u d i e n c e s - which i s s u r e l y why c r i t i c i s m h a s been so l o n g c o n t e n t t o s t u d y a u d i e n c e s h i s t o r i c a l l y , and why p r e s e n t e f f o r t s t o f i n d t h a t wonderful Wizard, t h e i m p l i e d r e a d e r , u s u a l l y l o c a t e b e h i n d t h e p y r o t e c h n i c s d i s p l a y o n l y t h e poor Kansas c r i t i c . The s e a r c h f o r i m p l i e d a u t h o r s , u n f o r t u n a t e l y , i s l i t t l e b e t t e r guided. And i t i s g u i d a n c e t h a t we want a t t h i s p o i n t . We have r e t u r n e d t o t h e c o n c e r n w i t h which we began - o n l y now i t

89

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS should be clear that the question of beginnings is a trou­ blesome theoretical issue, not merely a practical puzzle for an author facing a blank page. The Formalist solution was to start with the forms, and to stay there; there was no hidden "content" to be discovered inside: "The purpose of the new form is not to express new content, but to change an old form which has lost its aesthetic quality", 105 Shklovsky argued and Eikhenbaum reiterated. Voloshmov first agreed that "content" is a bogus term to oppose to form: The e x t r a v e r b a l

i m p o r t o f a m e t a p h o r - a r e g r o u p i n g of

values

- and i t s l i n g u i s t i c c o v e r i n g - a s e m a n t i c s h i f t

- are merely 106 d i f f e r e n t p o i n t s of v i e w on one and t h e same r e a l phenomenon.

But i n t h e n e x t s e n t e n c e he r e e s t a b l i s h e d t h e d i s t i n c t i o n , t h i s time h i e r a r c h i c a l l y , w i t h t h e i d e o l o g i c a l s u p e r s e d i n g the formal: But the second p o i n t of view i s subordinate t o the f i r s t : a poet uses a metaphor to regroup values and not for the sake of a l i n g u i s t i c e x e r c i s e . 1 0 7

A r e f u t a t i o n of t h e F o r m a l i s t p o s i t i o n ? Not r e a l l y . The p r e m i e r document of t h e F o r m a l i s t movement, S h k l o v s k y ' s "Art as T e c h n i q u e " , o f f e r e d no o t h e r j u s t i f i c a t i o n f o r a r t ' s formal d e v i c e s t h a n an a r t i s t ' s d e s i r e t o " r e g r o u p v a l u e s " , t o r e s t o r e a s e n s e of l i f e and f e e l i n g , t o oppose t h e a u t o m a t i z e d p e r c e p t i o n p r o c e s s which deadens l i f e and t u r n s i t i n t o n o t h i n g n e s s . In t h e l a s t a n a l y s i s , t h e r e can be no o t h e r d e f e n s e f o r a r t , o r f o r a n y t h i n g e l s e , as even

90

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM the "Formalists" realized. Art's formal properties must be secondary to its purposes. Here Volsohinov was correct. And his realization for him meant that T e c h n i c a l a n a l y s i s w i l l t h e n amount t o t h e q u e s t i o n a s t o w h i c h l i n g u i s t i c means a r e u s e d f o r t h e r e a l i z a t i o n of t h e s o c i o a r t i s t i c p u r p o s e of t h e form. 1 0 8

The c r u c i a l l y

i m p o r t a n t p o i n t , which d i f f e r e n t i a t e s

s h i n o v from v u l g a r M a r x i s t s , a w o r l d of d i f f e r e n c e t h e one h a n d ,

Volo-

i s t h a t he knew t h a t t h e r e

is

between t h e i n t e n t i o n o r p u r p o s e on

and t h e a c t u a l i z a t i o n

thereof

on t h e

other.

I n t e n t i o n i s always a l e s s e r t h i n g than c r e a t i o n - even unsuccessful creation.109

Voloshinov was not minimizing formal features when he in­ sisted on their purposiveness; he had no desire to ignore them, and his remarks on "reported speech" indicate that he did not. What he did overlook, and what we vitally need to know in order to proceed as critics, is exactly how we are to deduce purposes or intentions from those collocations of formal properties which we know as texts. He argued, and convincingly, that if that purpose is not known, if its import is not elucidated 110 in advance, technical analysis will be absurd.

Exactly how did Voloshinov advise us to go about elucidat-

91

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ing purposes in advance of our technical analyses? He didn't. He gave us neither step-by-step instructions nor examples of his own exegetical technique - only a page of vague, unsubstantiated (but provocative) generalities at the end of his "dialogue". As a theorist his greatest sins were of omission. His major fault was to stop when he got to the hard questions. But I suspect that he had an answer, even if he didn't find it very elegant or even very con­ vincing. I suspect his answer resembled that of any critic who has thought at length about his subject, who has real­ ized that his presuppositions will blinder everything he sees and dictate everything he says, who is stymied by the knowledge that he will never have enough knowledge to be­ gin, never be able to adopt enough perspectives to overcome every distortion, never be able to "get it right". Con­ fronted by this enormous and unavoidable dilemma, which some call the hermeneutical circle and which he seems to refer to as the "attempt to discover the whole in the part", anyone who values context as much as Voloshinov did must be overcome by the problem of never being able to in­ clude the whole context. I suspect he found the two solu­ tions that most critics discover, one of which is impossi­ bly difficult, the other disgustingly simple. He could realize with Tynyanov and Jakobson that "the individual utterance cannot be considered withour reference to an ex111 isting complex of norms". He could understand with Tyny­ anov that in literature there is no such thing as a separate work, but . . . the separate work belongs to the system of literature, correlates with it in genre and style, . . . has a function

92

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM. in the literary system of a given period. A work torn out of the context of a particular literary system and transferred to another takes on a different coloring, acguires different features, becomes part of another genre, loses its own genre 112 - in other words, the function shifts.

This realization could lead him to conclude that the only adequate way to study a work of literature is to know its complete context, its genre and style, its period and pur­ pose, which are historical features meaningful only in the context of other genres, styles, periods, authors, tech­ niques, and purposes. In other words, the only way to study an individual work of literature is to bring to it a knowledge of all of literature. The part can only be known via the whole. The other alternative, the only one possible but the one impossible to defend, is the one that Voloshinov embodies even if he didn't advocate it - simply to begin. And since there is no sure sign of having suc­ cessfully fulfilled initial aims any more than there ex­ isted for originally selecting them, since knowing when to stop is as problematic as knowing how to start, the critic (and his critic) can only explain as rigorously and logically as possible all the instances of data uncovered by his theoretical insights . . . and then quit - never certain, but always hopeful, of success.

N O T E S

1 Marksizm i filosofiya

yazyka:

metoda v u  yazyke Marxism

and

the

Philosophy

osnovnye

problemy

sotsiologicheskogo

(Leningrad, 1929, 1930); English translation: of

Language,

Seminar Press, New York, 1973.

The problem of the authorship of this work is vexed, confusing, and 93

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS not likely to be soon resolved. D.M. Segal and V.V. Ivanow, two noted Soviet semioticians, one of whom still resides in the Soviet Union, attribute this text, and all those published under the names of V.N. Voloshinov and P.N. Medvedev, to M.M. Bakhtin. In part because of an approach which is much more theoretical, and much more explicitly and essentially Marxist, than the work which is unanimously attributed to Bakhtin, I will follow the lead of the English translators and herein consider Voloshinov to be the author of Marxism and the Philosophy Language,

Cf. Segal, Aspects

of Structuralism

in Soviet

of

Philology,

Papers on Poetics and Semiotics, 2, Department of Poetics and Comparative Literature, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, 1974; Ivanov, "Znachenie idey M.M. Bakhtina  znake, vyskazyvanii i dialoge dlya sovremennoy semiotiki", Trudy po znakovym sistemen,

6, Tartu, 1973

(English translation: "The Significance of M.M. Bakhtin's Ideas on Sign, Utterance and Dialogue for Modern Semiotics", Papers on Poetics and Semiotics, 4, 1976); and I.R. Titunik, "M.M. Baxtin (The Baxtin School) and Soviet Semiotics", Dispositio, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1976, 2 James Deese, "Mind and Metaphor: A Commentary", New Literary

History,

Vol. 6, No. 1, Autumn 1974, p. 211. Victor Erlich, Russian

Formalism:History

- Doctrine,

Mouton, The Hague,

1955. A.V. Lunacharsky, "Formalizm v iskusstvovedenii", Pechat revolyutsiya, Art,

i

5, 1924 (English collection of essays: On Literature

New York, 1928) . Leon Trotsky, Literatura

1924 (English translation: Literature

i revolyutsiya,

and the Revolution,

and Moscow,

U. of

Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, I960) . Boris Eikhenbaum, "Teoriya 'formalnovo metoda'", Literatura:

Teoriya,

kritika,

polemika,

Leningrad, 1927

(English translation: "The Theory of the 'Formal Method'", Formalist

Criticism:Four

Essays,

Russian

L.T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis, eds.,

U. of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1965). 4 Eikhenbaum, Literatura, p. 53n. Eikhenbaum, Literatura,

p. 120; quoted in Erlich, Russian

Formalism,

p. 116 (English translation: "The Theory of

the 'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian 94

Formalist

Criticism,

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM p. 103). Eikhenbaum, Melodika

russkovo

quoted in Eikhenbaum, Literatura,

liricheskovo

stikha,

Petrograd, 1922,

p. 137 (English translation: "The

Theory of the 'Formal Method"1, in Lemon and Reis, Russian Criticism,

Formalist

p. 125).

Eikhenbaum, Literatura,

p. 118 ( English translation: "The Theory of

the 'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

p. 104). 

Erlich, Russian Formalism, p. 248. 9 Trotsky, Literature and the Revolution,

pp. 171-2.

10 Boris Arvatov, Iskusstvo i proizvodstvo,

Moscow, 1926, p. 97; quoted

in Erlich, Russian Formalism, p. 91. 11 osip

Brik, "Τ. η. 'formalnyi metod'", Lef,

1, 1923, p. 213 (English

translation: "The So-Called Formal Method", Russian

Poetics

in

Translation, 4, 1977, p. 90). 12 Antoly Lunacharsky, On Literature and Art, p. 91. Viktor Shklovsky, Rozanov, Petersburg, 1921, p. 15; quoted in Erlich, Russian Formalism, p. 70. 14 Viktor Shklovsky,  teorii prozy, Moscow (first edition, 1925), 1929, p. 226; quoted in Russian Poetics in Translation, 4, 1977, p. 19. Boris I.Yarkho, "Prosteishie osnovaniya formalnogo analiza", Ars Poetica, Poetics

ed. M.A. Petrovsky, Moscow, 1927, p. 7; quoted in Russian in Translation,

4, 1977, p. 29.

Boris V. Tomashevsky, Teoriya

literatura,

Poetika,

(first edition, 1925), 1930, p. 6; quoted in Russian Translation,

Moscow - Leningrad Poetics

in

4, 1977, p. 37.

17 Roman Jakobson, unpublished Czech text of lectures delivered at Masaryk University, Brno, 1935; English translation: "The Dominant", Readings

in Russian

Poetics : Formalist

and Structuralist

Views,

L. Matejka

and K. Pomorska, eds., MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971, p. 85. 95

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 18 Leon Trotsky, Literatura Literature

i revolyutsiya,

and Revolution,

1924; English translation:

p. 163-4.

19 Ibid., p. 165. 20 Antoly Lunacharsky, On Literature 21

and Art,

pp. 14-5.

Eikhenbaum, 'Vokrug voprosa  ' fomalistakh '. (Obzor i otvet)", Pechet

i Revolutsiya,

5, p. 3; quoted in Russian

Poetics

in

Translation,

4, 1977, p. 30. 22 Eikhenbaum, Liteartura,

pp. 125-9; English translation, "The Theory

of th 'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

pp. 112-6. 23 Eikhenbaum, Literatura;

English translation, "The Theory of the

"Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

p. 137.

24 Roman Jakobson, Noveishaya Khlebnikov,

russkaya

poeziya

(Nabrosok pervyi)

Prague, 1921, p. 11; quoted in Russian

Poetics

in

:Viktor Translation

4, 1977, p. 17. 25 Eikhenbaum, Literatura,

pp. 129, 121; English translation: "The Theory

of the 'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

pp. 115, 107. Viktor Shklovsky, Khod konya, in Erlich, Russian

Formalism,

Moscow - Berlin, 1923, p. 39; quoted p. 57.

27 Jakobson, Noveishaya Poetics Readings

in Translation, in Russian

russkaya

Jakobson,  cheshskom

stikhe

and Art,

(quoted in Russian Views, Matejka

p. 17.

preimushchestvenno

ν sopostavlenii

s

Berlin, 1923 (reprinted Brown 96 University Slavic Reprints, 1969);

quoted in Krystyna pomorska, Russian Ambiance,

p. 11

Poetics :Formalist and Structuralist

and pomorska, eds., p. 84. 28 Lunacharsky, On Literature 29 russkim,

poeziya,

4, 1977, p. 22) and Jakobson, "The Dominant",

Formalist

The Hague - Paris, 1968, p. 28.

Theory and its

Poetic

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM

Yury N. Tynyanov, "o literaturnom fakte", Lef, 2, 1924, reprinted as "Literaturnyi fakt" in Tynyanov, Arkhaisty pp. 8-9; quoted in Russian

Poetics

i novatory,

in Translation,

Leningrad, 1929,

4, 1977, p. 19.

Tynyanov, "Vopros o literaturnoi evolyutsii", Na literaturnom

postu,

10, 1927, reprinted as "0 literaturnoi evolyutsii" in Arkhaisty novatory: Russian

i

English translation: "On Literary Evolution", Readings Poetics :Formalist and Structuralist

in

Views, Matejka and Pomorska,

p. 73. 32 Eikhenbaum, Literatura;

English translation: "The Theory of the

'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

p.

129.

33 Eikhenbaum, "Literatura i literaturnyi byt", Na Literaturnom 9, 1927, reprinted as "Literaturnyi byt" in Eikhenbaum, Moi

postu, vremennik,

Leningrad, 1929: English translation: "Literary Environment", Readings in Russian

Poetics,

Matejka and Pomorska, p. 61.

34 Erlich, Russian

Formalism,

History", in Literary

p. 247: quoting Rene Wellek, "Literary

Scholarship,

Its

Aims and Methods,

Norman Foerster,

ed., U. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1941, p. 100 35 Trotsky, Literature

and the Revolution,

pp. 166, 179, 181.

Alexander Zeitlin, "Marksisty i formalnyi metod", Lef, 125; quoted in Erlich, Russian 37 Trotsky, Literature 38 Ibid., p. 162. 39

Formalism,

and the Revolution,

p. 89. p. 178.

Eikhenbaum, "Literaturnyi byt", Moi vremennik', "Literary Environment", Readings

III, 1923, p.

in Russian

English translation:

Poetics,

Matejka and

Pomorska, p. 60. 40 Trotsky, Literature 41

and the Revolution,

p. 167.

Eikhenbaum, "Literaturnyi byt", Moi vremennik) "Literary Environment", Readings pp. 61, 64.

in 97 Russian

English translation:

Poetics,

Matejka and Pomorska,

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 42 Eikhenbaum, Literatura,

p. 130; English translation: "The Theory of

the 'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

p. 118. 43 Trotsky, Literature 44

and the Revolution,

p. 183.

Eikhenbaum, "Literaturnyi byt", Moi vremennik, translation: "Literary Environment", Readings

p. 58; English

in Russian

Poetics,

Matejka and Pomorska, p. 65. 45 Viktor Zhirmunsky, "Zadachi poetiki", Voprosy teorii

literatury,

Leningrad, 1928, p. 28; quoted in Erlich, Russian Formalism, p. 148. 46 Shklovsky,  teorii Russian

Formalism,

prozy,

MOSCOW, 1929, p. 51; quoted in Erlich,

p. 157n.

47 Yury Tynyanov and Roman Jakobson, "Problemy izucheniya literatury i yazyka", Novyi Lef,

12, 1928, pp. 36-7; English translation: Tynyanov

and Jakobson, "Problems of Research in Literature and Language", Russian Poetics

in Translation,

4, 1977, pp. 49-50.

48 Valentin N. Voloshinov, "Slovo v zhizni slovo v poezii", Zvezda,

6,

1926; English translation: Voloshinov, "iscourse in Life and Discourse in Art", Appendix I in Freudianism:

Ά Marxist

Critique,

Academic Press

New York, 1976, pp. 96-7. As in footnote 1, this seminal article is also considered herein as the work of V. N. Voloshinov. 49 Shklovsky,  teorii prozy, pp. 227-8; quoted in Russian Translation, 4, 1977, pp. 42-3.

Poetics

in

50 Eikhenbaum, Literatura,

p. 130; English translation: "The Theory of

the 'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

p. 118. 51 voloshinov, "Slovo ν zhizni slovo ν poezii", Zvezda, 6, 1926; English 98 translation: "Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art", in Freudianism, pp. 95-6. 52 lbid., p. 100. 53 Ibid., p. 93.

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM 54 U. Fokht, "Problematika sovremennoy markistskoy literatury", Pecha t i revolyutsiya,

2, 1921,

p. 91; quoted in Erlich, Russian

Formalism,

p. 92. 55 Cf. Pico della Mirandola's Heptaplus, a dense exercise in Biblical exegesis which only gets as far as the first three words of Genesis. 56 I.R. Titunik, "The Formal Method and the Sociological Method (M.M. Bakhtin, P.N. Medvedev, V.N. Voloshinov) in Russian Theory and Study of Literature", Appendix II of Voloshinov, Marxism and the of

Language,

Philosophy

p. 185.

57 Tynyanov, "0 literaturnoi evolyutsii", Arkhaisty translation: "On Literary Evolution", Readings

i nova tory;

in Russian

English

Poetics,

Matejka and Pomorska, pp. 75-6. 58

Edmund Wilson, "Marxism and Literature", 1930, reprinted in The Triple Thinkers, New York, 1938, pp. 277, 278, 280. 59 V. Percov,"K voprosu ob edinoy marksistskoy nauke  literature", Literaturnaya

gazeta,

April 14, 1930; quoted in Erlich, Russian

Formalism.

pp. 94-5. 60

Voloshinov, "Slovo ν zhizni slovo ν poezii", Zvezda,

6, 1926; English

translation: "Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art", in

Freudianism,

pp. 106, 96-8. 61 lbid., pp. 105-6.

62 Cf. A. Lunarcharsky's comments on the necessity of originality: English translation entitled "Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism", in On Literature and Art, p. 20.

Voloshinov, "Slovo ν zhizni slovo ν poezii", Zvezda,

6, 1926; English

translation: "Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art", in

Freudianism,

p. 116. 64 Erlich, Russian

Formalism,

p. 93.

Shklovsky, "Iskusstvo kak priem", Sborniki 99

po teorii

poeticheskogo

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS yazyka,

I I , 1917; English t r a n s l a t i o n : "Art a s Technique", i n Lemon and

R e i s , Russian

Formalist

T r o t s k y , Literature

Criticism,

p p . 3-24.

and the Revolution,

Voloshinov, Marksizm i filosofiya Marxism and the Philosophy

p . 168.

yazyka,

of Language,

1929; E n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n :

1973, p . 9.

68 Ibid. , p . 1 1 . 69 Ibid.,

pp. 1 1 , 13.

70 Ibid. , p . 19. 71 Ibid. , p. 28. 72 Ibid., p. 33. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid., p . 153. 75 Ibid.,

p . 36.

76 Ibid., p. 23. 77 Ibid. , pp. 37, 95. 78 Ibid., pp. 17-8. 79 Ibid. , p . 9 5 . 80 Ibid. , p . 69n. 81

Ibid., p. 70.82 82 Ibid.

100

83 Ibid., p. 72. 84 I br oip. dt s.68. p 78. Marxism 86 lbid., 87 85 88Voloshinov, T Ibid., k, yand pp. , . Literature the 67-8. Marksizm Philosophy and i filosofiya the of Revolution, Language, yazyka,pp. . 117. 1929; 167. E n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n :

A MARRIAGE OF FORMALISM AND MARXISM 89

Ibid. , Ρ- 79. 90 Ibid.,

p. 102.

91 Ibid. , p. 79. 92

Ibid. , p. 18. 93

Ibid.,

p. 18.

94 Ibid. , p . 18. 95 Ibid. , p. 17. 96

Ibid., p. 18. 97 Ibid., pp. 13, 21, 95-6. 98 99Ibid. , p. 18. Eikhenbaum, "Literaturnyi b y t " , Moi vremennik,

translation: "Literary Environment", Readings

p . 5 5 ; English

in Russian

Poetics,

Matejka

and Pomorska, p. 61. Tynyanov and Jakobson, "Problemy i zucheniya literatury i yazyka", Novyi Lef,

12, 1928; English translation: "Problems of Research in

Literature and Language", Russian

Poetics

in Translation,

voloshinov, "Slovo v zhizni slovo v peozii", Zvezda,

4, 1977, p. 50. 6, 1926;

English translation: "Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art", in Freudianism,

p. 98.

102

Ibid.,

p. 97.

103

I b i d . , p. 109. 104 Ibid., pp. 110, 113-4.

105 Eikhenbaum, Literatura,

p. 130; English translation: "The Theory of

the 'Formal Method'", in Lemon and Reis, Russian

Formalist

Criticism,

p. 118. 1 06 Voloshinov, "Slovo v zhizni slovo v peozii", zvezda,

101

6, 1926; English

translation: "Discourse in Life and Discourse in A r t " , in

p. 116.

Freudianism,

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 107 Ibid., p. 116. 108 Ibid., p. 116. 109 Voloshinov, Marksizm i filosofiya yazyka, 1929; English translation: Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, p. 33. Voloshinov, "Slovo v zhizni slovo v peozii", zvezda,

6, 1926; English

translation: "Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art", in

Freudianism,

p. 116. Tynyanov and Jakobson, "Problemy i zucheniya literatury i yazyka", Novyi Lef,

12, 1928; English translation: "Problems of Research in

Literature and Language", Russian

Poetics

in Translation,

4, 1977, p.

50. 112 Tynyanov, "Oda  oratorskii zhanr", Poetika, reprinted in Tynyanov, Arkhaisty Poetics

in Translation,

i nova tory,

4, 1977, p. 41.

102

III, Leningrad, 1927,

1929; quoted in

Russian

TEXT AND CONTEXT: THE SOCIO-LINGUISTIC NEXUS Peter V. Zima

The protracted discussion concerning the relationship between text and social context which was triggered off by the controversies between Russian Formalists and Marxists continues. As one reads and re-reads the anthologies which contain some of the most important documents of their polemics, 1 two methodological points emerge as particularly important: 1) The confrontation between Formalists (like V. Shklovsky, B. Eichenbaum and J. Tynjanov) and Marxists (like L. Trotsky, A.V. Lunacharskij and V. Pereverzev) re­ veal the incapacity of both parties to think of the fic­ tional and the non-fictional text (its textual mechanisms) as a social phenomenon. 2) All attempts to reveal the so­ cial character of fictional discourse without sacrificing its specificity (its salient traits) seem to fail. From a purely methodological point of view, this ex­ plains why the discussion of the 1920s and the 19 30s seems to lead into a blind alley. On the one hand, the Formalists insist on the autonomous or even independent character of literary evolution and of literature in general; on the other hand, their Marxist opponents emphasize the social content of the literary fact. A close reading of their

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS texts (e.g. of the contributions by Lunacharskij and some 2 of Plekhanov's methodological writings) reveals that their notion of a literary content

is closely related to Hegel's

theorem that each work of art is the particular manifesta­ tion of an idea, that it expresses univocally a conceptual structure. What Marxists like Lunacharskij, Plekhanov and others mean by "content" is very often what French semioticians would call a "structure de signifiés" (R. Barthes, s/z,

Seuil, 1970), p. 12) . At the other end of the scale, the Formalists stress

the phenomenal, instead of the noumenal, aspect of the lit­ erary artefact. Without referring explicitly to Hegel, they reject the Hegelian idea that works of art have conceptual (i.e. ideological) equivalents. Right to the end of the de­ bate, they remained opposed to all theories pretending to be able to find the

signified, the

concept 'behind' a fic­

tional signifier. This is one of the reasons why, in most of their writings, they concentrate on the 'technique', trying to explain its evolution in relation to such con­ cepts as "automatization" and "innovation". The other reason is ideological. Unlike the Marxists whose aesthetics has until the present day hardly emanci3 pated itself from the Hegelian bias, Formalists adopt a Kantian position by refusing all attempts to deduce 'works of art' from heteronomous

(conceptual, ideological, philos­

ophical, religious) structures. Their hostility is not merely directed against the Marxists. Originally it had been aroused by the religious propensities of the Symbol­ ists, whose mystical conception of literature provoked the "technological" reaction of Futurism.

104

TEXT AND CONTEXT Unlike the Marxists, the Formalists saw in art a goal in itself which could not be submitted to the religious or the political function. They would have agreed with Kant, who writes in his Kritik

der

Urteilskraft:

"Schöne Kunst

dagegen ist eine Vorstellungsart, die für sich selbst zweckmäßig ist, und obgleich ohne Zweck, dennoch die Kultur der Gemütskräfte zur geselligen Mitteilung befördert."4 The relationship between the artefact and the individual psyche ("Gemütskräfte") is as important for the Formalists as it is for Kant. One could therefore agree with P.N. Medvedev who argues in his critical appraisal of the Formal method that the apparently formal and purely technical approach of the latter was actually based on implied psychological pre­ mises, without which such phenomena as "automatization", "new perception" and the need for "innovation" could not be accounted for. Among the Marxists, Lunacharskij is probably right when he points out in his essay "Formalizm ν nauke ob isskustve" ['Formalism in the Theory of Art']

that the For­

mal method was a product of the short-lived Russian individ­ ualism (liberalism), which had been stimulated by West-Euro­ pean theories, frequently motivated by individualist valuesystems .

The important ideological gap which separates Formal­ ism and Marxism accounts at least partly for the fruitfulness of all attempts

(by "Forsocy", by Arvatov or by the

Futurist-Marxist Gorlov)

to reconcile the two methods and

to bring about a Marxist-Formalist synthesis. Nor does such a synthesis seem desirable. It would lead to eclecticism, that is, to the absorption of ideologically burdened con­ cepts by dialectical theories or to a sociological formal­ ism torn by contradictions.

105

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS I.

The

logical

Text

as

a Social

Structure:

J.

Mukařovský's

Socio­

Approach

One of the first critics who tried to mediate between the social structure and the mechanisms of the fictional text, was Jan Mukaovský, the foremost 'sociologist' among the members of the Linguistic Circle of Prague. The essen­ tial difference between Mukařovský and Tynjanov (the 'so­ ciologist' among the Formalists) is the dialectical ("in­ trinsic") approach towards literary evolution proposed by the Czech theoretician. In his essay on "Literary Evolution" ( "Literaturnaya evolutsia"), Tynjanov describes the social influence on lit­ erary production as follows: "The study of literary evolu­ tion does not deny the dominant significance of major so­ cial factors; on the contrary, it is only in that context that this significance can be illuminated in its totality. For to begin by establishing the influence of the principal social factors, is to substitute the study of the modifica­ tion, and deformation, of works of literature, for the study of true literary e v o l u t i o n . " 8 The basic idea behind Tyn­ janov's argument is obviously that true literary evolution has precious little to do with the "modifications" and "de­ formations" brought about by social influence. One of the main reasons why Russian (Soviet) Marxists could not come to terms with the Formalist positions is to be found in the formalist notion of "influence". This no­ tion is mechanistic in character insofar as it implies that literature (the fictional text) and society are worlds apart and merely influence one another, and that literary evolution is an immanent process which cannot be accounted

106

TEXT AND CONTEXT for within the social (economic) context. A fair illustra­ tion of this attitude is Tynjanov's explanation of the "great epic forms" introduced by the Archaists in the twen­ ties, when, according to Formalist theory, a group of wri­ ters began to search for new stylistic procedures under the impulse of a new (popular) demand. Tynjanov's attempt to describe the interaction between social and fictional fac­ tors certainly goes a lot further than for example Shklovsky's early thesis in which innovation was considered as a purely "technical" problem. However, it does not go far enough. The literary structure is not recognized as an as­ pect of the social structure and is not perceived as being mediated

("vermittelt", Hegel, Marx) by the latter.

At this point, one of the most lucid critics of Form­ alism, P.N. Medvedev, introduces his critique of the Form­ al method. In his remarkable book entitled The

thod

in Literary

Sociological

Scholarship.

Poetics

A Critical

Formal

Introduction

Me­

to

(Leningrad, Izd. Priboj, 1928), he

lays the foundations of what could nowadays be considered a sociology of the fictional text. Unlike the other Marx­ ists (including Trotsky, Lunacharskij and Sakulin), he does not oppose the "content" of the "literary work" to its "form", but maintains

(with the modern sociology of

the text) that the "form" itself is a social phenomenon. Placing literature in the sphere of social interaction and communication, Medevdev asserts that the poetic qualities of genres such as the novel, the drama or the epic poem ("Poema", e.g. Akhmatova's Poema

hez

geroya)

should be

viewed as cultural facts which acquire different semantic and ideological functions within the framework of the com­ munication system. (In very much the same way as Bakhtin and Voloshinov - whose theories overlap in many respects -

107

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS he envisages society as a historical dialogue val collective interests. See below.)

between ri­

Hence the deadlock which partly accounts for the ster­ ility of the Marxist-Formalist polemic, can be avoided or overcome, as soon as the dichotomy form/content is aban­ doned and the textual structure itself (its semantic, syn­ tactic and phonetic elements) is considered as being so­ cially significant. That is, as soon as social value sys­ tems are related to the semantic elements of the text and the latter linked up with the syntactic, and possibly pho9 netic, particularities of literary production. In other words, only an approach which succeeds in re­ presenting social facts as textual structures is likely to overcome, on a methodological level, the opposition between the Formalist questions concerning the HOW of literary texts ("Kakěsd Dan Don Quijote?", "Kak sdëlana sinel Gogolja?") and the Marxist concern with the WHY: Why did Racine write tragedies (and not dramas in the manner of Corneille or comedies)? The question why a certain writing (écriture) develops in a particular social context and then turns out to be the synthetic - but not eclectic - reaction to the Marxist-Formalist stalemate. When the discussion between Marxists and Formalists came to an abrupt end, at the beginning of the Stalinist era, two rather different groups of East-European scholars attempted such a synthesis: the members of the Prague Lin­ guistic Circle and the group of scholars who worked together with M. Bakhtin in Leningrad in the late twenties and the early thirties. The affinity between the theories of these two groups, which is now generally recognized by Slavists

108

TEXT AND CONTEXT like H. Glück, H. Günther e.a. should not be overemphasized. Although it is highly relevant for the present discussion (and a sociology of the text that ignores these two schools is well nigh inconceivable), it might eventually conceal fundamental differences on which we shall concentrate in the following remarks. Although Jan Mukařovský's theories can be seen as de­ veloping (especially later on) into a permanent dialogue with Marxism, Mukařovský's global approach can hardly be labeled "Marxist" or "dialectical" in the Hegelian sense. In spite of the influence of Hegelian aesthetics, his the­ ory of art and literature: of the aesthetic norm, the aes­ thetic value and the aesthetic object, has a striking Durkheimian slant on the sociological side and exhibits a strong penchant for Saussurian dichotomies in the linguis­ tic sphere. The concept of domination (which plays an important part in Adorno's and Horkheimer's Critical Theory) and the Marxist concept of class are frequently neglected by.(es­ pecially the early) Mukařovský, who tends to view society, in a Durkheimian perspective, as a relatively homogeneous whole. As with Durkheim and Saussure, the potentially a-social individual opposed to the socialized collectivity, the "parole"

(the artistic creation as an individual "acte de

parole") to the linguistic system based on the collective norm ("habitude collective", Saussure, Cours 3

de

linguis-

tique générale, Payot, 1967 , p. 100). "But because an in­ dividual is a member of a collective and since his concep­ tion of reality roughly coincides with the system of values of this collective, poetry influences the way in which the entire society views the world through creating and reading

109

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS individuals."10 The interaction between individual and collective ele­ ments accounts - according to Mukafovsky - for the change of aesthetic norms and values which is brought about by 2dividual

deviations from the collectively established norm.

Unlike the Formalist theories, literary development is thus related to a dialectic between the individual creativity of the parole (the aesthetic innovation) and the established norms and values to which the collectivity remains attached in spite of their being perceived "automatically", "sub­ consciously" .

Clearly, the Durkheimian-Saussurian perspective (en­ riched by theorems from Hegel, K. Bühler, O. Zich, F.X. Salda e.a.) cannot give birth to a dialectical conception of society and the text - context relationship. Unlike Marxists and the founders of Critical Theory, Mukafovsky hardly ever stresses the effects of socio-economic domina­ tion (das "Herrschaftsprinzip", Adorno, Horkheimer) or of class conflicts in the textual field. Mukařovský's thought is neither centered around the basic dichotomy of the Cri­ tical Theory

(domination/negation of domination), nor

around that of Marxian philosophy (bourgeoisie/proletariat). It is more concerned with the individual's

(the artist's)

position in a society marked by the decline of the liberal, individualist system of values. It is in this respect that it comes closest to the ideological positions and contra­ dictions of Critical Theory.

In spite of these differences, Mukařovský and Marxist thinkers like P.N. Medvedev have one idea in common: the idea that language itself is a social fact and that the

110

TEXT AND CONTEXT linguistic system is not neutral but should be viewed as a permanent dialogue or polemic between linguistic subsystems which can be attached to collective norms and values. Here, a fundamental difference between Mukafovsky and the Russian Formalists comes to the fore. Unlike the latter, Mukařovský was determined to regard not only the language as a social fact, but to explain the literary evolution ("literární vývoj", J. Mukařovský, F. Vodicka) as a social process. Increasingly, although not always without ambigu­ ity, the external social factors are linked up by the Prague scholars with the development of literary technique. Insisting on this link between society and fiction, Muka­ fovsky distinguishes in his "Note on the Czech Translation of Shklovsky's Theory

of

Prose"

Russian Formalism from

Czech Structuralism: "The Difference between the viewpoint of contemporary structuralism and the formalist thesis ci­ ted should, be expressed in the following manner: Even to­ day the 'method of weaving' is, of course, the center of interest, but at the same time it is already apparent that we may not disregard the 'situation of the world cotton market' either, since the development of weaving - in the non-figurative sense as well - is governed not only by the progress of textile technology

(the internal regularity of

a developing series) but at the same time by the reauirements of the market, by supply and demand."11 Although Mukafovsky still uses the term "influence" and suggests that "the individual series influence one another",12

the above quotation clearly indicates that

Czech Structuralism considers the socio-textual nexus in a new light. The development of literary forms can no longer be understood if it is abstracted from the social context

111

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS (as little as the development of textile technology can be understood in isolation). Here, the critical remarks directed against Mukafovsky aznd the structural methods of the Prague Linguistic Circle by one of the outstanding Marxists of among his contempor­ aries, Kurt Konrad, seems one-sided. Konrad blames Muka­ řovský for representing the interaction of the political, the economic, the philosophical and the literary structures ("series") mechanically and for constructing a "bad" (ab­ stract in the Hegelian sense) totality: "This bad totality leads structuralism to consider the influence of non-liter­ ary elements on literature merely as an 'outside influence', not as the living soil, the medium in which the life of the literary fact

originates."13

Konrad's argument as such is

quite acceptable to a dialectical sociology of the text; however, it is not entirely just to Mukafovsky, whose the­ ory is as subtle as it is ambiguous. It is ambiguous, because it is not actually clear what is meant by influence. Although Mukafovsky departs from the Formalist notion of aesthetic autonomy, he does not expli­ citly contest the idea (put forward by Tynjanov) that nonliterary factors "influence" literary evolution. The very title of his essay "Estetická funkce, norma a hodnota jako sociální fakty" ["The Aesthetic Function, the Norm and the Value as Social Facts"] already suggests that every attempt to reduce Mukařovský's description of the socio-textual nexus to the formal notion of (mechanistic) influence is bound to fail. In the essay mentioned above, he writes: "The formalism of the Russian aesthetic and literary his­ torical school was quite right in proclaiming that all con­ stituents of a work of art are part and parcel of the form.

112

TEXT AND CONTEXT But it is necessary to add that in the same way and without an exception all constituents of a work of art are carriers of meaning and non-aesthetic values and hence belong to its content." 14 If all elements are indeed imbued with social meaning and express non-aesthetic values, then it follows that the text - context relationship cannot be a mechanical one. (Unfortunately, Mukafovsky is not always as clear as in this passage, which explains why Konrad's critical re­ marks, although one-sided, are not entirely unfounded.) Mukařovský's essay entitled "Remarks on a Sociology of Poetic Language" ["Poznámky  sociologii básnického jazyka"] is particularly important from the point of view of a sociology of the text. It reveals how exactly he defines the link between the social and the textual structures and how social problems can be transposed on a linguistic lev­ el. Reading this essay, one realizes that it goes far be­ yond the Formalist positions, insofar as it considers lan­ guage itself as a social structure located between the lit­ erary text and what is generally referred to as 'reality'. From the point of view of literary theory, 'reality' ap­ pears sub specie linguae. Unfortunately, Marxist sociologists of literature like L. Goldmann, H. Lefèbvre and P. Macherey were not familiar with Mukařovský's (Bakhtin's, Voloshinov's) writings and either neglected the mediation of linguistic structures (Goldmann) or defined linguistic structures with less so­ phistication than Mukafovsky in the thirties (see: P. Macherey, Pour

une

théorie

de la

production

littéraire,

Mas-

pero, 1966, 1970, ch. I.9.). Criticizing the theories of literature developed by Lukács and Goldmann, R. Coward and J. Ellis point out that these theories are pre-linguistic

113

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS in character: "Illuminating as these works are, their kind of symbolic attention returns too smoothly and easily to history; it depends on a view of language as transparent, as an easy covering of the real whose conceptualisation was somehow pre-linguistic. How a text means is no problem; they find what

(in a certain situation) it means, and why."

15

This kind of reproach could hardly be turned against Mukafovsky, who was among the first thinkers who began to discover the social (and sociological) background of the how.

In his essay, he writes: " . . .

The sense of each word

and of each linguistic component in general is firmly anchored in the totality of the semantic structure of a given language and defined by its location within the latter, and this structure is in turn related to reality in a certain manner, to a certain system of values upon which the collective relies at a particular moment of its development in defining its orientations towards this reality. Hence, if we assert that all that a poetic work contains, was necessarily sifted by the linguistic medium, we also mean that language as a mediator closely relates the poetic work to . ,_ ,16 society." This passage contains a fair description of what a modern sociology of the text would consider to be one of its basic tenets. Reading it, one realizes that Konrad's critique of Mukafovsky's "bad totality" and of his "mechanistic view" of the relationship between literature and society can no longer be justified. The linguistic qualities of the text are now defined as aspects

of the social

structure and the "influence" of social factors is no longer referred to.

114

TEXT AND CONTEXT However, considering Mukařovský's essay in a dialecti­ cal perspective

(i.e. from the stance of Critical Theory),

it becomes clear, that the underlying sociological model does not take into account conflicting social interests or the principle of domination

(Herrschaft), which play an im-

portant part in L. Althusser's, Μ.

Pêcheux'17

and T.W. A-

dorno's analyses of language and communication. Mukarovsky speaks of a collectivity in general and tends to identify this with the social system at large, thus adopting a 'con­ sensus-view' of society reminiscent of the theories put forward by Durkheim and Mauss, and, more recently, by the American functionalists

(Parsons, Merton e . a . ) .

It is therefore hardly surprising if eventually, in the practical part of his essay, Mukařovsk

opposes the lan­

guage of the city (of Prague) to the language of the coun­ try in trying to explain the link between the developing industrial society and J. Neruda's work. According to his interpretations, Neruda's popular prose absorbs

(on an in­

tertextual level, we might say) the linguistic habits of the city, because the "people" and the popular "code" are no longer identified with the rural, but with the urban population. Unfortunately, this explanation does not go very far. Although Mukařovský examines Neruda's work in a larger (national) context, in which the opposition German/ Czech is also referred to, the definition of the socio-tex­ tual link is not specific enough. What kind of language does Neruda use? - Is it the language of the petty bourgeoi­ sie, of the working class or of both? - How are they rela­ ted to one another and how is the writer's textual practice (the short story, the "nouvelle") related to both of them? - The opposition rural/urban language seems too general if it is to account for the specific character of the texts in

115

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS question. On the other hand, Mukařovský is probably right, when he hints at the possibility of explaining Neruda's hostility towards K.I. Erben's elaborate and sophisticated style in relation to popular speech, which marks so many of the Malostranské II.

Bakhtin's

povídky.

and

Voloshinov's

Conflictual

Model

One of Bakhtin's first books which came to be known in both Western Europe and the United States and which was translated under the title Rabelais chestvo i

Fransua

Renessansa,

Rabele

i narodnaja

and His kul'

tura

World

[Tvor-

srednevekov'

ja

Moscow, 1965], contains an interesting sketch

of what Bakhtin himself calls the "linguistic situation". In a chapter entitled "The Language of the Marketplace in Rabelais", he examines how a large number of popular ex­ pressions which are typical of market life penetrate into the Rabelaisian text. The affinity with Mukařovský's ap­ proach, outlined in the preceding section, need not be em­ phasized. It is perhaps important to point out that Bakhtin is not so much concerned with the "vocabulary", the lexical particularities and peculiarities of marketplace jargon. He tries to detect the market origins of whole speech or utterances,

acts

which are assimilated by the literary text.

- "First of all," he writes, "we have in mind certain forms of familiar speech - curses, profanities, and oathes - and second the colloquialisms of the marketplace: the cris Paris

de

and the announcements made during fairs by quacks and

vendors of drugs. These genres are not 'separated by a Chinese wall' from the literature and spectacles of folk festivals; they are part of them and often play in them a

116

TEXT AND CONTEXT leading stylistic role. We continually find them in the dits

and débatsr

in d i a b l e r i e s , soties,

and farces.

The

colloquial and artistic forms are sometimes so closely in­ terwoven that it is difficult to trace a dividing line, and no wonder, since the barkers and vendors of drugs were also actors of performances at the fair."18 Adopting Bakhtin's point of view, one can distinguish three levels of socio-linguistic interaction: 1) the level of popular utterances

(e.g. "les cris de Paris"); 2) the

level of 'minor' literary forms such as the soties farces;

and the

3) the level of the fictional text which can be re­

lated directly to 'popular' expressions or to the minor literary forms.

Reading Bakhtin's book, as well as his analysis of Dostoevsky's novels (Problemy poetiki

Dostoevskovo,

Moscow,

1963), one realizes that an old problem which keeps crop­ ping up in literary sociology is about to be solved: the question how social reality

(the socio-linguistic reality

in this case) shapes and reshapes the structure of the fic­ tional universe. For to show simply how literary discourse absorbs non-literary elements of speech would be a rather limited and eventually boring exercise if it fell short of demonstrating the impact of this intertextual process on the macro-structure of the fictional world. However, this demonstration is precisely one of the principal aims (and achievements) of Bakhtin's analysis. For one of his basic ideas is that the carnivalesque

ambivalence

of marketplace

jargon, an ambivalence which permeates Rabelais' writings, contributes decisively to an elucidation of their cal

structure.

117

dialogi-

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS "Rabelais scholars usually understand and evaluate the novel's billingsgate and marketplace elements in the spirit of modern interpretation, distinct from the carnival action as a whole. The deep ambivalence of these images is no longer

understood."19

It is this ambivalence, according to Bakh-

tin, which gives rise not only to the critical laughter in Rabelais' world, but also to the permanent dialogue which turns his novels into open-ended structures and his entire work into a dialogical, carnivalesque criticism of the of­ ficial, monological culture of the feudal nobility.

At this stage, the relevant question is not whether one agrees with Bakhtin's interpretation of the feudal or­ der (which seems biased by bourgeois prejudice), but wheth­ er his approach contributes to the development of a sociol­ ogy of the text. We believe that Bakhtin's theory is an es­ sential contribution: a) because it reveals the socio-semiotic nexus between the textual structure

(the dialogue,

its 'open' character) and the linguistic practices of par­ ticular social groups; and b) because it implies a dynamic, a historical and a conflictual view of society which comes very close to that of a materialist dialectic and which is virtually absent from Mukařovský's aesthetics.

The fact that Bakhtin and V.N. Voloshinov have devel­ oped a socio-linguistic model which implies a historical, a dialectical and a materialist critique of Saussure's ra­ tionalist and Cartesian synchronic linguistics, is by now generally recognized both in Europe and the United States. In his appendix to the English translation of Voloshinov's

(Bakhtin's) Marxism

and the

Philosophy

of Language,

L. Ma­

tejka insists on the author's rejection of Saussure's sta­ tic model: "The static nature of Saussure's synchronic

118

TEXT AND CONTEXT model and its artificial separation from the ceaselessly changing continuum of the creative flow of language was correctly interpreted by Voloshinov as the revival of the Cartesian spirit in the area of linguistic investigation. As a dialectician, he objected to the segregating tendency of Cartesian dualism and tried to see evolutionary forces and systematization as a continuous interaction which is indivisible, albeit antithetic."20 Unlike Mukařovský, who tends to consider society as a relatively homogeneous

(although changing) totality, whose

norms and values are altered by individual aesthetic inno­ vation (by a continuous violation of the norm), Bakhtin and Voloshinov try to grasp linguistic reality as a uni­ verse in which rival collectivities compete with one an­ other, struggling for linguistic hegemony. This is what the French translator of Marxizm

i

filosofia

jazyka

means

when she writes: "Bakhtine définit la langue comme expres­ sion des relations et luttes sociales, véhiculant et subis­ sant l'effet de cette lutte, servant à la fois d'instrument et de

matériau."21

(This idea is particularly stimulating

for a sociology of the text, which can only be developed if the dialectical and materialist conception of society is successfully projected into the textual sphere.) In his illuminating essay on Bakhtin entitled "The Heresiarch of META", G.S. Morson exposes the salient fea­ tures of Bakhtin's linguistic theory, defining them as meta­ linguistic. "For this reason Bakhtin can claim that language is the most subtle barometer of social and historical change. Language is emphatically not

a single, coherent system, se­

parate from ideological and cultural flux. On the contrary, at any moment it consists of the 'jargons' or dialects of

119

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS regional and social subgroups, whose words carry their own specific 'evaluations' to members of those groups. . . . Language is always languages: it is defined by 'multispeechedness' (Bakhtin,

1975)." 22

In the present context, it is particularly important to stress the fact that, according to Bakhtin, the dialogical character of reality is refracted and reproduced by the aesthetic construct and that literature, especially the novel, can be considered as a permanent dialogue between different discourses. The two fundamental discourse forms in the novel are those of the author and the hero, and each of them stands for a particular system of values, for a particular 'world-vision'. The author criticizes the hero and the hero himself approves or disapproves of the dis­ courses

(and value-systems) expressed by the other charac­

ters in the novel. Even novels whose authors and narrators seem to coin­ cide and whose heroes say " I " , have a dialogical structure, for Bakhtin believes that dialogue is the ideologically rel­ evant form of all "aesthetic creation" (of all literary production). Insofar as value judgments are unavoidable on the level of discourse, the "I" of the novel (or the liter­ ary text in general) which is turned into an object of the author's discourse, becomes an alien, becomes "Other", both in the linguistic and in the ideological sense. Within the aesthetic universe, all value judgments concern the "Other", for the "I" can never become its own aesthetic object. In his essay "Problema avtora" ["The Prob­ lem of the Author"], Bakhtin writes on this subject: "An evaluating attitude towards oneself is aesthetically quite

120

TEXT AND CONTEXT unproductive, because from an aesthetic point of view, I am a non-entity for myself. I can merely be responsible for the task of artistic formation and achievement, but I cannot be its object - the hero."23 Hence, even the "I" of the biographical novel is in reality the "Other" and the author's attitude towards him is an attitude of dialogue and of evaluation. For Bakhtin, Voloshinov and Medvedev, literature re­ produces the social scene thanks to its dialogical, commun­ icative character in which evaluation and ideological en­ gagement play an important part. In his essay entitled "Slovo v romane" ["The Utterance in the Novel"], Bakhtin not only stresses the dialogical structure of Evgeni

onegin

,

but points out that in the world of the novel, each charac­ ter is marked by a particular discourse and that this dis­ course represents a system of values, a "world-vision", which is in turn represented, judged and criticized by the other discourses, all of which are engaged, in a permanent dialogue.

If we now leave the fictional universe and. return to the social context, we realize that here too the dialogue is the dominant structure and that the rivalry between ideo­ logically competing discourse forms is the essential link between social facts and fictional constructs. The concepts of dialogue

and communication

are used to define both the

linguistic system and the literary text as social

(ideolog­

ical) phenomena. In their book on Marxism

and

Language 25 [Marxizm i filosofia jazyka] , Bakhtin and Voloshinov cri­ ticize Saussure's synchronic linguistics on two levels: 1)

121

the

Philosophy

of

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS on the level of the verbal sign, and 2) on the level of the syntagm. Unlike Saussure who defines the verbal sign in a purely systematic context (which he himself compares to a chess board), the authors put forward the idea that all signs have to be understood historically within the ideological context of social communication: 1) Ideology the

sign

may not i.e.

by l o c a t i n g i t

v a g u e and e l u s i v e 2) The sign social

be divorced

in the

the

be divorced

from

the

divorced

from

and the the

concrete

or

forms

( s e e i n g t h a t t h e s i g n i s p a r t of

r e v e r t i n g t o a mere p h y s i c a l

3) Communication

reality

'consciousness'

i z e d s o c i a l i n t e r c o u r s e and c a n n o t e x i s t , of i t ,

material

of other

regions);

may not

interccurse

from

material

forms basis.

of

as such,

of

organ­ outside

artefact);

communication

may not

be

26

I t i s c l e a r t h a t t h i s ( r e - ) d e f i n i t i o n of t h e v e r b a l s i g n i s h i g h l y i m p o r t a n t f o r a s o c i o l o g y of t h e t e x t . D i s ­ c a r d i n g t h e n o n - h i s t o r i c a l p e r s p e c t i v e opened by S a u s s u r e and o p t i n g f o r B a k h t i n ' s / V o l o s h i n o v ' s o r i e n t a t i o n , t h i s p a r t i c u l a r s o c i o l o g y w i l l emphasize t h e s o c i a l ( i d e o l o g i ­ c a l ) v a l u e of t h e s i g n and of i t s v a r y i n g f u n c t i o n s w i t h i n d i s c o u r s e s t r u c t u r e s . Unlike t r a d i t i o n a l (Saussurean, B l o o m f i e l d i a n ) l i n g u i s t i c s , i t w i l l n o t c o n c e n t r a t e on t h e sentence (the p h r a s t i c syntagm), but w i l l t r y t o r e l a t e t h e l e v e l of t h e s i g n t o t h e l e v e l of d i s c o u r s e ( t o what B a k h t i n and V o l o s h i n o v c a l l t h e " s l o v o " [ " u t t e r a n c e " , ê n o n c i a t i o n " , "Aussage"]. Before Greimas and. i n a c o n t e x t v e r y d i f f e r e n t from t h a t of Z. H a r r i s ' formal d i s c o u r s e a n a l y s i s , B a k h t i n and V o l o s h i n o v r e a l i z e d t h a t n o t t h e s e n t e n c e as a l i n g u i s t i c

122

TEXT AND CONTEXT unit was ideologically relevant, but the utterance: "There­ fore, classification upon

of

classification

of

the the

forms forms

of of

utterance verbal

must

rely

communication.

The latter are entirely determined by production relations 27 of the sociopolitical order." On the one hand, the authors of Marxism osophy

of

Language

and

the

Phil­

go beyond Greimas' theory of discourse

and of the sociolect, which

(unfortunately) bears the marks

of functionalist terminology and ideology

(see below). On

the other hand, however, their concept of "utterance" which they share with Medvedev - is far too vague, if com­ pared with the varying definitions of discourse offered by Greimas since his Sémantique and his Sémiotique

et

sciences

structurale sociales

(Larousse, 1966) (Seuil, 1976) .

A dialectical sociology of the text is therefore like­ ly to redefine the Greimassian conception of discourse within the materialist and historical context worked out in Rabelais Philosophy

and of

his

World

Language.

and, above all, in Marxism Searching for a new

and

the

(dialectical)

definition of discourse, of the transphrastic structure in language, it will also rely on the analyses of Critical The­ ory which contains in nuce a critique of philosophical and fictional discourse forms. Once a sociological

and historical

typology of these

forms has been worked out, it might become easier to relate fictional and non-fictional texts to social structures, pro­ vided the latter are defined on a linguistic

(discourse) le­

vel. The problem with Bakhtin's and Voloshinov's notion of "utterance" ("slovo") is that it still remains somewhat vague from a purely linguistic point of view: What is the

123

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS relationship between the semantic and the syntactic levels in an utterance? - And how is an utterance related to what semioticians like Greimas and linguists like Benveniste call discourse? - In short, how can "utterance" be defined as a transphrastic structure? In what follows, we shall attempt to examine briefly and within the context discussed above, two Questions un­ derlying a dialectical sociology of the text. 1) How are non-fictional (spoken and written) texts absorbed by liter­ ary production? 2) How does this absorption affect the con­ struction of the fictional text as a transphrastic, dis­ course unit, defined with respect to the semantic-syntac­ tic nexus? (i.e. What effects do particular semantic op­ tions produce on the syntactic and possibly also on the phonetic level?) III.

Socio-Semantics

and

Syntax

If all texts, as Bakhtin and Voloshinov suggest, have the structure of dialogues and can be understood as reac­ tions to other texts, then each fictional and non-fiction­ al product becomes an intertext in the sense defined by Julia Kristeva, who writes in an article on Bakhtin: "Le texte littéraire s'insère dans l'ensemble des textes: il est une écriture-réplique (fonction ou négation) d'un autre (des autres) texte(s). Par sa manière d'écrire en lisant le corpus littéraire antérieur ou synchronique l'auteur vit 

dans l'histoire, et la société s'écrit dans le texte." If this is so, then the relationship between produc­ tion and reception (frequently viewed as a dichotomy by ad­ vocates of the German "Rezeptionsästhetik") is no more than

124

TEXT AND CONTEXT an aspect of intertextuality, insofar as each literary and non-literary text produces itself by absorbing and trans­ forming other texts. Hence, production can be viewed in terms of reception and vice versa. From a sociological point of view, it is important to emphasize that intertextuality, far from being a purely im­ manent, fictional phenomenon, constitutes the link between fictional and non-fictional reality. Apart from the notion of "internal intertextuality", which refers to the assimi­ lation and deformation of literary texts in fiction, the notion of "external intertextuality", referring to the as­ similation by literature of non-fictional texts, seems particularly useful. Literature can only react to the social world, to the non-fictional world, on the level of writing (écriture), on the level of text production, where it frequently takes the shape of parody, pastiche or irony. These three con­ cepts refer to different aspects of intertextuality, have an ideological function and therefore are sociologically relevant. Parody, for example, need not be a purely liter­ ary fact, as with Cervantes, whose writing turns against the jargon of the chivalresque novel. In the same way as irony or pastiche, it can be directed against particular (non-fictional) sociolects (group languages) which oppose one another in a given socio-linguistic situation. (We have discussed the concepts of sociolect and socio-linguis­ tic situation in an essay entitled "Literary 'Production' 29 - Literary 'Reception': Two Ideological Concepts".) Numerous examples show that some literary products can be above all defined in terms of their critical reactions

125

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS to sociolects. Thus James Joyce's Ulysses

frequently paro­

dies the commercialized sociolects of publicity

(for exam­

ple, in a passage where the narrator describes Bloom's dis­ covery of an advertisement for "Wonderworker", defined as a "thaumaturgic remedy", Penguin, p. 643.) Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne

Eigenschaften

absorbs and deforms various

ideologically motivated sociolects which were significant in the socio-linguistic context of Austria-Hungary prior to World War II. The revolutionary sociolect of the Social­ ists, the mystifying language of the rising Fascists, the various sociolects of science and pseudo-science and the clerical-metaphysical jargons of the time. By pretending to be universally valid, each of these languages

(discourse

structures) discredits itself within the universe of the novel and exposes itself to a scathing critiaue put forwardby the auctorial discourse and by the discourse of the hero Ulrich. Similarly, in Proust's Ά la

recherche

du temps

perdu,

the criticism of the various mundane languages of Mme Verdurin, Oriane de Guermantes, Mme Bontemps and Odette de Crècy, induces the narrator to repudiate social communica­ tion (la parole, la conversation) as a whole and to search for a substitute in the realm of writing

(of "écriture" as

opposed to "parole", to the spoken word). In short, one might say: 1) that the absorption of social languages, of sociolects, constitutes the link between social fact and fictional construction; 2) that this absorption is highly relevant for the explanation of structure

(the semantic,

narrative and even phonetic structures) of the literary text. Before we discuss this latter point in some detail, it

126

TEXT AND CONTEXT seems necessary to say something about the concept of sociolect and about the function of sociolects within the literary world. As far as the concept

is concerned, it

should be pointed out that it has sometimes been used (in particular by Greimas) in a functionalist context marked by notions of "role", "status", "role-set" and "statusset"

(Parsons, Merton, Linton). It is in this context that

the term sociolect

appears in Greimas' book sémiotique

sciences

which is partly an attempt to define the

sociales,

et

status of social languages on a semiotic level. The func­ tionalist concept of "role" seems to guide Greimas' thought when he describes the semiotic position of the individual within the communication system: " . . .

Un seul et même in­

dividu pouvant participer à plusieurs groupes et assumer autant de rôles

socio-sémiotiques

sémiotiques qu'il y a de

groupes auxquels il se trouve intégré." The problem is that Greimas is chiefly concerned with the definition of group

languages in a professional

sense,

as defined by the role and status theories of functionalist sociologists. (He admitted himself, when pressed, by the author of the present article, the functionalist origins of his terminology - without excluding other orientations in the future.) The functionalist option is obviously not a sin; however, it frustrates all theoretical efforts to re­ late literature to collective interests, to social contra­ dictions

(conflicts), and to the historical transformation

of society. A sociology of the text should try to relate the Greimassian concept of discourse (which is far more precise than Bakhtin's and Voloshinov's notion of "utter­ ance") to Voloshinov's

(Bakhtin's) definition of society

and the socio-linguistic situation as conflictual and his­ torical constellations.

127

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS An analogous problem crops up when we deal with the function

of

sociolects

in fictional texts. It would ob­

viously be a sterile undertaking, doomed to oblivion and the dust of university libraries, to enumerate and describe all the socially definable languages in Dickens', Proust's, Joyce's or Musil's novels. Such empiricist attempts do not lead anywhere, since they never allow for the answering of the sociologically relevant question: how does the absorp­ tion of sociolects by literary production affect the se­ mantics of the text and what repercussions do the latter provoke in the field of (narrative) syntax? And conversely, how does the absorption and the criticism of certain syn­ tactic procedures affect the semantic options?

These were the questions we thought necessary to ask in analysing the novel of Marcel Proust, Ά la recherche du 31 temps perdu. In Proust's world, the assimilation of the sociolect of the leisure class (in the sense of T. Veblen), the conversation," which the author himself calls "la conver­ sation" or "la parole", explains two semantic

aspects of the

novel: 1) the great importance of ambiguity in the Bakhtinian sense (of semantic ambivalance), and 2) the fundamental semantic and ideological opposition between communicative speech

(parole) and writing

(écriture).

For Proust, conversation as a sociolect is intrinsical­ ly ambivalent, for it is indifferent to all basic distinc­ tions and to all (moral, cognitive and aesthetic) differ­ ences between values.

In trying to disentangle Albertine's

intrigues, the narrator insists on the treacherous charac­ ter of mundane conversation: "La conversation d'une femme qu'on aime ressemble å un sol qui recouvre une eau souter­ raine et dangereuse; on sent à tout moment derrière les mots

128

TEXT AND CONTEXT la présence, le froid penetrant d'une nappe invisible; on aperçoit ça et là son suintement perfide, mais elle-même reste cachée." 3 2

It would be quite wrong to suppose that

this commentary only applies to the "parole" of female char­ acters of Proust's novel. It concerns conversation as a whole and could just as well describe the discourse of Mon­ sieur de Charlus or Oriane de Guermantes. Insofar as the sociolect of conversation is marked by a universal ambivalence by the exchange

value,

(which we relate to the mediation relying partly on Adorno's and Gold­

mann's research in this field), it takes the shape of a linguistic

(semantic) problem in the novel. The repercus­

sions of this semantic problem on the syntactic

(narrative)

level should not be underestimated. On the one hand, the semantic ambivalence

(which frequently appears in the Bakh-

tinian form of the mask, retrouvé)

especially at the end of Le

causes the dislocation

of

the

narrative

temps syntax;

on the other hand, it stimulates the search for a non-am­ biguous and communicative discourse: the mimetic discourse of "écriture". The latter is no longer syntactic in char­ acter, but tends towards a paradigmatic, associative struc­ ture. (The semantic options of Proust's novel, the opposi­ tions parole/écriture, conscious/unconscious, etc. are re­ sults of the intertextual process). These two developments, the disintegration of the nar­ rative syntax (the narrative causality) and the birth of a new writing tending towards oniric association and towards the particular

(the signifier, the Proustian name, "Le

Nom") can only be explained sociologically as reactions to the intertextually absorbed sociolect of conversation which is a linguistic

(discourse) representation of the

129

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS mediation by the exchange value within the social world of the leisure class. Another important aspect of Proust's writing, his in­ sistance on the signifier, on the phonetic component of the verbal sign (especially in Noms de pays:

le

nom)

must

also be understood in the socio-linguistic context and in particular in relation to the critique of mundane conversa­ tion as a prototype of communicative speech. In the latter, the quality, the intrinsic value (the "Gebrauchswert", Marx) of the verbal sign is neglected and the word

(especially

the word which carries social prestige) is used as a means of exchange. Even the most charming 'bon mots' of Oriane de Guermantes are false, for they are not used for their own sake (aesthetically), but for the sake of exchange. Proust's revolt against the mediation by the exchange value and his search for the particular is most clearly visible on the level of the signifiant.

As in Mallarmé's texts, the

Name, the inexchangable acoustic image, is dissociated from the universal concept and turned into a representative of quality

and of

value.

It has not been our aim to explain, describe or inter­ pret the Proustian text, since we have done this elsewhere/ What has been said about Proust's work is merely meant to illustrate the different stages of analysis a sociology of the text would have to take into account. What has been said so far, also suggests that the Marx­ ist theory of reflection

(Widerspiegelung, théorie du re­

flet) is a rather vague metaphor. Speaking very generally, it can obviously be argued that literature reflects real­ ity; a blunt negation of this thesis is bound to pave a

130

TEXT AND CONTEXT path for sterile idealism. However, "reflection" has to be more than a simple metaphor or (at worst) a simplistic de­ notative concept which implies that 'literature tells us something about society'. Literary texts act upon reality on an intertextual le­ vel by absorbing critically or a-critically other literary texts or specific sociolects. This process determines to an important degree their semantic options, which in turn affect the syntactic structure. In the case of Proust's novel, the opposition between

(conscious)

munication" and (unconscious)

"parole", "com­

"écriture" is highly rele­

vant to the study of Proustian syntax (both phrastic and transphrastic). The surrealist opposition between the "con­ scious" and the "unconscious" is a fundamental semantic and ideological option, which explains not only a few ex­ periments aiming at the dissolution of the phrastic syntagm, but also the associative, oniric procedures which Breton adopts text like

(on a macro-structural level) in composing a

Nadja.

In this context, surrealist writing and composition appear to be intrinsically social (as much as Proust's re­ fusal of communication and, at the same time, of the ex­ change of value). In Breton's surrealism, the refusal of the conscious world, the world of habit, ideology and re­ ligion, and his search for an oniric, associative writing are two aspects of a homogeneous social fact (the decay of liberal individualism and of individual autonomy and re­ sponsibility, i.e. the discovery of the unconscious and the crisis of the subject), and it is impossible to dis­ sociate them in an attempt to represent the surrealist re­ volution as a political event and the "écriture automa-

131

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS tique" as a matter of stylistics. This is, however, what has often happened in the past, whenever literary scholars

(e.g. the Formalists) argued

that literary evolution could best be analyzed as a process sui generis and whenever sociologists thought it fit to search for a literary 'content', leaving formal matters to literary criticism. Such an approach, based on the division of labour in society, is doomed. It is perfectly possible to analyze Balzac's descriptions of French society, but such analyses have little to do with the sociology of the text. The latter is neither interested in Rastignac's car­ eer nor in Mme.de Bargeton's situation, for these are only relevant insofar as they tell us something about the funda­ mental semantic options of Balzac's novels and about their narrative structures, which make them differ both and

as

literary

facts,

as

social

from Proust's work. The question

how a text is written is not a formal(ist)

(or stylistic)

question, but a sociological question par excellance.

N

1 cf. G. Conio, Le Formalisme

O

T

E

S

le

marxisme,

(Editions L'Age d'Homme, 1975); and H. Günther, Marxismus und

Formalis­

mus. Dokumente einer

et le futurisme

literaturtheoretischen

russes

devant

Kontroverse,

eds., H. Gün­

ther and K. Hielscher (Hanser, 1973, Ullstein, 1976). 2 cf. G.V. Plechanov, Vorwort zur dritten Auflage des Sammelbandes Zwan­ zig Jahre

(1908), in H.C. Buch, ed., Parteilichkeit

Parteiliteratur? thetik

Materialien

zu einer

undogmatischen

der Literatur marxistischen

oder Äs­

(Rowohlt, 1972).

3 cf. our essay on L. Goldmann: "Lucien Goldmanns hegelianische Ästhetik", 132

TEXT AND CONTEXT in: P.V. Zima, Kritik

der Literatursoziologie,

Suhrkamp, Ffm, 1978.

(Remarkable exceptions are L.Althusser and his group. Unfortunately, their premisses, apparently "unorthodox", are sometimes identical with those of official "Marxism-Leninism". ) 4 KANT(I), Kritik der Urteilskraft, Reclam, Stuttgart 1971, p.233. 5 cf.MEDVEDEV (P.N.), The Formai Method in Literary Critical

Introduction

to Sociological

Poetics,

Scholarship.

A

The John Hopkins

University Press, Baltimore/London, 1978. 6

Cf. LUNATSHARSKIJ (A.V. ), "Der Formalismus in der Kunstwissenschaft", in: H.Günther, op cit. , p.83. 7 Cf. GORLOV (Ν.), "Futurisme et révolution", in: G.Conio, op. cit., p. 155. 

TYNIANOV (Yu. ), "The Evolution of Literature", in: T. & E. Burns, ed., Sociology of Literature and Drama, Penguin, London, 1973. 9 Cf. E. Köhler's contribution to the present volume.

10 MUKAROVSKY (J.), "Two Studies of Poetic Designation", in: The Word and Verbal Art.

Selected

Essays

by Jan Mukařovský,transl. & ed. by J.

Burbank and P. Steiner, Yale University Press, New York, 1977, p.72. 11 MUKAŘoVSKÝ (J.), "Note on the Czech Translation of Sklovskij's Theory of Prose", in: J.Mukařovský, op. cit., p. 139. 12 ibid., p.140. 13 KONRAD (. ) "Der Streit um Inhalt und Form. Marxistische Bemerkungen zum neuen Formalismus", in: H.Günther, op. cit., p. 141. 14 MUKAŘOVSKÝ (J.) Studie z estetiky, Odeon, Praha, 1966, p.51. 15 OWARD (R.), ELLIS (J.), Language and Materialism. Semiology

and the Theory of the Subject,

1977, p.35.

Developments

in

Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,

133

16 MUKAŘOVSKÝ (J.), "Poznamky  sociologii básnického jazyka", in: J. Mukarovsky, Kapitoly ζ ceske poetiky (vol.I), Odeon, Praha, 1948, p.224.

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 17 PECHEUX (M.), Les Vérités

de la Palice,

Maspero, Paris, 1975.

18

BAKHTIN (M.), Rabelais

and his

World, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge,

Mass. & London, 1968, p.153. 19 BAKHTIN (M.) , op cit. , p. 150. 20 MATEJKA (L.), "Prolegomena to Semiotics", in: V.N. Volosinov, Marxism

and

the

Philosophy

of

Language,

Seminar Press, New York and

London, 1973, p.167. 21

YAGUELLO (M. ), "Introduction" to: M.Bakhtine (V.N. Volochinov) , Le Marxisme et la philosophie du langage, Minuit, Paris, 1977, p.16.

22 MORSON (G.S.), "The Heresiarch of META", in: PTL 3, 1978, p.412. 23 BAKHTIN (M.), "Problema Avtora", in: Voprosy filosofa, no.7,

30, 1977,

p.150.

24 Cf.

BAKHTIN ( M . ) ,

"Slovo ν romane", i n :

Voprosy

literatury

8,

1965.

25 The problem of authorship has not yet been solved; but we are inclined to believe that G.walton (cf. his contribution to the present volume) is right in suggesting that the text should be attributed to V.N. Voloshinov. (Bakhtin's description of the "linguistic situation" in the Renaissance can hardly be described as Marxist; it differs remarkably from the theses expounded in Marxism

and

the

Philosophy

of

Language.)

26 VOLOSHIINOV (V.N. ) , Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, op. cit.,

p.21. 27 ibid., p.21. 28 KRISTEVA (J.), "Bakhtine: le mot, le dialogue et le roman", in: J.Kristeva, Semeiotikè.

Recherches

pour

une sémanalyse,

Seuil, Paris,

1969. 29 Cf. ZIMA (P.V. ), "Literary'Production'—Literary'reception' : Two 134 Ideological Concepts", in: Comparison (Warwick), Winter, 1976. GREIMAS (A.J.), Semiotique p.54.

et sciences

sociales,

Seuil, Paris, 1976,

TEXT AND CONTEXT

Cf.ZIMA. (P.V.), "Le discours mimétique", in: P.V.Zima, Pour une sociologie

du texte

littéraire,

10/18, Paris, 1978 and "Objets oniriques

et structures narratives chez Proust", in: Revue d' Esthétique 32 PROUST (M.), Ά la recherche du temps perdu, Gallimard, Paris, 1952, vol.II, p.1018.

2/1979.

ed. de la Pleiade,

33 Cf.

ZIMA ( P . V . ) , L'Ambivalence

romanesque.

Le Sycomore, Paris, 1980.

135

Proust,

Kafka,

Musil,

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION ALS ALTERNATIVE ZUM SOZIALISTISCHEN REALISMUS

Hans Günther, Bochum

"Überwindung der Diskrepanz zwischen abstraktem 'Forma­ lismus' und ebenso abstraktem 'Ideologismus' in der Erfor1

schung des künstlerischen Wortes" - das ist nicht nur die nach wie vor aktuelle Leitidee von Bachtins fundamentaler Arbeit Das Wort im Roman (1934-35), sondern seines gesamten Schaffens. Seine Konzeption bewegt sich im Spannungsfeld zwischen diesen Polen, führt einen Zweifrontenkrieg nach beiden Seiten. Bachtin spielt aber nicht bloß die Kontra­ henten gegeneinander aus, sondern verarbeitet Elemente bei­ der kritisierter Positionen auf eigenständige Weise. Er ist Postformalist, insofern er die aus den formalistischen Prämissen folgenden Grenzen und Fehleinschätzungen der Formalen Methode aufdeckt. Er ist Postmarxist in dem Sinn, daß er aus dem Prozeß der Degeneration des Marxschen Den­ kens im Stalinschen "Leninismus" und aus der unter der Losung des Sozialistischen Realismus ablaufenden Entwick­ lung der sowjetischen Kultur Konsequenzen zieht. Bachtins

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Kritik am Formalismus

ist deutlicher, expliziter und daher

bekannter als seine verdeckt geführte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Sozialistischen Realismus, die unausgesprochen eine Kenntnis des kulturellen Kontexts voraussetzt. Die subver­ siven Züge in Bachtins Theorie sind zwar schon ganz allge3 mein angesprochen worden, doch wurde der bei aller Implizitheit prinzipielle Charakter seiner Kritik am Sozialisti­ schen Realismus und der Kultur der Stalinzeit nicht genü­ gend gewürdigt. Es ist nicht beabsichtigt, Bachtins Studien über Dostoevskij, Rabelais oder den europäischen Roman auf ein in äsopischer Sprache gehaltenes Echo seiner Zeit zu redu­ zieren. Ebensowenig darf aber übersehen werden, daß viele seiner Fragestellungen und Begriffe durch den aktuellen kulturellen Kontext provoziert sind und auf ihn reagieren. Für ein derartiges Verständnis finden sich gewisse Anhalts­ punkte im hermeneutischen Denken Bachtins selbst, das be­ zeichnenderweise ein dialogisches Verhältnis von vergangener und aktueller Kultur annimmt.

"Wir stellen der fremden Kultur Fragen, die sie sich selbst nicht gestellt hat, und die fremde Kultur antwortet uns, indem sie uns neue Seiten, neue Sinntiefen eröffnet. Ohne eigene Fragen kann man nichts Anderes und Fremdes schöpferisch begreifen . . . .

Bei einer solchen dialogi­

schen Begegnung von zwei Kulturen fließen diese nicht di­ rekt ineinander und vermischen sich nicht; jede bewahrt ihre Einheit und offene

Ganzheitlichkeit, aber sie berei­

chern sich gegenseitig."4

138

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION In unserem Beitrag soll es darum gehen, einige aus der aktuellen Situation stammende "eigene Fragen" Bachtins und die auf sie gefundenen Antworten zu rekonstruieren. Wir hoffen, damit unsere Meinung belegen zu können, daß sich Bachtins Konzeption als grundsätzliche, historisch fundier­ te und konkrete Alternative zum Sozialistischen Realismus und zur offiziellen Kultur der Stalinperiode verstehen läßt. 1. Offizielle

und

nichtoffizielle

Kultur

Die Etablierung des Sozialistischen Realismus

zu An­

fang der 30er Jahre brachte eine entscheidende Veränderung der literaturpolitischen Situation mit sich. Die literari­ sche Kommunikationssituation der 30er Jahre unterscheidet sich wesentlich von der der 20er: In den 20er Jahren exi­ stiert einerseits eine Pluralität künstlerischer Gruppen und Konzeptionen, andererseits eine kunstpolitische Lenkung seitens der Partei. Die Kommunikation zwischen den Gruppen läßt sich als horizontal bezeichnen, während die zwischen Partei und Gruppen ablaufende Kommunikation vertikal ver­ läuft, d.h., hierarchisch geprägt ist. In der Resolution von 1925 lehnt die Partei die vorbe­ haltlose Festlegung auf ein Literaturprogramm ab, auch wenn sie bestimmte Präferenzen formuliert und die "Hegemonie der proletarischen Schriftsteller" als erstrebenswert ansieht. In den 20er Jahren kann man also noch nicht von einem Kom­ munikationsmonopol der Partei in der Kunst sprechen. Aller­ dings machen sich Hegemoniebestrebungen der RAPP seit Ende der 20er Jahre bemerkbar. Der Literatur und Literatur-

139

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS kritik werden - vor allem ab 1930 - zunehmend vertikale Kommunikationsstrukturen aufgezwungen. Die Liquidierung der künstlerischen Gruppen durch die ZK-Verordnung von 1932, von vielen Künstlern zunächst als Befreiung von der Vorherrschaft der RAPP begrüßt, leitet die Institutionalisierung des Kommunikationsmonopols der Partei in der Kunst ein. Mit dem Verschwinden der horizon­ talen Dimension kommt es zu einer einschneidenden Änderung in der Kommunikationssituation: zur Aufspaltung in zwei Sphären, die man mit Bachtin als offizielle und nichtoffi­ zielle bezeichnen kann. Nach Bachtin "kann man das Unbewußte Freuds im Unter­ schied zum gewöhnlichen 'offiziellen' Bewußtsein als 'nichtoffizielles Bewußtsein' bezeichnen".5 In der Gegen­ überstellung von offiziellem und nichtoffiziellem Verhalten liegt eine Transponierung des psychoanalytischen Begriffs­ paars 'Bewußtes' vs. 'Unbewußtes' ins Soziologische, Sozi­ alpsychologische vor. Wie bei Freud zwischen dem Vorzimmer des Unbewußten, in dem sich die seelischen Regungen tum­ meln, und dem Salon, in dem sich das Bewußtsein aufhält, ein mehr oder weniger aufmerksamer Wächter als Zensor sei­ nen Dienst tut, ist auch bei Bachtin das offizielle Bewußt­ sein als zensiertes von dem unzensierten inoffiziellen un­ terschieden. Die Zensur ist zum einen, Freuds Über-Ich ver­ gleichbar, eine Instanz der sozialen Umwelt, die nicht auf­ hört, "die verbalen Reaktionen des Menschen im Verlauf sei­ nes ganzen Lebens zu bestimmen und zu kontrollieren".6

Neben der äußeren Zensur kennt Bachtin aber auch die dem Ich Freuds vergleichbare Instanz des "inneren Zensors", der

140

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION "in Jahrtausenden dem Menschen anerzogenen Angst vor dem Heiligen, vor dem autoritären Verbot, vor der Vergangenheit, vor der Macht." Die maximale Übereinstimmung zwischen offiziellem und nichtoffiziellem Bewußtsein und damit die Reduzierung der Zensur werden als erstrebenswertes Ideal betrachtet. Tat­ sächlich aber kommt es zwischen beiden Bewußtseinssphären ständig zu Konflikten, die in der Arena der "Alltagsideolo­ gie"

(žitejskaja

ideologija)

ausgetragen werden, dem Be­

reich der "unregulierten, unfixierten inneren und äußeren Rede, welche jede Handlung und jede Tat sowie unseren gan­ zen 'bewußten' Zustand begreift".8 Das Alltagsbewußtsein ist mehrschichtig. Die untersten, instabilen Schichten bilden "all jene verschwommenen und unreifen, durch unsere Seele huschenden Erlebnisse, Gedanken und zufälligen, müßigen Worte".9 Sie sind möglicher­ weise parallel zu Freuds Begriff des Vorbewußten zu sehen, das vom Unbewußten durch die Schranke der Zensur und die Bindung an Wortvorstellungen getrennt ist. Die höheren Schichten der Alltagsideologie stehen mit den "gestalteten ideologischen Systemen" wie gesellschaftliche Moral, Wis­ senschaft, Kunst, Religion usw. in Verbindung. Da die All­ tagsideologie "in mancher Beziehung feinfühliger, sensibler und beweglicher als die ausgeformte

'offizielle' Ideologie"

ist, sammeln sich in ihr die Widersprüche an, "die, wenn sie ein gewisses Ausmaß erreicht haben, schließlich das 10 System der offiziellen Ideologie sprengen". "Je größer und tiefer die Diskrepanz zwischen offiziellem und nichtoffiziellem Bewußtsein ist, um so schwerer können die

141

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Motive der inneren Rede in die äußere (mündliche, schrift­ liche, gedruckte; im engeren oder im weiteren sozialen Kreis vorgebrachte) Rede übergehen, um sich in ihr auszu­ formen, Klarheit und Kraft zu gewinnen. Solche Motive be­ ginnen zu verkümmern, ihre Wortgestalt zu verlieren und verwandeln sich allmählich wirklich zu einem 'Fremdkörper' in der Psyche . . . .

Freilich läßt sich nicht jeder Be­

reich des menschlichen Verhaltens einer solchen völligen Abtrennung von der verbalen, ideologischen Ausformung un­ terwerfen. Es degeneriert jedoch nicht jedes Motiv, das in Widerspruch zur offiziellen Ideologie getreten ist, zur trüben inneren Rede und stirbt, - es kann auch in einen Kampf mit der offiziellen Ideologie eintreten. Einem sol­ chen Motiv, wenn es in Gruppe

fundiert

dem ökonomischen

Sein

einer

ganzen

ist, wenn es nicht das Motiv eines deklas­

sierten Einzelnen ist, steht eine soziale, möglicherweise siegreiche Zukunft bevor. Bei einem solchen Motiv gibt es keinen Grund, asozial zu werden, sich von der Kommunikation zu trennen. Nur am Anfang wird es sich in einem kleinen gesellschaftlichen Umkreis entwickeln, wird in den Unter­ grund gehen, aber nicht in den psychischen Untergrund der verdrängten Komplexe, sondern in den gesunden politischen Untergrund. So nämlich entsteht eine revolutionäre Ideologie in allen Sphären der Kultur."11 In der Einführung der Kategorien der offiziellen und nichtoffiziellen Kultur sehen wir eine Reaktion Bachtins auf die Ende der 20er/Anfang der 30er Jahre zunehmende Sta­ bilisierung des Ideologie- und Machtmonopols der Partei und die als Sozialistischer Realismus bezeichnete Errich­ tung des Kommunikationsmonopols in der Kunst. Dieser Prozeß

142

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION war mit den traditionellen Marxschen klassenanalytischen Kategorien nicht mehr kritisierbar, da die herrschende Macht für sich den Titel der Ideologie des Proletariats, also der historisch progressiven Ideologie, in Anspruch nahm. Angesichts einer Situation, wo die sich proletarisch nennende zur Herrschaftsideologie geworden war, verlor das Kriterium der klassenmäßigen Zuschreibung seinen kritischen Wert. Dafür gewann die Unterscheidung der mit dem Macht­ zentrum verbundenen und durch ein Kommunikationsmonopol abgesicherten offiziellen Kultur und der vom Machtzentrum entfernten und durch das Kommunikationsmonopol nicht kon12 trollierten inoffiziellen Kultur an Brisanz. Nicht zu­ fällig wurde die Opposition von offizieller und nichtoffi­ zieller Kultur von Freud abgeleitet, der die Zurückführung von Herrschaft auf ökonomische Verfügungsgewalt nicht teil­ te: "Mit der Aufhebung des Privateigentums entzieht man der menschlichen Agressionslust eines ihrer Werkzeuge, ge­ wiß ein starkes, und gewiß nicht das stärkste. An den Un­ terschieden von Macht und Einfluß, welche die Agression für ihre Absichten mißbraucht, daran hat man nichts geändert, auch an ihrem Wesen nicht". 1 3 Eine historische Konkretisierung der Konzeption von offizieller und nichtoffizieller Kultur stellt die vermut­ lich bereits in den 30er Jahren verfaßte Rabelais-Studie Bachtins dar. Der offiziellen

feudalstaatlich-religiösen

Kultur des ausgehenden Mittelalters wird hier die "prinzi­ pielle und unaustilgbare Volkstümlichkeit"

'Nichtoffizialität'" und "radikale

{narodnost

' ) von Rabelais gegenüberge­

stellt. "Keinerlei Dogmatismus, keinerlei Autoritarismus, keinerlei einseitiger Ernst verträgt sich mit Rabelais'

143

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Bildern, die jeder Abgeschlossenheit und Dauerhaftigkeit, jedem beschränkten Ernst, allem Fertigen und Abgeschlosse­ nen im Bereich des Denkens und der Weltanschauung feindlich sind."

Wenn Bachtin die inoffizielle Kultur als Volkskul­

tur bestimmt, dann äußert sich darin sein Bestreben, dem seit Mitte der 30er Jahre kanonischen Postulat der "Volks­ tümlichkeit", dessen Funktion vor allem in der Eliminierung der "volksfremden", "unverständlichen", "formalistischen" oder "naturalistischen" Kunst bestand, einen von der offi­ ziellen Sprachregelung abweichenden Sinn zu geben. Dem von der offiziellen Ideologie seit Mitte der 30er Jahre monumentalisierten "Volk" (narod) setzt Bachtin ein Ver­ ständnis von Volk entgegen, demzufolge es als Träger von kultureller Kontinuität, demokratischer Kollektivität und wahrer historischer Progressivität erscheint.

Zu den Erscheinungsformen der Lachkultur des Volkes zählen vor allem Feiertäglichkeit, Karneval

sowie bestimm­

te mündliche und schriftliche karnevalistische Genres. Der schroffe Kontrast von offizieller und Volkskultur wird von Bachtin besonders am Beispiel des Feiertages demonstriert: "Die offiziellen Feiertage des Mittelalters, kirchliche wie feudalstaatliche, führten nirgends aus der bestehenden Weltordnung hinaus und schufen kein zweites Leben. Im Ge­ genteil, sie heiligten, sanktionierten das bestehende Sy­ stem und festigten es. Die Verbindung mit der Zeit wurde formal, Wechsel und Krisen wurden in die Vergangenheit ver­ legt. Der offizielle Feiertag schaute im Grunde nur zurück in die Vergangenheit und heiligte mit dieser Vergangenheit das gegenwärtig bestehende System. Der offizielle Feiertag bestätigte, manchmal sogar entgegen der eigenen Idee, die

144

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION Stabilität, Unveränderlichkeit und Ewigkeit der ganzen bestehenden Weltordnung: der bestehenden Hierarchie, der bestehenden religiösen, politischen und moralischen Werte, Normen und Verbote. Der Feiertag war der Triumph der be­ reits fertigen, siegreichen, herrschenden Wahrheit, die als ewige, unveränderliche und unbestreitbare Wahrheit auftrat".15

Bachtins Charakterisierung des offiziellen

Feiertages als Bestätigung der bestehenden Weltordnung verweist deutlich auf die Erfahrung der repräsentativen Feiertagskultur der Stalinperiode, in der die Krisen "in die Vergangenheit verlegt" sind und die revolutionäre Tra­ dition "entgegen der eigenen Idee" in eine Legitimation bestehender Machtverhältnisse umgemünzt wird. "Im Gegensatz zum offiziellen Feiertag feierte der Karneval gleichsam die vorübergehende Befreiung von der herrschenden Wahrheit und dem bestehenden System, die zeit­ liche Ablösung aller hierarchischen Beziehungen, Privile­ gien, Normen und Verbote. Das war ein echter Feiertag der Zeit, ein Feiertag des Werdens, der Veränderungen und Er­ neuerungen. Er war aller Verewigung, Abgeschlossenheit und Endgültigkeit feindlich. Er schaute in die unabgeschlossene Zukunft [...]

Auf dem Hintergrund der exklusiven Hierar­

chie des feudalmittelalterlichen Systems und der äußersten standesmäßigen und korporativen Getrenntheit der Menschen unter den Bedingungen des gewöhnlichen Lebens wurde dieser freie familiäre Kontakt zwischen allen Menschen besonders stark empfunden und machte einen wesentlichen Teil des all­ gemeinen karnevalistischen Weltempfindens aus. Der Mensch wurde gewissermaßen für neue, rein menschliche Beziehungen wiedergeboren. Die Entfremdung verschwand vorübergehend."16

145

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Die Lachkultur ist die ideale ~ möglicherweise idea­ lisierte - Folie, an der der Grad der Deformation der offi­ ziellen Kultur gemessen wird. Punkt für Punkt werden die Erscheinungsformen des Offiziellen konkret denunziert. Dem mittelalterlichen Ernst, der "innerlich durchdrungen ist von den Elementen der Angst, Schwäche, Demut, Resignation, Lüge, Heuchelei, oder umgekehrt von Elementen der Gewalt, Einschüchterung, Drohungen-, und Verboten" steht das Lachen" gegenüber, das "am allerwenigsten zur Waffe der Unterdrük17 kung und Verdummung des Volkes werden konnte". "Man ver­ stand, daß sich hinter Lachen niemals Gewalt verbirgt, daß das Lachen keine Scheiterhaufen errichtet, daß Heuchelei und Betrug niemals lachen, sondern eine ernste Maske auf­ setzen, daß das Lachen keine Dogmen schafft und nicht auto­ ritär sein kann, daß das Lachen nicht Angst, sondern Be­ wußtsein der Kraft bedeutet, daß das Lachen mit dem Erzeu­ gungsakt, mit Geburt, Erneuerung, Fruchtbarkeit, Überfluß, mit Essen und Trinken, mit der irdischen Unsterblichkeit des Volkes verbunden ist, daß schließlich das Lachen mit der Zukunft, mit dem Neuen, Kommenden verbunden ist, ihm 1 den Weg bereitet." Die offizielle Kultur ist auf Vergangenes gerichtet, erstarrt, abgeschlossen, die Volkskultur auf die Zukunft, das Werden, den Wechsel. Die offizielle Kultur stabilisiert die Hierarchie, die inoffizielle beseitigt sie zumindest zeitweise. Die offizielle Wahrheit ist eindeutig, monoton (odnotonnyj)

und absolut, während die "nichtoffizielle

Wahrheit des Volkes"19 ambivalent und relativ ist. Dem of­ fiziellen, auf Macht und Einschüchterung beruhenden Dogma­ tismus und Autoritarismus steht die, wenn auch nur relative

146

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION und vorübergehende, Freiheit des Lachens gegenüber.

Es ist unschwer zu erkennen, daß sich die am Werk Rabe­ lais' aufgezeigten Merkmale der autoritären offiziellen Kultur nicht auf das ausgehende Mittelalter und die Re­ naissance beschränken, sondern für die soziale Psychologie jeder autoritär-offiziellen Kultur charakteristisch sind. Daneben finden sich bei Bachtin Gedanken, die speziell auf den zeitgenössischen Kontext der sowjetischen 30er Jahre verweisen. So z.B. sein utopisches Denken, das der offizialisierten Form der Marxschen Utopie völlig entgegengesetzt ist. Die offizielle Utopie stellt eine Legitimationsideolo­ gie dar, die der permanenten Einschränkung und Aufschiebung der Bedürfnisse um des Endziels der klassenlosen Gesell­ schaft willen dient. Sie ist in dem Sinn abstrakt, daß sie sich vom Alltagsbewußtsein völlig entfernt hat. Bachtins Utopie dagegen ist konkret-antizipatorisch, offen gegen20 über den Alltagsbedürfnissen und der Sinnlichkeit. Sie ist stets realer Vollzug von Freiheit, Werden und Gleich­ heit, wenn sie auch nur vorübergehend, "ephemer" und rela­ tiv ist. Wenn davon die Rede ist, daß die groteske karnevalistische Konzeption des Körpers dem "abstrakten Gedanken über künftige Zeiten" ein "neues, konkretes und realisti2Ί sches historisches Gefühl" entgegensetzt, dann wird deut­ lich, daß sich Bachtin hier von der degradierten histori22 sehen Utopie des "ärarischen Optimismus" und des linearen Progresses absetzt. 2. Klassik

und

grotesker

Real

ismus

Der Begriffsopposition von offizieller und nichtoffizi147

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS eller Kultur entspricht im ästhetischen Bereich der Gegen­ satz von klassischem und grotesk-realistischem Kanon, wo­ bei Klassik in Affinität zur offiziellen Kultur, grotesker Realismus zur inoffiziellen Kultur des Volkes gesehen wird. Es handelt sich dabei, wie Bachtin anmerkt, um zwei Ten­ denzen, die sich in den historisch vorfindlichen ästheti­ schen Konzeptionen überkreuzen und vermischen können. Der Unterschied zwischen Klassik und groteskem Realis­ mus wird an der Darstellung des menschlichen Körpers exem­ plarisch gezeigt. Der klassischen Individualisierung und Idealisierung steht die auf das Volk als "Träger des mate­ riell-körperlichen Prinzips" bezogene Kollektivität und Materialität des grotesken Realismus

gegenüber: "Im gro­

tesken Realismus erscheint das materiell-körperliche Ele­ ment als zutiefst positives Prinzip, und dieses Element ist hier nicht in der privat-egoistischen Form und durchaus nicht in Loslösung von den übrigen Lebenssphären gegeben. Das materiell-körperliche Prinzip wird hier als universal, auf das ganze Volk bezogen, aufgefaßt und eben als solches jeder Loslösung von den materiell-körperlichen Wurzeln der Welt, jeglicher Absonderung und Abschließung in sich selbst, jeder abstrakten Idealität, allen Prätentionen auf eine von der Erde und dem Körper abgelöste und unabhängige 23 Bedeutung entgegengestellt."

Der groteske Körper ist

durch seine Offenheit, Unfertigkeit charakterisiert, "nicht abgegrenzt von der übrigen Welt, nicht abgeschlossen, nicht vollendet, nicht fertig, er wächst über sich selbst hinaus, geht über seine Grenzen hinaus. Die Akzente liegen auf den Körperteilen, wo er entweder gegenüber der Außenwelt ge­ öffnet ist, d.h., wo die Welt in den Körper eintritt oder

148

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION

aus ihm hervorragt, oder wo er selbst in die Welt hinein­ ragt, d.h., auf den Öffnungen und Wölbungen, auf den ver­ schiedenen Verzweigungen und Fortsätzen: aufgesperrter Mund, Gebärorgan, Brüste, Phallus, dicker Bauch, Nase. Der Körper offenbart sein Wesen als wachsendes und seine Gren­ zen überschreitendes Prinzip nur in solchen Akten wie Be­ gattung, Schwangerschaft, Geburt, Agonie, Essen, Trinken, Ausscheidung. Das ist der ewig unfertige, ewig geschaffen 24 werdende und schaffende Körper [ · · · ] . Dagegen steht die individuelle Abgeschlossenheit, Fertigkeit und Glattheit des klassischen Körpers: "Für den neuen Körperkanon - bei allen seinen bedeutsamen historischen und Genrevariationen - ist der völlig fertige, abgeschlossene, streng abgegrenz­ te, von außen gezeigte, nicht-vermischte und individuell­ expressive Körper charakteristisch. Alles was aus dem Kör­ per hervorragt, heraustritt, alle markanten Wölbungen, Fortsätze und Verzweigungen, d.h., alles, worin der Körper seine Grenzen überschreitet und einen anderen Körper er­ zeugt, wird abgeschnitten, entfernt, zugedeckt und abgemil­ dert. Auch werden alle Öffnungen, die in die Tiefe des Kör­ pers führen, verschlossen. Der Gestalt liegt die individu­ elle und streng abgegrenzte Masse des Körpers zugrunde, seine massive und blinde Fassade. Die blinde Oberfläche, die Ebenheit des Körpers erlangt führende Bedeutung als Grenze der abgeschlossenen, mit anderen Körpern und mit der Welt nicht zusammenfließenden Individualität. Alle Anzei­ chen der Unabgeschlossenheit, Unfertigkeit dieses Körpers werden sorgfältig entfernt; entfernt sind auch alle Äuße25 rungen des innerkörperlichen Lebens." Vom Standpunkt der "Ästhetik des Schönen" muß der groteske Körper als "häßlich, ungestalt, formlos"

erscheinen. Verworfen werden

149

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS daher auch Merkmale des grotesken Stils wie "Übertreibung, 27 Hyperbolismus, Übermäßigkeit und Überfluß". Wesentliche Grundzüge des grotesken Körpers sind seine Veränderlichkeit und Ambivalenz: "Das groteske Bild charak­ terisiert eine Erscheinung im Zustand ihrer Veränderung, ihrer noch unabgeschlossenen Metamorphose, im Stadium des Todes und der Geburt, des Wachsens und Werdens. Die Bezie­ hung zur Zeit, zum Werden - ist ein notwendiger konstitu­ tiver (bestimmender) Zug des grotesken Bildes. Ein anderer damit verbundener Zug ist die Ambivalenz: In ihr sind in der einen oder anderen Form beide Pole der Veränderung ge­ geben (oder angedeutet) - das Alte und das Neue, das Ster­ bende und Entstehende, Anfang und Ende der Metamorphose." 2 8

Die Ambivalenz manifestiert sich jedoch nicht nur im Zeitbezug, im Werden, sondern auch in der räumlichen Ver­ schiebung, im räumlichen Übergehen eines Körpers in einen anderen: "Die Ereignisse des grotesken Körpers entfalten sich immer auf der Grenze des einen und des anderen Kör­ pers, gleichsam im Überschneidungspunkt von zwei Körpern: Ein Körper gibt seinen Tod, der andere seine Geburt, aber sie sind verschmolzen in einem gen

Bild."

29

(im Grenzfall) zweikörperi-

Wie die Zweikörperigkeit des grotesken Kanons

das Prinzip der semantischen Ambivalenz in sich beinhaltet, hat der mit sich selbst identische eine Körper des klassi­ schen Kanons seine Entsprechung in einer auf Eindeutigkeit beruhenden Semantik: "Der Körper des neuen Kanons ist der eine Körper; in ihm sind keinerlei Anzeichen der Zweikör­ perigkeit übrig geblieben: Er genügt sich selbst, spricht

150

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION nur für sich selbst; alles was mit ihm geschieht, betrifft nur ihn, d.h., nur diesen individuellen und abgeschlossenen Körper. Darum erhalten alle Ereignisse, die sich mit ihm vollziehen, einen eindeutigen Sinn; der Tod ist hier nur Tod, fällt niemals mit der Geburt zusammen, das Alter ist von der Jugend getrennt; die Schläge treffen nur den je­ weiligen Körper und verhelfen nichts Neuem zur Geburt." Neben der zeitlichen und räumlichen hat die groteske Ambivalenz auch eine axiologische Dimension, die Negation wie Bestätigung gleichermaßen beinhaltet. Diese kommt be­ sonders in der Vertauschung von "oben" und "unten", in der "Erniedrigung" zum Ausdruck, die ein Grundprinzip grotesken Gestaltens darstellt: "Alles Heilige und Hohe wird im Licht des materiell-körperlichen

'Unten' umgedeutet oder mit Bil­

dern dieses 'Unten' verknüpft oder vermischt. Wir sprachen von der grotesken Schaukel, die in ihrer ungestümen Bewe­ gung den Himmel mit der Erde verschmilzt; aber der Akzent fällt nicht auf den Aufschwung, sondern auf den Abfall der Schaukel nach unten: Der Himmel verschwindet in die Erde und nicht umgekehrt. Alle diese Erniedrigungen tragen kei­ nen abstrakt-moralischen und relativen Charakter, sie sind konkret-topographisch, anschaulich und fühlbar; sie streben zum unbedingten und positiven Zentrum, zum verschlingenden und gebärenden Prinzip der Erde und des Körpers. Alles Ab­ geschlossene, Quasiewige, Begrenzte, Veraltete wird in das irdische und körperliche 31 burt hineingeworfen."

'Unten' zum Tod und zur neuen Ge-

Das Verfahren der grotesken "Erniedrigung" der Lachkul­ tur des Volkes ist dehierarchisierend gegen das als außer-

151

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS zeitlich gedachte, vertikal bestimmte Weltbild des Mittel­ alters gerichtet: "In dem mittelalterlichen Bild der Welt haben oben und unten, höher und niedriger eine absolute Bedeutung im räumlichen wie im wertenden Sinn. Daher spiel­ ten die Bilder der Bewegung nach oben, des Aufsteigens oder der umgekehrte Weg des Abstiegs, des Fallens, im weltan­ schaulichen System eine außergewöhnliche Rolle. Jede exi­ stente Bewegung wurde nur als Bewegung nach oben oder nach unten, als Bewegung auf der Vertikalen gedacht und vorge32 stellt." Das Weltmodell der offiziellen Kultur der 30er Jahre ist zwar, anders als das religiöse des Mittelalters, politisch-ideologisch motiviert, weist jedoch durchaus vergleichbare hierarchische Züge auf. Es enthält aber auch - und hier liegt ein wesentlicher Unterschied zur außer­ zeitlichen Vertikalität des Mittelalters - eine ausgeprägte Zeitachse. Bewegung wird in Übereinstimmung mit dem Ideo­ logem des linearen historischen Prozesses als kontinuier­ lich aufsteigende Linie vorgestellt, d.h., jedem Schritt 'weiter' auf der Zeitachse entspricht ein 'höher' auf der Raum- bzw. Wertachse. Der Verlauf der aufsteigenden Bewe­ gung ist durch die jeweilige politisch-ideologische 'Li­ nie', wie es anschaulich heißt, festgelegt. In jedem Kul­ tursektor existiert eine solche, letztlich immer ideolo­ gisch fundierte, Linie mit zentralisierender und unifizie­ render Funktion. Der Grad der Annäherung an diese Linie, bzw. der Abweichung von ihr, entscheidet über den Stellen­ wert einer Erscheinung in der Hierarchie: Die Nähe zum Zen­ trum ist positiv bewertet, zur Peripherie hin nimmt die positive Wertung ab, um ab einer bestimmten Grenze in Negativität überzugehen, so daß man insgesamt von einem zentri­ stischen Polarisierungsmodell sprechen könnte.

152

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION Auf dem Hintergrund des grotesken Realismus treten die "klassischen" Züge des Sozialistischen Realismus deutlich hervor. Bachtin selbst weist auf die Aktualität seiner Konzeption hin, wenn er davon spricht, daß der klassische Kanon künstlerisch verständlich sei, "weil wir bis zu einem gewissen Grade noch selbst in ihm leben". 33 Die einzelnen Bestimmungen des grotesken Realismus

schließen jeweils

eine kritische Alternativposition zum Sozialistischen Rea­ lismus ein. In der Betonung des "materiell-körperlichen Prinzips" des grotesken Realismus

wird dem "Materialismus" der offi­

ziellen Ideologie, der zu dem auf die Entfaltung der menschlichen Wesenskräfte gerichteten Materialismus des jungen Marx jeden Bezug verloren hatte und zu einer von den "materiell-körperlichen Wurzeln der Welt" losgelösten und abgesonderten "abstrakten Idealität" geworden war, ein po­ sitiver Sinn verliehen. Im sozialistisch-realistischen Ro­ man der 30er Jahre äußern sich die "Prätentionen auf eine von der Erde und dem Körper abgelösten und unabhängigen Be­ deutung" in einer Unterwerfung des Alltäglichen und Indivi­ duellen unter den Mythos der linearen historischen Progres­ sion. Da die offizielle historisch-kollektive Dimension des Handelns stets sinngebend ist, wird dem alltäglichen und individuellen Handeln nur nach Maßgabe seiner Ein- und Un­ terordnung unter kollektiv-historische Abläufe Sinn zuge­ wiesen. Die Romanfiguren werden dadurch häufig zu Protago­ nisten ideologischer bzw. klassenmäßiger Positionen reduziert. Die klassische Gestalt zeichnet sich nach Bachtin durch

153

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS eine blinde, ebene, geglättete Oberfläche aus, der in der Literatur ein "Kanon des sprachlichen Anstands" entspricht: "Die Sprachnormen der offiziellen und literarischen Spra­ chen, die durch diesen Kanon bestimmt sind, verhängen ein Verbot über alles, was mit Befruchtung, Schwangerschaft, Geburt usw. verbunden ist, d.h., über alles, was mit der Unfertigkeit und Unabgeschlossenheit des Körpers und mit seinem rein innerkörperlichen Leben verbunden ist. Zwischen familiärer und offizieller, 'anständiger' Rede wird in dieser Beziehung eine außerordentlich scharfe Grenze gezo­ gen" .

Die dem Klassischen innewohnende Tendenz zur har­

monischen Glättung läßt sich an der 134 geführten "Diskus­ sion über die Sprache" ablesen, wo Dialektismen, Jargon, Vulgarismen und Schimpfwörter im Namen der "Sauberkeit der Sprache" als naturalistisch disqualifiziert werden. Als Vorbild wird von Gor'kij u.a. die Sprache der "Klassiker" des 19. Jahrhunderts empfohlen. Als Folge der "Diskussion über die Sprache" werden in den 30er Jahren literarische Texte, wie sich z.B. an den verschiedenen Fassungen von N. Ostrovskijs Roman Wie der

Stahl

gehärtet

wurde

läßt, einer puristischen Glättung unterworfen.

ablesen Diese

Praxis läßt sich als eine pervertierte Verwirklichung des von Bachtin erwähnten "Temple du goût" von Voltaire begrei­ fen, der die durch die Hand der Muse verbesserten und ver­ kürzten Werke der Literatur enthält.

Die bereits erwähnte "Diskussion über die Sprache" pro­ pagiert die jeglicher Ambivalenz und Mehrdeutigkeit feind­ lichen Postulate der sprachlichen Genauigkeit, Klarheit und Verständlichkeit. Die angestrebte eindeutige Zuordnung von Signifikanten und Signifikaten steht im Gegensatz zur

154

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION grotesken "Karnevalisierung des Wortes, die es von dem ein­ seitigen düsteren Ernst der offiziellen Weltanschauung wie auch von gängigen Wahrheiten und gewohnten Standpunkten befreit". 37 Wie für den Klassizismus, nach Bachtin, das "niemandem zugehörige Wort, das Wort als Sache"38 existiert, zeichnet sich der Sozialistische Realismus durch einen "neutralen Stil" aus, der sich besonders von allen Formen der Nichtschriftsprachlichkeit absetzt. Das "niemandem zu­ gehörige Wort" des neutralen Stils ist vom dialogischen Prozeß der Sprache abgesondert und keiner konkreten "Stim­ me", keiner personalen Instanz zurechenbar, was sich in der Einebnung des Unterschieds zwischen Erzähler- und Personenrede im sozialistisch-realistischen Roman ausdrückt. 39 Der vom Sozialistischen Realismus vertretenen Ablehnung der Mehrdeutigkeit des Wortes entspricht auf der Ebene der Wertungen die als Parteilichkeit bezeichnete axiologische Monovalenz. Die Wertperspektive des Erzählers im soziali­ stisch-realistischen Roman ist auf die klare Unterscheidung von Wert und Unwert angelegt. Die Wertakzente vereindeuti­ gen sich dabei zunehmend im Laufe der Handlung, bis schließlich am Ende des Romans alle Figuren, Handlungen und Situationen ein eindeutiges Wertvorzeichen besitzen. Maß­ stab der Bewertung ist die Nähe bzw. Entfernung vom poli­ tisch-ideologischen Zentrum, wobei an der Spitze der Figurenhierarchie der heroisierte positive Held steht. Abwei­ chungen von dem hierarchischen und dichotomisch auf ideolo­ gischen Binäroppositionen aufgebauten Weltmodell werden als "Objektivismus" kritisiert. Bachtins grotesker Realismus impliziert auch eine Aus-

155

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS einandersetzung mit dem für den Sozialistischen Realismus charakteristischen Begriff des Typischen, der zu Anfang der 30er Jahre unter Berufung auf den damals gerade veröffent­ lichten Brief von Friedrich Engels an Minna Kautsky kanoni­ siert wird. Das Typische enthält die Selektionsregeln für die Auswahl des Wesentlichen und "Wünschenswerten"

(Gor'-

kij) bei der Modellierung der Wirklichkeit. Es dient damit der klassifizierenden Einordnung der Figuren in die vorge­ gebenen ideologischen Raster. Der groveske Realismus dage­ gen, der auch in der Darstellung der Figuren dem Prinzip des Übergehens und der Ambivalenz verpflichtet ist, wider­ setzt sich jeder statischen Fixierung der Identität. "Der einzelne Körper und das einzelne Ding fallen hier nicht mit sich selbst zusammen, sind nicht sich selbst gleich wie im naturalistischen Realismus der folgenden Jahrhunderte." 40 Bachtin verfolgt den Zersetzungsprozeß des grotesken Rea­ lismus

im 17. Jahrhundert, wo aufgrund der individualisie­

renden Abgrenzungen der Körper und Dinge "all diese un­ fruchtbaren Ideen des 'Charakteristischen', all diese 'pro­ fessionellen' Typen der Advokaten, Kaufleute, Kupplerinnen und Greisinnen, nämlich all diese Masken des verflachenden 41 und degenerierenden Realismus", entstehen. Das Einzelne erhält seine Bedeutung "nur als Exemplar des Allgemeinen, d.h., nur nach Maßgabe seiner Typizität, Verallgemeinbarkeit und 'Durchschnittlichkeit'".42 Der von Bachtin angelegte Maßstab des grotesken Realis­ mus

läßt die klassischen Züge des Sozialistischen Realis­

mus , wie "abstrakte Idealität", Eindeutigkeit und die ei­ nem hierarchischen Weltmodell entspringende ideologische Monovalenz, plastisch hervortreten. Das Prinzip der eindeu-

156

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION tigen, statischen Identität liegt nach Averincev jeder aristotelischen Politik zugrunde: "Wie es auch immer sei, auch in unserer Zeit kann jede Poetik, die von der Katego­ rie des sich sich

gleichbleibenden

gleichbleibende

Wort

Charakters, (durch eine

der durch das 'charakteristische

Redeweise') zum Ausdruck gebracht wird, der Kategorie des sich

gleichbleibenden

Bildes,

das im Rahmen eines sich

gleichbleibenden Genres konstruiert ist, und von der Bezogenheit aller dieser sich selbst gleichbleibenden Größen auf die eindeutigen Koordinaten des 'Oben' und 'Unten' (des 'Erhabenen' und 'Niederen') ausgeht, - kann jede solche Poetik nur eine Variante, Entwicklung, Fortsetzung oder schließlich Entartung der Poetik des Aristoteles sein". 43 Die klassizistischen Seiten des Sozialistischen Realis­ mus

wurden bezeichnenderweise von ihren Repräsentanten in

den 30er Jahren selbst angesprochen. Wie bereits erwähnt, propagierte Gor'kij die Sprache der russischen "Klassiker" des 19. Jahrhunderts als stilistisches Vorbild. 44 In der sowjetischen Architektur setzte nach 1932 eine Entwicklung ein, die Karel Teige als eklektisch-akademische "Erneuerung 45 des Klassizismus" kritisierte. In diesem Zusammenhang ist auch Stalins Äußerung über die Notwendigkeit der Schaffung einer sowjetischen Klassik zu erwähnen, die, obwohl unseres Wissens niemals im vollen Wortlaut publiziert, eine folgen­ reiche Rolle spielte. Unter dem Datum des 17. Januar 1936 vermerkt die Chronik Kul'turnaja

žizn'

ν SSSR

1928-1941:

"Gespräch J. V. Stalins mit den Schöpfern des Schauspiels 'Der stille Don' im Bol'šoj teatr, im Laufe dessen J. V. Stalin sich negativ über die Konstruktionselemente der Ge­ staltung der Oper äußerte und den Wunsch kundtat, eine

157

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS sowjetische Klassik zu schaffen." Die Losung der "sowje­ tischen Klassik" steht am Anfang jener Kampagne gegen Na­ turalismus und Formalismus in der Kunst des Jahres 1936, die unter Berufung auf das ideologische Postulat der narodnost ' auf eine Eliminierung abweichender künstleri­ scher Positionen abzielte. Das Schlagwort von der sowjeti­ schen Klassik tritt nicht zufällig zu einem Zeitpunkt auf, wo die negativen Auswirkungen des offiziellen Kommunikati­ onsmonopols in der Kunst ihren ersten Höhepunkt erreichen. Bachtins am Material Rabelais' entwickelter grotesker Rea­ lismus erscheint uns als eine Antwort auf die Propagierung des Klassischen (in seiner degradierten und trivialisierten Form) in der offiziellen Kunstauffassung der 30er Jahre und gleichzeitig als Entwurf einer konkreten Alternative. 3. Monologische

und

dialogische

Kommunikations

formen

Dem dialogischen Prinzip kommt bei Bachtin die Rolle einer "idealen Sprechsituation" zu, an der die monologi­ schen Deformationen der Kommunikation gemessen werden kön­ nen. Ausgangspunkt für Bachtins Metalinguistik sind "dialogische Beziehungen",48 d.h. das Verhalten zum "fremden Wort", genauer gesagt, zur "fremden Äußerung", denn die 49 Äußerung ist die für Bachtin grundlegende Einheit. "Die dialogische Reaktion personifiziert jede Äußerung, auf die sie reagiert".50 Sie respektiert die in einer Sinnposition, einer "Stimme" zum Ausdruck kommende Subjektivität, während die monologische Haltung das fremde Wort entpersönlicht, verdinglicht und zum Objekt macht. Zwischen den beiden ex­ tremen Möglichkeiten des Verhaltens zum fremden Wort wird eine Reihe differenzierter Abstufungen beschrieben (z.B.

158

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION in den "Typen des Prosawortes"). Aus der Vielzahl der mit dem Dialogischen zusammenhän51 genden Fragestellungen sollen nur einige im Rahmen unse­ res Problems relevante Aspekte herausgegriffen werden: Bachtins Analyse des autoritären Wortes, der "richtigen" Benennung, des Verhältnisses von "Verschiedensprachigkeit" (raznorečie) und "Einheitssprache" (edinyj jazyk) und vor allem seine Auseinandersetzung mit dem monologischen Roman. Bachtins Überlegungen zum autoritären Wort, 5 2 das mit der Autorität, "mit einer politischen Macht, Institution, Person" 53 untrennbar verwachsen ist, lassen sich unschwer als Antwort auf die Kommunikationssituation der 30er Jahre verstehen. Da das autoritäre Wort Distanz zu sich fordert, zeichnet es sich durch Abgehobenheit und Absonderung aus. Die monumentale und hieratische Abgehobenheit läßt "keiner­ lei Spiel mit dem einrahmenden Kontext, mit seinen Grenzen zu, keine allmählichen und fließenden Übergänge, keine freien schöpferischen stilisierenden Variationen. Es geht als kompakte und unteilbare Masse in unser Wortbewußtsein ein, man muß es entweder in toto bestätigen oder in toto ablehnen". 54 Im Gegensatz zu der unabgeschlossenen, offenen Sinnstruktur des innerlich überzeugenden Wortes ist die des autoritären "unbeweglich und tot, weil vollendet und eindeutig, sein Sinn genügt dem Buchstaben und erstarrt".

55

Daher entzieht sich das autoritäre Wort der künstlerischen Darstellung im Roman und läßt sich bestenfalls "wieder­ geben". "Seine Rolle im Roman ist unbedeutend. Es kann nicht wesentlich zweistimmig sein und nicht zum Bestandteil hybri­ der Konstruktionen werden. Wenn es seine Autorität restlos

159

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS einbüßt, wird es zum Objekt, zur Reliquie, zum Ding. Es geht dann als Fremdkörper in den künstlerischen Kontext ein [...]... 5 6

Ein weiterer Gesichtspunkt des für die kulturelle Si­ tuation der 30er Jahre charakteristischen monologischen Wortes ist die in der "Diskussion über die Sprache" kano­ nisierte Forderung nach "Richtigkeit" der Sprache im Sinn einer "strengen Übereinstimmung zwischen Ausdruck und realern Inhalt, der objektiven Wirklichkeit". 5 7 Gegenüber den Vertretern des "gegenständlichen Sinnes" weist Bachtin in seiner Kritik des "direkten Wortes" der traditionellen Sti­ listik darauf hin, daß zwischen Wort und Gegenstand die "elastische und meist schwer zu durchdringende Sphäre der anderen, fremden Wörter zu demselben Gegenstand, zum gleichen  

Thema"

liegt. "So findet jedes konkrete Wort (die Äußerung)

jenen Gegenstand, auf den es gerichtet ist, immer schon sozu­ sagen besprochen, umstritten, bewertet vor und von einem ihn verschleiernden Dunst umgeben oder umgekehrt vom Licht über 59 ihn bereits gesagter, fremder Wörter erhellt". Die auf den Gegenstand gerichtete Intention wird mit einem Strahl ver­ glichen, der sich auf dem Weg zum Gegenstand in fremden Wörtern und Wertungen bricht. Wie auf seinem Weg zum Gegenstand, begegnet das Wort auch auf seinem Weg zum Rezipienten fremden Wörtern und Wertungen. Es ist auf eine aktive Reaktion des Hörers ange­ legt. 6 0 Die Forde rung nach "Verständlichkeit" und "Klar­ heit" - es handelt sich um zentrale stilistische Postulate des Sozialistischen Realismus

- ist auf ein "passives

Sinnverstehen" angelegt. Das passive Verstehen "bringt

160

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION nichts Neues in das zu verstehende Wort, es doubliert es nur, wobei es als höchstes Ziel die vollkommene Nachbildung dessen erstrebt, was bereits im zu verstehenden Wort gegeben ist; es übersteigt nicht die Grenzen seines Kontextes, bereichert den zu verstehenden Kontext in keiner Weise".61 "Klarheit" und "Verständlichkeit" als Postulate des Sozia­ listischen Realismus sind daher, wie Bachtin feststellt, "rein negative Forderungen",

deren hauptsächliche Funktion

in der Abwehr "formalistischer" und

"naturalistischer"

Abweichungen liegt.

In der für die Kultur der 30er Jahre kennzeichnenden Tendenz zur Vereindeutigung drückt sich eine formulierte

von Bachtin

allgemeine Gesetzmäßigkeit hinsichtlich der

Beziehung von Herrschaft und ideologischen Zeichen aus. Die herrschende Ideologie ist stets bestrebt, die in jedem ideologischen Zeichen stattfindende Überschneidung unter­ schiedlicher Wertakzente, seine "Vielakzentigkeit" ( m n o g o a k c e n t n o s t '),

zu unterdrücken, das Zeichen eindeutig

zu machen. Auf den unter Stalin ablaufenden Prozeß der Degradierung der revolutionären Ideologie scheint Bachtins Feststellung in besonderem Maß zugeschnitten, daß die herr­ schende Ideologie bemüht ist, "den vorhergegangenen Augen­ blick im dialektischen Strom des gesellschaftlichen Werdens zu stabilisieren und die Wahrheit von gestern als die Wahr­ heit von heute zu akzentuieren".63 Es ist aufschlußreich, daß Bachtin von einem "Bemühen" der offiziellen Ideologie um Eindeutigmachung und Stabili­ sierung der ideologischen Zeichen spricht. Eine nähere Be­ trachtung der auf den ersten Blick zunächst scheinbar ein­ tönigen literarischen und metaliterarischen Texte der 30er 161

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Jahre ergibt nämlich, daß trotz des durch das Kommunika­ tionsmonopol gesicherten offiziellen "Bemühens" wechselnde - wenn auch nur begrenzte - Bedeutungs-Spielräume nutzbar gemacht werden konnten. Hier ist nicht nur von den der Literatur in besonderem Maße zur Verfügung stehenden viel­ fältigen Möglichkeiten der Ambiguierung, der Allusion und des uneigentlichen Sprechens die Rede. Abweichende Bedeu­ tungsakzente vermochten, falls sie sich einer affirmativen Mimikry befleißigten, auch in den offiziellen literatur­ kritischen Diskurs einzudringen, ihn zu nuancieren. Brechts Umdeutung und ümakzentuierung vorgegebener Losungen wie Realismus, Formalismus, Volkstümlichkeit usw. - eine Um­ deutung, die teilweise bis zum direkten Gegensatz der herrschenden Lesart fortschreitet - erscheint, so gesehen, als Meisterstück im Eröffnen produktiver Spielräume unter den Bedingungen offizieller Eindeutigkeit. Von großer Wichtigkeit für die Beschreibung der Kommu­ nikationssituation der 30er Jahre ist weiterhin die Be­ griffsopposition von "Verschiedensprachigkeit" und "Ein­ heitssprache". Bachtin geht es dabei nicht um langue,

um

Sprache im linguistischen Sinn, sondern um "ideologisch gefüllte Sprache, Sprache als Weltanschauung", als konkrete in der Rede differenzierte Ansicht von der

Welt".64

Die so

verstandene Sprache zerfällt in eine Vielzahl von sozioideologischen Sprachen, "Sprachen von sozialen Gruppen, 'Berufssprachen', 'Gattungssprachen', Sprachen der Genera­ tionen usw.",65 was bedeutet, daß jeder Begriff, jeder Standpunkt sich im "Schnittpunkt der Grenzen der SprachWeltanschauungen",66

befindet. Im Rahmen einer natürlichen

Sprache sind immer gleichzeitig "Kräfte

162

der

Vereinheitlichung

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION und Zentralisierung

der

ver bal - ideologi

schen

Welt", 6 7

die

in einem "untrennbaren Zusammenhang mit den Prozessen der sozialpolitischen und kulturellen Zentralisation" stehen, und Kräfte der "Dezentralisierung und Differenzierung"69 am Werk. "Die Kategorie der einheitlichen Sprache ist der theoretische Ausdruck der historischen Prozesse sprachlicher Vereinheitlichung, ein Ausdruck der zentripetalen Kräfte der Sprache. Die einheitliche Sprache ist nicht gegeben, sondern immer ein Projekt und steht in jedem Augenblick des sprach­ lichen Lebens der tatsächlichen Redevielfalt gegenüber. Gleichzeitig ist sie als Kraft real vorhanden, die dieses Vielfalt überwindet, die ihr bestimmte Grenzen zieht, die ein Höchstmaß an gegenseitigem Verständnis sichert und sich in der realen, wenn auch relativen Einheit der herrschenden (des Alltags) und der Hochsprache, der 70 'regelrechten' Sprache, herauskristallisiert".

Umgangssprache

Die Etablierung des Sozialistischen Realismus

läßt

sich als Versuch der Zentralisierung der Kultur und der Unifizierung, d.h., der Einführung einer "Einheitssprache", im Bereich der Kunst verstehen. Die Durchsetzung einer herrschenden Sprache über die anderen ist notwendigerweise zugleich eine "Verdrängung" anderer Sprachen. Die Kanoni­ sierung autoritativer Texte und die Verdrängung potentiell alternativer Texte im Bereich der Literatur, wie im Bereich des metaliterarischen Diskurses

(Literaturkritik, Litera­

turwissenschaft) , sind daher komplementäre Prozesse. Ab 1930 werden die Konzeptionen der Avantgarde und des Neo­ realismus

Voronskijs, Pereverzevs, Plechanovs u.a., unter

Berufung auf die Leninsche Orthodoxie, eliminiert.

163

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Dem krassen Monologismus des Sozialistischen Realismus setzt Bachtin nicht nur kritische Begriffe entgegen, son­ dern auch,und mit besonderem Nachdruck, seine konkrete.Alternative des dialogischen

Romans.71

Er reagiert damit ei­

nerseits auf die allgemeine Kommunikationssituation und setzt sich gleichzeitig mit dem zum dominanten Genre der ι sozialistisch-realistischen Literatur erhobenen monologi­ schen Roman auseinander. Der Roman ist für Bachtin das literarische Genre, in dem die Dialogizität des Wortes am 72 stärksten zu einer "wesentlichen, formbildenden Kraft" wird und das sich daher am konsequentesten von allen monolo­ gischen Kommunikationsformen abhebt. "Der Roman ist Ausdruck des galileischen Sprachbewußtseins, das sich vom Absolutismus der einheitlichen und einzigen Sprache losgesagt hat, das heißt, vom Bekenntnis zur eigenen Sprache als dem einzigen verbal­ semantischen Zentrum der ideologischen Welt, und statt dessen die Vielzahl der nationalen und, was die Hauptsache ist, sozialen Sprachen anerkennt, die alle im gleichen Maß befähigt sind, 'Sprachen der Wahrheit' zu sein, die aber auch gleich relative, objekthafte und begrenzte Sprachen sozialer Gruppen, Berufe und des Alltagslebens sind. Der Roman setzt die verbal­ semantische Dezentralisierung der ideologischen Welt voraus [···]."

Als

"Selbstkritik

des

Wortes"

74

w i r k t der

Roman

mythenzerstörend, da er die "Verschmelzung des ideologischen Sinns mit der Sprache" und die keineswegs nur archaische "mythologische Empfindung der sprachlichen Autorität"75 angreift. "Kurz, die Sprache wird von einer unanfechtbaren und einzigen Verkörperung von Sinn und Wahrheit zu einer von mehreren möglichen Hypothesen des Sinns."

76

Strukturell

an die dezentralisierenden, zentrifugalen Kräfte gebunden,

164

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION trägt der Roman zur "Relativierung des sprachlichen Bewußtseins"77

bei.

Wenn das in der Wissenschaft anerkannte, durch "Unbe­ stimmtheiten" charakterisierte Weltbild Einsteins von Bachtin der in der Kunst postulierten "gröb ten, primitiv7R sten Bestimmtheit" gegenübergestellt wird, so richtet sich diese Kritik ohne Zweifel auch gegen den im Soziali­ stischen Realismus kanonisierten Mythos des autoritären, eindeutigen, einwertigen mans als "Mikrokosmos der

Wortes.79

Die Bestimmung des Ro-

Redevielfalt"80

gilt jedoch

nur für die dialogische Linie des europäischen Romans, dessen Entwicklung von den antiken Ursprüngen

(sokratischer

Dialog, menippeische Satire, Parodien usw.) Bachtin in seinen Arbeiten verfolgt

und deren herausragende Reprä­

sentanten Rabelais und Dostoevskij sind. Der dialogische Roman unterscheidet sich durch seine "stilistische Dreidimensionalität" und durch die "Zone des maximalen Kontakts mit der (zeitgenössischen) Gegenwart in ihrer

Unabgeschlossenheit" 81

von dem durch absolute epische

Distanz, Idealisierung der Vergangenheit und offiziellen hohen Ton gekennzeichneten Epos. Neben der dialogischen untersucht Bachtin auch die mo­ nologische Entwicklungslinie des Romans, wobei als Antipode der "pluralistischen" Welt des polyphonen Romans Dostoevs-

kijs die "monolithisch-monologische"

82

Welt Tolstojs vorge­

stellt wird. Bei Tolstoij beherrscht, wie an der Erzählung Drei

Tode

demonstriert wird, das Wort des Autors das der

Helden. "Der Autor streitet nicht mit seinem Helden und

165

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS stimmt ihm nicht zu. Er spricht nicht mit ihm, sondern über ihn. Das letzte Wort hat der Autor, und es kann, auf das gegründet, was der Held nicht sieht und versteht, was außerhalb seines Bewußtsein liegt, niemals mit dem Wort des Helden auf einer dialogischen Ebene zusammentreffen."83 Der Autor tritt als einziges erkennendes Subjekt auf, während die Helden nur Objekte seiner Erkenntnis sind. Der monologische Text zeichnet sich durch eine "naive", unge­ brochen direkte Sprache aus, die jedoch polemisch oder apologetisch auf die außerhalb des Textes vorhandene Viel­ sprachigkeit bezogen ist. Es ist durchaus logisch, daß Tolstoj, etwa beginnend mit Fadeevs Razgrom, stischen Romans

als Muster des sozialistisch-reali-

fungiert,84

während die u.a. durch

Leonov vertretene Fortsetzung des polyphonen Romans Dostoevskijs verdrängt

wird.85

Der sozialistisch-realistische

Roman zeichnet sich allerdings durch eine krasse Verschär­ fung des Monologismus aus, was z.B. an seinem strikten axiologischen Binarismus deutlich wird, der alle Textebenen prägt. "Die monologische künstlerische Welt kennt keinen fremden Gedanken, keine fremde Idee als Gegenstand der Dar­ stellung. Alles Ideologische zerfällt in dieser Welt in zwei Kategorien. Einerseits gibt es wahre und bedeutungs­ volle Gedanken, die dem Bewußtsein des Autors genügen und eine nur in der Bedeutung verankerte Weltanschauung zu bilden suchen; solche Gedanken werden nicht dargestellt, sie werden behauptet; ihr Behauptungscharakter findet sei­ nen objektiven Ausdruck in ihrem besonderen Akzent, ihrem Stellenwert innerhalb des Werkganzen, in der sprachlich­ stilistischen Form, in der sie vorgebracht werden, und in

166

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION einer ganzen Reihe anderer, sehr unterschiedlicher Mög­ lichkeiten, einen Gedanken als bedeutungsvoll und bewiesen vorzubringen

[ · · · ] · Andererseits gibt es Gedanken und

Ideen, die aus der Perspektive des Autors falsch oder in­ different sind und in seine Weltanschauung nicht hinein­ passen; sie werden nicht behauptet, sondern entweder pole­ misch abgelehnt, oder sie verlieren ihre direkte Bedeutung und werden zu einfachen Elementen der Charakteristik, zu intellektuellen Gesten oder beständigen intellektuellen Eigenschaften des Helden. In der ideologischen Welt tertium non datur: Ein Gedanke wird entweder behauptet oder negiert [ · · · ] ."86 Der sozialistisch-realistische Roman ent­ spricht den von Bachtin angeführten Kriterien der monologi­ schen Literatur. Auf der thematischen Ebene wird das Neue "bestätigt";

in der Figurenkonstellation wiederholt sich

diese Bestätigung in Form der Polarisierung der Figuren in ein positiv und ein negativ bewertetes Lager; auf der Hand­ lungsebene ist der Konflikt zwischen den beiden Lagern zu­ gunsten des Neuen vorentschieden; sprachlich-stilistisch werden die Wertakzente durch idealisierende und übertrei­ bende

bzw. durch abwertende und satirische Verfahren ge­

setzt. Bestätigung wie polemische Verneinung sind für Bachtin komplementäre Seiten des ideologischen Monologismus. Daher wird auch die Satire zu den monologischen Verfahren gerech­ net. Die satirische "rein negative Enthüllung moralischen oder sozial-politischen Charakters" tendiert zur "nackten 

Publizistik". "Der reine Satiriker, der nur das negative Lachen kennt, stellt sich außerhalb der verlachten Erschei89 nung, stellt sich ihr entgegen." Der monologische Charak-

167

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ter der satirischen Negation tritt vor dem Hintergrund der ambivalenten Verneinung des grotesken Realismus

deutlich

in Erscheinung: "Die Verneinung in den Bildern der Volks­ und Feiertagskultur trägt niemals abstrakten, logischen Charakter. Sie ist immer bildlich, anschaulich, fühlbar. Hinter der Verneinung steht keinesweg nichts, sondern eine Art umgekehrter Gegenstand, die Kehrseite des verneinten Gegenstandes, die karnevalistische Umkehrung [ · · · ] . Ver­ neinung und Vernichtung sind auf diese Weise vor allem räumliche Verschiebung und Umstrukturierung. Das Nichtsein des Gegenstandes ist sein umgekehrtes Gesicht, seine Kehr­ seite. Und diese Kehrseite, dieses 'unten', erhält eine zeitliche Färbung: sie wird als vergangen, als gewesen,. als nicht gegenwärtig wahrgenommen." 90 Die abstrakt-logi­ sche, satirische Negation gehörte als Pendant zur ideali­ sierenden Darstellung des Positiven zum Normensystem des Sozialistischen Realismus , wobei man sich gewöhnlich auf Lenins Äußerung über das Abreißen aller und jeder Masken berief.

Bachtin führt die Kategorien der Bestätigung und Ver­ neinung auf das Prinzip der "Selbstgenügsamkeit des einen Bewußtseins" zurück, in dem er eine "tiefe, strukturale Besonderheit des ideologischen Schaffens der Neuzeit"91 sieht, die sämtliche Erscheinungsformen des Monologischen, wie die deutsche idealistische Philosophie

(vermutlich hat

Bachtin hier auch besonders Hegel im Auge, der von der of­ fiziellen Ideologie der 30er Jahre adaptiert wurde), den europäischen Rationalismus und Utopismus

(einschließlich

seiner Stalinschen Verfallsform), einschließt.

168

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION Der einheitliche ideologische Akzent ist für den sozia­ listisch-realistischen Roman in mehrfacher Hinsicht kenn­ zeichnend. Erstens prägt er das gesamte "Prinzip, nach dem die Welt gesehen und dargestellt wird",92 d.h. den Wertstand­ punkt des Autors. Zweitens tritt die monovalente Idee oft als "Schlußfolgerung" aus der künstlerischen Darstellung auf, was dazu führt, daß die Darstellung "entweder einfache Illu­ stration der Idee" oder "Material für eine ideologische Ver93 allgemeinerunc" wird. Die "Illustrativität" ( i l l j u s t r a t i v nost')

vieler Werke des Sozialistischen Realismus wurde be­

reits seit den 30er Jahren von einigen Literaturkritikern, besonders im Umkreis der Zeitschrift Literaturnyj

kritik,

festgestellt. Drittens schließlich drückt sich die Idee des Autors direkt in der ideologischen Position des Haupthelden aus. Durch das Fehlen einer Distanz zwischen Held und Autor entsteht im sozialistisch-realistischen Roman ein dominie­ rendes, kompaktes, einakzentiges Wort. "Jeder Streit zweier Stimmen um den Besitz eines Wortes, um die Vorherrschaft in ihm, ist nur ein scheinbarer Streit; alle Interpretationen des Autors sammeln sich früher oder später in einem RedeZentrum und einem Bewußtsein, alle Akzente in einer Stimme."

94

Der positive Held wird nicht ernsthaft auf die Probe gestellt, sondern durch das Romansujet "bestätigt". Es herrscht kein Zweifel darüber, daß er die vor ihm liegenden Schwierig­ keiten überwindet. Im Gegensatz zu dem von Bachtin beschrie­ benen Typ des "Prüfungsromans" (roman ispytanija),

zu dem

auch der kritisch-realistische Roman über den 'lisnij celovek zahlt,"

konnte man beim sozialistisch-realistischen Roman

von einem "Bestätigungsroman" (roman utverždenija)

169

sprechen.

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Bachtins Begriffe lassen den Abstand des sozialistisch­ realistischen Romans zum kritischen Realismus des 19. Jahr­ hunderts klar hervortreten, ein Abstand, der durch die legitimatorische Berufung auf das "klassische Erbe" oft ver­ dunkelt wird. Aufgrund der "Wort- und Bedeutungsdiktatur eines einheitlichen monologischen Stils, eines einheitli96 chen Tons" ist der sozialistisch-realistische Roman am ehesten der "rhetorischen Linie" 97 des monologischen Romans zuzuordnen, die von publizistisch-didaktischen Elementen dominiert ist. In dieselbe Richtung deutet auch die dem Sozialistischen Realismus eigentümliche

"Romanpathetik",

die Bachtin als "Restauration" und "Surrogat" eines anderen (d.h. monologischen) Genres im Roman interpretiert. Der dialogische Roman Dostoevskij s fungiert als Maßstab, an dem gemessen "viele alte, monologische Formen der Literatur 98 naiv und vereinfacht" erscheinen. Bachtins Empfehlung, sich an der dialogischen Offenheit und Komplexität des künstlerischen Weltmodells Dostoevskijs zu orientieren, ist als konkrete Alternative zu einem Normenkanon zu sehen, der der Literatur die "gröbste und primitivste Bestimmt­ heit" auferlegen will.

ANMERKUNGEN

M. Bachtin: Voprosy literatury

i êstetiki.

Issledovanija

raznych

let,

Moskau 1975, S. 72. 2 P.N. Medvedev: Formal ' nyj metod v literaturovedenii, Die formale

Methode in der Literaturwissenschaft,

L. 1928. (Deutsch: Übers, von H. Glück,

Stuttgart 1976). Autor dieser Studie, wie auch der unter dem Namen V.N. Volcšrnov veröffentlichen Arbeiten, ist M. Bachtin. Vgl. V.V. Ivanov, Znacenie idej M.M. Bachtina  znake, vyskazyvanii i dialoge dlja sovremennoj semiotiki. In: Trudy po znakovym sistemam 170

VI, Tartu 1973,

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION S. 44 (Anm. 101). Zur Formalismus-Kritik Bachtins vgl. neben der Einleitung von H. Glück zur Übersetzung von Medvedev auch die von Rainer Grübel, Zur Ästhetik des Wortes bei Michail M. Bachtin. In: M.M. Bachtin, Die Ästhetik

des Wortes,

Frankfurt 1979, S. 24 ff.

3 Vgl. etwa Jürgen Lehmann, Ambivalenz und Dialogizität. Zur Theorie der Rede bei Michail Bachtin. In: Urszenen. Diskursanalyse

und Diskurskritik,

Literaturwissenschaft

als

hrsg. von F.A. Kitler und H.Turk,

Frankfurt 1977, S. 355-380. 4 M.Bachtin: Smelee pol'zovat'sja vozmožnost'jami. In: Novyj mir 1970, H. 11, S. 240. 5 V.N. Vološinov: Frejdizm. Kriticeskij ocerk, Moskau-Leningrad 1927, S. 128. 6 Ebd. 7 M. Bacntin: Tvorcestvo Fransua Rabie i narodnaja kul'tura srednovekov 'ja i renessansa, M. 1965, S. 105. Auf dem 2. sowjetischen Schriftsteller­ kongreß im Jahre 1954 spricht A.J. Jasin vom "inneren Redakteur" (vnutrennij redaktor). Vgl. Vtoroj pisatelej

. Stenograf'ičeski

j otčet,

vsesojuznyi

s-ezd

sovetskich

Moskau 1956, S. 340.

8

V.N. Volosinov: Marxismus

und Sprachphilosophie,

(Übers, von: Markizm i filosof'ija

jazyka,

Berlin 1975, S. 152.

Leningrad 1929).

9 Ebd. , S. 154. 10 Freidizm. S. 132.

11 Ebd., S. 134. 12 Bezeichnenderweise stellt auch Karel Teige in seinem 1936 erschienenen Buch Jarmark umĕní der offiziellen Kunst der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft die "nichtoffizielle, oppositionelle, avantgardistische Kunst" gegenüber. (jarmark umĕní, Prag 1964, S. 38), Wobei er die Anwendung dieses 171 Begriffspaars auf die sowjetische Kunst der 30er Jahre ganz offen­ sichtlich im Auge hat (vgl. S. 51 ff). 13 S. Freud: Abriss

der Psychoanalyse.

Das Unbehagen in der

Kultur,

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS í r a n k f u r t 1953 (Fischer B ü c h e r e i ) , S. 103. 14 Tvorcestvo

Fransua Rable,

S. 4.

15 Ebd., S. 12 f. 16 Ebd.,

S. 13.

17 Ebd., S. 105. 18 Ebd., S. 107. 19 Ebd., S. 101. 20 Zur Reduzierung der Sinnlichkeit in der sozialistiseh-realistisehen Literatur, vgl. die Beiträge von P. Brückner/G. Ricke und M. Eckelt in: Das Unvermögen der Realität. Ästhetik,

Beiträge

zu einer

anderen

materialistischen

Berlin 1974.

21 Tvorčestvo 22

Fransua Rable,

S. 399.

G.Lukács: Die Gegenwartsbedeutung des kritischen Realismus. In: G. Lukács, Werke Bd. 4, Neuwied, Berlin 1971, S. 586. 23 Tvorcestvo 24

Fransua Rable,

S. 24.

Ebd., S. 32. 25 Ebd., S. 347. 26 Ebd., S. 35. 27

172

Ebd., S. 329. 28 Ebd., 29 30 G. 31 realistischen 32 Sowjetgesellschaft 34 Ebd., 33 Ebd., Vgl. Erler S. S. dazu S.(Hrsg.) 30. 348. 402 436. 36. 349. H.Literatur f. Gunther, zwischen Die der kompensatorische Kollektivierung 30er Jahre. In: Stalinismus. und Funktion Weltkrieg, derProbleme sozialistisch­ Berlin 1981. der

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION

35 Tvorcestvo Fransua Rable, S. 347. 36

Zur Überarbeitung von N.Ostrovskijs Roman vgl. Bedřich Dohnal: Genese tvaru.

Vyvoj textu

romanu N. Ostrovskeho

"Jak se kalila

ocel",

Prag 1964

(Rozpravy Čs. ak vĕd. H. 12). 37 Tvorčestvo Fransua Rable, S. 463. 38 Probleme der Poetik Dostoevskijs,

München 1971, S. 224. (Übersetzung

von: Problemy poètiki

Moskau 1963. Titel der ersten

Fassung: Problemy

Dostoevskogo,

tvorcestva

Dostoevskogo,

Leningrad 1929).

39 Zur Auseinandersetzung mit dem "neutralen Stil" in der gegenwärtigen sowjetischen Stilistik vgl. etwa: Razvitie sovremennogo

russkogo

jazyka,

funkcional'nych

stilej

Moskau 1968, S. 88f. Desgl. Galina A.

Belaja, Roždenie novych stilevych form  process preodolenija "nejtral'ng" stilja. In: Mnogoobrazie Voprosy tipologii,

stilej

sovetskoj

literatury.

Moskau 1978, S. 460-485.

40 Tvorcestvo

Fransua Rable,

S. 60. Vgl. auch die im Anschluß an Bachtin

geübte Kritik am Typischen bei A.P. Cudakov, Poètika Čechova, Moskau 1971, S. 239 ff. 41 Ebd., S. 61. 42 Ebd., S. 127. 43 S. Averincev: Licnost'i talant. In: Literaturnoe

obozrenie

1976,

H. 10, S. 61. 44 Abram Terz (d.i. Andrej M. Sinjavskij ) betont demgegenüber die Nähe des Sozialistischen Realismus zum Klassizismus des 18. Jahrhunderts, was u.a. auch damit zusammenhängt, daß er vor allem die Lyrik im Auge hat. Vgl. A.Terz, Der Prozeß beginnt,

Frankfurt 1966, S. 120-155.

45 K.Teige, Vyvoj sovĕtské architektury. In: K. Teige, J.Kroha, Avantgardnî architektura, Prag 1969, S. 66. 46 173 M. 1976, S. 491. 47 J.Habermas, Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie der

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS kommunikativen Kompetenz. I n : J . Habermas/ N.Luhmann, Theorie Gesellschaft

oder Sozialtechnologie

- Was leistet

die

der

Systemforschung?

Frankfurt 1971, S. 136 ff. 48 Probleme der Poetik Dostoevskijs, S. 203. 49 Vgl. V.V. Ivanov, Znacenie idej M.M. Bachtina dialoge

dl ja sovremennoj

semiotiki,

o

znake,

vyskazyvanii

S. 11 ff.

50 Probleme der Poetik Dostoevskijs, S. 205. 51 Zur Frage des Dialogs bei Bachtin vgl. Rainer Grübel, Zur Ästhetik des Wortes bei Michail M. Bachtin, S. 42 ff. 52 In der Kritik am autoritativen und autoritären wort greift Bachtin offensichtlich auf die im Umkreis des Symbolismus

geübte Kritik an der

kirchlichen Autorität zurück. Vgl. etwa N. Berdjaev, Filosofija ducha, Paris o. J. Die Ästhetik des 54 Ebd. 55 Ebd. 56 Ebd., S. 231. 57 V. Gofman: Jazyk 58 Die Ästhetik des

svobodnogo

(1927), S. 207 ff. Wortes, S. 230.

literatury. Wortes,

Očerki

i etjudy,

Leningrad 1936, S. 20.

S. 169.

59

Ebd

60 In seiner Hervorhebung der Aktivität des Rezipienten schließt sich Bachtin vermutlich Aleksandr A. Potebnja an, der z. B. in jazyk

Mysl'i

betont, daß das Wort des Künstlers nicht seine Gedanken wieder­

geben, sondern nur im Leser dessen eigene Gedanken erwecken könne, und 174 daß- der Inhalt des Kunstwerks sich nicht im Künstler, sondern in den 'Verstehenden" entwickle. Vgl. A.A. Potebnja, Èstetika 1976, S. 181. Die Ästhetik des Wortes, S. 174. 61 Die .Asthetik,des Workes S. 174

i poètika.,

Moskau

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION 63 Marxismus und Sprachphilosophie, S. 72. 64 Die Ästhetik des Wortes, S. 164, 185. 65 Ebd., S. 165. 66

Tvorčestvo

Fransua Rable,

S. 513.

67

Die Ästhetik

des Wortes,

S. 163.

68

Ebd., S. 164. 69

Ebd., S. 165. 70 Ebd., S. 164. Eine Deutung der Rhetorik-Tradition des 17. Jahrhunderts im Sinn der "Einheitssprache" Bachtins und der Position Awakums als dialogisch-Karnevalistische Infragestellung dieser "Einheitssprache" gibt Renate Lachmann, Rhetorik und Kulturmodell. In: Studien

zum VIII.

Internationalen

Slavistenkongreß

slavistische

in Zagreb 1978, Köln-

Wien 1978, S. 279-298. 71 Vgl. dazu M. Drozda, Vklad M.M. Bachtina v teoriju romana. In: Umjetnost riječi 21 (1977), H. 1-3, S. 63-69. 72 Die Ästhetik

des Wortes,

S. 177.

73 Ebd., S. 251 ff. 74 Ebd., S. 2 9 1 . 75 Ebd., S. 2 5 4 . 76 Ebd., S. 255.

175

77 Ebd., S. 215. 78

der Poetik Dostoevskijs, S. künstlerischer neuerdings Galina Theorie, Vgl. 79 S. Probleme 77-107. dazu A.Peter Geschichte Belaja, D in i eV. der Bachtinsche Standpunkt. Zima, sowjetischen Zakonomernosti und Der Funktion Mythos Kategorie In: H.J. Stilistik derder stilevogo Monosemie. Schmitt d DDR-Literatur, e305. s starke "autoritativen razvitija Parteilichkeit (Hrsg.), Verwendung. Stuttgart Einführung sovetskoj Stils" und V g1975, lfindet .prozy, in z.B.

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Moskau 1977, b e s . T e i l I I : " A v t o r i t e t n y j " s t i l ' i ego problematika. 80 Die Ästhetik des Wortes, S. 290. 81 Voprosy literatury i èstetiki, S. 454 f. 82 Probleme der Poetik Dostoevskijs, S. 81. 83 Ebd., S. 80. 84 Vgl. Michel Aucouturier, Model' L'va Tolstogo ν èstetike socialističeskogo realizma. In: Revue des Ètudes Slaves,

51 (1978),

H. 1-2, S. 23-32.

85 Eine Bachtinschen Kategorien verpflichtete Gegenüberstellung von monologischem und dialogischem Roman - am Beispiel Leonovs und Ostrovskijs - findet sich bei Renate Lachmann, Monoloski oblici

 narativnim

tekstovima.

i

dialoski

Erscheint demnächst in Umjetnost

rijeci (Zagreb). Probleme der Poetik Dostoevskijs, S. 88 f. 87 Während in der deutschen Ausgabe "utverždat'" mit "behaupten" übersetzt wird (s.Anm. 86), ziehen wir die Übersetzung "bestätigen" vor. In Anlehnung an Gor'kijs Formulierung in dem Artikel "0 bojkosti" (M. Gor'kij: Sobr.

soč.

ν 30-i

tomach, t. 27, Moskau 1953, S. 159) wird

häufig von der "bestätigenden" Funktion des Sozialistischen Realismus gesprochen. 88 Probleme der Poetik

Dostoevskijs,

S. 141. Ein von Bachtin verfaßter

Lexikonartikel über die Satire ist bis heute nicht publiziert, da der 10. Band der "Literaturnaja

ènciklopedija"

nicht erschien. Vgl. V.V.

kožinov, S.S. Konkin: Michail Michajlovic Bachtin. Kratkij ocerk zizni i dejatei'nosti. In: Problemy poètiki

i istorii

1973, S. 9. 89 Tvorcestvo Fransua Rable, S. 15. 176 90 Ebd. , S. 446 f. 91 Probleme der Poetik Dostoevskijs, S. 91.

literatury,

Saransk

MICHAIL BACHTINS KONZEPTION

92 Ebd., S. 92 93 Ebd 94 Ebd., S. 277. 95 Vgl. Die Ästhetik des Wortes, S. 268 ff. 96 Probleme der Poetik Dostoevskijs, S. 228. 97 Den Begriff des Rhetorischen übernimmt Bachtin von G. Spet, der darunter auf gefühlsmäßige Beeindruckung und Überzeugung des Zuhörers abzielende

Genres wie moralische Traktate, Literaturkritik, Publizistik,

Feuilleton und - im völligen Gegensatz zu Bachtin - auch den Roman subsumiert. Den genannten Genres ist nach Spet gemeinsam, daß sie auf Logik, nicht auf künstlerischer Bildlichkeit (obraznost') gegründet sind. (Vgl. Vnutrennjaja

forma slova,

98 Probleme der Poetik

Dostoevskijs,

Moskau 1927, S. 156 ff.) S. 304.

177

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION: KRISTEVA'S POETICS

Mark Adriaens

3.In this article we deal with Kristeva's theory of poet­ ics in relation to ideology. This requires that we situate her poetics within the broader scientific framework of her text-theory, as it was worked out at the different stages of her theoretical evolution, viz. the earlier descriptive semiotics, which later developed into a more comprehensive science of texts, semanalysis.

As to literary theory prop­

er, we focus on the following main topics: the literary text as paragrammatic writing, a typology of literary texts worked out on the basis of sign constitution and the re­ ferential status of literary production, which in fact is a theory of verisimilitude

('le vraisemblable'). The main

principles for the description of these issues were elabo­ rated in her first period Sémiotikè, tion

(cf. the different articles in

1969). As to the more recent theoretical evolu­

(cf. La révolution

du langage

poétique,

1974) we study

more specifically the dialectic relation between two dif­ ferent types of meaning production, the 'symbolic' (based

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS on the constraints of the language system) vs. i c ' which is determined by psychic processes

the 'semiot(cf. Freud's

drives) and functions according to laws which are irreduc­ ible to the rules of the system. Since this article intends to give a critical reflexion on Kristeva's theory, we con­ front her research with other models, which achieve a higher degree of adequacy for the description of certain controversial issues. 1.0. Kristeva's earlier semiotics

(1969: 7-26) was set up

as an encompassing study of all signifying practices. Her theory is situated at the intersection of different scien­ tific disciplines as history, psychoanalysis, linguistics, formal logic and mathematics. From the latter three branches she mainly borrows the conceptual apparatus and the descriptive techniques in order to achieve a high de­ gree of formalization. Her theory is not modelled exclu­ sively on these axiomatic

disciplines, though, because they

leave out the dimension of the subject and the socio-historical context. This is why this purely formalistic ap­ proach should be supplemented on the one hand by a theory of the speaking subject, in which the split between the conscious vs.

the unconscious is the central issue: in this

respect she mainly concentrates on the laws that govern the signifying production of the unconscious and to that pur­ pose she borrows descriptive techniques from Freud's and Lacan's

(1961)

(1966) models. As to the description of the

socio-historical dimension, she draws on two different theoreticians: first the Russian structuralist Lotman, in whose view (1969: 205; 1976: 339-341) a culture is a hier­ archically ordered system of texts, which stand in a dyna-

180

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION m i c relation of interaction to each other; second she is also indebted to Althusser's neo-marxist theories

(1965,1968) on

two main points. First there is his definition of society as a complex consisting of a multiplicity of contradictions defined at different levels

('contradiction surdéterminée',

1965: 92ff., 214-224); concomitantly, the historical evolu­ tion is determined by an endless process of shift

('dé­

placement') by which a contradiction on a certain level (as social, religious, political) that was dominant at one pe­ riod, may occupy a subordinate function in the next and vice

versa.

Second, on the epistemological level, Althusser

posits that science

(or 'theoretical practice') can only

develop by progressive elimination of ideology. Kristeva applies this latter principle and submits her semiotics to a constant critical reflexion on its own presuppositions, premises as well as ideological biases

(1969: 21,33).

1.1. Let us now turn to Kristeva's definition and analysis of literary texts

(1969: 174-207; 246-277). As to the de­

finition, she rejects any description of a literary text in terms of sub-code or deviation from a certain norm (mainly the language system); in her view the 'poetic' (in the broad sense of 'literary') text should be radically defined as the infinity

of

the

code

(1969: 176), by which

she means that it makes an optimal use of all the possi­ bilities that are available in the code. As to the descrip­ tion, she reacts against two methodological shortcomings of literary semiotics as it was hitherto developed, viz. its statism and the assumption that a literary discourse is a finished product, made up of a finite set of meanings. Both biases in fact derive from the fact that these theo-

181

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ries are modelled on the Saussurian notion of sign internal articulation

and its

(cf. e.g., Greimas' semic oppositions

which is a transposition to the level of content of the phonological distinctive feature-theory, 1969: 319). What semiotics should describe is the transformative of

meaning,

production

based on Derrida's view (1967: 16ff., 108) that

signification

(signi fié)

is not connected with one specific

signifier, but results from an endless movement, shift and play of the 'signifiants' (for the definition of this term cf. infra

1.1.3.). In order to account adequately for this

signifying production, Kristeva elaborates a model in which it is no longer the sign that is the basic constituent, Dut the so-called

'gramme', a suprasegmental unit of the

algebraic kind, the combinatorics of which have to be ac­ counted for in terms of set theory and symbolic logic. 1.1.1. The poetic signifying production should thus be con­ sidered as a network of multiple connections that consti­ tute the text as a paraqrammatic

space.

The latter term is

borrowed from Saussure's description of anagrams

(cf.

Starobinski, 1971: 59ff.). In these texts Saussure discov­ ered that besides the denotative meaning, a second signifi­ cation was generated by a specific rule mechanism: by con­ necting different phonemes that are disseminated

(= not

linearly ordered) throughout the text, one can obtain the so-called "mot-thème" (mostly the name of a Maecenas). Whereas Saussure considered this combinatorics to be re­ stricted to a small set of texts and never managed to give a systematic description of the phenomenon, Kristeva gene­ ralizes the principle and considers it as the constitutive mechanism of literary production as such. Any literary

182

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION text, then, makes up a paragram, which is determined by a Dasic function

(cf. Saussure's

'mot-thème') that works as

an expansive force throughout the several levels and gene­ rates the different types of 'scriptural grammes' (phonic, semantic, syntagmatic) as well as the 'reading grammes' (intertextual references and reminiscences). An illustra­ tion of this mechanism is found in her analysis of a pas­ sage from Lautréamont's "Les

chants

de Maldoror",

which we

will quote here from 1969: 186: "11

chevelure

"Ilya des heures dans la vie où 1 'homme, à la

pouilleuse

(A) jette, l'oeil

(C) sur les membranes

fixe

vertes

(Β), des regards

de l'espace

semble entendre devant lui, les ironiques

fauves

(D) ; car, il lui huées

d'un

fantôme

(E) . Il chancelle et courbe la tête: ce qu'il a entendu,

c'est

la voix de la conscience.

"

From a thematic point of view, Kristeva considers this pas­ sage as the moment at which the actor becomes aware of his own alienation, which she interprets in idealistic terms (cf. "conscience", as opposed to the materialistic body) as well as psychoanalytically. This alienation should thus be considered as the basic function, but in order to un­ derstand how this 'mot-thème' can be designated and how it works on the different levels, we should briefly refer to Lacan's theory from which she implicity borrows infra

(cf. also

4 . ) : Kristeva relates this phase to the moment in the

psychoanalytical process where the subject resigns the fantasmatic, imaginary objects

(which kept him in a state of

alienation, Lacan, 1966: 675) and enters the symbolic order - a transition that is (also) designated by the term

183

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 'phallus'

(id. , 557). She then claims that this 'mot-thème'

is to be found on the phonic level throughout the dissemi­ nated phonemes of the quoted passage /f(v)/ - /al(oe)/ /s(z)/. It goes without saying that she here falls back into a completely arbitrary sound-impressionistic inter­ pretation, and that this extrapolation from the thematic to the phonic level cannot be based on any scientific criterion

(cf. also Guenoun's criticism [1968: 6 9 ] , who

rightly argues that the combination of these phonemes might as well yield the lexeme "valise" or "falaise"). We will take up the problem from a theoretical point of view under 1.1.4.

1.1.2. If there is no systematicity in Kristeva's descrip­ tion of the phonic level, it is possible to elaborate a rule system for the semantic and syntagmatic 'grammes' (cf. also the article "L'engendrement de la formule", 1969: 278-371). Before we examine this part of her theory more closely, we should bear in mind that Kristeva uses a metalanguage that borrows equally well from linguistics as from mathematics. In her semantic analysis, e.g., she mainly draws on Greimas' model (1966) for the static, componential description whereas the interaction mechanisms are account­ ed for in terms of set theory. In a first phase, she op­ poses two main classes of meaning in Lautréamont's passage, the "human body" vs. "consciousness", the former containing the (sub-)sets "chevelure pouilleuse" ['lousy hair'], "oeil fixe" ['fixed eye'], "regards fauves" ['ferocious looks'], whereas the latter is made up of the (sub-)sets "membranes vertes de l'espace" ['green membranes of space'] and. "huées de fantôme" ['booing of phantoms']. The specifically poetic

184

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION meaning is generated by a mutual interaction and permuta­ tion between the different semic components matical terminology

(or in mathe­

'tops','summits','points') of these

sub-sets, a suprasegmental operation which yields equiva­ lences between these different 'semes'. This mechanism, which she explains in terms of operations of application (1969: 187-8), in fact corresponds to the analysis of the metaphorization process, as it was worked out in the trans­ formational-generative framework by Weinreich

(1966: 459)

and further developed by van Dijk (1970: 88ff.): metaphori­ zation is indeed based on a process of interaction and mu­ tual transfer between radically opposed classemes. In the syntagm "larmes de fiel" (1969: 266) such a double shift operates on the two incompatible classernes 'visual' (cf. "larmes") vs 'intestinal' (cf. "fiel"), so that both lexemes "larmes" and "fiel" contain the two poles of the opposition

('visual' + 'intestinal'); an analogous mutual

exchange takes place between the semic element 'sale' of "pouilleux" and 'esoteric' of "phantôme", by which the oppo­ sition between these two incompatible semic components is neutralized; the result of this operation is that qualifi­ catory contents which exclusively belong to the class of the (material) body are made equivalent to and can be ex­ changed for those of the incorporeal conscience, and

vice

versa. This mechanism gives a perfect illustration of the ge­ neral principle which in Kristeva's view is specific of the poetical text: whereas the logic of every-day discourse is governed by the law of exclusive disjunction, in poetic texts the rules of binary logic (false: 0 - true: 1) are

185

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS transgressed, so that contradiction or in other words, the non-disjunctive combination of opposites within the same structure becomes the norm; in this respect she speaks of the 'logic of the double' which situates the poetic pa­ ragram in the space between 0 - 2 , excluding the unequiv­ ocal truth value 1 (1969: 202,235). It is interesting to examine the specific ideological effects which are trig­ gered off by this transgressive technique. First, as is proved by Barthes

(1971: 98) and Sollers

(1968: 159-163)

in respectively the analysis of Fourier's and Bataille's writing, the mutual interference between semes that belong to opposed connotative codes is constitutive of the rhetor­ ical technique of 'irony' (Kristeva's description of irony and parody [1969: 194-195] as an intertextual confrontation, by which the original, quoted discourse is negated and dis­ articulated, is dealt with infra

3.1.). Second, in a socio-

linguistic perspective, the mechanism of reciprocal trans­ fer has a subversive

effect: as a matter of fact, this

technique neutralizes the opposition 'high' (cf. 'nobilis') vs.

'low' ('vulgaris') and since this hierarchy of cultural

codes may be considered to be homologous to the hierarchy of social classes

(cf. Barthes, 1966a: 45; Rastier, 1972:

85), the effect tends towards a levelling of social strati­ fication. This explains why this transgressive connotative technique is applied in texts where the actor systematical­ ly tries to overthrow an existing order of values (e.g., in Ά clockwork

Orange

the mixing of the Biblical/archaic code

and the 'vulgar' discourse illustrated by the sentence, p. 127 "What dost

thou

in mind for thy

for "friend"] have"?).

186

little droog

[slang

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION 1.1.3. As far as the syntactic combinatorics is concerned, Kristeva works out a rule system that is mainly based on Saumjan's applicational generative model (1965: 189-222). Whereas the Chomskyan grammar is culture-dependent in the sense that it is based on the subject-predicate pattern, which is restricted to certain Western languages only, Saumjan elaborates a model (the 'genotype') which reaches a higher degree of generality, since it lies at the basis of all existing natural languages

(= 'phenotypes'). This

grammatical apparatus starts from a set of elementary ob­ jects corresponding to the different grammatical categories and on which a set of 'relators' operate; the generative process, then, consists of a hierarchically ordered series of applications

that yield syntactic structures of an in­

creasingly higher complexity: word, phrase, field of trans­ formationally related sentences. Kristeva transposes these principles to the description of the signifying process ('signi fiance')

. In her theoretical apparatus she draws a

basic methodological distinction between the 'genotext' and 'phenotext': from a syntactic point of view, the basic structure is no longer the subject-verb-pattern, but a 'signifying complex' ('complexe signifiant', 1969: 320ff.; 1972: 226) consisting of a modifying element ('modifiant') and a modified the

'modifiè

('modifie'). On the level of the phenotext, is manifested by the grammatical categories

substantive, adjective and mainly impersonal forms of the verb (infinitive and participle constructions), whereas the 'modifiant' is realized by the adjectival, adverbial and prepositional adjuncts. The reason why she chooses this applicational model is

187

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS twofold. First, there is the criterion of o p e r a t i o n a i y : šaumjan's apparatus is more flexible because the primitive elements on which it functions, may theoretically belong to any grammatical category

(the only requirement is that

there be an abstract link between the elements, Saumjan, 1965: 189); as to the combinatorics, the application is one of the simplest operations and permits the generation of complexes independently of the linear ordering of the discourse: hence, according to Kristeva, the text is pro­ duced as a concatenation of syntactic and/or semic com­ plexes

('constellations'). Second, from an epistemological

point of view, the applicational model permits the avoid­ ance of certain ideological biases inherent in the Chomskyan

(or more generally: Western) grammars: the gram­

matical subject-verb-structure reflects the philosophical premise, holding that the function of a proposition is to ascribe a certain attribute or process to a given or subject. ysis:

This runs counter to the principles of

object semanal-

for Kristeva there is no pre-existing meaning, nor is

there a subject prior to the textual production. The as­ sumption that there be signification before the discursive process is to be found in different linguistic models: Greimas' static structural semantics indeed starts from the premise that on the level of 'immanence' (1966: 5 4 ) , there already exists a semantic universe made up of a finite set of 'semic categories' and the function of the discourse consists merely of combining these primitives according to certain rules. As far as Chomsky's dynamic model is con­ cerned

(1965: 141), the generative process as such does

not add nor produce meanings, since the basic elements of the semantic interpretation are already given in the deep-

188

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION structural component. As was said in 1.1., for Kristeva meaning is progressively constituted throughout the pro­ cess of textual production, conforming to Derrida's tenet (1967: 16ff.,108) that the signified

{signifié)

is a (con­

tinually delayed) result (cf. the concept 'différance', 1968: 56ff.) of the potentially infinite play and permuta­ tion of signifiants term signifiant

(note that in Kristeva's theory the does not necessarily correspond to the

Saussurian concept: besides the phonic matrix of the sign, it may equally well refer to the sign as a whole, to units of an inferior level - a cluster of phonemes, e.g., as well as to units of a higher level, up to a whole text, cf. 1969: 187,300; 1972: 216). In the textual production, a s igni fiant

is immediately inserted and permuted in a net­

work of multiple connections, by which that element may acquire an infinite set of meanings. This potentially end­ less polysemy

(which she compares to a 'surplus-value',

1972: 219) results from the fact that the so-called 'genotext' is not restricted to a particular natural language, but actualizes all the possible meanings the element may have in different existing languages, as well as in mythi­ cal, religious, social and scientific practices

(1969: 301;

1972: 224-5). In this sense, it is not only the homonyms and synonyms of a particular language that are realized, but the textual 'labour' may decompose a certain lexeme into the constitutive segments of its phonic matrix, which, borrowing a term from Leibniz's mathematics Kristeva calls 'différentielle

signifiante'

(1969: 2 9 8 , 1 9 7 2 : 2 2 4 ) . An

illustrative example is her analysis of Mallarmé's "abo­ lira" into the 'differential' "bol", which means ['bassin'], ['recipient creux', 'vide'] (1972: 231); the latter two

189

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS semic elements enter the associative network containing the Mallarmean key-words "abîme" as well as "gouffre". Such a textual technique, in her view, is characteristic of certain transgressive textual productions as Mallarmé's, Joyce's, Sollers' (1965), which disrupt and re-order the logic of natural language. As an extreme example, we may refer to several analyses of Joyce's Finnegan's 'wake', besides its grammatical ambiguity

wake,

where

(imperative,

infinitive, substantive) will also actualize the different English homonyms ['merry-making' or 'fair'], ['watch by corpse before burial'], ['trace of water left behind ship'] etc.; as to "Finnegan", it may decompose into two consti­ tutive 'differentials': the first corresponds to the ini­ tial syllable, 'Fin(n)' and may refer to the Irish mythical hero, or by graphical analogy may actualize the French 'end'

and the Latin negans

fin

(on the 'negating' function of

Joyce's writing, cf. Heath, 1972: 2 5 ) ; the second component may be read as 'again', and the total matrix may be per­ muted with the phonically analogous finikin

('over-nice',

etymologically derived from Middle Dutch fijnkens

meaning

'accurately'). For more elaborated examples, cf. J. Paris' (1967: 61-63) analysis of the polysemy of Joyce's neolo­ gisms as "notshall", "venissoon" and P. Claes & M. Nijs (1977). The main point Kristeva wants to make in this descrip­ tion, is that the signifying production, in opposition to the traditional logic underlying grammatical sentences, does not proceed by predication. She sets out to prove this thesis by her analysis of Mallarmé's "Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard"

(1974: 277-8). The seme 'uniqueness',

190

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION which is part of the semantic content of the article "un", reinforced by the substantive "coup", points to the 'onceness' of the event and as such is contradicted by the nega­ tive adverb "jamais"; as to the syntactic object "hasard", it means etymologically

(in Arabic) 'dé', so that the whole

sentence can now be understood as "l'un n'abolira pas le(s) même(s)", which turns out to be a circular reading: nothing is predicated of the 'modifié' "dé". However original Kristeva's tautologous reading of this macro-sentence may be, in our view it is completely contrived

(her conclusion

is disproved, e.g., by the fact that within the subordinate sentences of the poem, we find several instances of the regular pattern subject - predicate). There is a more plausible reading Kristeva gives of this sequence

(1972:

231-2), which is illustrative of the different types of rule mechanisms at work in the textual production: "hasard" refers to a game of chance, consisting of a permutation of figures/dots that yield a number. In this sense "nombre" (another key-word of the poem) reflects the signifying production, where the signifié shift of signifiants.

results from a play and

On the other hand, the Cartesian

number was to be considered as an act of regulation, by which the (finite) subject orders the random phenomena ("hasard"). So "nombre" stands for the contradiction be­ tween two principles at work in the textual process, the system of regular constructions vs.

a set of rule mecha­

nisms, the logic of which deviates from the laws of grammar (in other words, the application of semic and syntactic complexes). This contradiction in her later theory is re­ solved into a dialectical relation between two modes of signifying production, and is studied under 4.

191

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Thus far we have dealt with the problem of predication; let us now turn to the other pole of the proposition, the subject.

On this point Kristeva also takes a radical stand

against most structuralist theories from Saussure onwards, which consider language as an act carried out by a subject (1973: 1249) that is assumed to exist independently of the discursive act and hence falls outside the scope of lin­ guistic description. For semanalysis, on the contrary, the subject is integrated in the textual production itself by a dialectic

(contradictory) movement: on the one hand the

text dissolves the subject into a multiplicity of in­ stances, breaks up its unity, reduces it to an (empty) space within which the process of 'signifiance' takes place (1972: 233). In a complementary movement, though, it is throughout the textual production of the 'genotext' itself that the subject is progressively constituted. The latter view is based on Lacan's psychoanalytical model, which ar­ gues that it is language chain of signifiants) opposite

(= the symbolic order made up of a

that creates the subject and not the

(cf. Lacan, 1966: 495-507; this problem will be

taken up infra

4 . ) . In this theoretical perspective, the

subject is not an entity, but results from a permutation of the different instances it can occupy within a structure

topological

(cf. Lacan, 1966: 548-556). From a grammatical

point of view, this genesis of the subject is adequately rendered by the 'modifiant-modifié' complex: the latter in­ deed mainly consists of nominalized, impersonal forms of the verb, which loosen the action/state from the spatiotemporal as well as personal references, so that the verbal matrix is now made to express the process

as

such

('le

devenir', 1969: 326-327). So there is a definite formal

192

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION analogy between the production of meaning and the genesis of the subject: just as the ultimate signifié elusive, postponed

is always

(cf. Derrida's "différance"), the final

constitution of the subject is also a continually delayed result of the working of the ' g e n o t e x t ' : this phenomenon is grammatically rendered by the 'futur antérieur' (1969: 304,330) - a tense which anticipates the moment when sub­ ject as well as sign will finally rise to the surface of the 'phenotext' (cf. 1969: 288,298,349). 1.1.4. Let us now proceed to a general evaluation of Kristeva's theoretical apparatus for literary analysis. We will apply her own principle that a semiotics should be a constant reflexion on the ideological premises under­ lying its metalanguage. As to the paragrammatic analysis, she in fact starts from the theorem (1969: 189) that a poetic text is characterized by the structural property that the different sequences are equivalent to a total, encompassing function. Transcoded into linguistic terms, this means that, starting from a macro-structural thematic configuration

('mot-thème'), one should be able to derive

the several structures of equivalence and/or opposition on the different levels. In spite of her axiomatic ideal and her mathematical terminology, though, she does not manage to elaborate a calculus by which the relation could be established between a total meaning and the partial mes'

'gram­

(semantic and syntactic constellations, phonological

patterns). This inadequacy is due to a double methodolo­ gical fallacy. First, there is a level confusion: the 'mot-thème' belongs to the so-called macro-structural com­ ponent, which consists of the thematic organization and the

193

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS narrative structure

(cF. e.g., van Dijk, 1972: 275; Ihwe,

1972: 340), whereas the semantic, syntactic complexes and phonic structures are all part of the textual micro-struc­ ture

(underlying representations of the linearly ordered

sentences, cf. van Dijk, 1972: 17). Now, in all textgrammatical theories that have thus far been elaborated, there is a clear methodological break between macro- and microstructural levels, in the sense that no model has suc­ ceeded as yet in elaborating a system of

(transformation)

rules which would help determine the 'mapping' from macroto micro-structures

(id.,

20; Ihwe, 1972: 340-343; Hen­

dricks, 1973: 92-93). In other words, it is as yet impos­ sible to determine how, e.g., the semic constituents of the 'sub-sets' in Lautréamont's passage

(cf. 1.1.1.) build

up towards the overall thematic meaning 'becoming conscious of a phantasm or alienation'. Second

fallacy is the seman-

ticization of phonological patterns: from a linguistic point of view, this attribution of meaning is wrong be­ cause, in opposition to the patterns of the semantic com­ ponent, the structures of the morphophonemic component are purely formal and hence completely devoid of signification (Weinreich, 1966: 469). So the logico-mathematical des­ criptive techniques by which Kristeva intended to reach a higher degree of rigour and formalization, in the end turn out to be but a pseudo-scientific cover for a purely interpretative

procedure - a methodological weakness she

is aware of herself, where she grants that the "subjective judgment of the informant still plays an important part" (1969: 201) (for an analogous criticism on Lotman's theo­ retical apparatus, cf. van Rees & Verdaasdonk, 1978: 3 8 ) .

194

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION In conclusion, we could say that there are two ideolo­ gical assumptions underlying Kristeva's theoretical prac­ tice. First there is a confusion between objective, purely formal description and (subjective) interpretation. Second, as to the object of analysis

(the literary text), she im­

plicitly adheres to the thesis that the parts can be de­ duced from the whole and vice article

versa,

whereas in another

(cf. 3.1.) she exposes this very criterion of 'de-

rivability' as a purely ideological bias, which founds the verisimilitude

('vraisemblable'). It goes without saying

that this criticism applies to her (earlier) analysis of paragrammatic writing: in the later phase (the description of textual production as infinite polysemy, cf. 1.1.3.) she is much more consistent, in the sense that she admits the impossibility of systematizing the logic of the signifying production in a calculus. Apart from this axiomatic ideal, her semiotic analysis falls short on another point, viz. the description of the different ideological effects which may be triggered by the specific structure(s) of the poetic object (cf. our criticism under 1.1.2.). In this respect Greimas' reflexions on the connotative effects that are correlated with the poetic object make a point; starting from the view that the poetic text can be compared to a (macro-)sign

(cf. Lotman's Superzeichen,

1972: 4 0 ) , he

maintains that it is the specific formal organization, the homologization of the structures at the different lev­ els, that yields the ideological effect of an 'essential truth'

(1972: 23; 1970: 279,283). Whereas with the Saussu-

rian sign, the relation between signifiant

and s igni fié

is

arbitrary, in the poetic sign, the multiplicity of equiva­ lences creates the illusion that the relation between

195

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS signifier and signified is motivated and hence that there is a 'natural' meaning inherent at the level of expression. In semiotic research, this very naturalization of signify­ ing relations has been exposed as one of the most typical ideological mechanisms

(cf. Barthes, 1967: 220,234). We

brought up the problem of the relation to the constitution of the sign, because it is on this very principle that Kristeva elaborates a typology of literary

(or cultural)

periods, to which we turn now. 2.0. Kristeva situates the literary text production in the socio-historical context of which it participates. To that purpose she uses the term 'ideologéme' (1969: 113-114) which is defined as the intertextual function that relates the different structures of the (literary) text to the other signifying practices

(= texts) making up a culture.

She then goes on to distinguish between three different types of 'idéologémes' to which correspond three culturalhistorical periods. In so doing she works out a typology of signifying practices based on their relation to the logic of sign. As to the descriptive apparatus, she draws on G.S. Peirce's classification of signs where he distinguishes between icon resemblance), index symbol

(cf. 1970: 2 8 ) ,

(based on analogy or

(relation of contiguity or metonymy),

(the relation between the two terms is based on a

law or convention). This differentiation is only a matter of degree: a term may indeed partake of more than one sort of relation and it is the dominant factor which decides on its belonging to a specific type. The verbal sign e.g., is mainly symbolical, but in opposition to Saussure's de­ finition of the sign, it is not completely arbitrary, in

196

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION the sense that it will contain iconic and/or indicial as­ pects . 2.1. The first ideologerne which characterizes European society until the 13th Century is modelled on the laws of the symbol.

Medieval culture is mainly dominated by reli­

gion and hence is made up of a set of transcendental signifieds ('signifié transcendental', Derrida, 1967: 3 8 ) : like the Platonic ideas, these signifieds are general, perfect and all-embracing. The symbol, now, has a restrictive func­ tion in the sense that it is only a partial and imperfect realization of the symbolized universals

(e.g., 'heroism',

'nobility', 'virtue', 'treason' which are reproduced in the medieval epic). The relation between the two terms can be considered to be symbolical, in the sense that the uni­ versal is irreducible and hence not identical to the con­ crete manifestations

(the transcendental signified can

only be understood by the intermediary of a certain norm, faith). On the other hand, the relation is also partly iconic (cf. Lotman, 1973: 1214) in the sense that the in­ dividual mark is a reflection of - and hence presents a certain analogy to the symbolized universal. More relevant for our description is the fact that the 'ideologerne' of the symbol is governed by the law of unequivocalness: a term cannot simultaneously stand in a positive as well as nega­ tive relation to one universal

(vertical dimension) nor to

another symbol in the syntagmatic chain (= horizontal). Put in formal terms: the 'ideologérne' of the symbol is gov­ erned by the law of exclusive disjunction

(either - o r ) ,

paradoxes are excluded. These characteristics are very im­ portant for her description of the narrative structure

197

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS underlying the logic of 'symbolical' genres as the epic and myth: these narratives are based on an initial thematic opposition

(the universals Life/Death, Nature/Culture,

Virtue/Vice) which may be infinitely varied throughout the plot, but always on the disjunctive mode (a particular actor is invariably connected with either the positive or negative pole). The whole narrative movement then is but a concatenation of various 'symmetrical dyads' (couples of opposites, 1970: 6 3 ) , in which one pole may alternative­ ly dominate over the other, without there ever being a fu­ sion of contraries. So the narrative movement is circular, for the structural end

(in general, the acquisition of a

'universal') was already programmed at the beginning

(hence

the term 'boucle thématique', 1970: 2 7 ) , a structural pro­ perty which differentiates the symbolical genres from those belonging to the second ideologerne, that of the sign. 2.2. The ideologerne of the sign

corresponds to the histor­

ical period from the 13th Century onwards and marks a clear break with the preceding in a double respect. First, there is a definite axiological shift, in the sense that the value now become reversible; second, the theological verticalism (relation symbol - transcendence) is replaced by a more horizontal vision, in which a signifying unit is determined in function of the real, empirical world; the transcendental universals are now projected into the con­ crete and hence are reified,

so that the hierarchical re­

lation now exists between a representative unit (say: Saussure's signifiant

or Peirce's representamen)

and the

referent, where the function of the former purely consists of referring to the latter. Whereas the ideologerne of the

198

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION symbol resolved the contradictions by a radical exclusive disjunction, with the sign another type of logic appears, based on the operation of non-disjunction.

This mechanism

consists of two moments : first an exclusive negation sets up an opposition between two irreducible units, say be­ tween signifier and referent; in a second phase a resem­ blance is asserted beyond the difference, so that the op­ position is finally resolved in a synthesis anism of Aufhebung,

1969: 84,272). Applied to the consti­

tution of the sign, this means that signifiant referential

object,

(cf. the mech­ and the

although different, are made equivalent

and hence can be exchanged on the basis of a third term, the signified

: as a matter of fact, the concept is a link

between the two terms, and although it is arbitrarily con­ nected with the acoustic image, the fact that this relation is constant yields the impression of a natural link. This non-disjunctive logic now (marked by the logical symbol ν ) , becomes the law that governs a specific type of literary production that is created as this period, the post-epic mock heroic

('le roman'). Just as the symbolical types of

narratives, the 'roman' starts from a set of exclusive op­ positions, but the difference lies in the fact that with the 'roman' the narrative movement is triggered by the very moment the two opposites are transcended, in other words by the operation which combines the two poles into a disjunctive

structure

non-

(e.g., where X hides his perversity

under the mask of righteousness). Hence the structure of ambivalence becomes the law and is to be found on the sev­ eral levels of the text: thematic

('virtue ν vice' in the

example just quoted, 'male ν female' in the androgynous actor Jehan, 1969: 132); actantial

199

(the Lady is at the same

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS time Adjuvant

and Opponent);

imbrication between the level

of the 'énoncé' (narrative itself) and the

'énonciation'

(performative act of the narrative instance), in the sense that the author-narrator assumes an actantial function in the narrative as well (Kristeva relates the latter ambigu­ ity to the scene of carnival, 1969: 162£f.., which is char­ acterized by the reversibility of actor/spectator: as Bakhtine showed, 1970: 18ff., during this type of festivi­ ties, the several oppositions were transcended and neutral­ ized) ; finally, the non-disjunctive mechanism also applies on the intertextual level, in the sense that different laudatory utterances

(cf. French "blasons") and moral pre­

cepts are made ambiguous and parodied. We are interested more particularly in Kristeva's view of the narrative structure. As was said, the 'roman' starts from a disjunctive set of correlated oppositions, which has to be negated in order to trigger the narrative move­ ment (=non-disjunction), but strangely enough, the struc­ tural end is constituted again by an exclusive disjunction (the Lady is condemned, which means a rejection of the ambiguity, 1969: 128,138). Kristeva reformulates this law in terms of modal logic, where she says that the narrative movement is based on the negation which has a double status (1969: 123) : alethic

(the opposition of contraries is nec­

essary, possible, contingent or impossible - for the termi­ nology, cf. Blanché, 1969: 81ff.) and deontic

(the conjunc­

tion of contraries is obligatory, permitted, indifferent or prohibited). The 'roman', then, becomes possible when the 'alethic' of the opposition is joined to the 'deontic' of the synthesis: the latter operation refers to the moment

200

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION when the contraries combine into a non-disjunctive struc­ ture, which persists throughout the narrative, but in the end is broken up (the alethic of oppositions is re-as­ serted) . This formulation permits an explanation of Kristeva's tenet that the narrative structure is nothing but a concatenation of 'écarts' (differences) which make up a signifiant-structure, but throughout this development, the s igni fié

remains constant, in other words the 'roman'

is tautologous, shows no progression, produces nothing new (1970: 6 5 ) . 2.3. Starting from these formulations, we will critically examine Kristeva's implicit view of narrativity.

A positive

point is that she reformulates the narrative movement(s) in terms of logical operations, which permits the elabora­ tion of a formal descriptive apparatus. Although she does not intend to work out a model which would account for the diversity of 'narrative possibles' (cf. 1970: 188), she nevertheless claims to give an exhaustive description of the structural laws that determine the narrative produc­ tion of a certain 'ideologerne'. On this point we find that her theoretical apparatus is inadequate, because it de­ scribes the formal laws of narrative exclusively in terms of sign logic. Theoretical research in the field of narra­ tive proves that - contrary to what she claims - the nondisjunctive mechanism ates complex

structures,

(which in Greimas' terminology cre­ 1966: 101) is not only to be

found in the productions of the sign-ideologeme, but equally well in myths and epics. The analysis of myths, e. g., shows the crucial role played by the so-called 'media­ tors'

(which combine two opposite thematic contents) in the

201

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS main transformation of the mythical narrative

(cf. Lévi-

Strauss, 1958: 247ff.; Greimas, 1970: 224); this complex structure may also characterize the phases of beginning and end: in a myth, the initial and final state of equilibrium may consist of 'complex terms in equilibrium'

(cf. Adri-

aens, 1975: 209ff.), e.g., the harmonious conjunction of ('human' + 'supernatural'). As to the classical epic, am­ biguities in the sense of "masque/feinte" are also to be found, since in certain narratives, one of the basic trans­ formations is based on this very play of hiding vs. tion of truth

revela­

(cf. Greimas, 1966: 200 and the crucial func­

tion in narrative analysis of his "carré sémiotique de la véridiction", 1973: 165). Conversely, the final state of equilibrium in the types of narrative that belong to the sign-ideologeme, may be based equally well on the polariza­ tion

(exclusive disjunction) of the complex structure, as

on a non-disjunctive combination of thematic opposites (cf. Adriaens, 1975: 282). So we can conclude that Kristeva's typology of 'ideologemes1 in terms of sign

logic

is inade­

quate because it fails to lay bare the general principles underlying the textual production of these periods: a more operative alternative is suggested by Greimas

(1976b: 23)

where he claims that a classification of socio-cultural pe­ riods can only be adequately given by the analysis of the underlying narrative

logic

in the form of a calculus as it

is worked out in his narrative grammar (cf. Greimas, 1970: 135-183; Adriaens, 1975: 213). Kristeva's description in terms of modal logic could have constituted a sound scien­ tific basis for the elaboration of such a general theoreti­ cal apparatus, as will be shown in the next section

{infra,

3.1.). A final controversial point is her tenet that the

202

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION narrative movement

(of the sign ideologerne) creates nothing

new: this rule only applies to certain forms of narrative (Maranda's type III, 1971: 26-27,53ff. in which the nega­ tive impact of a counter-force is nullified, so that the end marks a circular return to the initial situation), but excludes one important type where the plot finally results in the acquisition of supplementary values, which may be either objective or subjective: the latter is the case in narrative where the actor finally gets an insight into the dominating structure of his ideological universe

(cf. Adri-

aens, 1975: 272) and, in our view, applies to the very text of Jehan

de Saintré:

this analysis is supported by Kri­

steva' s own interpretation where she says that Saintré on his way home recognizes the ambivalence as in the passage

(1970: 184) as well

(1969: 138) where she considers the con­

demnation of the Lady as a negative evaluation of the ambi­ guity itself. Moreover, this confrontation of the actor with his ideological universe is often underlined by the intervention of the implicit author/narrator. This is the case for the roman

de Saintré,

in which the author after

the structural end of his 'récit' (= énoncé) takes up his own narration and consciously exposes his story as the re­ sult of his own textual 'labour' (1969: 138ff.). This marks a clear break with the concept of a literary text as a fin­ ished product that can be inserted in an economical process of exchange

(cf. also Barthes, 1970: 95) and opens towards

a new 'ideologerne', that of the 'paragram' in which the au­ thor continually reflects on his own scriptual praxis .(cf. 1969: 140f.). For the analysis of this paragrammatic writing, we refer to supra

1.1.1., and will turn now to

the analysis of the mechanisms which constitute the ideo-

203

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS logical device of 'verisimilitude' 3.1. In the article

"La

('le vraisemblable').

productivité

dite

texte"

(1969:

208-245) Kristeva critically examines the referential or truth status of the literary discourse. "Truth" in classi­ cal philosophy has commonly been defined as the adequation (relation of conformity) between sign and referent, in other words, truth is based on the relation of resemblance between a (linguistic) discourse and reality. Since liter­ ature is a 'secondary modelling system'

(1969: 44; Lotman,

1972: 39) i.e., based on the primary system of natural language, it can only achieve that relation of resemblance with reality in a derived sense. The literary discourse, in other words, can only be verisimilar, it resembles, is adequate to another

which means that discourse,

well-defined socio-cultural context functions

that in a (or is com­

monly accepted) as the most adequate copy of the empirical and social reality. So the 'vraisemblable' is historical and class-dependent: the set of rules of conduct, opinions, value judgments which constitute this social discourse are indeed those elaborated by the ruling class in a well-de­ fined period and hence are purely conventional

(cf. also

Genette, 1968: 6 ) ; by the working of a typical ideological inversion, though, these norms will be universalized, set up as an institution and act as if they founded nature (cf. also Barthes, 1970: 211; 1967: 220,234,285). This is why Kristeva calls this social discourse "le principe naturel" within which she makes a methodological distinction between those principles that constitute the semantic verisimilitude vs.

the syntactic 'vraisemblable'. In our cultural context,

the former is based on a few fundamental contents such as

204

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION 'life', 'nature' and a set of dynamic relations such as 'development', 'causality' and 'teleology'

(goal-directed-

ness). When we speak of 'vraisemblable', though, we refer to an effect, the result of a process which is commonly hidden: semanalysis

will have to lay bare and describe

this productive process: 'vraisemblabliser'

(= making veri­

similar) is based on an operation by which the contradicto­ ry contents like 'death', 'artificial', 'static', 'random' are related to and made similar to the contents of the 'principe naturel', resp. 'life', 'natural', 'dynamic', 'causally related' etc. The formal laws according to which this process of 'vraisemblablisation' functions, constitute the very 'syntactic verisimilitude' and are mainly based on two principles; first the theorem of

'derivability'

(cf. also 1.1.4.), according to which the different parts of the discourse can be derived from the global formal system, as well as from the preceding sequence(s); second the conformity of these different structures to well-de­ fined rhetorical laws (as Barthes rightly says, 1967: 237, the rhetorical system in fact is a set of institutionalized ideological devices). Kristeva, though, does not give a systematic account of these rhetorical mechanisms : we find mostly techniques which have been codified as 'figures of speech', and mainly apply to 'poetic' texts, e.g., repeti­ tion, enumeration, semantic and/or syntactic parallelism (cf. Levin's 'couplings', 1962), the former yielding rhymeschemes; an important part is also played by homonymy: the difference between two or more signifieds the same signifier

is levelled by

(cf. the operation of non-disjunction)

and the resulting polysemy heavily contributes to the ef­ fect of the semantic 'vraisemblable' (1969: 222-225). For

205

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS prose texts, she refers to the motivation by way of syllo­ gism, but gives no illustrations. A good example of such a syllogistic mechanism, which at the same time shows how ideological maxims are integrated into a textual produc­ tion, is given by Barthes dote

(1970: 154,177): a certain anec­

(e.g., Sarrasine's being frightened of a serpent)

which stands as an 'exemplum' to illustrate a well-defined character type, can be considered to function as the minor premise of a syllogism; the major premise

(which has to

be supplied by the reader) refers to an 'endoxa', a cul­ ture-dependent truth (in this case a maxim borrowed from vulgar psychology)

'timidity is typically feminine'; the

latter predicate then (which appears in the conclusion) will also function as a connotative signified for other analogous passages. The point Barthes wants to make is that the classical text ("le texte lisible", 1970: 10) heavily draws on ideology, since it is full of such false essences, 'poisoned' by such truisms and maxims. One of the devices by which this plethora of stereotypes

(and

hence the 'vraisemblable') can be neutralized, seems to be irony or parody; this technique, though, is rejected by Barthes - as well as by Kristeva cause irony

(1969: 193-195) - be­

(or parody) is in fact a metalinguistic opera­

tion which deforms and reduces the content of the original (= quoted passages), and hereby asserts the superiority of its own discourse; or - to put it in Barthes' terms - it substitutes a new stereotype for the one it claimed to exorcize. The only way by which this accumulation of ste­ reotypes

(the terror of a new metalanguage) can be avoided

is the textual production, writing

(Barthes' "écriture",

1970: 105,212): the two types of discourses, i.e., the

206

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION quotation and the author's text, are integrated into a multiplicity of codes, by which the latter is no longer a sheer negation of the former, but both are equally permut­ able in a play, a continual shift of intertextual rela­ tions, where no particular discourse can finally establish its superiority

(the 'final truth') on any other

(examples

of this particular writing are e.g. Flaubert's Bouvard Pécuchet,

Barthes ibid.,

and Joyce's Finnegans

wake,

et cf.

S. Heath, 1972: 3 6 ) . Thus far we have dealt with the rhetorical techniques; as to the first principle of the 'syntactic verisimili­ tude', the 'derivability', Kristeva distinguishes between micro-structural and macro-structural devices. On the mi­ cro-structural level, it is the grammatical structure it­ self (Subject - Verb - Object) which functions as a factor of 'vraisemblablisation': the reason is that the syntactic patterns of the natural language function as a norm and hence are taken for evident (cf. also Barthes, 1970: 30, where he holds the same view: the contrived - symbolical meanings are made acceptable, verisimilar by conveying them in the form of a grammatical structure). This criterion, in our view, is too trivial and irrelevant, because it would lead to the absurd conclusion that any sentence, because it fulfills the conditions of grammaticalness, functions as a verisimilarity factor. On the macro-structural level, she brings out a more pertinent criterion, viz. the narra­ tive structure

('récit', 1969: 228). For the description

she starts from the structuralist postulate

(cf. also

Barthes, 1966b: 3; van Dijk, 1972: 296) that the macrostructural syntax (= narrative structure) is homologous to

207

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS the sentence structure, - a tenet which founds her overall criterion of derivability: the global formal system as well as the individual sentences have the same formal organiza­ tion, and hence can be derived from each other. We agree with the principle that the narrative structure as such functions as a verisimilarity device, but on the condition that a narrative model be elaborated on other regularities than those of sentence grammar. Kristeva herself has im­ plicitly touched upon some of the relevant principles like 'causality' and 'teleology', which command the surfacestructural ordering of narrative events/sequences, as well as in her description of the non-disjunctive operation in terms of modal logic

(cf. supra,

a difference between the alethic

2.2.), where she draws and deontic

(the latter

two correspond to two stages of the deep-structure, as we will presently see).

The most adequate model for the analysis of the 'narra­ tive competence', i.e., a device which accounts for the different types of narrative combinatorics, in our view, is Greimas' narrative grammar

(1970: 135-155 ; 157-183 ; Adri-

aens, 1975: 213ff.). This model also has the methodological advantage that it permits the integration of the two types of 'vraisemblable', the semantic and the syntactic, into one global apparatus. In the deep-structural component, Greimas' grammar starts from a set of thematic oppositions (cf. the types life vs.

death, nature vs.

culture) and an

elementary combinatorics, which permits the generation of a greater diversity of structures than the non-disjunctive combinations Kristeva proposes, viz. polarization, differ­ ent types of complexification, neutralization. In a second

208

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION stage these thematic contents are turned into values by the functioning of the axiological

component, the rule

mechanisms of which are based on deontic logic; this stage is very important for the description of ideology: the in­ terplay and conflict between the different value systems permits the definition of the underlying structure of such concepts as 'alienation'

(what is socially prescribed is

personally not desired or feared) and 'transgression'

(what

is socially prohibited is desired by the individual, cf. Greimas', 1970: 149-150). On the other hand, the specific hierarchical ordering oi the social, economic, personal (and other possible) axiological systems permits the defi­ nition of the 'epistemy' ( i d . , 1 5 2 - 3 ) or the underlying ideology. The latter organization principle will be a very useful tool for the formalization of, e.g., Althusser's dynamic vision of the historical evolution

(cf. 1.0.), more

particularly for the notion of 'déplacement', by which the hierarchical structure of the several levels making up a society is re-ordered from one period to another. The cor­ relation with the ideology is further to be found in the dynamic component, where the valued contents are inserted in narrative algorithms: the rule mechanisms which command these narrative movements owe their verisimilarity to the fact that they are based on operations of the Aristotelian square, the fundamental rational ordering principle in­ herent in Western logic; on the other hand this component allows for a certain diversity of ideological choices, which may be determined in the function of the specific type of algorithm, its particular orientation, the initial and final terms

(either positive or negative values) etc.

The correlation between the different types of narratives

209

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS and ideological structures has only been partly explored (cf. Greimas' analysis of the juridical discourse, 1976a: 86,98f.; Landowski's application of a well-defined algorithm on the historical discourse, 1971: 8-9; J.P. Faye's defi­ nition of history as an 'enchevêtrement de récits', 1972: 15) and remains a fascinating field to be further explored by a socio-semiotics. (cF. Adriaens, 1980b.)

4. Kristeva's later theoretical evolution, as it was worked out in La révolution

du langage

poétique

(1974: 41ff.), on

the one hand, marks a break with earlier research, but, on the other, gives a further elaboration of the crucial issues that were dealt with in the study of the 'genotext' (1.1.3.), viz. the relation between signifying production and subject constitution. The main methodological differ­ ence with her earlier paragrammatic analysis lies in the fact that she now deliberately gives up the

axiomatic

ideal: this theoretical shift derives from her thesis that semanalysis

should not only deal with that part of the

signifying practices that can be systematized geneous)

(= the

homo­

, but should positively integrate the description

of those processes that transgress the laws and allow for pleasure

(= the heterogeneous).

The dialectic relation be­

tween those two components of the signifying production will now be analysed in relation to the genesis of the sub­ ject, a task which can most adequately be carried through in terms of psychoanalysis: for her descriptive apparatus she will mainly borrow from Freud's theory on the workings of the 'libido' and his dream analysis, as well as from Lacan's model. The latter opens the most interesting theo­ retical perspectives, because it links the psychoanalytical

210

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION problem of subject constitution with the acquisition of language. From this perspective, Kristeva draws a funda­ mental distinction between, on the one hand, the

semiotic,

i.e., a drive-governed mode of signifying production, which is the heterogeneous component because it is rooted in the physical body and in the unconscious; on the other, there is the symbolic,

to be understood in Lacan's sense as the

order of language, or more generally: culture

(Lacan, 1966:

495,550). In order to explain how these two components function in the literary praxis, it will be necessary to describe their genesis and workings in the psychoanalytical growth of the child-subject. The 'semiotic disposition' (1973: 1250) originates in the energetic processes of the so-called stage of the 'fragmented body'

(Lacan's 'corps

morcelé', 1966: 552, corresponding roughly to Freud's oral and anal phases): in this period the pre-subject consti­ tutes an unbroken continuum with the maternal body, and his drives are still uttered in non-verbal material as the kinetic, the vocalic and the rhythmical in general. As to the 'symbolical', Kristeva considers the process of lan­ guage acquisition as a dialectic alternation between 'thetic moments' ("thèses") and 'rejection(s)'

("re-

jet (s)"), the negation which founds the transgressive movement and each time gives a new impetus to the signify­ ing production). As to the 'thetic moments' (1974: 43ff.), which mark the progressive stages of language acquisition, they are to be situated in the so-called 1966:

'mirror phase' (Lacan,

674,882) and the symbolic castration

{id.:

557). In

the mirror phase, the presubject for the first time breaks

211

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS up the continuum with the mother, by transferring his libido on a separated object (= the image, which functions as the prototype of the world of objects as such); at the same time the child becomes able to signify the object on the basis of primitive linguistic utterances

('formations

holophrastiques', 1974: 4 4 ) , mainly onomatopoeic structures (cf., e.g., the Freudian 'Fort/da' - game by which the subject enacts the alternation absence-presence of the mother in a gestual as well as linguistic substance). The next thetic moment (symbolic castration) will be crucial for language acquisition: it is situated at the end of the oedipal phase, where the Father as representative of the Law, calls upon the subject-child to give up the relation to the different imaginary objects

(maternal body and its

fantasmatic substitutes) and to enter the symbolic order (cf. Lacan's "métaphore paternelle", 1966: 557ff.). This transition can only be achieved on the condition of a double split, the division of the subject and concomitantly that of the sign

(break signifiant/signifié)

. Since the

symbolic order is made up of a chain of s igni fiants

(Lacan,

1966: 5 1 5 ) , the subject can only be inserted into that or­ der on the condition of becoming a s igni fiant

himself:

this requires that the subject be split up into a grammati­ cal subject ("sujet de l'énoncé") vs.

a speaking subject

("sujet de 1'énonciation"). The latter

(the subject of the

unconscious) is absent from the symbolic order and is only represented there indirectly by a linguistic sign, a s igni fiant

(the grammatical 'shifter' or pronoun 'I' -

'you'); concomitantly, there is the break signifié,

signifiant/

whereby the 'ego' (of the imaginary identifica­

tions) is expelled into the signifié

212

(1974: 4 5 ) .

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION The crucial question now remains what the relation is between semiotic motility and symbolic order. Since the latter is the homogeneous system of language, as well as of culture

(society), it is made up of rules and regula­

tions which normally exclude the unordered disposition of drives 'chora',

(Kristeva also refers to the latter in terms of a concept which is borrowed from Plato to desig­

nate the relatively chaotic configuration of shapeless matter, 1974: 22-30). In this sense it is possible to con­ sider the 'semiotic

chora'

as the repressed

component of

the symbolic order, which explains its negative function of transgression. A short phylogenetic comparison will be illustrative on this point: in Freud's view Taboo)

(cf. Totem

and

the socio-anthropological order originates in a

collective murder of the Father; this ritual killing has a double function, in the sense that, although a violent act itself, it puts an end to violence, by channeling it into the victim which functions as a symbol.

In so doing

the sacrifice at the same time founds a new order, symbolic and social (it regulates the kinship relations as well as sexual pleasure, since intercourse is now restricted to members belonging to different clans). Since the violence of passions is repressed, it will regularly rise to the surface and break up the social order: such transgressive moments are to be found, e.g., in the ritual Dionysian festivities that accompany the sacrifice and where violence is acted out in the vocalic, rhythmical, musical etc. (cf. 1974: 7 7 ) . The parallelism with the ontogenetic level be­ comes obvious: the drive-governed energy which was invested in an object during the mirror phase, will finally be sub­ jugated by canalizing it into a sign. In this way the

213

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 'semiotic' will be integrated into the 'symbolic', where it will constitute a chain of signifiants

that functions

according to its own laws and act as a force that constant­ ly threatens to disrupt the regular order of the systemat­ ic. This negative movement of 'rejet', which causes plea­ sure and repeatedly gives a new impulse to the textual pro­ duction, is characteristic of transgressive writing such as that of Mallarmé, Joyce, Burroughs, Sollers (1973: 1250). Let us now give a brief survey of the rule mechanisms that underlie the 'semiotic' signifying production. Kriste­ va distinguishes between phonic and semantic rhythms on the one hand

(1974: 209-263) vs.

syntactic rules. The gene­

ral principles are borrowed from Freud's dream analysis (1961: 234ff.): 'transposition' ( E n t s t e l l u n g ) , 'condensa­ tion'

{Verdichtung)

and 'displacement'

{Verschiebung).

'Transposition' is used by Kristeva in a double sense: on the one hand it refers to the mechanism analyzed by Freud and whereby the phonic matrix of certain words is deformed by condensation as well as 'displacement': a good example is the word formation "erzifilisch"

(Freud, 1961: 2 5 4 ) ,

which combines a segment from 'Erzieherin' (female teacher) and 'syphilis' (in the symbolic meaning of 'poison for sexual life'). The deformation of the latter term results from the Verschiebung-mechanism

(the sexual content remains

partially repressed under the influence of censorship and hence its signifier will only be allowed to appear at the surface in a distorted form); at the same time, this word formation is a good illustration of the Verdichtung,

in

the sense that several chains of association are condensed

214

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION into this new lexem (its content is 'overdetermined'). Kristeva's analysis of the semiotic signifying production proceeds in an analogous way: the semiotic motility dis­ articulates the phonic matrix of certain lexemes, in the sense that it isolates certain phonemes and groups them in constellations, which produce new and supplementary mean­ ings (cf. the mechanism of paragrammatic writing, 1.1.1., and the formation of 'différentielles signifiantes', 1.1.3.). At the same time, these clusters of phonemes lose their strictly linguistic function of distinctiveness and are made to express the rhytmical movements of the body: this is the second sense of 'transposition', which refers to the penetration of the semiotic

(rooted in the physical

matter) into the symbolic and hence can be considered as a movement of "rejet" and enjoyment

(1974: 232). As to the

syntactic devices that are characteristic of the semiotic disposition, Kristeva mainly considers two types of trans­ formations, the recoverable vs.

non-recoverable deletions

(1974: 269): the former refer to syntactic ellipses by which the predicative constituent and/or the agent are suppressed, an operation which confirms the trend towards nominalization and the use of impersonal forms

(cf.

supra,

1.1.3.) and in Kristeva's view increases the ambiguity. As to the second type, they refer to transformations of embed­ ding and multiple left- and right-branching

(Chomsky, 1965:

12ff.): in Mallarmé's text they correspond to the frequent use of subordinate sentences, which cannot be related to an existing, main sentence, as well as to other segments, the 'pro-form' of which cannot be reconstructed either. The re­ sult is that the link between

(grammatical) subject and

verb is loosened, so that the 'interpretability'

215

(id. 151)

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS is weakened, - a difficulty which is also increased by the non-linear disposition of the fragments on the page (cf. Coup

de dés).

Contrary to what Kristeva claims, though,

these transformations cannot be considered as deviations or transgressions of normal syntax, for they can be per­ fectly well accounted for within the framework of transfor­ mational grammar

(id.,

144). She herself implicitly con­

firms our thesis, where she describes these rule mechanisms not in terms of a-grammaticalness, but of a 'sur-compé­ tence' grammaticale

(1974: 270): in so doing she impairs

her own principle according to which the laws of semiotic production would be irreducible to those of the system, and in fact returns to her initial definition of the poetic text as a production in which the possibilities of the code (= grammar) are maximally exploited

(cf. 1.1.).

5. In conclusion, we could say that Kristeva's semiotic project is torn between two conflicting demands, or as she herself puts it (1973: 1249), its task "must consist in identifying the systematic constraint within each signify­ ing practice

(using for that purpose borrowed or original

"models"), but above all in going beyond that to specifying just what, within the practice, falls outside the system and characterizes the specificity of the practice as such". As to the first point, we showed that she did not succeed in working out a rigorous axiomatic metalanguage, which would help develop a truly scientific poetics. She posi­ tively contributed to literary semiotics, though, by ap­ proaching this praxis in terms of the dialectic relation between two conflicting forces, the symbolic, which obeys the laws of the grammar versus

a transgressive, drive-

216

IDEOLOGY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION governed mode of production which develops a heterogeneous logic with respect to the system. This approach will revo­ lutionize the study of literary practice, because it no longer considers the literary discourse as a self-enclosed and homogeneous entity that could be formalized in abstract structures, but as a process in which a subject is put on trial, at grips not only with himself, but with the subju­ gating power of the symbolic: hence a text will be valued in terms of its capacity to uproot the order of language in a movement of "rejet" which is not purely negative, but constantly renews the productive power of the linguistic medium by exploring it to its limits, thus allowing for freedom, play and enjoyment.

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Adriaens, M.: 1975. An Isotopic Approach

to Texts

(Louvain: KUL, Ph.

Diss) mimeo. : 1978. Strukturalisme,

Poëtiek

en Narrativiteit

(Louvain:

Acco). : 1980 a. "Isotopie Organization and Narrative Grammar" (summary of Adriaens, 1975), FIL, 4, 501-544. : 1980 b. "Modèles narratifs et formations idéologiques" in Communications

and Cognition,

13, 5-20.

Althusser, L.: 1965. Pour Marx (Paris: Maspéro) : 1968. Lire

le Capital

: 1976. Positions Bakhtine,M.: 1970. L'oeuvre

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au Moyen-Age et sous la Renaissance

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et la culture

populaire

(transi. A. Rebel) (Paris:

Gallimard). B a r t h e s , R.: 1966 a. Critique :

1966

et vérité

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b . " I n t r o d u c t i o n à l ' a n a l y s e s t r u c t u r a l e du r é c i t " i n 217

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8, 1-27.

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de la mode (Paris: Seuil)

: 1970. S /Ζ (Paris : Seuil) : 1971. Sade,

Fourier·,

Blanche, R.: 1969. Structures

(Paris: Seuil)

intellectuelles

Burgess, Α.: 1973. A Clockwork Chomsky, N. : 1965. Aspects

Loyola

(Paris: Vrin)

Orange (Harmondsworth: Penguin)

of the Theory of Syntax

(Cambridge, Mass.:

MIT) Claes,P. & Nijs M.: 1977. "Multiple Joyce" in Heibel, Derrida, J.: 1967. De la grammatologie

12, 38-53.

(Paris: Minuit)

: 1968. "La différance" in Theorie

d,' ensemble

(Paris: Seuil),

41-66. Dijk, T.A. van: 1970. "Sémantique g e n e r a t i v e e t t h é o r i e des t e x t e s " , i n Linguistics,

62, 66-95. : 1972. Some Aspects

Faye, J . P . : 1972. Theorie

of Text Grammars (The Hague: Mouton)

du récit.

Freud, S.: 1961. Die Traumdeutung

( P a r i s : Hermann) (Frankfurt/M: Fischer)

Genette, G.: 1968. "Vraisemblable et motivation" in Communications

11,

5-21. Greimas, A.J.: 1966. sémantique

structurale

(Paris: Larousse)

: 19 68. (& Rastier) "The Interaction of the Semiotic Constraints", in Yale French Studies : 1970. Du Sens.

41, 86-105.

(Paris: Seuil)

: 1972. (ed.) Essais

de sémiotique

poétique

(Paris:

Larousse) __: 1973. "Les actants, les acteurs et les figures" in Chabrol (ed.) sémiotique

narrative

et textuelle

: 1976 a. sémiotique

(Paris: Larousse), 161-176.

et sciences

sociales

(Paris: Seuil)

: 1976 b. "Entrtien avec A.J.Greimas" in F. Nef (ed.), Structures

élémentaires

de la signification

(Bruxelles: Complexe), 18-26.

Guenoun, D.: 1968. "A propos de l'analyse structurale des récits", in Linguistique

et littérature,

Colloque

de Cluny

(Paris: La nouvelle

critique), 65-70. Heath, St.: 1972. "Ambiviolences. Notes pour la lecture de Joyce" in Tel Quel 50, 22-43; Tel Quel 51, 64-76. 218

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AND LITERARY PRODUCTION

Hendricks, W. : 1973. " L i n g u i s t i c C o n t r i b u t i o n s t o L i t a r e r a r y Science" i n Poetics

7, 86-102.

Ihws, J.: 1972. Linguistik

in der Literaturwissenschaft

(München:

Bayerischer Schulbuch Verlag) Kristeva, J.: 1969. sémiotikè.

Recherches

pour une sémanalyse

(Paris:

Seuil) : 1970. Le texte

du roman.

(The Hague: Mouton)

: 1972. "Quelques problèmes de sémiotique littéraire à propos d'un texte de Mallarmé: Un coup de dés" in Greimas, 1972 (ed.), 208-234. : 1973. "The system of the speaking subject", in Times Literary

Supplement,

Oct. 12, 1249-1250.

: 1974. La révolution : 1977. Polylogue Lacan, J.: 1966. Ecrits

du langage

poétique.

(Paris: Seuil)

(Paris: Seuil)

(Paris: Seuil)

Landowski, E.: 1971. "Analyse sémantique et 'analyse du contenu'", in Symposium de sémantique

(Urbino, July 71), mimeo.

Leclercq, Ch.: 1975. Julia

Kristeva:

Semanalyse

en/ of

Semanarchie

(Louvain, KUL, unpublished diss., mimeo) Lévi-Strauss, Cl.: 1958. Anthropologie

structurale

Levin, S.: 1962. Linguistic

in Poetry

Structures

(Paris: Pion) (The Hague: Mouton)

Lotman, Y.: 1969. (& Pjatigorskij) "Le texte et la fonction" in Semiotica

I/ 2, 205-217. : 1972. Die Struktur

literarischer

Texte

(München: Fink)

: 1973. "Different cultures, different codes" in Times Literary

Supplement,

Oct. 12, 1213-1215.

: 1976. "The Content and Structure of the Concept of 'Literature'", in PTL, 1, 339-356. Maranda, E. & P.: 1971. Structural Essays

Models in Folklore

and

Transformational

(The Hague: Mouton).

Paris, J. : 1967. "Finnegans, wa! " in Tel Quel 30, 58-66. Rastier, F.: 1972. "Systématique des isotopies" in Greimas (ed.), 80-106.

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SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Saumjan, S.: 1965. "Outline of the Applicational· Generative Model for the Description of Language", in Foundations

of Language,

1, 189-222.

Sollers, P.: 1965. Drame (Paris: Seuil) : 1968. Logiques

(Paris: Seuil)

Starobinski, J.: 1971. Les mots

Saussure

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les

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Les

anagrammes

de F.

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(Paris: Gallimard)

van Rees . J. & H. Verdaasdonk : 1978. "Literatuurwetenschap en Literatuuropvattingen" in Grivel (ed.), Methoden in de wetenschap

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(Muiderberg: Coutinho), 27-42.

Weinreich, U.: 1966. "Explorations in Semantic Theory", in Sebeok (ed.), Current

Trends

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220

CZECH AND POLISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEBATE

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY IN CZECH PHILOSOPHY

Květoslav Chvatík

Czech structuralist thought and Czech avantgarde-movements are communicating vessels - this appraisal does not merely concern poetics and aesthetics but remains true in the case of sociology and philosophy. At first sight, it might seem exceedingly audacious to look for characteristic traits common to Nezval and Seifert, the Liberated Theatre of Voskovec and Werich, the constructivist architecture, 2 in short the artistic creation of the Devetsil-movement and, later on, the Prague surrealist group on the one hand, and the abstract theories of functional linguistics and sociology on the other. However, a detailed analysis could reveal that they are related not only by common publica­ tions, but also by their styles of thought, and by a dis­ course aiming at analogy. In 1927, the first issue of Teige's ReDu appears - the review of the "Devětsil"-movement (1927-1931) - which can

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS be considered as a representative publication of Czech avantgarde; at the same time, Václavek published the col­ lective volume Fronta. Both publications are marked by a wide international cooperation and an approach which tran­ scends the limits of art into the realms of technology, linguistics, sociology and other sciences. The volume en­ titled Fronta, which was given the significant subtitle: Science,

Art,

Technology,

Literature,

Sociology,

Modern

Life, even includes a study of "Imperialism after the War" and an article on "The Flight from Old Philosophy" by Josef Ludvik Fischer. Both contributions shed light not only on Fischer's position in the ranks of the revolutionary avantgarde-movement, but also expose the two topics which to­ gether form his field of research: the sociological criti­ cism of contemporary life and a critical inquiry into the fundamental philosophical categories and methods. At this time, J.L. Fischer could be credited with a large number of philosophical publications all of which implied a profound knowledge of the positivist conception of science, of the philosophical reactions to the latter (which can be traced back to Schopenhauer), and of the out­ standing contributions to philosophy by Bergson, Croce and the Pragmatists. However, none of these theoretical cur­ rents satisfied him; he thus rejected Croce's "expressive" aesthetics as a possible startina point for the new Czech aesthetic theory. 3 In 1927, Fischer began his career as a lecturer at the Masaryk University in Brno with an inaugural lecture on "The Future of European Culture". He conveys a vivid im-

224

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY pression of the symbiosis between the capitalist economic system and positivist, mechanistic tendencies in philosophy, which originated in a Quantitative vision of the world. He deals with "the sober representation of the huge mechanism . . . upon which the law of enthropy casts friahtening sha­ dows of an imminent and irreversible destruction of all life in the cosmic boredom of thermal eauilibrium." 4 The mechanistic view of the world has its counterpart in the capitalist system, wherein man is turned into a function of the machine and of capital, both of which have escaped his control. This twofold basis of the European cultural pattern, its scientific and its industrial components, has transformed man according to the laws of his own vision of reality. Arguing against the mechanistic view, Fischer pleads in favour of progressive humanization; however, not in a pragmatic or purely intuitive manner, but in sociolog­ ical terms. Man should become the starting point of an ex­ planation of the world and society should be the frame of reference within which man is explained. The first step towards a concrete programme of this new philosophy is Fischer's lecture on "The Two Orders", which he delivered on the 4 th of February 19 30. Almost simultaneously with the theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle of 1929, but without dealing with linguistic mat­ ters, Fischer - who expounds a number of theses - lays the foundations of a first global programme for a "scien­ tific and philosophical structuralism". The mechanistic thought is apprehended as an expression of the capitalist system; the structural thought is related

225

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS to a socialism based upon political democracy. It is described by Fischer in the following terms: 1) The evolution of reality is organized in such a way that its individual parts are determined by the global context, that is to say that they can be located as more or less autonomous units within hierarchically structured totalities; 2) the different structures of reality are to be considered as fundamentally heterogeneous entities, none of which can be reduced to the other; 3) the explanation of complex structures therefore becomes the basis for the explanation of simpler structures; 4) the relatedness of these structures accounts for the fact that they form a totality and it is in accordance with the laws of this totality that they evolve without precluding the genesis of the new structures.

Reality, from a structuralist point of view, appears to be an organized totality of individual parts which are hierarchically disposed and shaped by the global context; it is capable of permanent growth (evolution). - The concept of 'meaning' (of an event) can be justified in this perspective, provided we are able to define the particular structures and layers of reality as endowed with meaning. Where this possibility does not exist, it is necessary to content oneself with a purely formal description of (an organic) reality, taking into account that even here, the subordination of the part to the whole does not cease.5

The lecture on "The Two Orders" represents a révolu-

226

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY tionary redefinition of philosophical activity,

which at

the time was unique. Naturally, the text of 19 30 contains no more than rather sketchy theses; a further development and an amplification of this philosophical programme can in many respects be considered as the goal for Fischer's further life. The task was not an easy one: Fischer's struggle for the realization of his programme, for the elaboration of a dialectical structuring was hampered time and again by tragic events and by political repres­ sion. Nevertheless, J.L. Fischer renewed his efforts to master the problems of contemporary science and philosophy. A first attempt to work out the noetic foundations of the new philosophical system is to be found in Fischer's monograph, The

Foundations

of

(základy

Knowledge

poznáni

,

1931), designed to be the first volume of an unfinished trilogy entitled: Elements (Soustavy

skladebné

of

a Structural

filosofie).

Philosophy

The author himself de­

scribed his work as a premature attempt to bring about a synthesis. From an ideological point of view, this work defended positions similar to those of Václavek's at

the

Crossroads

of

Art

(jarmark

(Poesie uměni)

v rozpacích)

n

Teige's

Poetry The

Fair

. It had an impact on the further

evolution of Czech culture, thanks, above all, to the in­ novative character of its theorems, even though the appli­ cation of them was hampered by flaws and problems due to the incomplete character of the theory. The starting point of Fischer's work is a critical re­ view of a whole set of ideological representations, which was made possible in the sphere of the social sciences by the

227

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS crisis of positivism, the rise of Bergsonism and Pragmatism and the phenomenological efforts to found a new rational­ ism. The basic tenet of his book is the conviction that human reason will prevail, that it is capable of tracing the contours of reality and of discovering the conceptual instruments which guarantee the integrity of this process. Together with the concept of structure, the concepts of function

and qualitative

order,

as well as the idea of a

hierarchy of qualitatively distinct orders, gradually be­ came the core of his noetics. He himself presents his "structural philosophy" as a kind of functional rational7

ism or objectivism or as a Qualitative realism.

The concept of function is one of Fischer's basic te­ nets. He seeks to resolve the conflict between causalism and finalism by a functional approach. His answer to the noetic crisis of philosophy is the conception of reality as a hierarchical structure,

as a structured order of Qua­

litatively different, relatively autonomous and neverthe­ less internally and functionally correlated levels and systems. His way of asking the basic Question of cognition can be traced back to the cartesian "cogito"; however, the lat­ ter is interpreted in a new, materialist manner. Not the dictum "I think, therefore I am", but the dictum "I think, because I am" is to be found at the beginning- of his in­ vestigations of the relationship between man's cognitive capacities and the world. In describing the relationship between the subject and the object, he insists on the ob­ jective determination of the subject. He anticipates Jan

228

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY Patočka's book on The Natural Problem

(Přirozený

svět

jako

World

as

filosofický

a

Philosophical problém,

1936) -

although he sets out from quite different philosophical premises - in considering the experience of so-called "every day life" as the basic condition of man's attitude towards the world. Immediate experience in the world serves as a means of controlling reflected experience and vice 8 versa. Fischer rejects the concept of "substance" as a meta­ physical premise and replaces the eternal identity and the transcendence of the concrete by the real continuity of the " I " , defined as a totality of elements and functions, as a dynamic whole marked by contradictions. Theoretical cognition, conceived as a function of this " I " , is closely related to the structural context of all spheres of social activity; it is therefore a social

phenomenon. Fischer's

preliminary question is whether the objective intention of human cognition is not basically identical with the structural intention of reality itself. According to Fisch­ er, the postulate that structuration is a fundamental as9 pect of reality, is beyond doubt. Arguing against positivism, he rightly points out that it reifies conceptual relations, considering them as sub­ stitutes of the real. He interprets the question of meaning as a question concerning the attribution of meaning to a psychic content: in his opinion, meaning is an ideal con­ struct, which only becomes rational in a particular intel­ lectual context. Intellectual cognition is reflexive, that is to say, mediated, for it is not related directly to its

229

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS object, but attains the latter by the conceptual "bias". The context cannot be "perceived", but can only be "ex­ trapolated". This does not mean, however, as neorealism would have it, that thought gives birth to a realm of ideal relations, but simply that we "discover" or find the context in very much the same way as we find real objects.10 Thought does not reproduce reality passively, but ex­ presses the latter actively by availing itself of particu­ lar constructs - models, we might say nowadays - which in­ sert the empirical elements of meaning into different texts.

con­

The probability that the extrapolated context coin­

cides with the real contextual relations, depends on the rationality of the extrapolation. Objective meaning is defined adequately, if it is realized in the objects con­ cerned; its most adequate definition is therefore to be found in social and cultural systems. It is impossible to abstract intellectual cognition from concrete interests articulated in every day life and from its emotive and axiological aspects. Above all, one must not dissociate it from verification through historical practice. Against the naiveté and the relativism of pragmatic philosophy, Fischer defends the autonomous quality of intellectual cognition.

Fischer concludes his book with a convincing criticism of "technical culture" and of the mechanistic world vision, anchored in the metaphysical premise that all being has a quantitative character. This premise expresses the ideology of the industrial

era.11

His rejection of the irrational

230

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY reactions of certain philosophies to mechanistic thought, is equally convincing. Offering an alternative to the various brands of irrationalism, he insists on the structuring function of intellect, which does not merely analyze, but also brings about syntheses, imposing an order upon reality: "Its basis is discipline, its supreme criterion, and its greatest ambition is the achievement of an overall

unity.12 Fischer's book on the problems of cognition culminates in a defence of intellect and in an exaltation of the synthetic power of reason. This was not a negligible contribution to theory, at a time when all the currents of fascist thought converged, both in theory and in practice, in an unprecedented "decay of reason". In a situation where democracy was threatened by fascism, Fischer thought it necessary to lay the foundations of structural sociology and political science in his book on The

Crisis

of

Democracy

(Krise

demokracie,

1933) . Here

clearly appears his ability to combine a systematic, categorical thought with a lucid analysis of contemporary society. The importance of his book is due above all to the fact that it is the first sketch of a structural analysis of society. He looks upon social development as a system of functions and of functional relations, as a dynamic system in which the totality determines the parts. Ideology reflects social reality and at the same time reacts upon it. The motor behind the development of social structures is to be found in the latter's internal contradictions, the dialectical tensions between their components and

231

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS functions. Social reality is differentiated qualitatively, consisting of a variety of levels and systems which can be distinguished in accordance with their specific func­ tion and ontologicai status: "There is an ontic hierarchy of qualities, according to which reality can be split up into a number of segments, each of which bears the marks 13 of a specific mode of existence." This is the conceptual basis of Fischer's concrete so­ ciological and political analysis. In the first part, en­ titled "Freedom", he develops a critique of monopoly capi­ talism and its "revolts", among which he deals with the "revolt of matter" in crises and wars and with the "revolt of spirit" in the works of Nietzsche and Bergson and in liberal and anarchist thought. He seeks the solution in the "revolt of the proletariat", without hiding his appre­ hensions concerning the institutional guarantees of the basic values of democracy and of civic liberties in the future socialist society. He invents the expression "demo­ cracy at the crossroads" - as an analogy to Václavek's book Poetry

at

the

Crossroads;

democracy finds itself at

the crossroads, because, in society, the problem of free­ dom can only be solved within a system; in contemporary society, the latter is missing. His second book,

System,

deals with the functions of society, with the functions of conservation and evolution, with economic and social growth and social authority. As might have been expected, he deals with the rise of fascism, whose ideology is exposed to an annihilating criticism; he even discusses the shortcomings and dangers of contemporary socialism. In conclusion, he sketches the perspective of a "structured society", submit-

232

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY ting a theoretical programme which combines, on a func­ tional basis, the economic principle of Marxian social­ ism with the cultural principles of democracy and freedom. A synthesis of Fischer's ideas, which he developed as an emigrant during the w a r

1 4

nd after his return to a life

in freedom, is to be found in a series of university lectures entitled Comoedia

humana.15

What is new in them is

due to the fact that Fischer bases his conception of a structural philosophy on the findings of modern anthropol­ ogy, on the appraisal of values in non-European thought of the so-called natural societies. He does this in a manner which is reminiscent of 

Lévi-Strauss. Engaging in a

polemic with Levy-Bruhl, who describes primitive thinking as pre-logical, he writes: "To my mind this thought is not less logical than ours, provided we accept its own pre­ mises. These are based on the assumption that everything is related, to everything else and can have an impact on everything, that all things should be viewed in a coherent and integrated whole, wherein all elements are interwoven." In contrast to the deep abyss which modern man has opened between the subject and the object, he evokes the submis­ sion of man to a mode of existence marked by the fusion of subject and object, which is characteristic of magic thought in natural societies. Choosing the Chinese, the In­ dian and the Greek philosophies as examples, he examines three different relationships between man and the universe and the corresponding types of culture. From the Renais­ sance onwards, European culture has been accelerating the dissociation of the subject from the object and although, in doing so, it has come to rule the whole world, it has

233

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS alienated man from himself. Elsewhere in his lectures, Fischer relates the differ­ ent notions of function, structure and value to one an­ other. He considers function as an equivalent of a set of actions having a particular goal, as a concentration of partial processes through a unifying factor, which is a product of their intentionality. In this perspective, struc­ ture appears as a relatively closed set of functions. He introduces a basic distinction between the concepts of structure

and system:

for him, a system is a scheme of re­

lations, deprived of the substance it is meant to explain, "the concept of structure, however, implies of necessity 17 this palpable substratum". The real structure, which can be applied to all kinds of objects serving as substrata, is therefore the starting point of the conceptualization of structure as a relational concept and as a means of ex­ planation. The objective existence of structures is the precondition for the relative correspondence of structures arrived at by analogy:

of structures which intellect can

classify within the framework of a

typology.

Each structure and function has its own evolution, its own genesis. Hence, the principle of structure by no means contradicts the genetic principle: "The analysis of func­ tions and structures depends . . .

on the possibility to

study their genesis during the entire process of their evolution". 1 8 Each given structure is conditioned by its environment; it is an integrated part of this environment and forms, together with the latter, a more complex struc­ ture. Functions tend towards an objective optimum, which

234

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY can be attained under particular conditions. Relying on the concept of optimal objectivity, Fischer works out a new approach to axiology: "The consciously intended and soci­ ally sanctioned optimum is expressed by the norm.

In this

context, it is possible to define value as a transforma­ tion of the norm into an objective criterion, s e r v i n gas a yard-stick for measuring individual values." 19 The ma­ jority of norms is not sanctioned logically but effective­ ly; it is therefore impossible to reduce the different axiological structures of different cultures to a common denominator. Fischer warns us against the temptation to consider the structure of European axiology as a criterion for the assessment of other cultures. Referring to the im­ portant philosophical problem of time, he shows that these particular cultures help us to understand the abundance of Being, delivered from the spell of time.

During the fifties, Fischer was silenced; not until the late sixties could he publish some of his work in the Philosophical Degrees

Studies

I

(1968). As his book entitled

completed Fischer's noetics concerning the founda­

tions of axiology, so his Philosophical foundations of a structural ontology

Studies

laid the

and developed Fischer's

philosophical approach into a full fledged system of lectical

Three

structurology.

dia­

It assembles the results of the

author's protracted study of the philosophical problems of modern natural science, locating them within the framework of a new scheme of basic philosophical categories. To begin with, he distinguishes two great spheres: the sphere of empirical data, of real determinations, the "or-

235

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS der of reality" and a sphere of the intelligible, the sphere of rational constructions related to one another by factual considerations, that is to say, an "order of reason". Within the first sphere, he distinguishes the categories of fact,

quality,

change,

time

and space

and

correlates them with the following categories in the se­

cond sphere: structure, segments.

reaction

, conditioning

and

time-

Rejecting the dualism of "substance" and "appear­

ance" , he replaces the concept of substance with the con­ cept of structure, defined as the relational "skeleton" of a particular fact.

There are different types of structures related to the different modes of existence; individual existential modes of reality, ranging from inorganic nature to organic nature and to human, social and cultural reality, have all of them their particular structural

patterns

. Fischer compares

them to X-ray photographs, which help us to penetrate under the surface of facts in order to reveal their "internal" 20 construction and their relational "skeleton".

Even here,

however, terms like "internal" or "external" are used to describe concrete relations and that which is internal in one relationship might be external in the next and vice versa. Individual structures coincide with their time-seg­ ments to form a structural

sphere,

marked, by a particular

"action radius" and by corresponding horizons

, to which we

can attach them, taking advantage of rational constructs (models, patterns, concepts), that is to say, "fix" them intellectually by defining their mutual relations. Fischer's thought aims at a coherent view of reality

236

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY which he himself defines as a "qualitative cosmos" - as a concrete, qualitatively differentiated totality. Rejecting the mechanistic view of the world which reduces the whole of reality to an agglomeration of genetically identical elements differentiated according to purely quantitative criteria, he postulates the existence of an irreducible qualitative distinction between the individual layers of reality each of which has its own particular structural pattern. According to Fischer, modern physics has shown that only heterogeneous structures and their components exist. In relation to its components, the structure plays a domi­ nant part, but it is simultaneously being determined by its components. The dialectical dynamic of structures con­ sists in their genesis and their transformation in time, which is the driving force behind the contradictions and tensions within structures. Reality is a "specifically limited, primarily extensive, protensively marked quali­ tative differentiation in the dialectical process, which aims - in its individual phases - at the highest degree 21 of integration of structures and their reactions". Each structure is marked, off from the others by a par­ ticular degree of quality, which also becomes an indicator of its real meaning. One can approach the "order of the world" - as well as the meaning of human existence - only within the framework of human thought: "We approach the world, as far as this is possible, if we realize that, as thinking monads, we reflect within ourselves the entire universe in a miniature form, albeit in a 'humanly dis-

237

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS torted'manner." 2 2 The second series of Philosophical

studies,

prepared

for publication in 1969, could not be rounded off for pol­ itical reasons. Fischer's writing on the philosophical conception of dialectical structurology, worked out in relation to the evolution of modern natural sciences and in contrast to the philosophical theses of J.C. Smuts and L. von Bertalanffy,

includes the text on "Totality, 23

Structure, and Causality".

It is a necessarily abridged

version of Fischer's view of the structural problem, of his view of the three stages of cognition: the meaningful, the imaginative and the intellectual; it exposes his view of the concept

as the focal point in the sphere of rela­

tions, which man manipulates in his attempt to dominate reality. To get to know an object means to introduce it into the order of rational relations

. The deductive system

of science consists of concepts and philosophical axioms arrived at in this manner. Modern natural science has con­ tributed to the substitution of the old philosophical axi­ oms by the new concepts of function, structure and tenden­ cy towards maximal coherence. Real processes which are ir­ reversible in time, cannot, according to Fischer, be com­ muted without residue into processes within the mind. The degree of correspondence obtaining among them varies from one level of reality to the next and therefore has to be defined from case to case. Different structures

(inorganic,

organic, psychic, social and cultural) are marked by dif­ ferent modes of being; complex structures are characterized by a more differentiated way of functioning and cannot be reduced to simpler structures. Fischer scraps from his

238

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY philosophical dictionary the antinomy between causality and finality. Roman Jakobson greeted as early as 1932 Fischer's mon­ ograph on The Foundations

of

Knowledge

as a way of think­

ing akin to the ideas of the Prague Linguistic Circle. He wrote at the time: "Fischer's book is related to the work of the Linguistic Circle by a sustained effort to arrive at an unadulterated structuralism and by an aversion towards currents of scientific thought, which atomize re­ ality, applying to social life naturalist, causal-quantita­ tive categories. - It is not by chance that these noetic definitions and the linguistic experiments of the Prague Linguistic Circle have cropped up simultaneously in one country and in particular today, in Czechoslovakia."24 In Fischer's Philosophical

Studies

, the efforts to

work out the categorical foundations of a dialectical structurology have attained one of their philosophical summits.

N

O

T

E

S

1 "Devetsil": An association interested in experimental art and modern culture. Founded in 1920 by a group of artists belonging to the Czech avantgarde. The writers V. Nezval, J. Seifert, . Teige, . Václavek and V. Vancura were members of this group. 2 "Liberated Theatre" ("Osvobzené divadlo"): The experimental stage of the "Devetsil"- movement founded in Prague in 1925 by J. Honzl and J. Frejka. In the late twenties, Voskovec and Werich were the leading actors of this theatre. 239

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

J.L. Fischer, O pravdách

a filosofech

(Truths

and

Philosophers),

Kdyně (1926. 4 J.L. Fischer, "Budoucnost evropské kultury" ('The Future of European Culture'), Tri stupne

(Three Degrees)

(Blansko, 1948), 17.

5 J.L. Fischer, "0 dvojim řádu" ('The Two Orders'), Tri stupne

(Blansko,

1948), 45. 6

cf. J. Zumr, "Vývoj ŏeského strukturál nho myšleni do r. 1930" (The De­ velopment of Czech Structural Thought up to 1930') , Filosof'ický časopis (1969), 1 . 7 J.L. Fischer, Základy poznání, prvá

(The Foundations

Soustavy

of Knowledge.

skladebné

filosofie

The Components of Structural

kniha Phil­

osophy, vol. I) (Praha, 1931), 240.

8 op. cit., 40-46. 9 op. cit., 144. 10 op. cit., 168. 11 Fischer exposed the theoretical positions of positivism to a detailed critique in an article dealing with the noetics of the Czech positivist thinker Fr. Krejčí: "Positivismus vědecký?" ('Is Positivism Scienti­ fic?'), Index, 2 (1930), 11/12, 87-93. 12 op. cit., 222. 13 J.L. Fischer, Krise demokracie (The Crisis of Democracy) , D * lII, Řád (Brno, 1933), 218. 14 Fischer emigrated to Holland, where he escaped death by a narrow margin and had to remain in hiding until the end. of the occupation. 15 In Tři stupně (Blansko, 1948). 16 . cit., 91. 240

J.L. FISCHER - THE FOUNDER OF DIALECTICAL STRUCTUROLOGY

17 op. cit., 113. 18 op. cit., 116. 19 op. cit., 120. 20 J.L. Fischer, Filosof'ické

studie

(Philosophical

Studies), Řada I.

(Praha, 1968), 40. 21 ορ. cit., 108. 22 ορ. cit., 110. 23 Published in German: "Ganzheit, Struktur und Kausalität", Acta universitatis Palackianae Olomucensis, Philosophica-aestetica, III (1970). 24 R. Jakobson, "0 předpokladech prazské linqvistické školy" ('The Pre­ mises of the Prague Linguistic School')/ index

(1932), 4, 6-8; cf.

J. Zumr, "Tvұrce a strážce hodnot" ('The Creator and the Guardian of Values'), FC 18 (1970), 1. Translated from the Czech by Peter V. Zima

241

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE (Randbemerkungen zur Beziehung zwischen dem Strukturalismus und der ästhetisch-semiotischen Anthropologie)

Oleg Sus

Im Jahre 1935 hatte Jan Mukařovský keine Zweifel dar­ über, daß sich die Situation des noetischen Subjekts (des Urhebers eines Kunstwerkes) im Verhältnis zum Kunstprodukt von Grund aus verändert hat. Mit anderen Worten: Das einst stolze Ego wurde entthront, es hörte nicht nur auf, der einzige Gott der Genese zu sein, sondern es verlor über­ haupt seine Weihe. Auf dem Seziertisch der strukturellen Analyse wurde der Beweis dafür erbracht - durch einen Ver­ gleich des Individuums als Stützpunkt noetischer Gewißheit in der romantischen Kunst einerseits, mit dem Individuum in der modernen Kunst andererseits. Dabei traten grund­ sätzliche Unterschiede zutage, die die Kompetenz dieses sog. Schöpferindividuums betrafen, und die Vorstellung von dessen autoritativer Sendung im Entstehungsakt des Werkes, von dessen "absoluter Erzeugerschaft", verschwand. Jan Mukařovský charakterisierte das mit folgenden Worten:

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Die Distanz zwischen der empirischen Realität und der ästhetischen Mitteilung über sie im Kunstwerk erzielt die Romantik - wie die moderne Kunst - durch Deformierung die­ ser empirischen Realität. Dafür ist zwar das Individuum verantwortlich, aber es ist gleichgültig, ob es als star­ kes, titanisch sich auflehnendes Individuum auftritt, das fähig ist, diese extreme Verantwortung zu tragen, oder ob es schwach ist und unterliegt. Im modernen künstlerischen Schaffen wird diese noetische Verantwortung als Maß aller Dinge verdrängt und zerstört; die "Persönlichkeit" selbst ist in Auflösung begriffen: "Das gemeinsame Zeichen der modernen Kunst ist, wie wir zeigten, die Verdrängung der Persönlichkeit, insbesondere der komplizierten und deshalb einzigartigen psychologischen Persönlichkeit, die allein durch ihre Gegenwart die Einheit des Werkes betont. Unter diesen Umständen schiebt sich der objektive künstlerische Aufbau in den Vordergrund und mit ihm auch die zahlreichen dialektischen Widersprüche, die ihn durchwirken. Es ist kein Zufall, daß parallel zur modernen Kunst auch die Kunsttheorie auf unterschiedlichen Wegen und auf verschie­ denen Gebieten zum Begriff der künstlerischen Struktur als einer im Kollektivbewußtsein existierenden kontinuierlichen Entwicklungsreihe gelangt, die sich unter dem Einfluß der in ihr enthaltenen Widersprüche fortentwickelt. Die Struk­ tur scheint von der Abhängigkeit vom Individuum und von der materiellen Wirklichkeit gelöst, aber dadurch ist auch ihr Gleichgewicht gestört; die in der Kunst immer verdeckt wir­ kenden Antinomien treten sichtbar an die Oberfläche." (Jan Mukarovský, "Dialektische Widersprüche in der moder­

nen Kunst", 1935, in: Studien Ästhetik

und

Poetik,

München

zur 1974.)

244

strukturalistischen

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE Diesen Antinomien konnte natürlich auch das Verhältnis Urheber - Werk und die theoretische Erklärung dieser Rela­ tion nicht entkommen. Der innere Widerspruch entsteht hier schon bei der Frage nach Ausgangspunkt und Präferenz. In einem Grenzfall dominiert das genetische Element - als an­ geblich weiter unspaltbarer Ausgangspunkt: das ist eben jenes immer wieder angebetete sog. Schöpferindividuum, während das Werk dann dessen "Ausdruck" darstellen soll. Im 19. Jahrhundert waren sich darin - wenngleich auf gegen­ sätzlichen Positionen stehend - die Romantiker etwa mit der positivistischen psychologischen Ästhetik einig. Im entgegengesetzten Grenzfall moderner Prägung, also up-todate, gilt umgekehrt als Ausgangspunkt das fertige Kunst­ produkt und die Gesamtheit der Produkte, d.h., die globale literarische Struktur

(und allgemein die künstlerische

überhaupt), der überindividuelle, intersubjektive Bereich - das Netz der Wechselbeziehungen zwischen den Komponenten. Für die romantische Konzeption ist z.B. der bekannte fran­ zösische Kritiker Sainte-Beuve charakteristisch. Er "er­ lebt" das Wortkunstwerk unmittelbar als lebendigen Ausdruck der individualisierten Künstlerpersönlichkeit, in die bei ihm aber ständig veränderliche, flüchtige Äußerungen der bloßen Privatperson, des psychophysischen Einzelmenschen eingehen, der "hic et nunc" existiert und daher auch in mancher Hinsicht nur zufällig ist. Als ein sicheres Radia­ tionszentrum, als angeblich evidente Garantie der noetischen Verantwortlichkeit erscheint dem einstigen Verkünder der romantischen Konzeptionen und dem späteren Orakel der nachromantischen literarischen Jugend die einzigartige, durch das Kunstwerk ausgedrückte Autorenpersönlichkeit. Die absolute Instanz ist hier also das schöpferische Indi-

245

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS viduum, die kreative Persönlichkeit. Sainte-Beuves Bekennt­ nis ist demnach der individualistische Genetismus in der Kritik. Und seine angewandte Philosophie ist der ästheti­ sche Punktualismus: Die Urheber von Kunstwerken mit ihren 'Ichs' sind sozusagen Götter der Genese, die noch verehrt werden. Die Blickrichtung des unersättlichen literarischen Porträtisten ist zentripetal. Als Zentrum, als Nabel des Schaffens erscheint ihm der "Schöpfer" - auch um den Preis, daß sich dabei die künstlerisch relevante Schöpferpersön­ lichkeit (mit motivierenden, im Verhältnis zur Struktur des Kunstwerkes funktionellen Impulsen) begrifflich nicht von den nichtmotivierenden, wenn auch oft effektvollen, fesselnden, ungewöhnlichen Lebensakten eines bestimmten Einzelmenschen mit seiner individuellen biographischen Faktizität - eines in die Koordinaten von Zeit und Raum eingesetzten Individuums in seiner alltäglichen Existenz unterscheidet. Man kann indessen nicht behaupten, daß etwa SainteBeuve von der Theorie jenes Bereiches (zumindest in seiner Fassung aus dem 19. Jahrhundert), der dann einige Genera­ tionen nach ihm zur hierarchischen Struktur wird, zum spe­ zifischen "Netz" von wechselseitigen Beziehungen und Span­ nungen, die so oder so aus dem Diktat der subjektiven, in­ dividualisierten Entscheidung der sog. Schöpferpersönlich­ keit herausgenommen, herauspräpariert werden, nichts gewußt hätte. Dann hätte er nicht am Ausgangspunkt stehen können, dann wäre er nicht zu jenem Urvater geworden, als den ihn die psychologische und soziologisierende Kritik, die bio­ graphische und genetische Literaturforschung und die histo­ rische Kritik anerkennen. Sein "Spürsinn" - um die Bezeich-

246

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE nung von F.X. Salda zu gebrauchen - war bewundernswert, und daraus ging zweifellos jene allmächtige intellektuelle Leidenschaft hervor, die stets und überall wißbegierig und schneller Auffassung fähig, maximal plastisch war, so daß man ihn als einen Virtuosen der literarischen Analyse um der Analyse willen bezeichnen könnte

(auch das hat Salda,

der größte tschechische Kritiker, über ihn gesagt). SainteBeuve wußte nämlich recht viel um die Verwurzelung des Schaffens, um die "in statu nascendi" wirkenden Impulse, ja er war geradezu ein Verkünder des Genetismus im 19. Jahrhundert, der dann Schule machte. Er empfahl dem Kriti­ ker, nach der Heimatscholle und der Rasse des Schriftstel­ lers, nach seiner Abstammung und überhaupt nach seiner "Physiologie" zu forschen. Er suchte die ersten Schritte eines hervorragenden Menschen in seiner frühen, ursprüng­ lichen Mikrosozietät zu ergründen, d.h., in der Familie (hauptsächlich bei der Mutter - wäre das nicht von Interes­ se für die Psychoanalytiker und für J.P, Sartre?). Er wies auf die Notwendigkeit hin, die Erziehung des kreativen Individuums daheim und in der Schule zu studieren, er ver­ gaß also nicht, die Funktion der sog. primären Umwelt zu betonen. Er kannte auf seine Weise die Bedeutung von Klein­ gruppen (das klingt ganz modern!) usw. Aber diese ganze "literarische Naturgeschichte" mit soziologisierenden Ex­ kursen, bei dem zweifellos auf die wissenschaftliche Expli­ kation des Kunstwerkes schwörenden Geist, wird von der in­ tuitiv fundierten Fähigkeit eines déchiffrierenden Intel­ lekts beherrscht, der den Text als Gesamtheit von AussagenAusdrucksweisen des generierenden Ego, also des Autors, liest und interpretiert. Für einen solchen Kritiker - und auch Theoretiker - ist das Wortkunstwerk in erster Linie

247

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS und in entscheidendem Maße personalistisch begründet; es erscheint als Ausdruck und zugleich "Abbild" dessen, was - genauer gesagt - eine Art schillernde Mischung aus der Menge von Erlebnissen der bloßen Person hic et nunc und aus jener produktiven geistigen Tätigkeit ist, durch die eine Person erst zur Persönlichkeit wird, indem sie über sich selbst durch Exteriorisation, durch Vergegenständli­ chung im Werk-Kommunikat, hinauswächst. Sainte-Beuve bringt also den Autor als Individuum

(seine Biographie) und das

Wortkunstwerk möglichst nahe zusammen; er homogenisiert diese zwei unterschiedlichen, ontologisch heterogenen Entitäten

(wie Roman Ingarden sagen würde). Die Erstere

setzt in allem die Letztere in Bewegung, das Individuum beherrscht das Produkt. Sainte-Beuve versucht das jedesmal mit einer Gewandtheit und einer allwissenden Unterrichtetheit "par excellence" zu beweisen. Hier ist sein neural­ gischer Punkt, mit anderen Worten jener angeblich alles bestimmende, d.h. also, der erste und dominierende "Aus­ gangspunkt" als ein verabsolutiertes, primäres Datum. Von diesem lassen sich zwar Verbindungslinien auch zu anderen (mitbedingten) Gegebenheiten ziehen, aber er wird an und für sich als in letzter Instanz substanziell und unteilbar dargestellt, oder - anders gesagt - als unüberführbar, un­ auflösbar in andere Beziehungen, da er eine Art von Urelement ist

. . . .

Die schwache und wunde Stelle - punctum

litis

- der

Sainte-Beuveschen Kritik liegt eben dort, wo sie selbst freudig ihre Losung ausruft: Wie der Baum, so die Früchte! Wenn das Literaturstudium zum moralischen Studium führt, d.h.

zur Erkenntnis "eines hervorragenden und berühmten

248

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE Einzelmenschen", worin besteht dann überhaupt die eigene Beschaffenheit der Wortkunstwerke? Sind sie wirklich nicht mehr als nur Ausdruck von Individualitäten mit ihren Erleb­ nissphären, sind sie auf diese Weise dem Prinzip der Indi­ vidualisierung unterworfen, müssen sie stets und überall, in allem, in jeder ihrer Komponenten durch das sog. Schöp­ ferindividuum "enteignet" werden? Eine solche Methode würde gleichsam - wenn auch indirekt - negieren, daß die ent­ standene literarische Struktur selbst ein Produkt der pro­ duktiven Entfremdung, der Alienation im positiven Sinne des Wortes ist, d.h., eine Vergegenständlichung dessen, was der Expedient (Urheber) an den Rezipienten sendet, wodurch es überhaupt mitteilbar

(Adressaten)

(kommunikativ)

wird. Von diesem Gesichtspunkt aus ließe sich gegen die Sainte-Beuvesche Auffassung einwenden, daß Wortkunstwerke auch buchstäblich literarische Gegen-stände sind. Sie lie­ gen freilich vor dem Subjekt - sogar vor dem Autor! - und treten aus den Autorenwerkstätten heraus, um sie zuletzt zu verlassen und auf ihre eigene Weise weiterzuleben, als Objekte, die dem Geburtsort, der Taufwiege entfernt sind, als etwas, was außerhalb vom "Ich" existiert

(im Sinne

der überindividuellen Struktur und des überindividuellen Wertes gemeint). Selbst der subjektivste, individuelle Ausdruck kann keineswegs dem realen Gegensatz der geisti­ gen Produktion, dem Abstand und - noch zugespitzter - dem Zwiespalt zwischen Urheber und Produkt entkommen. Das wußte schon G.W.F. Hegel, und von einem anderen ontologischen Gesichtspunkt aus wurde die Heterogenität beider Faktoren von der Phänomenologie des Wortkunstwerkes in den Arbeiten R. Ingardens herausgearbeitet. Das sind heute übrigens "loci communes". Auch das intimste Persönlich-

249

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS keits-Projekt wird in der Zeichenstruktur vergegenständ­ licht und somit im Verhältnis zum Urheber diesem entfrem­ det: Es wächst über seinen ursprünglichen Impuls, über sein Geburts-Ego hinaus, indem es zu einer besonderen, auch anderen zugänglichen intersubjektiven Allgemeinheit wird.

(Die Semiotik drückt heute diesen Sachverhalt mit

anderen Termini aus, aber es handelt sich im Grunde um ein und dasselbe Ding und um ein und dasselbe Problem.) Das gilt letzten Endes auch für die Ergebnisse eines ein­ fachen Arbeitsaktes - was schon Hegel enthüllte! - und freilich auch für das Kunstwerk.

F.X. Salda hat hier vor Jahren ein gerechtes Urteil ausgesprochen. Sainte-Beuve erschien ihm als Prototyp der romantischen Kritik, die das dichterische Kunstwerk im Lichte des Lebens des Autors, seines individuellen "Mensch­ seins" erklärt wissen wollte. Sie begriff das Werk als eine Beichte, in der der Schöpfer seine Erlebnisse bekennt. Dies führte - durch Kurzschluß - zu der Forderung, die "Echtheit" jenes Bekenntnisses zu untersuchen, den "wirk­ lichen" Menschen mit dem "literarischen" Menschen zu ver­ gleichen. Über diesen empirischen Privatmenschen sammelte ja Sainte-Beuve gründliche Informationen aller Art. Ein solcher Gesichtspunkt ist aber nach Salda sehr einseitig. Denn das Wortkunstwerk ist keine Beichte, oder es existiert nicht bloß als Beichte. Es gibt große Werke, die "objektive Bauwerke" sind und in denen der Autor seine intimen Krisen gar nicht "expressis verbis" mitteilt, "beichtet". Andere Werke entstehen und leben als Kondensate von Träumen und Sehnsüchten; sie sind keine treue "Widerspiegelung" der verschiedenartig begrenzten individuellen Lebensempirie,

250

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE sondern gehen im Gegenteil über dieses partikuläre Leben hinaus. Der Autor ersetzt sich in seinen Werken das, was ihm das profane Alltagsleben versagt hat. Das geschaffene Werk hat dann für ihn eine kompensatorische Bedeutung, es erfüllt eine Komplementärfunktion. moderni zapisník

kritice

(F.X. Salda, Něco 

[Einiges über die moderne Kritik],

Salduv

[Saldas Notizbuch] V, 1933.)

Aber trotz alledem: Welch ein bewundernswerter Zaube­ rer war der alte Sainte-Beuve in seinen kritischen Por­ träts! Er hat freilich ganz offen gegen die strengen, ja beinahe puristischen Forderungen jener modernen Analyse gesündigt, die den objektiven Aufbau eines Werkes an sich erfassen will. Von diesem Standpunkt aus betrachtet hat er sich durch seine Vermischung eines hybriden Psycholo­ gismus schuldig gemacht; dabei hat er gerade durch jene sich entladenden Lichtblitze von Oszillationen, die vom Autor auf das Werk, vom Werk zurück auf den Urheber gewor­ fen werden, fasziniert. Er hat - welch ein Paradox! - vor­ trefflich gesündigt: seine Porträts leben nämlich noch im­ mer. Nehmen wir etwa das Balzac-Porträt von Sainte-Beuve als Beispiel. Mit Eloquenz und einer wahrlich fast ver­ schwenderischen Energie umreißt hier der französische Kritiker ein Modell dessen, was man als Prinzip der Homo­ genisierung bei der Erklärung des Verhältnisses zwischen Urheber und Werk bezeichnen könnte. Beides wird amalgamiert im Gegensatz zum späteren, modernen Prinzip der Heterogenität, das die Schöpferpersönlichkeit als Einzelperson vom Werk trennt. Und so bringt Sainte-Beuve den Stil Balzacs also die spezifische Organisation des Textes, eines Gebil­ des mit semiotischem Charakter - und den "physischen Orga-

251

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS nismus", bzw. die sog. Physiologie der kreativen Persön­ lichkeit, furcht- und bedenkenlos zur Deckung. Kurzschluß­ verbindungen sind hier so etwas wie Entladungen, die bei minimaler Entfernung von der "Physiologie" Balzacs auf die Struktur seiner literarischen Werke überspringen. SainteBeuve schildert Balzac als einen Künstler mit dem Körper eines Athleten, als einen kraftvollen und herkulesartigen Organismus, und zwar absichtlich mit dem Hinweis auf die unterschiedliche "Wesensart" der Schriftsteller vom Typ eines Racine, Voltaire oder Montesquieu. Bei der Lektüre ihrer Werke kämen im Leser nicht Fragen auf, ob sie kör­ perlich tüchtig waren und eine kräftige Konstitution hat­ ten. Buffon sei zwar ein Athlet gewesen, aber seinem Stil merke man es nicht an. Nach Sainte-Beuve verhält es sich einfach so, daß sich bei den Schriftstellern der klassi­ schen Zeiten beim Schreiben nur ihr Denkvermögen reali­ sierte, was der höchste, vernunftmäßige und wesentliche Teil ihres "Wesens" war. Die moderne Zeit des 19. Jahrhun­ derts verlange aber vom Autor eine Menge Arbeit, die kurz­ fristig verrichtet werden müsse. Daraus ergebe sich - so heißt es immerhin in der sprudelnden Kraftsprache des französischen Kritikers -, daß an den jetzt geschaffenen Werken die ganze "Person" des Autors, ja auch "sein ganzer Organismus" teilnehme und darin zur Geltung komme. Man schreibe nicht mehr - wie in früheren Zeiten - mit dem Denkvermögen, sondern "mit Blut und Muskulatur". Wolle man das Talent eines solchen modernen Schriftstellers analysie­ ren, so müsse man seine Physiologie und Hygiene berücksich­ tigen. Für Sainte-Beuve ist geradezu ein Paradebeispiel da­ für Honoré Balzac selbst, den er bewundert und mit dem er sich selbst vergleicht

("ich bin auch so ein bißchen Herrn

252

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE de Balzac ähnlich"). Er hält ihn für einen "Physiologen", bei dem die "physische Natur" eine große Rolle spielt und in der Schilderung des menschlichen Geistes zum Ausdruck kommt. (Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi II [2.IX.1850].) Nur am Rande bemerkt: Beachten wir, daß selbst SainteBeuve das Prinzip der Homogenität zwischen zwei Entitätsreihen, zwischen Person und Werk, immerhin irgendwie an­ passen, adaptieren mußte. Mit entzückender Naivität verrät das sein Ausspruch, Buffon sei zwar ein Athlet gewesen, aber seinem Stil sei es nicht anzumerken. Um sein Inter­ pretationsprinzip doch noch zu retten, brachte er es könnte man sagen - in partieller Gestalt zur Geltung. Mit dem literarischen Produkt decke sich nicht die ganze "Per­ son", sondern nur bestimmte Teile, Komponenten oder Funk­ tionen (Kräfte oder Fähigkeiten) der sog. Wesenheit des Autors. Einmal ist das also das rationale Denkvermögen, der vernunftmäßige Teil (wie bei Klassikern, siehe oben), ein andermal wiederum der sog. ganze Organismus mit seiner Physiologie.

Ansonsten gilt freilich, daß eine solche "physiologi­ sche" Analyse bzw. eher Interpretation "ad personam" mit ihrem vereinfachenden "modus operandi" vor dem Richter­ stuhl der heutigen literaturwissenschaftlichen Methodolo­ gie nicht bestehen könnte. Es genügt hier, sich etwa nur auf die Vertreter der schon klassischen russischen (sowje­ tischen) formalistischen Schule zu berufen. Roman Jakobson und Jurij Tynjanov - die zu den Initiatoren der "bereinig­ ten" Erforschung der sich entwickelnden literarischen Struktur gehören - haben schöne Abenteuer der privatper-

253

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS sönlichen Genesen, jene Fragen "episodischen" Charakters, wie sie es nannten, aus dem Wege geräumt. Mit solchen "Episoden" überschattete nämlich das wuchernde außerlite­ rarische Material nicht nur die Untersuchung der eigenen Organisation des literarischen Kunstwerkes, sondern zu­ gleich auch die Analyse ihrer Evolution in der Zeit. Das wurde schon im Jahre 1927 gesagt; die prinzipiellen metho­ dologischen Ausgangspositionen für die Kritik des Psycholo­ gismus und Biographismus hatten die russischen Formalisten schon vorher formuliert, noch zur Zeit des ersten Welt­ krieges .

Der tschechische Strukturalismus knüpfte mit dem Werk Jan Mukařovský's an die prinzipielle Unterscheidung zwi­ schen dem biographischen Autor

(d.h., einer empirischen

psychophysischen Einheit) und der sog. literarischen Per­ sönlichkeit, d.h., dem im Leserbewußtsein hervorgerufenen Autorenbild, an. Dabei wurde später auch noch der Erzähler in der Prosa als das sog. epische Subjekt (in der Lyrik: das lyrische Subjekt) vom Autorenbild unterschieden, und beide Phänomene wurden als semantische Konstruktionen auf­ gefaßt. Der Prager Strukturalismus ist noch weitergegangen in dieser "Strukturierung" des Urheber-Individuums, in das die Romantik verliebt war und das noch heute in vielen Abhandlungen des akademischen "Establishment"

(auch unter

Marxisten) als das sog. Schöpferindividuum lebt. Dieses wird meistens nicht analysiert und erscheint oft als ein Halbfetisch; mitunter dient es auch als Waffe gegen die angebliche totale Depersonalisierung der Literaturwissen­ schaft durch den bösen Strukturalismus. Das Subjekt des Werkes tritt bei Mukařovský in Zeichenrelationen ein, in

254

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE den zwischen der Signifikanten- und der Signifikaten-Ebene ablaufenden Prozeß: Es kann nicht mehr durch das Werk ein­ deutig "ausgedrückt", sondern nur auf komplizierte und mehr oder weniger vermittelte Weise bezeichnet werden. Aber auch im Rahmen dieser semiotischen Konstruktion verliert es nicht seine Rolle. Das Subjekt des Werkes ist auf der ei­ nen Seite das Medium, durch das in die geschaffene litera­ rische Struktur Einflüsse außerliterarischer Bedingungen projiziert werden. Auf der anderen Seite erscheint es als Träger und Garant der sog. semantischen Geste, durch die der Aufbau des Werkes einheitlich organisiert wird, so daß aus diesem ordnenden Faktor auch eine gewisse designative (indizierende) Beziehung zum Urheber des Werkes im Sinne jener "literarischen Persönlichkeit" hervorgeht. Erst dann - auf dem Umweg über diese semiotischen Vermittlungen kann das Werk in diesen oder jenen motivierten Zusammen­ hang mit dem wirklichen, empirischen

(sog. biographischen)

Subjekt des Autors und mit dessen zeiträumlichen Koordina­ ten im realen historischen Kontext gebracht werden. - Das alles bedeutet freilich in der modernen Tradition der tschechischen strukturalistischen Denkweise keine nach­ trägliche Rechtfertigung oder gar Rehabilitierung des Aus­ druckspsychologismus und der biographistischen Interpreta­ tionsmethode vom Sainte-Beuve-. Die "mélanges" des aus­ gezeichneten französischen Kritikers haben bis heute keine Absolution - vielleicht nur mit Ausnahme von Václav Černý erhalten, wenn sie auch mit ihrer expressiven Plastizität immer noch die Fähigkeiten der heutigen tschechischen Kri­ tiker, ein literarisches Porträt zu zeichnen, in den Schat­ ten stellen

. . . .

255

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Das einstige stolz schöpferische Ich, dieser Demiurg Sainte-Beuve, wird aufgelöst, in Frage gestellt und relati­ viert - schon seit Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts. Die Phänomenologen und die radikalen Anhänger der formalistischen Methode russischer Provenienz erheben das Fanal des Antipsychologismus

gegen die Ausdrucksästhetik; die These

über den überindividuellen, intersubjektiven Aufbau des ästhetischen Kommunikates, das in substantielle Beziehung zum sprachlichen Zeichensystem gebracht wird, vertreten die strukturalistischen Schulen; das scheinbar einfache "Element" des Subjekts

(Autors) beginnt sich in Verbindung

zwischen signifiant und signifié aufzulösen. Manche Semiologen schlagen sogar vor, "das Individuum aus der Litera­ turgeschichte zu amputieren"

(Roland Barthes). Die noeti-

sche Verantwortlichkeit des Individuums - eine Stütze der Romantik - gerät ins Wanken, sie macht nicht nur eine Krise durch, sie zerfällt. Zwischen dem Urheber (demjenigen, der das Zeichen sendet) und dem Wahrnehmenden

(demjenigen, der

es empfängt, interpretiert) steht die vermittelnde immate­ rielle Struktur von Bedeutungen; der schöpferische Akt wird in seiner mehrschichtigen Mediation und Bedingtheit er­ kannt: in seinem dialektischen Zwiespalt zwischen Genese und Produkt; das Ich wird plötzlich - wie wir wissen auch "ein anderer"

("die

anderen") und "etwas anderes"; die

ursprünglich verehrte Einzigartigkeit des Werkes wird vor dem Hintergrund der Tradition, des globalen "Background" (mit verschiedenen Superstrukturen) relativiert; das Werk erscheint im Netz von überindividuellen Strukturen mit seiner Objektivität "sui generis", in jenen Bereichen also, wo die einstigen Götter der Genese, Fetische von Individua­ litäten, sehr schnell ihren Glanz verlieren.

256

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE Deutlich wird der Abstand zwischen der eigentlichen Funktion des Geburtsaktes - jener angebeteten Genese - und der profanen Funktion des fertigen Werkes. Dieses Werk muß in der Gegenwart ganz alltäglich, von Tag zu Tag existieren als Kommunikat für seine Adressaten: nicht nur jeden Tag, sondern auch jede Woche, jeden Monat, Jahr um Jahr. Der ursprüngliche Sinn der pathetisierten genetischen Hand­ lungen und ihrer Grundlage (z.B. der Erlebnisgrundlage) deckt sich nicht mehr restlos mit dem Sinn der interpre­ tierenden Prozesse, die das Leben der Werke (durch ästhe­ tische Konkretisationen) erhalten, jener Werke, die aus den Händen des Urhebers unwiderruflich über diesen hinaus­ gegangen sind. Wir wiederholen: Die Entstehung, Genese der Struktur, ist ein Problem für sich; die konstituierte Struktur selbst ist etwas anderes. Das ist die reale Dialektik. Nichts Neues unter der Sonne. Das etablierte literarische und künstlerische Objekt ("Gegen-stand"), das Jahrzehnte nach seiner Entstehung fortlebt, hat freilich seine eigenen und nicht wegzudiskutierenden Mechanismen des Überdauerns. Es vergegenwärtigt sich in den Rezeptionsakten, die es fun­ dieren, ohne daß es auf diese reduzierbar wäre. "Leben" muß es nämlich aus sich selbst - als ein Wertträger -, und je länger es auf diese Weise in der Zeit fortbesteht, desto sinnloser ist es, dafür eine vereinfachte kausale oder rein genetische Erklärung zu suchen, etwa in den Erlebnissen des sich entfernenden Autorenindividuums. Noch einmal: Die Struktur überdauert, und je mehr sie sich von dem historischen Ort der Entstehung und von dem

257

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Urheber, diesem alten "Gott der Genese", entfernt, desto mehr gilt für sie das verborgene Paradox, das aus dem be­ quemen Verweilen in der Vergangenheit - bei den Schick­ salsgöttinnen - die erstarrte Garde derer aufstört, die ihren Blick hoffnungsvoll auf die Wiege mit dem Taufschein heften . . . . Denn das Werk in seiner Struktur funktio­ niert ruhig "etsi deus non daretur". Als ob es keine gene­ tischen Götter-Urheber gäbe. Auch diese verloren nach und nach den Heiligenschein und damit zugleich die stolzen Attribute, durch die sie sanktualisiert worden waren. Die Entmythologisierung geht hier sehr weit, ohne daß wir uns ihrer bewußt sind. Sie betrifft nicht nur die privile­ gierte Stellung des individualisierten schöpferischen Ego, sondern analog auch sein verabsolutiertes noetisches Privileg. Aber darüber ist hier schon gesprochen worden. Die Erklärung von Kunstwerken, die durch ihre Rück­ projektion in den Geburtsakt und zugleich in die entschei­ dende Kompetenz des "allmächtigen" kreativen Individuums erfolgt, führt in letzter Instanz zum vereinfachenden Genetismus. Das gilt nicht nur für die historische For­ schung, sondern auch für die Ästhetik. Das, was ins Werk im Akt seiner Entstehung eingeht, verändert sich unwider­ ruflich in eine Komponente der - in unserem Falle - lite­ rarischen (allgemeiner dann der künstlerischen) Struktur. Diese wiederum stellt sich in Gestalt des Kommunikates vom Gesichtspunkt der zeitlichen Nachfolge aus gesehen immer vor den Empfängnisakt, "verdeckt" ihn, stellt sich zwischen ihn und uns. Nur durch diese Struktur, durch ihr Medium können wir die Genese (die Werk-Entstehung) inter­ pretieren; aber nicht mehr als etwas, das in seiner origi-

258

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE nalen Gegebenheit, in seinem "An sich", so, "wie es wirk­ lich war", vor uns auftritt. Aus dem fertigen Werk können wir seine Geburts- und Formungsakte nur noch auf diese Weise "lesen" und für uns das Bild seines Urhebers rekon­ struieren. Mit der Genese kommunizieren wir - ähnlich wie mit der Geschichte überhaupt - im selekti\/en Prozeß ihrer Sinndeutung, oder besser gesagt, ihres "Lesens" in der Gegenwartsperspektive. Der Geschichtslauf und die in ihm enthaltenen Prozesse der Genese gliedern sich so für uns in die vielschichtige Zone der Kommunikation ein. Mit der Geschichte führen wir einen "Dialog", der natürlich ein­ seitig bleibt, weil sie selbst uns nicht fragen kann. Und die an sie gerichteten Fragen beunruhigen uns selbst, wie der Vertreter der sowjetischen sog. "neuen Historiographie" A.J. Gurevic behauptet, der aus der semiotischen Schule in Tartu eine Lehre gezogen hat. B. Uspenskij, der dieser Schule angehört, prägt dann sogar programmatisch die Lo­ sung "historia sub specie semioticae".

Sagen wir das abgekürzt folgendermaßen: Die theoreti­ sche und auch laienhafte Erklärung der Genese eines Werkes ist letzten Endes ein Bezeichnungsakt, der sich auf das Bezeichnete bezieht. In dieser Hinsicht handelt es sich um ein semiotisches Faktum. Entstehung, Genese, Herkunft, An­ fang, Ursprung . . .

- diese ganze Vergangenheit, wie sie

auch benannt werden mag, kann in ihrem Urbeginn, "in statu nascendi", nicht wieder vergegenwärtigt werden. Wenn wir sie uns vorstellen und sie analysieren, erklären oder be­ werten, wird sie für uns zur Komponente der bezeichneten Gegenständlichkeiten

(Signifikate). Ereignissen wird eine

Bedeutung zuerkannt: Ihr "Text" wird von einer bestimmten

259

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Gemeinschaft, von einem Kollektiv gesellschaftlicher Adres­ saten "gelesen"

(. Uspenskij). Zwischen dem Signifikant

und Signifikat existiert hier aber keine strenge Symmetrie, sondern ein asymmetrischer Dualismus

(wie das für den Be­

reich der sprachlichen Zeichen von S. Karcevskij nachge­ wiesen wurde). Ein Signifikant kann mehrere Signifikate, ja eine ganze Menge von Signifikaten haben, und auch um­ gekehrt. Auch für die strengste objektivierende "realisti­ sche" Interpretation bleiben so die bezeichneten Gegen­ ständlichkeiten vom Typ "Entstehung", "Genese", "Ursprung", aber auch "Urheber", "Schöpferindividuum" usw. semantisch so oder so offen, mehrdeutig, mit verschiedenen Graden von Unbestimmtheit, mit nicht ausgefüllten Positionen, sog. Leerstellen.

(Gegenüber dieser Tatsache blieb der traditio­

nelle Positivismus in der Historiographie und auch in der Ästhetik und Kunstwissenschaften blind.) Und es ist sehr bezeichnend, daß diese Leerstellen sich erweitern, je wei­ ter und tiefer z.B. der Kunsthistoriker, der die sog. schöpferischen Biographien verfolgt, in die sich kontinu­ ierlich entfernende Vergangenheit vordringt. Hier entzie­ hen sich ihm immer mehr Quellen, Belegmaterial, Zeugnisse, und zuletzt verschwindet auch der individuelle Urheber in der geschichtlichen Anonymität. Was dann dem Forscher bei der Erklärung der Genese des Kunstschaffens übrigbleibt, sind nur noch sehr allgemeine und vieldeutige Begriffs­ netze von hohem Abstraktionsgrad wie Zeitalter, Epoche oder verschiedene generalisierende Bestimmungen des Stil­ charakters. Kurz und gut: "pater incertus - ars valet". Vom ursprünglichen Entstehungsakt, der durch die elementare Einheit des Autors garantiert wird, bleiben für uns die gewandelten Bedeutungsstrukturen übrig, wie sie über ihre

260

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE Genese hinausgehen. Eben darin liegt indessen - paradoxer­ weise - eine der Voraussetzungen für ihr Weiterleben. Gerade das Werk als Struktur bleibt doch kein Privat­ eigentum des Autors für ewige Zeiten, für immer zwischen die Wände der Geburtswiege verbannt, und auch kein erstarr­ ter Ausdruck, der ein für allemal gegeben ist und nur eine Lesart, ein Verstehen, eine Sinndeutung zuläßt. Es han­ delt sich nicht etwa nur darum, daß das literarische Werk als Strukturganzheit in seinem überindividuellen Charakter auch schematisierte Aspekte enthält

(R. Ingarden), die

sich einfach nicht als eine Art "Emanation" der streng in­ dividuellen schöpferischen Aktivität des EinzelmenschenDemiurgen ableiten lassen

(ihre Bedeutungserfüllungen sind

nur in den Rezeptionsakten realisierbar). Vielmehr geht das kreative Subjekt unablässig über das Ego als bloße in sich abgekapselte Einheit hinaus, es bezieht sich immer irgendwie auch auf die Gattungs- und Art-Existenz des Menschen - und des künstlerisch tätigen Menschen par ex­ cellence! -, es ist mit dieser verflochten, so daß in die­ ses Subjekt so oder so auch die anthropologische Dimension eingeht. Aber diese vorläufig nur ganz allgemeine Fest­ stellung führt in ihrer Konsequenz zur Transformation des traditionellen "individualisierten" Subjektbegriffes. Das Kunstwerk als Zeichenmenge ist durch seine semiotischen Funktionen einerseits mit dem Sender, und andererseits mit dem Empfänger verbunden. Das ist in heutigen Zeiten eine banale Feststellung. Aber diese Beziehungen werden wohl eben in ihrer ästhetischen Realisierung nicht restlos überführbar sein in diesen oder jenen Typ der Bezeichnung (einschließlich der expressiven Funktion) von rein indivi-

261

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS duellen, relativen, zeitlich oder gesellschaftlich deter­ minierten und anderen, letzten Endes auch rein zufälligen Bestimmungen eines Menschen als abgesonderte, begrenzte und atomisierte Einheit. (Auch die positivistische oder geisteswissenschaftliche Einordnung dieser "Ichs" in das sog.Kollektivbewußtsein oder in den "objektiven" Geist reicht nicht aus. Sie bleibt da gewöhnlich auf der Schwelle der eigentlichen anthropologischen Auffassung stehen.) In radikaler und allerdings auch stark vereinfachender Weise wurde diese Problematik der menschlichen anthropolo­ gischen Konstitution von dem Surrealismus zwischen den Weltkriegen dargestellt und zugleich deren Bedeutung für das moderne avantgardistische Schaffen gezeigt. Die dama­ lige surrealistische ästhetische Konzeption - vor allem im Werk André Bretons - blieb jedoch im Rahmen der aggres­ siven programmatischen Entwürfe stecken. Dadurch wurde die ganze Frage samt den vorgelegten Antworten in beträcht­ lichem Maße deformiert und mystifiziert, andererseits aber trug der Surrealismus zur Wiederentdeckung der anthropolo­ gisch-ästhetischen Problematik bei. Eine der zentralen Thesen in Bretons "Les Vases communicants" (1932, tsche­ chische Übertragung 1934) proklamiert die "Identität des Menschen" inmitten des Wirbels, desjenigen Menschen näm­ lich, der nicht nur er selbst sei, sondern alle darstelle. Der damalige

(zumindest für die Marxisten der dreißiger

Jahre) schockierende Hinweis auf die Identität des Men­ schen war kein Selbstzweck. Er war nämlich mit dem Versuch verbunden, die Bedingtheit des Bewußtseins und der Ent­ stehung von Vorstellungen

(im weitesten Sinne des Wortes)

zu erklären. Um die Totalität des Menschen mit all seinen

262

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE Ausdrucksfähigkeiten zu verstehen und in ihm auch das un­ terscheiden zu können, was überdauert, erhob Breton in dieser Untersuchung die Forderung, den Menschen

theoretisch

- das sei unterstrichen - aus dem "sozialen Trubel" heraus­ zunehmen, in ihm jene Identität' inmitten des Wirbels zu erkennen. Nebenbei gesagt: Diese frappierende These rief natürlich im Lager der orthodoxen Linken harte Kritik her­ vor. Vom klassischen Surrealismus der dreißiger Jahre wurde so das Prinzip gegensätzlicher Prägung radikal relativiert und in Frage gestellt, das Prinzip nämlich, nach dem es möglich und sogar notwendig sei, das konkrete menschliche Dasein nur durch eine solche Erkenntnis zu erfassen und zu erschöpfen, die auf der historischen Determiniertheit ba­ siert, - und das auf soziologisch begründeten Erklärungen, auf einem Gefüge von gesellschaftlichen Bindungen und Be­ dingtheiten.

In diesem surrealistischen Modell des "identischen" Menschen, in dem die Dialektik von Veränderungen und gegen­ sätzlichen Spannungen pulsiert, taucht unter dem zeitbe­ dingten Deckmantel eines aggressiven künstlerischen Revol­ teprogramms die Grundfrage nach der sog. anthropologischen Konstitution des Menschen im allgemeinen und damit zugleich - in unserem Zusammenhang - auch die Frage nach jenem überindividuellen Subjekt des Kunstwerkes auf. Die Beant­ wortung dieser Frage ist in der damaligen surrealistischen Konzeption beinahe aufreizend aktualisiert, aber gleich­ zeitig auch verzerrt

und durch die dominierenden Momente

des Unbewußtseins, der Traumhaftigkeit und der Libido ein­ geengt worden, da es dabei zu verschiedenen Kontaminatio­ nen mit der adaptierten Psychoanalyse kam. Andre Breton

263

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS war zwar nicht in allem auf Sigmund Freud eingeschworen, aber dort, wo er in "Les Vases communicants" über das all­ gemeine Wesen der Subjektivität und hyperbolisch über die absolute Macht der sog. universalen Subjektivität sprach, siedelte er sie nicht im wachen Leben an, sondern eben im "Königreich der Nacht", also im Traum. Nach der surrealistischen Theorie der dreißiger Jahre funktioniert der Traum nicht bloß als irgendeine sekundäre Komponente in der Totalität der sich äußernden Subjektivi­ tät. Im Gegenteil: Er wird in der Hierarchie der anthro­ pologischen Konstitution, der menschlichen Wesenskräfte, auf einen Ehrenplatz erhoben. Zugleich erschließt sich uns hier die innere Logik der sonst paradoxen fundamenta­ len Verbindung zwischen der surrealistischen Suche nach der menschlichen Identität und den Eingriffen der entfes­ selten Zufälligkeit, die in Paris Andre Breton und seinen Jüngern

(in Prag dann den tschechischen Surrealisten Karel

Teige und Vítězslav Nezval) so teuer war. Der Zufall, der sich von Fesseln der rationalen Logik befreit, kann über­ raschende über-reale und absurde Gebilde, Montage-Verbin­ dungen von Gegenständlichkeiten mitgestalten, die für den "gesunden" Menschenverstand absolut disparat sind, und produziert so die latente surreale "Logik" sui generis in symbolisierenden Traumbildern. Zum Vorschein kommt dabei auch, und auf ihre eigene Weise, eine der Formen der dia­ lektischen Antinomie in der modernen Kunst, die zwischen der betonten Anthropo-Identität

(dem "Archetypischen") und

der Bloßlegung des überraschend Unwahrscheinlichen, Zufäl­ ligen oszilliert. Im "bewegungslosen Menschen" pulsiert unaufhörlich ein Strom von Gegensätzen. Der Surrealismus

264

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE schaltet zwischen sie elektrisierende, "lyrische" Leit­ verbindungen, und zwar gerade zwischen die Pole, die am weitesten voneinander getrennt wurden: Zwischen das wache Leben und das Traumleben, zwischen der äußeren und der in­ neren Realität, zwischen Vernunft und Wahnsinn, zwischen der Ruhe der Erkenntnis und der Liebe usw. Es ist daher nicht verwunderlich, daß "Les Vases communicants" der ge­ priesenen produktiven Kraft des Träumens huldigen, daß Teige auf tschechischem Boden diese surrealistische Apo­ theose wiederholt und dem Traum, diesem Riesen, dessen Muskeln Wolken sind, alle Tore öffnet. (K. Teige, "Deset let surrealismu" Surrealismus

[Zehn Jahre Surrealismus], im Sammelband

v diskusi

[Surrealismus in der Diskussion],

Prag 1934.)

Zumindest ein höchst repräsentatives Beispiel sei hier in verkürzter Paraphrase angeführt: Bretons hochgesteiger­ tes Lob der Traumexistenz, dieser angebeteten anthropolo­ gischen Potenz, jenes Traumes, in dem sich der Mensch mit allem, was außerhalb seiner Person liegt, identifiziert und alles durchdringt, wobei er selbst in dieser Existenz sein Ich behält und zugleich alles andere ist. Als ob die absolute Identität des Subjekt-Objekts von den Höhen des Hegeischen begrifflichen Äthers, von den Zonen des reinen Denkens

(d.h., des potenzierten Bewußtseins) herunterge­

bracht und sich in der Nacht der Traumsymbolik, in die Sphäre des Unbewußten und Unterbewußtseins, konzentrieren würde - ohne zensierende Kontrolle des begrifflichen Den­ kens und der normierenden Rationalität: Im Getöse der ab­ stürzenden Wand, in Jubelgesängen, die von den wiederauf­ gebauten Städten hinaufsteigen, auf den Wellenbergen der

265

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Ströme, die eine unaufhörliche Rückkehr der Formen ausru­ fen, die unablässig von der Veränderung hervorgebracht werden, und über dem Wirrwarr von Sprachen steht der Mensch und das, was in ihm "immer bewegungslos inmitten des Wir­ bels dauert". Dieser Mensch ist zwar den Anforderungen des Ortes und der Zeit untergeordnet, aber er erscheint als Achse dieser historischen Wirbelbewegung, im Strom von Veränderungen

(im "Trubel"), und zwar als Vermittler par

excellence. Wie hätte ihn Breton verstehen können, wenn er ihn nicht von seiner (nach Bretons Meinung) grundlegenden Fähigkeit her aufgebaut hätte, nämlich aus dem Schlaf, d. h., aus der Fähigkeit, jedesmal wenn es not tut, in den Schoß jener außergewöhnlich belebten Nacht zu tauchen, in der alles - Wesen und Dinge - er selbst ist und in der alles an seinem ewigen Sein teilnimmt. Der Sinn der Bretonschen metaphorischen Ausdrucksweise ist hier offensicht­ lich. Gemeint ist eindeutig die Herauspräparierung der Ka­ tegorie Identität im historisch bedingten, "öffentlichen" Menschen: Mitten auf dem öffentlichen Marktplatz werden in diesem bewegungslosen Menschen gegensätzliche Willens­ impulse kombiniert, ohne daß sie aufheben, und zugleich wunderbar begrenzt, und zwar einzig und allein zum Ruhme des Lebens, zum Ruhme dieses Menschen, der "niemand ist, der in allen ist" ("Les Vases communicants").

"Les Vases communicants" sind in Prag auf fruchtbaren Boden gefallen. Der Einfluß von Bretons Buch und seiner ganzen Auffassung auf das Denken der tschechischen Surre­ alisten blieb aber damals begrenzt, trotz aller Apologie: Er mündete weder in eine kritische Analyse noch in eine Verallgemeinerung, die die Partikularismen des zeitbeding-

266

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE ten Programmes überwunden hätte. Im Werke des führenden Repräsentanten des tschechischen Strukturalismus', Jan Mukafovsky, findet dann zwar das surrealistische Kunst­ schaffen in den dreißiger Jahren einen einsichtsvollen Interpreten, aber der aufgetauchten anthropologischen Pro­ blematik in Bretonscher Beleuchtung schenkt man vorläufig keine Beachtung. Bei Mukařovský setzt sich der spezifi­ sche Soziologismus durch, der vielfach demjenigen analog ist, der auf F. de Saussure und seine Theorie des sprach­ lichen Zeichens eingewirkt hat: Die Existenz der künst­ lerischen Struktur und des sog. ästhetischen Objektes wird im sog. Kollektivbewußtsein angesiedelt. Im Jahre 1941 tritt das anthropologische Prinzip dennoch zutage - wenn auch nur für kurze Zeit -, und zwar mit einer bestimmten, begrenzten Funktion in der ästhetischen Theorie Mukařovskys: Eben darauf soll die Existenz der Allgemeingültigkeit des von der Kunst getragenen ästhetischen Wertes errichtet werden. Mukařovský hat diese seine Auffassung in seiner (tschechisch geschriebenen) Studie "Kann der ästhetische Wert in der Kunst eine allgemeine Gültigkeit haben?" (Může míti estetická hodnota v umění platnost všeobecnou?, Ceská mysl

[Tschechischer Geist] XXXV, Nr. 3, 4-5, 1941)

dargelegt.

Es erhebt sich die Frage, ob die erwähnte Studie aus dem Bereich der strukturalistischen Werttheorie, die sich speziell auf den philosophischen Anthropologismus stützt, vielleicht mit den Anschauungen des Bretonschen französi­ schen Surrealismus der dreißiger Jahre

( bzw. mit dessen

Rezeption und Interpretation bei tschechischen Surreali­ sten) in Zusammenhang steht. Ein direkter Zusammenhang

267

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS besteht hier offensichtlich nicht, aber man kann schwerlich annehmen, Mukařovský habe von den surrealistischen theoretisierenden Exkursen nichts gewußt oder habe Breton und die einschlägige Literatur nicht gelesen. (Er war übrigens "à jour" - wie man zu sagen pflegt -, da er K. Teige und V. Nezval gut kannte.) Wichtig ist die Bestimmung der zi­ tierten Arbeit Mukařovskýs mit ihrer Axiologie im Ent­ wicklungskontext der modernen tschechischen Ästhetik. Sie griff nämlich die Fragestellung auf, die im Jahre 1916 bei Otakar Zich (1979-1934) aufgetaucht war. Zich, übrigens Mukařovskýs Vorgänger auf dem Lehrstuhl für Ästhetik an der Karlsuniversität, war ein Schüler der alten Prager Schule der Formästhetik, die sich im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts herausgebildet hatte, ging dann aber zur psychologistischen Analyse der Kunststruktur über. Er tendierte zu einem eigenständigen "Prästrukturalismus" als Bindeglied zwischen der ersten - "formistischen" und der zweiten - strukturalistischen - Prager ästhetischen Schule.

(Vgl. dazu Oleg Sus, " On the

Semant ics

of

Psychological

Art:

The

Semantics

Theory

of

of

Otakar

1973, Nr. 2; ders., "Zwischen lismus: den

Zur

Problemen

Schule"

zur

Kritik des

am sog. Über gangs

strukturellen

Origin

Music

and

Zich",

von

der

Literatur-

the

Poetry

Czech

in

the

Semiotica IX,

"Formismus" slavischen

of

und

Struktura­

Formalismus "Prager und

und

zu

ästhetischen Kunsttheorie",

Welt der Slaven XXII, 1977, H.2 [N.F.I, 2 ] . ) . Auch Zich fragte danach, was eine allgemeine und nicht nur eine re­ lative, individuell veränderliche Gültigkeit des sog. künstlerischen Wertes garantieren kann. Seine Antwort blieb aber im engen Rahmen der psychologistischen Ästhetik und war deshalb begrenzt: Die Quellen dieser allgemeinen,

268

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE

"absoluten" Gültigkeit suchte Zich nämlich in den allge­ meinen und unveränderlichen Eigenschaften der "menschlichen Seele"

(beim Künstler), also im spezifischen ästhetischen

Personalismus. Dem Relativismus entzieht sich seiner Mei­ nung nach der Kunstwert eben als "Persönlichkeitswert", der für die Kunst wesentlich und sonst nur akzessorisch ist, als Wesensäußerung der künstlerischen Persönlichkeit in ihrer Individualität.

(Otakar Zich, "Hodnocení estetické

a umëlecké" [Das ästhetische und künstlerische Werten], Tschechischer Geist XVI, 1916, H.3-4.) Jan Mukařovský konnte sich nach 25 Jahren natürlich nicht mit der alten Lösung begnügen, die vor ihm von Otakar Zich vorgelegt worden war. Er reaktualisierte aber die von Zich angeschnittene produktiva Problematik, untersuchte sie von einem neuen noetischen Gesichtspunkt aus und gab auch eine neue Antwort. Wir können sie kurz so charakteri­ sieren, daß sich darin die Strukturalistische Axiologie in der Ästhetik auf einen bestimmten Grundsatz der philo­ sophischen Anthropologie stützte, nämlich auf die sog. anthropologische Konstitution oder Konstante, also auf das, was "dem Menschen überhaupt eigen ist" - zumindest nach der damaligen Terminologie Mukarovskys. Die begriff­ liche Bestimmung dieses Prinzipes ist - nebenbei gesagt bei Mukařovský nicht eindeutig; er spricht ohne Unter­ schied und abwechselnd z.B. vom "Menschen überhaupt", von der "allgemeinmenschlichen Veranlagung des Menschen", vom "anthropologischen Wesen des Menschen" oder von der "an­ thropologischen Grundlage"

(auch "allmenschliche anthro­

pologische Grundlage"), der "anthropologischen Konstitu­ tion" und der "anthropologischen Konstante". Beide letzt-

269

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS genannten Bestimmungen würden in begrifflicher und termi­ nologischer Hinsicht wohl am besten dem Prinzip der objek­ tiven Untersuchung

(ohne metaphysiche Perspektive) und der

strukturalen Auffassung entsprechen. Und sie wären auch der ausgesprochen wissenschaftlichen Einstellung der gan­ zen Betrachtung angemessen. Diese setzt sich ja nicht zum Ziel, eine ontologische, mit einem festen metaphysischen System verbundene Lösung zu finden. Ihr Ausgangspunkt ist die Gesamtheit der von der Kunst- und Literaturgeschichte erbrachten wissenschaftlichen Haupterkenntnisse. Ihr Ziel ist, nach Mukařovský, eine noetische Lösung, die von der Ontologie möglichst unabhängig sein soll, um wissenschaft­ lich zu sein.

Lassen wir hier die sicherlich komplizierte Frage des Verhältnisses zwischen dem Wissenschaftlichkeitspostulat und der Ontologie beiseite, des Verhältnisses, das bei Mukafovsky an dieser Stelle allerdings vereinfacht darge­ stellt ist. Den Mittelpunkt seiner Betrachtungen bildet nämlich - wie wir schon wissen - die Verbindung des "all­ gemeingültigen" ästhetischen Kunstwertes mit dem, was wir hier annähernd als anthropologische Konstante bezeichnen. Den Ausgangspunkt der - übrigens sehr scharfsinnigen Argumentation bilden bei Mukařovský die Hauptthesen der strukturalistischen Ästhetik über den Zeichencharakter der Kunstwerke und dessen Bedeutung für den Kommunikationspro­ zeß zwischen denen, die diese Werke schaffen, und denen, die sie rezipieren. Das Werk sei mehr als nur ein Ausdruck der Persönlichkeit des Autors und habe als Zeichen einen sehr weiten, veränderlichen und dynamischen Aktionsradius mit verschiedenen semantischen Konkretisierungen oder

270

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE

"Lesarten". Es scheint angebracht, die sehr

KONSTANTE

symptomatische

Folge von Urteilsoperationen, durch die Mukarovsky den für seine Schlußfolgerung

den Bo­

(d.h., für den Hinweis auf

die anthropologische Konstante als noetische

Garantie)

vorbereitet, durch ein längeres Zitat zu belegen:

"Vor einigen Jahrzehnten fand man Gefallen an der Ansicht, der Wert eines Werkes bestehe in vollkommener Übereinstim­ mung zwischen Schöpfer und Werk oder sogar in der Überein­ stimmung, die zwischen einem bestimmten individuellen see­ lischen Zustand des Autors und dem Werke existieren kann. Man vergaß, daß das materielle Werk, sobald es aus den Hän­ den des Urhebers hervorgegangen ist, sich in etwas Öffent­ liches verwandelt, das jeder auf seine eigene Weise begrei­ fen und interpretieren kann; Individuum ist nicht nur der Autor, sondern auch der Leser und Zuschauer . . . . Für ei­ nen Kunsttheoretiker und -historiker ist es sehr interes­ sant, den Grad der direkten Expressivität, die ein bestimm­ tes Kunstwerk zuläßt, zu messen, aber diese Feststellung, die für die Charakteristik eines Werkes sehr wichtig ist, bedeutet nichts für dessen Wert, weil das Kunstwerk in sei­ nem Wesen etwas mehr ist als ein bloßer Ausdruck der Autoren­ persönlichkeit; es ist vor allem ein Zeichen, das dazu be­ stimmt ist, zwischen den Individuen zu vermitteln, zu denen sowohl das schaffende Individuum als auch die Individuen ge­ hören, aus denen sich das Publikum zusammensetzt; obgleich das schaffende Individuum als die Seite empfunden wird, von der das Zeichen ausgeht, und die anderen als die Seite, die das Zeichen nur empfängt, ist die gegenseitige Verständigung beider Seiten nur dadurch möglich, daß alle betreffenden In­ dividuen Mitglieder derselben realen oder idealen Gemeinschaft

271

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS sind, einer stabilen oder gelegentlichen Gemeinschaft, und zwar gleichberechtigte Mitglieder. Als Zeichen kann das Werk mehrfachen Sinn gleichzeitig haben, und es können sogar in dasselbe Werk sehr viele 'Sinne' hineingelegt werden, und zwar sowohl gleichzeitig als auch sukzessiv; jeder solche Sinn entspricht einem bestimmten ästhetischen Objekt, das mit dem gegebenen materiellen Werk verbunden ist. Je größere semantische Fähigkeit ein Werk erweist, desto fähiger is es, Veränderungen des Ortes, dem gesellschaftlichen Milieu und der Zeit zu widerstehen, und desto allgemeiner ist sein Wert.

Es erhebt sich die Frage, unter welchen Umständen diese Fähigkeit ein Maximum erreichen kann. Der Mensch als Mitglied einer Gemeinschaft steht unter dem Einfluß ihrer Einstellung zur Welt; es ist also sehr wahrscheinlich, daß ein Werk, so­ weit der Autor und das Publikum des Kunstwerkes zu derselben realen Gesellschaft gehören, nicht gezwungen sein wird, den ganzen Umfang seiner semantischen Leistungsfähigkeit zur Gel­ tung zu bringen, weil alle, die herantreten, dies mit einer annähernd gleichen Einstellung tun werden. Nehmen wir aber an, daß sich die ein Werk rezipierende Gesellschaft mit der Zeit völlig verändert. Ein solcher Sachverhalt träte im Falle eines dichterischen Werkes ein, das einige Jahrhunderte nach seiner Entstehung in einem ganz anderen Land als in dem, wo es ent­ standen ist, gelesen wird. Wenn das Werk unter diesen Umstän­ den seine semantische Reichweite und seine ästhetische Wir­ kungskraft behält, werden wir berechtigt sein, das als Garan­ tie dafür zu betrachten, daß es sich nicht nur an die durch den augenblicklichen Gesellschaftszustand bestimmte Persön­ lichkeit wendet, sondern an das, was im Menschen allgemein menschlich ist: Ein solches Werk beweist, daß es mit dem

272

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE anthropologischen Wesen des Menschen zusammenhängt." So hat Jan Mukarovsky gleich zu Beginn der vierziger Jahre in den tschechischen Strukturalismus ein neues Thema einge­ führt: Das anthropologische. Das war sicherlich ein bedeut­ samer Schritt, doch es folgten leider keine weiteren. Das Problem wurde nur - und zwar nicht in seiner ganzen Breite - aufgeworfen, aber später nicht konsequent bearbeitet. Nach 1945, nach Kriegsende, und in einer neuen Atmosphäre, wurde es nicht beachtet und wurde schließlich zu einem Halbtabu. Zu den positiven Zügen ist noch der dynamische Aspekt (Entwicklungskontext) der ästhetischen Werttheorie zu rechnen und das, was man in der Zweiten Prager Schule als strukturalistischen Energetismus und Funktionalismus bezeichnen könnte. Auf diesem Gebiet hatte freilich der tschechische Theoretiker große Vorgänger: Z.B. Ernst Cas­ sirer, der darüber hinaus - und zwar schon in den zwanziger Jahren - zum Erbauer eines großartig konzipierten Systems der symbolischen Formen der Kultur wurde. Davor noch hatte Cassirer die Grundlagen für die kritische Revision des traditionellen Substanzbegriffes geschaffen, dem er in den Geisteswissenschaften den Funktionsbegriff gegenüberstell­ te. Zuletzt mündete dann seine Philosophie der symbolischen Formen in die philosophische Anthropologie des Menschen als "animal symbolicum" (vgl. sein Werk "An Essay of Man" vom Jahre 1944). Cassirer stellte sich gegen verschiedene Arten der Reduktion und Verdinglichung der anthropologi­ schen Konstitution auf diese oder jene unveränderlichen, vorgegebenen, völlig ahistorischen Eigenschaften, die statisch und fixiert - ähnlich etwa wie die angeborenen "Kräfte" - oder wiederum wie etwa die sog. menschliche

273

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS "Natur" prädestiniert seien. Er leugnete also eigentlich deren Hypostasierung in die metaphysische Substanz. (Es scheint, daß seine Theorie Gedanken enthält, die aus dem klassischen Werk von Karl Marx, dort allerdings in ein anderes weltanschauliches System eingearbeitet, bekannt sind.) Cassirers Abhandlung aus dem Jahre 1944 faßt des­ halb die anthropologische Konstante "Menschsein" nicht als fertige Faktizität auf, sondern als Aktivität, also als differenzierte kulturbildende menschliche Tätigkeit. Drei Jahre zuvor hatte Mukařovský die anthropologische Veranlagung des Menschen auch im Zusammenhang mit der Kunst dargestellt, aber auf einer anderen Ebene. Auch er begriff diese Veranlagung nicht als eine Gesamtheit von vorgegebe­ nen Zügen oder Qualitäten und lehnte außerdem ausdrücklich ab, diese Konstitution inhaltlich als eine ästhetische Ge­ gebenheit zu bestimmen. Das war besonders wichtig, denn so konnte er das sog. allgemeinmenschliche "Substrat" trotz dessen postulierter Unveranderlichkeit mit der empirischen Wirklichkeit des lebendigen, veränderlichen Entwicklungs­ geschehens in allen Kunstbereichen in Verbindung setzen: "Die anthropologische Konstitution an sich enthält nichts Ästhetisches; zwischen ihr und ihren ästhetischen Realisie­ rungen besteht eine qualitative

Spannung, und jede Reali­

sierung enthüllt einen neuen Blick auf die Grundveranlagung des Menschen." Näher und tiefer befaßte sich aber Mukařov­ sky mit dieser allgemeinmenschlichen Veranlagung nicht. Er definierte sie nicht genauer, sondern ließ ihr die Ge­ stalt eines gleichsam "leeren", vieldeutige Interpretatio­ nen ermöglichenden Prinzips. Eine solche Konkretisierung war übrigens auch nicht das Ziel seiner Studie.

274

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE Auch den allgemeinen ästhetischen Wert untersucht Mu­ kařovský vom Standpunkt der sog. Dynamik strukturaler Be­ trachtungsweise aus. Die "Unveränderlichkeit" oder "Iden­ tität" dieses Wertes ist nicht absolut, es ist also kein ontologischer Wert, mit idealer Identität. Indem er sich bei allen realen Veränderungen seine Wirkungspermanenz be­ wahrt, unterscheidet er sich von nur relativen Werten, je­ doch nicht als eine Entität substantiellen Charakters. Von Mukafovsky wird der allgemeine ästhetische Wert dynamisiert und zuletzt als bloßes, jedoch sich stets erneuerndes Stre­ ben nach Allgemeingültigkeit definiert: es handelt sich, könnte man sagen, um Intentionalität, nicht um Faktizität. Eine weitere Verdeutlichung dieser Konzeption finden wir im Prager strukturalistischen Energetismus, der im univer­ salen ästhetischen Wert eine "unaufhörlich lebendige Ener­ gie" sieht, die in einer ununterbrochenen, wenn auch histo­ risch stets veränderlichen Beziehung zur unveränderlichen anthropologischen Konstitution des Menschen existiert. Die Theorie der dialektischen Beziehungen zwischen dem sog. allgemeinen ästhetischen Wert und dem, was hier als anthropologische Konstante bezeichnet wird, verliert auch heute nicht an gedanklicher Anregungskraft. Das bedeutet aber nicht, daß sie etwa - neu zu Ende gedacht - nicht ei­ ner kritischen Analyse ausgesetzt werden kann. Im Gegen­ teil: sie fordert eine solche geradezu heraus. Lassen wir die Tatsache beiseite, daß Mukařovský nirgends seine an­ thropologische Konstante definiert hat. Heute wäre es an­ gebracht, sie im Sinne der Theorie von Karl Popper für ei­ ne wissenschaftliche Arbeitshypothese zu halten. Eine sol­ che Hypothese bedarf im Augenblick, da sie vorgelegt wird,

275

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

nicht des ganzen begrifflichen Apparates

(und sie kann ja

auch nicht in allem ganz begründet werden), sie muß aber durch Ergebnisse weiterer Forschungen, durch Experimente und gewonnene Erkenntnisse überprüft werden. Eine andere und wesentliche, jetzt schon konkret ästhetische Frage ist die, ob Mukafovsky die Intervention der anthropologischen Konstante im ganzen Bereich der Künste für global (also für so oder so allgegenwärtig) oder nur für partiell (nur in bestimmten Fällen vorkommend) hält. Seine Theorie geht nicht von der universellen Anwesenheit dieser Konstante aus. Ihre Wirkung ist nämlich von vornherein auf die "hohe" Hierarchie der Werke mit der schon erwähnten maximalen se­ mantischen Kapazität beschränkt, auf Werke mit dauerhafter ästhetischer Wirksamkeit in verschiedenen gesellschaftlich­ kulturellen Milieus. Hier jedoch ist Mukařovský inkonse­ quent, und seine ganze Lösung fungiert wie eine Art Halb­ anthropologismus, kombiniert mit der strukturalen Ästhe­ tik. Die sog. allgemeinmenschliche Veranlagung wirkt ein­ mal als "Grundlage" des universalen ästhetischen Wertes, ein andermal wird ihre Geltung stillschweigend annulliert. Gerade hier liegt der wunde Punkt: "crux anthropologiae", bei Jan

Mukařovský

. . . .

Erstens: Es ist weder verifiziert noch bewiesen, daß die anthropologische Konstante nur auf das beschränkt ist, was sich als "Elite" der hohen Kunst bezeichnen ließe, und zugleich auf die Koexistenz mit dem allgemeingültigen äs­ thetischen Wert dieser Kunst. Damit wird schon die Aus­ gangsthese Mukafovskys hinfällig. Es existieren doch Werke und entsprechende Werte

(die sog. unteren Werte) auch in

den "tiefer" gelegenen Schichten der axiologischen Hierar-

276

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE chie, mit einer geringeren und begrenzteren semantischen Kapazität. Sollten sie nun alle a priori jedweder Teilnahme an der anthropologischen Konstanten bar sein? Das ist schwer zu glauben, wenn man auch ihre Spuren bei den Schöp­ fern oder beim Publikum suchen mag. Übrigens genügt wohl ein einziger, durch seine Paradoxie sprechender Beleg. Ge­ rade die zahlreichen, auf Massenkonsum berechneten litera­ rischen Produkte (aber auch Filmprodukte usw.), die sich zwischen Bestseller, Trivialität und Kitsch bewegen, wissen eben bestimmte konstante innere Dispositionen des Lesers und Zuschauers auszunutzen und zu mißbrauchen, die mit die­ sen oder jenen allgemeinen Komponenten seiner menschlichen Identität, seiner selbst als "ens per se" zusammenhängen. Und zwar trotz oder gerade wegen der Tatsache, daß es sich um symptomatische Züge handelt, die in ihren konkreten Mo­ difikationen und in der entfremdeten Welt des Durch­ schnittsmenschen als minderwertig, deformiert oder perver­ tiert erscheinen. (Daher z.B. der unaufhörliche Appell die­ ser Erzeugnisse an den vereinfachten "Mechanismus" der grundsätzlichen Problematik von Leben und Tod, der Liebe, der sog. menschlichen Selbstrealisierung, Selbstdarstel­ lung usw.) Der massenhafte Kitsch hat sehr "strenge" Nor­ men, das hat schon Georg Lukács festgestellt. Wir könnten auch hinzufügen, daß er zusammen mit trivialen und populä­ ren kommerziellen Artikeln von niederem Niveau an der vul­ garisierten "Anthropologisierung" festhält. Sie dient ei­ ner schnellen und billigen identifizierenden Kommunika­ tion mit dem Rezipienten. Zweitens: Das Streben des ästhetischen Wertes nach Allgemeingültigkeit verbindet Mukařovský einerseits mit

277

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS dessen anthropologischer Grundlage, andererseits mit der pragmatischen Dimension der Kunst als Zeichenstruktur. Ihm geht es um die Frage, unter welchen Umständen das schon erwähnte maximale Maß semantischer Reichweite, d.h. ästhe­ tischer Konkretisierung, erreicht wird. Die Umstände sind letzten Endes unmittelbar durch den Prozeß der andauernden - wenn auch nicht kontinuierlichen - Rezeption gegeben, die so oder so gegen den Zahn der Zeit, gegen die Übertra­ gung des Werkes aus einem Kulturbereich in einen anderen und gegen die Änderungen des gesellschaftlichen Kontextes resistent ist. Allein hier bleiben Mukařovskýs Ausführungen beim Adressaten des künstlerischen Kommunikats stehen. Das Werk soll sich an ihn nicht nur als an ein Mitglied einer bestimmten Gesellschaft "hic et nunc" wenden, sondern auch als an einen Träger der allgemeinmenschlichen Veranlagung: Es läßt in ihm die anthropologische Saite erklingen. Kann man aber von diesem begrenzten Gesichtspunkt der Rezep­ tionshandlung und somit auch der Rezeptionsästhetik aus die ansonsten sicherlich wichtig ist - die entscheidenden semiotischen Bindungen zwischen dem Urheber, seinem Pro­ dukt und dem Adressaten erfassen, und zwar eben im Ver­ hältnis zum Phänomen der sog. grundlegenden Konstitution des Menschen? Eine positive Antwort würde zu dem einseiti­ gen Schluß führen, daß der anthropologische Moment im Zu­ sammenhang mit der Kunst nur mittels des Appells hervorge­ rufen, "induziert" wird, den das Kommunikat an seine Adres­ saten richtet. Nicht umsonst spricht übrigens Mukařovský davon, daß sich das Werk an den Menschen als soziales We­ sen und an das allgemein Menschliche in ihm "wendet". Aber in welcher Beziehung zu diesem Substrat stehen weite­ re Glieder in der Kette der Zeichenfunktionen, und zwar

278

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE gleich an ihrem Anfang die "emittierende" Seite selbst, d.h., das Subjekt

des Werkes

(gleichgültig, ob es ein in­

dividueller oder kollektiver Urheber ist)? Darauf gibt die Studie Mukaovskýs vom Jahre 1941 keine direkte Ant­ wort, sie geht auf das Problem nicht weiter ein, bzw. gibt nur eine Teillösung. Drittens: Bei der Suche nach der Grundlage des allge­ meingültigen ästhetischen Wertes ist bei Mukařovský die axiologische Seite stärker als das folgerichtige Durchden­ ken und die prinzipielle Verallgemeinerung des anthropolo­ gischen Ansatzes. Dieser ist nur teilweise gültig. Außerdem wird die Frage nach der Beziehung zwischen diesem Prinzip und der semiotischen

Betrachtungsweise nicht angeschnitten.

Gewiß: Das Werk als Zeichen ist weder eine Widerspiegelung der sog. Persönlichkeit des Autors, noch ein getreuer Aus­ druck der Zustände seines individuellen Bewußtseins. Aber im vorliegenden Zusammenhang bietet es sich geradezu an, weiterzugehen: Vom Subjekt Subjekt

des

Autors

- zu einer übrigens "legitim"

zum

anthropologischen

strukturalistischen

(oder besser neostrukturalistischen) Thematik. Für Muka'řovský ist aber nur die Erkenntnis des "Allgemeinmenschli­ chen" bei Rezipienten

von Kunstwerken interessant, sonst

nichts. Schon der alte Gedanke Bretons über den Menschen, der alles und in allem ist, büßt gerade hier nicht seine Aktualität ein, auch wenn wir die orthodoxe surrealisti­ sche Lösung A.D. 1932 nicht akzeptieren. Ist es denn über­ haupt möglich, die Funktion der anthropologischen Konstan­ ten nur auf den Übertragungskanal zwischen Werk und Adres­ saten zu beschränken? Was ist mit dem Urheber, dem noetischen Subjekt des Werkes? Hat er nichts mit ihr gemeinsam,

279

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS wird er gar nicht von ihr beeinflußt, ist er nicht in ir­ gendeiner Weise an sie gebunden wie an seinen "Hinter­ grund" ? Die These über die Existenz des anthropologischen ("allgemeinen") Subjekts der Kunstwerke - das mit dem ei­ genen Autorensubjekt nicht identisch ist - führen wir vor­ läufig nur als zweite Arbeitshypothese im Rahmen einer breiteren, "neostrukruralistischen" ästhetischen Anthropo­ logie "Sub specie semioticae" ein. Jan Mukařovský fragte im Jahre 1941 nicht nach diesem anthropologischen Subjekt und ließ darüber hinaus die Beziehung zwischen dem Kunst­ werk und jenem "Allgemeinmenschlichen" Undefiniert, er sprach von einem bloßen "Zusammenhang". Wenn aber schon einmal zwischen dem Subjekt des Autors und der Werkstruktur eine Zeichenrelation aufgezeigt worden ist, wie verhält sich nun dieses Subjekt zum sog. anthropologischen Subjekt, hinter dem wir mehr als nur ein Individuum und mehr als eine bestimmte Persönlichkeit ahnen? Wir haben die Mög­ lichkeit, zunächst von der Hypothese auszugehen, die den Autor

(die kreative Persönlichkeit) als signifié des Werkes

auffaßt, und zwar des Werkes als eines Gesamtzeichens. So interpretiert z.B. Miroslav Červenka das literarische Werk in seiner Ganzheit als globales Indexzeichen, das enthält, was es indiziert, nämlich den Urheber des Kommunikats, das hypothetische Subjekt einer ganzen Reihe von schöpferischen Akten. (Miroslav Cervenka, "Der rarischen

Werks"

Bedeutungsaufbau

des

lite­

, München 1978.) Wenn das Autorensubjekt

des Kunstwerkes überhaupt ein solches semiotisches Konstrukt ist, dann erscheint auf einer anderen, zweiten Ebene (im "Überbau") auch das anthropologische Subjekt als ein

280

INDIVIDUUM - STRUKTUR - ANTHROPOLOGISCHE KONSTANTE solches. Dieses kann man als inhaltlich schwer definier­ bares und eigentlich fast unbenennbares signifié zweiten Grades interpretieren, für das das zugrundeliegende Sub­ jekt des Autors - d.h., auf der ersten Bezeichnungsebene signifié ersten Grades - als Bezeichnendes, signifiant, funktioniert. Wenn wir auch das angeführte Interpretations­ modell keineswegs für endgültig oder für das einzig Mögli­ che halten, so ist gleichwohl klar, daß die komplizierten semiotischen "Netze", mit deren Hilfe das anthropologische Subjekt erfaßt werden soll, - wenn auch ungewollt - ein Zeugnis davon ablegen, daß das anthropologische Subjekt bis jetzt dem tschechischen Strukturalismus mehr Fragen stellte als es ihm Antworten bot . . . . Und daß es wei­ terhin eines der offenen, aber auch anregenden und viel­ versprechenden Probleme bleibt.

281

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD

Jerzy

1.1.

Roman I n g a r d e n e r k l ä r t e

geschriebenen literarische Büchern

Ziomek

mehrmals i n seinem

und 1931 v e r ö f f e n t l i c h t e n Kunstwerk

den für

teils.

Da d i e s e r

fügige

Veränderungen

grundlegenden

Begriff

hat,

zurück.

"Der q u a s i - u r t e i l s m ä ß i g e s c h e n Werk a u f t r e t e n d e n

Theorie des

Begriff

im L a u f e d e r

erfahren

Wortlaut der deutschen Erstausgabe schen Philosophen

Das

sowie in z a h l r e i c h e n Aufsätzen

die phänomenologische

r i s c h e n Kunstwerkes

1927/28

Standardwerk

des

Quasi-Ur-

Zeit einige

greifen

wir

der Arbeit

den

des

der in einem

Aussagesätze",

gering­

auf

In § 25, d e r den T i t e l Charakter

polni­ trägt: literari­

schrieb der

Autor:

Um das Wesen der Schicht der S i n n e i n h e i t e n und i h r e Rolle im l i t e r a r i s c h e n Kunstwerk adäquat zu e r f a s s e n , i s t es un­ e n t b e h r l i c h , d i e s e besondere Modifikation der Aussagesätze und, wie es s i c h bald zeigen wird, a l l e r im l i t e r a r i s c h e n Werke a u f t r e t e n d e n Sätze k l a r h e r a u s z u s t e l l e n .

und

litera­

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 1.2. Jene Modifikation besteht eben darin, den Aussage­ sätzen das Gepräge von Quasi-Urteilen, d.h.

einen solchen

Habitus zu verleihen, daß sie Urteilen ähneln, obwohl sie es in der Tat nicht sind. Und wenn wir im literarischen Werk auf derart modifizierte Sätze stoßen, "fällt uns überhaupt nicht ein . . ., nach ihrer Wahrheit oder Falsch­ heit zu fragen", wenn auch darin "etwas auf eine besondere

2 Weise b e h a u p t e t

wird".

Einige Zeilen weiter h e i ß t e s : Es kommt da unzweifelhaft zu e i n e r Seinssetzung der i n t e n ­ t i o n a l entworfenen Sachverhalte (bzw. der d a r i n zur Dar­ s t e l l u n g gelangten Gegenstände), die n a t ü r l i c h auch e n t ­ sprechend e x i s t e n t i a l c h a r a k t e r i s i e r t s i n d . Aber es f e h l t h i e r die für einen echten U r t e i l s s a t z

charakteristische

Verneinung des genauen Angepaßtseins der entworfenen Sach­ v e r h a l t e an entsprechende o b j e k t i v bestehende und in e i n e r s e i n s s e l b s t ä n d i g e n Sphäre vorgefundene

Sachverhalte.

1 . 3 . Das g e g e n s e i t i g e V e r h ä l t n i s zwischen d e r K o n z e p t i o n d e r Q u a s i - U r t e i l e und d e r des B e z u g s f e l d e s (es b l e i b e v o r ­ l ä u f i g d a h i n g e s t e l l t , ob es e i n f i k t i v e s o d e r e i n r e a l e s B e z u g s f e l d i s t ) muß a l s o e i n a n t a g o n i s t i s c h e s V e r h ä l t n i s s e i n . Roman I n g a r d e n h a t im P r i n z i p durch d i e E i n f ü h r u n g d e r Konzeption d e r Q u a s i - U r t e i l e i n s e i n e T h e o r i e des l i ­ t e r a r i s c h e n Kunstwerkes j e g l i c h e auf d i e W i r k l i c h k e i t b e ­ zogene I n t e r p r e t a t i o n d e r L i t e r a t u r h i n f ä l l i g gemacht. Nach I n g a r d e n d ü r f t e demnach e i n l i t e r a r i s c h e s Werk k e i n e r ­ l e i Anspruch auf W a h r h e i t s c h a r a k t e r e r h e b e n , z u m i n d e s t i n k e i n e r d e r g e l ä u f i g e n Bedeutungen des " W a h r h e i t s " - B e g r i f fes. 284

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD 1.4. Einen besonderen Fall bilden historische sowie manche Zeitromane, in denen Sätze zwar nichts von ihrem quasiurteilsmäßigen Charakter einbüßen, echten Urteilssätzen 4 aber näherkommen. Jedoch selbst in diesem extremen Fall, wo die Ähnlichkeit des dargestellten Gegenstandes zu dem realen angenommen werden darf, soll es zu keiner "Identi­ fizierung der beiden Sachverhalte" 5 - d . h .

des intentio­

nal entworfenen und des realen - kommen. 1.5. Ingardens Erkenntnisobjekt ist das literarische Werk und nicht die Wirklichkeit. Metaphysische Qualitäten treten aufgrund des wechselseitigen Schichtenspieles in Erschei­ nung und nicht als Folge der Relation zwischen dem Welt­ bild und der Welt selbst

oder zwischen der kreativen Tä­

tigkeit und dem Widerstand der objektiven Wirklichkeit. 2.1. Der Terminus "Quasi-Urteile" war des öfteren Gegen­ stand kritischer Reflexion; man wies auf die inkonsequente und mitunter unpräzise Begriffshandhabung hin.6 Dennoch ha­ ben sich die "Quasi-Urteile" in der alltäglichen For­ schungspraxis ohne größeren Widerstand durchgesetzt. Einfa­ cher

als die Gesamtheit phänomenologischer Voraussetzungen

des Autors Des

literarischen

Kunstwerks

es, Erwägungen über "Quasi-Urteile"

zu akzeptieren, ist (z.B. über die intenti-

onale Seinsweise des literarischen Werkes oder der darin auftretenden Gegenständlichkeiten) anzustellen. Dabei soll­ te es gerade umgekehrt sein: Nichts hindert uns daran, die Kategorie der Intentionalität nach bestimmten Adaptationen in semiologisch, biographisch oder genetisch orientierte Forschungen aufzunehmen. Hingegen kann keine dieser Richtun­ gen Quasi-Urteile als Elemente eines konsequenten axiologi-

285

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS schen Systems akzeptieren, da die autonome Polyphonie des Werkes seiner referentiellen Funktion total entgegengesetzt ist. 2.2. Dennoch gibt es in der Konzeption der Quasi-Urteile etwas Verlockendes. Deshalb versuchen manche Forscher, ohne Ingardens Gedankengut im Ganzen zu akzeptieren, diese Theorie zu adaptieren, um die Eigenschaft der sogenannten quasi-urteilsmäßigen Seinsweise der im literarischen Werk auftretenden Sätze zu einem "graduierbaren" Markmal werden zu lassen. 2.3. Dieses Problem läßt sich sehr einfach am Material eines historischen Romans veranschaulichen, in dem doku­ mentarisch belegbare

sowie erfundene und erdichtete Ge­

stalten und Ereignisse auf besonders charakteristische Art miteinander verflochten sind. Wenn wir Quo vadis Sienkiewicz

von Henryk

lesen, sind wir geneigt, etwa Nero, Seneca

oder Petronius für historisch wirkliche

(nichtfiktive) Ge­

stalten zu erklären. Vinitius, Ligia oder Ursus kommen uns hingegen sehr fiktiv vor. Ähnliches können wir über die dargestellten Ereignisse sagen: Sie sind entweder be­ legbar oder gänzlich erfunden. Zwischen diesen beiden Ex­ tremen könnten jedoch Personen, Ereignisse und Sachverhalte 

vorkommen, die mehr oder weniger wahrscheinlich sind.

Bei

historischen und realistischen Romanen wären für die Be­ stimmung des Wahrscheinlichkeitsgrades nicht Faktenwissen, sondern Empirie und gesunder Menschenverstand oder Alltags­ wissen von ausschlaggebender Bedeutung. Bleiben wir jedoch beim historischen Roman, der treffende Beispiele für die Analyse liefert.

286

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD 2.4. Solange Nero, Seneca und Petronius einerseits, Vinitius, Ligia und Ursus andererseits gleichsam isoliert auftreten, d.h., solange ihre Anwesenheit im Roman nur durch lakonische, protokollarische Sätze markiert wird, fällt es nicht allzu schwer, diese Gestalten als authen­ tisch oder fiktiv zu bestimmen. Probleme tauchen erst auf, wenn wir auf Aussagen von Gestalten über Gestalten stoßen. In unserem Falle ergeben sich vier Möglichkeiten: Aussage von Petronius über Nero, d.h.

(1) die

die einer authenti­

schen über eine ebenso authentische Gestalt, (2) die Aus­ sage von Vinitius über Nero, d.h.

die einer fiktiven

über eine authentische Gestalt, (3) Neros Aussage über Ligia, d.h.

die einer authentischen über eine fiktive

Gestalt, (4) Ligias Aussage über Ursus, d.h.

die einer

fiktiven über eine ebenso fiktive Gestalt. Verbale Aussa­ gen sind hier natürlich nur ein besonderer und einleuchten­ der Fall im gesamten Beziehungsgeflecht der Figuren einer dargestellten Welt. 2.5. Sätze vom Typ (3) und

(4) lassen sich ganz einfach

klassifizieren: Sie entbehren des Urteilscharakters

(und

sind keine assertorischen Sätze), denn es kann weder etwas Wahres noch etwas Falsches von einer fiktiven Gestalt zu dieser ausgesagt werden, unabhängig davon, ob die andere sprechende Gestalt authentisch oder fiktiv ist. Der Satz vom Typ (1) kann (vorausgesetzt, daß er außerhalb des Kon­ textes des fiktiven Kunstwerkes betrachtet wird) folgende Formen haben: a) die eines wahren

(authentischen und doku­

mentarisch belegten), b) die eines nicht belegten, aber mehr oder weniger wahrscheinlichen, c) die eines unwahr­ scheinlichen und d) die eines völlig falschen Satzes. Nur an

287

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS diesem Beispiel läßt sich die (von Markiewicz vorgeschla­ gene) Gradation der Fiktivität einzelner Sätze diskutie­ ren . 2.6. Ein Satz vom Typ (2), d.h., die Aussage einer fiktiven Gestalt über eine authentische, ist der komplizierteste und gleichzeitig interessanteste Fall. Wir neigen dazu, diesen Satz von vornherein als falsch zu klassifizieren, denn der fiktive Vinitius kann doch wohl keinen urteils­ mäßigen Satz über Nero äußern. Die logische Semantik kennt jedoch die Lösung eines solchen Problems, eine Lösung, die bis zu einem gewissen Grade auch für literaturwissenschaft­ liche Forschungsarbeit brauchbar ist. Die Aussage von Vini­ tius über Nero können wir nämlich als den sogenannten "Intensionalsatz" interpretieren, der (im Gegensatz zum soge­ nannten Extensionalsatz) in der Aussage eines nichtexistierenden Subjekts einen urteilsmäßigen Nebensatz enthält der letztere ist wahr oder falsch. Wir können dies folgen­ dermaßen ausdrücken: " sagt, daß p", wobei  nicht exi­ stiert, aber das von  geäußerte ρ ist dennoch wahr oder 9 falsch, je nachdem, was wir für ρ einsetzen. 2.7. Diese Beispiele verweisen in konzentrierter Form auf die in wissenschaftlichen Debatten immer lauter werdenden Vorschläge, über die Konzeption der Quasi-Urteile hinaus­ zugehen. Diese Vorschläge weisen auf die Möglichkeit hin, das literarische Werk in seinen semiotischen, insbesondere in seinen referentiellen Relationen zu betrachten; sie werden aber nicht radikal genug formuliert. 2.8. Die Idee, die Fiktivität der im literarischen Werk

288

DIE F R A G E DER Q U A S I - U R T E I L E UND DAS F I K T I V E

auftretenden

Sätze a b z u s t u f e n , ist i n s o f e r n

BEZUGSFELD

nachteilig,

als sie die A u f s t e l l u n g von R e g e l n e r f o r d e r t , die Funktionieren

einer h ö h e r e n

ren w ü r d e n . Eine solche oder unser

"Berufungsinstanz"

das

normalisie­

Instanz k a n n d e r V e r f a s s e r

und/

(des L e s e r s und des F o r s c h e r s ) W i s s e n von

der

realen W e l t als P r o t o t y p d e r d a r g e s t e l l t e n W e l t s e i n . D e r ­ artige R ü c k s c h l ü s s e

scheinen

B e w u ß t s e i n des V e r f a s s e r s

jedoch r i s k a n t zu s e i n : das

und u n s e r h e u t i g e s W i s s e n

sich nur m i t M ü h e m i t e i n a n d e r v e r k n ü p f e n . Es ist s c h w i e r i g , die A n s c h a u u n g e n z.B.

lassen

gewiß

des V e r f a s s e r s und des L e s e r s ,

im p h i l o s o p h i s c h - r e l i g i ö s e n

B e r e i c h , in

Übereinstim­

m u n g zu b r i n g e n . W o h i n g e h ö r t z.B. der Satz ü b e r eine w u n ­ derbare Begebenheit

in e i n e m h a g i o g r a p h i s c h e n

von e i n e m l a i z i s t i s c h - s k e p t i s c h e n

Empfänger

T e x t , der

gelesen

wird?

2.9. Die I d e e , das P r o b l e m der F i k t i o n m i t Hilfe der T h e o ­ rie der I n t e n s i o n a l s ä t z e

zu l ö s e n , v e r h i n d e r t

gleichzeitige Falschheit widersprüchlicher Typ:

"Der von S h a k e s p e a r e

s e l l e " , was wir

geschaffenen

folgendermaßen

zwar die 10 (vom

Sätze

Hamlet war Jungge­

erweitern:

"Es ist u n w a h r ,

d a ß H a m l e t e x i s t i e r t e , aber es ist w a h r , daß er war"),

sie h a t jedoch auch einen w e s e n t l i c h e n

Kommunikative wie

Junggeselle

Nachteil:

S i t u a t i o n e n von e i n e m so e i n f a c h e n

"A s a g t , daß p"

(oder ein genügend

Schema

k o m m e n nur ganz selten v o r . Der selbständiger Textabschnitt)

im

rischen W e r k h a t g e w ö h n l i c h eine ä u ß e r s t k o m p l e x e die sich m i n d e s t e n s

aus d r e i E l e m e n t e n

sagt, daß  sagt, daß ρ selbe h i n a u s l ä u f t :

Satz litera­

Gestalt,

zusammensetzt:

(oder, w a s in d i e s e m Fall auf

"y s a g t : A s a g t : p").

das­

Mit  bezeichne

ich den realen V e r f a s s e r , der den fiktiven Satz e x i s t i e r t " ä u ß e r t , auf den der Satz jenes H a m l e t

2 89

"y

"Hamlet folgt:

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS "So dreht sich die Welt herum" (oder ein anderer Satz, der den begründeten Anspruch erhebt, ein Urteil zu sein). Der Verfasser ν kann natürlich sowohl explizit als auch mehr oder weniger implizit dasein. Dafür kann es eine unbegrenz­ te Anzahl von Vermittlern zwischen dem realen ν und der Aussage ρ geben; die Vermittlerfunktion können dabei per­ sonale Aussagen , , , Ό, etc. erfüllen. Personale Aus­ sagen A, B , C, D, usw. sind im literarischen Werk gewöhn­ lich die Aussagen aller Gestalten - vom auktorialen Erzäh­ ler bis zum sprechenden Helden. 3.1. Ist schon das Zurückgreifen auf die vermeintliche Per­ spektive des Verfassers zwecks Bestimmung des Fiktivitätsgrades eines gegebenen Textes ein riskantes Verfahren, so ist die Reduktion auf den vermeintlichen Empfänger vollends undurchführbar. Der Empfänger kann in diesem Fall keines­ falls eine textimmanente Instanz sein: Wenn der Empfänger demnach eine transzendente Kategorie ist, müßte er vorerst historisch spezifiziert werden. Das folgende Schulbeispiel dürfte überzeugend genug sein, die Unausführbarkeit dieses Vorhabens zu beweisen: "Arma

virumque

cano

Troiae

qui

primus

ab oris

. . . "

Wollte man diesen Satz (und seine Fortsetzung) anhand einer "Wahrheitsskala"

(vom Wahrheitspol über verschiedene Stufen

der Wahrscheinlichkeit bis zum Pol völliger Fiktivität) testen, würde sich herausstellen, daß sich über den ganzen Satz nichts sagen läßt. Das Subjekt für das Prädikat "cano" (Vergil selbst? Das Dichtersein als Rolle?) ist auf ganz andere Weise fiktiv (oder eben gar nicht fiktiv) als jenes "vir", welches sich ein wenig später als Äneas erweist,

290

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD eine für uns völlig fiktive, für den Verfasser aber und für die von ihm gedachten Empfänger, wenn nicht authen­ tische, so sicher als glaubwürdig gezeichnete Gestalt. Fiktiv in einem anderen Sinne war schließlich auch, oder ist immer noch, Troja. Troja bereitet die meisten Schwie­ rigkeiten, denn

(1) für eine Gruppe von Empfängern kann

der Satz "Troja existierte" ein glaubwürdiger,

(2) für

eine andere ein fiktiver Satz sein; (3) eine dritte Gruppe (wir) hegt keine Zweifel an der einstigen Existenz Trojas (wenn auch das Troja von Schliemann kaum mit dem von Homer oder Vergil gleichzusetzen ist). Können aber Äußerungen im logischen Wert eines Aeneis-Satzes oder der ganzen Aeneis

eintreten, die der Weltanschauung

(der mythischen

(Ethnogenese der Römer), skeptisch-rationalistischen und wissenschaftlichen) des Verfassers und der Empfänger ent­ sprechen? Wenn wir den ersten Satz der Aeneis

in eine in-

tensionale Aussage verwandelt hätten, würde er folgende Form annehmen: "ν sagt: A sagt: p".

'3.2. Hierbei muß jedoch eine wesentliche Einschränkung ge­ macht werden. Das Subjekt ν ist ein Grenzfall: es ist'eine reale, uns vom Namen her bekannte Gestalt

(z.B. Vergilius

Maro), die sich aber merkwürdig verhält. Sie ist nämlich bereit, die fiktive Rolle des Dichters zu übernehmen (ei­ nes solchen etwa, der in Hexametern das Schicksal des aus Troja nach Italien wandernden Helden erzählt). Jenes Über­ schreiten der Grenze zwischen dem realen Verfasser und dem Dichtersein als Rolle vollzieht sich infolge einer besonde­ ren Umstrukturierung, infolge des Aufbaues einer zweiten Aussageebene auf der Grundlage der primären Aussage p. Jene Umstrukturierung wird für gewöhnlich - nach Roman

291

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Jakobson - als poetische Funktion bezeichnet. Die poeti­ sche Funktion beschränkt sich natürlich keinesfalls allein auf die Versifikation. Alle konventionellen Sprachgebilde dienen - abgesehen von ihrer autonomen Funktion - auch noch der Bekräftigung der Fiktivität des äußeren Subjekts Ά und lassen den realen Verfasser ν "cum grano salís" als jemanden erscheinen, der Unwahres oder, um es präziser zu formulieren, Wahres von besonderem Charakter erzählt, was auf der einen Ebene bezweifelt werden kann, auf der ande­ ren aber einen außergewöhnlichen Wert erlangt. Wenn wir die Frage der ästhetischen Funktion einer intensionalen Aussage - sowohl in ihrem angeführten

(. . ., daß p)

als

auch im anführenden Teil (v sagt:  sagt . . . etc.) - in Betracht ziehen, kommen wir zwangsläufig zu dem Schluß, daß die Logik allein nicht imstande ist, dieses Problem zu bewältigen: Die Logik greift auf das Gebiet der Poetik über, aber auch die Poetik sollte allmählich auf das Ge­ biet der Logik übergreifen. 4.1. Es sei nun eine typische Seminarfrage gestellt: Wel­ cher von den folgenden Sätzen ist falscher - (1) Kleine Zwerge leben im Wald, (2) Große Zwerge leben im Wald? Diese Aufgabe kann mit Hilfe der sogenannten starken chen Interpretation der allgemeinen Sätze dann ebenso falsch oder ebenso wahr)

bzw. schwa­

(beide Sätze sind

oder aber mit Hilfe

der Leśniewski-Ontologie gelöst werden, die es möglich macht, beide Sätze zu differenzieren und festzustellen, daß der Satz über große Zwerge falsch, der über kleine hingegen wahr ist.11 Wir können dieses Problem auch mit sprachwis­ senschaftlichen Instrumenten, und zwar mit Hilfe der genera­ tiven Transformationsgrammatik, lösen, welche erklärt, daß

292

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD die semantische Komponente das Entstehen eines unkorrekten Satzes verhindert

(die generative Poetik untersucht wieder­

um, wie und wann jene "verhindernden" Regeln aufgehoben werden können). Demzufolge müssen wir den Satz über große Zwerge für unkorrekt erklären, weil die Wortbedeutung von "Zwergen" das Merkmal "klein" mit einschließt, was das Auf­ treten dieses Substantives mit dem Adjektiv "groß" aus­ schließt. 4.2. Der Logiker, der sich mit Widersprüchen eines Satzes vom Typ: "Es ist unwahr, daß jemand existierte, den Shake­ speare Hamlet nannte; dieser Jemand war jedoch Junggeselle" Defaßt (in diesem an und für sich falschen Satz ist die an­ geführte Aussage "er ist Junggeselle" wahr) , behauptet Folgendes : Stellen wir uns also vor, daß Texte literarischer Werke ihren Bezugspunkt in einer besonderen ästhetischen Welt haben, d.h., ihr einziges ausgewähltes semantisches Modell ist eine intentionale Realität, so stoßen wir sofort auf eine andere Schwie­ rigkeit: Alle Sätze eines so verstandenen Textes erweisen sich zwangsläufig als gleich wahr oder vielmehr als gleich reali12 siert bzgl. dieses Modells.

Diese Behauptung ist richtig und einer weiteren Ausar­ beitung wert, sofern sie den Begriff "Quasi" als unbrauch­ bar in Bezug auf die "besondere ästhetische Welt" in Frage stellen will. Sollte aber aus der Annahme eines "ausgewähl­ ten semantischen Modells" als intentionaler Realität die Notwendigkeit resultieren, alle Sätze des literarischen Textes für gleich wahr zu erklären, muß diese These ange­ fochten werden. 293

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 4.3. Wir wollen vorerst anhand von konkreten Beispielen prüfen, ob alle Sätze eines Textes tatsächlich in gleichem Maße wahr sind

(bzw. sein können). Die ausgewählten Bei­

spiele sind notgedrungen Zitate oder ganze Situationen zusammenfassende Sätze

(darunter auch vermeintliche Sätze).

Alle Kürzungen werden nur exempli causa vorgenommen, da Erwägungen über Wahrheit und Falschheit oder Fiktivität nur dann sinnvoll sind, wenn sie in Bezug auf genügend große, d.h.

genügend kohärente

Texteinheiten angestellt

werden : a. Joachim ist nach Davos zu Hans Castrop zu Besuch gekommen. b. Werther heiratete mit dreißig Jahren. 14 c. "Papkin: Die Frauen liegen mir zu Füßen." d. Du bist lecker, schwach und im Walde - sagte der Wolf zum Lamm, als es fragte, mit welchem Recht er sich anmaße, es auffressen zu wollen. e. Onegin kam auf Geheiß des Onkels auf dessen Gut, das an der Grenze zwischen dem Twer- und Smolensk-Gouvernement etwa 300 Werst von Moskau entfernt lag. f. Herr Zagχoba, Kind unbekannter Eltern, wurde von Jesuiten erzogen.15

g. Du b i s t l e c k e r , schwach und im Walde - sagte das Lamm zum Wolf, a l s er f r a g t e , mit welchem Recht es s i c h anmaße, ihn auffressen zu wollen. h. Werther warf s i c h v e r z w e i f e l t vor den Zug. 4.4.

Von T e x t e n

sche U r t e i l s s ä t z e

(a)

und

sind,

(b)

können w i r s a g e n ,

man k ö n n t e

wahrer Texte ausfindig

machen.

fähr

Liste,

am A n f a n g u n s e r e r

aber

daß s i e

analoge

Beispiele

S i e s t e h e n n i c h t von denn w i r w o l l e n

294

fal­

zuerst

unge­ einem

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD

Mißverständnis vorbeugen, das für Erwägungen über Fiktion ein Hindernis ist. Diese Sätze sind nämlich Metatext-Aussagen und nur in ihrer reduzierten Form irreführend. Rich­ tig sollten sie heißen: (a) Es ist unwahr, daß es im berberg

zau-

eine Szene gibt, in der Joachim zu Hans zu Besuch

kommt, denn es war eben umgekehrt; sowie (b) es ist unwahr, daß Goethe in: Die

Leiden

des

jungen

Werther

seinen Helden

dreißig Jahre lang leben und dann heiraten ließ. Solchen Metatext-Aussagen, die im literarischen Werk nicht enthal­ ten sind, sich aber darauf beziehen, steht die Eigenschaft der urteilsmäßigen Seinsweise zu. 4.5. Bei (c) haben wir es auch mit einem (diesmal falschen) Urteilssatz zu tun. Er unterscheidet sich von den Beispie­ len (a) und

(b) dadurch, daß er selbst Bestandteil der dar­

gestellten Welt ist: Papkin, eine der amüsantesten Gestal­ ten im Lustspiel Die

Rache

von Aleksander Fredro, äußert ei­

nen Satz, dessen Falschheit wir aufgrund von anderen in diesem Werk dargestellten Ereignissen feststellen können. Zur Kategorie derartiger Sätze gehören Urteile und Annah­ men, die im literarischen Werk von einer Gestalt geäußert werden und sich auf die letztere selbst, auf eine andere Gestalt oder auf die dargestellte Welt im Allgemeinen be­ ziehen .

4.6. Die in den Punkten

(d) - (h) angeführten Sätze (Dar­

stellungen von Situationen) sind weder Urteilssätze noch Annahmen, die in einer Beziehung zur realen Welt stehen, denn: Wölfe und Schafe können nicht sprechen, Onegin, Zagұoba und Werther haben nicht existiert

(eventuelle Pro­

totypen brauchen nicht in Betracht gezogen zu werden).

295

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Ingarden hätte alle diese Aussagen im Hinblick auf ihre Form und Funktion als Quasi-Urteile eingereiht. Sie unter­ scheiden sich jedoch voneinander hinsichtlich ihres Grades an Stichhaltigkeit. Man könnte versuchen, sie nach dem Wahrscheinlichkeitsgrad einzuordnen. Der der realen Welt entnommene Maßstab der Verifizierbarkeit wird sich dabei aber als untauglicn erweisen. Immerhin stellen wir die Lage von Larino, Krasnogorje und der Güter Zarjetskijs16 auf ei­ ne andere Weise fest, als wir etwa über Zagұobas Kindheit mutmaßen. Es ist zwar wahrscheinlicher, daß der Wolf das Lamm aufgefressen hat, und nicht umgekehrt, aber die Be­ hauptung, daß Tiere sprechen können, ist ohnehin erfah­ rungswidrig (das trifft auf alle Fabeln z u ) . Die Mittei­ lung über Zagұobas Kindheit und Jugendzeit ist nur in Bezug auf die Behauptung: "Jeder war einmal ein Kind" begründet; der Rest ist Phantasie (eine von mehreren möglichen Varianten, wenn sie auch nicht ganz willkürlich gewählt wird). 17 Das Beispiel mit Werther

(h) ist hingegen völlig unzuläs­

sig: wegen des falschen Verhältnisses von zwei Zeitebenen. Wenn wir gesagt hätten, Werther habe sich vergiftet, wäre der Satz zwar dem Text gegenüber falsch, aber zulässig im Hinblick auf die Zeit der Handlung und den Zeitgeschmack. 4.7. Ein hervorragender polnischer Romancier, der die oben erwähnte Variante von Zagұobas Jugend erfunden hat, sagte in einer Universitätsvorlesung über Quo vadis,

Sienkiewicz

habe ziemlich willkürlich den hl. Petrus "stilisiert", den er am Ende des Romans den Segensspruch "Urbi et orbi" er­ teilen läßt, obwohl Petrus als Galiläer sicher kein Latein gekonnt und selbst mit dem Griechischen Schwierigkeiten 18 gehabt habe. Ein evidenter Fehlgriff! Worin besteht er

296

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD jedoch? Kann der Vorwurf, der hl. Petrus beherrschte kein Latein, allein mit dem Hinweis zurückgewiesen werden, daß ein Ausländer imstande ist, eine Fremdsprache zu erlernen, oder muß hierbei auf die Anwesenheit des Heiligen Geistes in den aller Sprachen mächtigen Aposteln verwiesen werden? Wenn aber jemand an diese Anwesenheit nicht glaubt? Man kann sich natürlich den Standpunkt des Verfassers zueigen machen, der als eifriger Christ in dieser Hinsicht keiner­ lei Zweifel hatte. Der vermeintliche Standpunkt des Ver­ fassers ist jedoch keine zuverlässige und stabile Beru­ fungsinstanz für Sachverhalte der dargestellten Welt. Statt zu behaupten, Sienkiewicz habe den hl. Petrus ziemlich willkürlich stilisiert, wäre es angebracht zu sagen, daß er sich auf das Christentum als Komponente der betreffenden Kultur berufen habe. Somit bedarf die "Urbi et orbi"-Szene keiner anderen Begründung mehr und macht die Frage nach den religiösen Ansichten des Verfassers völlig überflüssig. 5.1. Motivationen eines Erzählwerkes sind auf texttranszen­ denten Ebenen zu suchen, die im Unterschied zum verbalisierten Text dem Verfasser nicht gänzlich eigen sind. Der Verfasser trifft auf diesen texttranszendenten Ebenen eine mehr oder weniger willkürliche Auswahl. Seine Auswahlmög­ lichkeiten sind jedoch oft beschränkt, denn die erwähnten Ebenen haben einen intersubjektiven Kulturcharakter: Sie setzen sich aus einer Menge von Regeln zusammen, die das Funktionieren einer "nichtdargestellten Welt" festlegen. So könnten nämlich - im Gegensatz zur "dargestellten Welt" - alle diese im direkten Erzählvorgang nicht enthaltenen "Zeit- und Raumelemente" bezei.chnet werden. Ein solcher Begriff wäre jedoch aus vielerlei Gründen irreführend,

297

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS denn "nicht dargestellt" sind z.B. auch verschiedenartige künstlerisch bedeutungsvolle Unbestimmtheitsstellen. 5.2. Für jene nichtdargestellte Welt oder dafür, was ich provisorisch als im direkten Erzählvorgang nichtenthaltene "Zeit- und Raumelemente" bezeichnet habe, schlage ich den Begriff das

fiktive

Bezugsfeld

kannt und geläufig genug

vor. Dieser Begriff ist be­

und kann deshalb nach einigen,

wenn auch wesentlichen, Änderungen übernommen werden. Diese Änderungen haben zur Aufgabe, dem "fiktiven Bezugsfeld11 den Sinn eines intentionalen Wirklichkeitsmodells zu geben, damit das fiktive Bezugsfeld als Vermittlungssphäre zwi­ schen dem literarischen Werk und der objektiven Wirklich­ keit aufgefaßt wird und nicht als Alternative zur letzte19 ren. Dieser Auffassung stehen meiner Meinung nach die­ jenigen Forscher nahe, die sich solcher Begriffe wie "intentionales Modell" 20 , "nichtdargestellte "Erzählhorizont"

22

Fabel"21

oder

bedienen. Das so begriffene fiktive

Bezugsfeld ist eine Hypothese über die Existenz einer in­ tentionalen Welt außerhalb des verbalisierten Textes und der dargestellten Welt, eine Hypothese, die dem Text Moti­ vationen liefert. Diese Hypothese erfordert keinerlei Aktu­ alisierung und Konkretisierung

(im Ingardenschen Sinne bei­

der Begriffe) jener texttranszendenten Existenz. Sie macht es nicht erforderlich, jedoch möglich, daß sich alles, was im Bezugsfeld potentiell vorhanden ist, im Text realisieren kann. Sie verlockt den Verfasser

(oder seinen Nachfolger),

die im fiktiven Bezugsfeld verborgenen Möglichkeiten aus­ zunutzen, sie in Prologe und Epiloge, in Fortsetzungen um­ zuwandeln, die sich aus Dilogien, Trilogien und Tetralogien sowie aus Romanzyklen zusammensetzen.

298

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD 5.3. Das fiktive Bezugsfeld ist gewöhnlich ein umfassende­ res Gebilde als der Text selbst, denn es ist keinesfalls das Ergebnis einer einmaligen Tätigkeit eines Einzelnen, sondern geht aus einer ganzen Kultur hervor, die wir als diegetisch

(oder als Fabulationskultur) bezeichnen können.

5.4. Das fiktive Bezugsfeld ist ein Bestandteil des sozia­ len Bewußtseins, in dem sich die kollektiven Erfahrungen und Errungenschaften einer diegetischen Kultur niederschla­ gen. Das fiktive Bezugsfeld ist ein sozial geschaffenes Modell der realen Welt, ein Modell, welches als Sammlung der intentional entworfenen Sachverhalte und Gegenständ­ lichkeiten die Wirklichkeit mit Hilfe der Analogie ähnlichkeit) und Homologie

(Form­

(Funktionsähnlichkeit) wahr­

heitsgetreu nachzeichnet, oder in parabolischer Verallgemei­ nerung reproduziert. 5.5. Das fiktive Bezugsfeld ist jedem einzelnen literari­ schen Werk vorgegeben, jedes neue literarische Werk berei­ chert aber zugleich die Kulturgemeinschaft des fiktiven Be­ zugsfeldes. Kein Text nutzt jedoch das Ganze des Feldes aus: manche seiner Teile verhalten sich dem Text gegenüber neutral oder werden sogar vom Text ignoriert. Man dürfte behaupten, daß das fiktive Bezugsfeld ein eigenartiges "regionales" Gefüge ist, so daß ein gegebenes literarisches Werk nur zu einem Teil dieses Feldes in Beziehung steht. 6.1. Die Konzeption des fiktiven Bezugsfeldes soll eines der wichtigsten Argumente gegen die Stichhaltigkeit und Brauchbarkeit des Begriffes der Quasi-Urteile sein. Fassen wir die bisherigen Befunde in vier Punkten zusammen:

299

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Erstens: Die Ausführung, nach der Sätze, aus denen sich ein literarisches Werk zusammensetzt, insofern Quasi-Urteile seien, als sie den echten Urteilssätzen ähneln, ist irreführend, denn die meisten von ihnen haben einen Aufbau, der die Bezeichnung "Urteilssätze" nicht rechtfertigt. Hierzu gehören alle poetischen Umformungen und rhetorischen Umsetzungen, die nicht nur in der Lyrik, sondern auch in der Epik vorkommen. Ingarden betonte zwar mit Nachdruck die Schwächung der Transparenz der Schicht der Bedeutungsein­ heiten

durch die sie überlagernde Schicht der dargestell­

ten Gegenständlichkeiten; er übersah jedoch, daß die poe­ tische Funktion ein wirksames Mittel ist, die Urteilskraft bzw. die quasi-urteilsmäßige Seinsweise

einzuschränken.

6.2. Zweitens: Es erübrigt sich, manche Sätze eines litera­ rischen Werkes

(eines historischen Romans etwa) ausnahms­

weise zur Kategorie der Urteile zu rechnen und sie dann nach dem Grad ihrer Fiktivität einzuordnen

(was nichts an­

deres ist, als eine Steigerung des Präfixes "quasi"). Nicht nur die Aussagen fiktiver Gestalten über einen authenti­ schen Gegenstand bzw. Sachverhalt, sondern auch auktoriale empirische Sätze dürfen nicht isoliert von ihrer Umgebung, d.h.

von der dargestellten Welt, betrachtet werden. Kon­

textfreie Sätze, selbst die von größtem Empiriegehalt (z.B. Sätze über historische Realien), verlieren diese Eigen­ schaft, sobald sie im Raumgefüge der dargestellten Welt ihren Platz finden, wo andere Gegenständlichkeiten und Sachverhalte ihnen vorangehen, folgen oder sie begleiten. 6.3. Drittens: Die hier vorgeschlagene Auffassung ermög­ licht eine Diskussion über die referentielle Funktion der

300

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD Literatur; unter der Voraussetzung allerdings, daß die ein­ schlägigen Überlegungen nicht auf der Ebene der Sätze oder anderer kleiner Elemente, sondern auf der eines umfangrei­ chen Wirklichkeitsmodells, d.h.

auf der Ebene des fiktiven

Bezugsfeldes, angestellt werden. Das literarische Werk ist eine Tat, die in einer bestimmten Beziehung zu dem Wirk­ lichkeitsmodell steht, an ihm teilhat und es bereichert. 6.4. Und Viertens: Die hier aufgestellte Behauptung, nach der auf der Satzebene nichts über Wahrheit, Falschheit oder Wahrscheinlichkeit des literarischen Werkes gesact werden kann, bedeutet keinesfalls, daß man auf dieser Ebene die Stichhaltigkeit einzelner Sätze oder gar ihrer Kompo­ nenten

(der Nomina und Prädikate) überhaupt nicht untersu­

chen kann oder nicht zu untersuchen braucht. Immerhin las­ sen wir eher den Gedanken über sprechende Wölfe und Schafe gelten als den über Schafe, die Wölfe auffressen. Auch die kleinen Zwerge kommen uns wahrscheinlicher als die großen vor. Die Ausführungen über den von Onegin zurückgelegten Weg können wir ohnehin verifizieren; es fragt sich nur, ob es überhaupt nötig ist. Den Satz über Werther, der mit dreißig Jahren eine Ehe eingegangen sein soll, haben wir zwar (als eine Metatext-Aussage) aus der Gesamtheit der Sätze, die in einer Beziehung zum fiktiven Bezugsfeld ste­ hen, ausgeschlossen, aber er kann dann als Text-Aussage zu­ gelassen werden, wenn vorausgesetzt wird, daß dieser Satz (oder die Zusammenfassung eines längeren Textabschnittes) eine Fortsetzung der "Leiden

des

jungen

Werther"

ist, in

der sich herausstellt, daß der Jüngling gerettet wurde.

7.1. Daher schlage ich vor, statt über die (nach dem Maß-

301

SEMIOTICS AMD DIALECTICS stab des empirischen Wissens gemessene) Wahrscheinlichkeit der dargestellten Ereignisse zu fachsimpeln, eher davon auszugehen, daß ein Satz (seine Komponenten) sowie eine Menge sinnvoller Sätze nur ein solches Ereignis beschreibt bzw. beschreiben kann, das sich einem System von theorie­ bildenden Sätzen gegenüber mehr oder weniger zu bewähren vermag. Die Begriffe "Ereignis", "Bewährung", "System von theoriebildenden Sätzen" verwende ich ungefähr im Sinne der Konzeption von Karl Popper, die er in Logik

der

For­

schung

(1935) und The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Ί959) 23 darlegt. Das fiktive Bezugsfeld ist demnach jenes System, welches die als fiktiv bezeichneten, bereits beschriebenen oder beschreibbaren Ereignisse zuläßt bzw. ausschließt oder sie nur bis zu einem gewissen Grade zuläßt. Von diesen Ereignissen kann nicht ausgesagt werden, ob sie wahr, falsch oder wahrscheinlich sind, sondern ob sie sich hin­ sichtlich des fiktiven Bezugsfeldes völlig oder nur bis zu einem gewissen "Grade bewähren". 7.2. Der Begriff der Bewährung im fiktiven Bezugsfeld er­ möglicht die Antwort auf einige in unseren Ausführungen erwähnte Fragen. Wenn wir die Verifizierung durch den rea­ len Bezug von der fiktionalen Bewährung trennen, stellt sich heraus, daß etwas, was real verifizierbar ist, fiktional sich nicht unbedingt bewähren muß. Nabokovs Idee, die einzelnen Ortschaften auf Onegins Strecke festzulegen, bewährt sich real, aber nur schwach im fiktiven Bezugsfeld dieses romantisch-ironischen Epos, das keine Motivation für Ereignisse enthält, die sich zwischen den einzelnen Erzähleinheiten abspielen.

302

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD 7.3. Das fiktive Bezugsfeld des Romans ist reich an mannig­ fachem Material, mit dem die Lücken der Fabel ausgefüllt sowie die Vor- und Nachgeschichte ergänzt werden können. Das fiktive Bezugsfeld des antiken Epos

und der Tragödie

ist im Unterschied zu dem des (modernen, realistischen) Romans äußerst arm ausgestattet und begrenzt, es ist aber ein Gebilde, das sich der begrenzten Anzahl hellenischer Mythen gegenüber recht gut bewährt. 7.4. Diese zwei extremen Beispiele sollen nur klarstellen, daß das fiktive Bezugsfeld immer historisch und im Zusam­ menhang mit den Kategorien der Gattunstheorie zu betrachten ist. 7.5. Schlußbemerkung: Die vorliegenden Ausführungen treffen - ganz einfach gesagt - auf die Epik und Dramatik, keines­ falls aber auf die Lyrik zu. Vielleicht gibt es auch etwas, was als "lyrisches Bezugsfeld" bezeichnet werden könnte, aber das ist ein Problem für sich, das anderer Forschungs­ instrumente bedarf. Ich gehe hier nämlich von der Annahme 24 aus, die ich bereits ausführlich dargelegt habe, daß es einen Bereich der Künste gibt, der als Fabulierkunst be­ zeichnet werden könnte. Es gibt - mit anderen Worten zwischen den einzelnen Künsten eine Art Verwandtschaft im Hinblick auf ihren Fabelcharakter, so daß ein Teil der Li­ teratur

(Teil im Sinne einer distributiven und nicht einer

kollektiven Menge) und ein Teil der bildenden Künste

(auch

Film, Theater etc.) eine Gemeinschaft bilden, auf die das Instrumentarium der Gattungstheorie anwendbar ist, einer Disziplin, die über das Gebiet der Literatur hinausgeht.

303

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ANMERKUNGEN

Roman Ingarden: Das literarische Gebiet

der Ontologie,

Logik

Kunstwerk.

Eine Untersuchung

und Literaturwissenschaft.

aus dem

Halle/ Saale/

1931, S. 167. 2 Op. cit.,

S. 175.

3 Op. cit., S. 175 f. 4 Op. cit., S. 179. 5 Ibid.

6 Henryk Markiewicz: Twόrczosc Fenomenologia

Romana Ingardena

Romana Ingardena.

in: H.Markiewicz: Przekroje

a rozwoj

badan

literackich

In: "Studia Filozoficzne" 1972. Abgdr.

i zblizenia

dawne i nowe. Warszawa 1976.

Markiewicz verweist auf polemische Beiträge von Wacұaw Borowy, Käte Hamburger, Jerzy Pelc, Konrad Gόrski. Vgl. auch: Gottfried Gabriel: Fiktion

und Wahrheit.

Eine semantische

Theorie

der Literatur.

Stuttgart-

Bad Canstatt 1975, S. 52-63. 7 "Que vadis" von Henryk Sienkiewicz erschien 1895 in Warschau zuerst als Fortsetzungsroman in "Gazeta Polska". Fast gleichzeitig brachte 1895 die Krefelder "Niederrheinische Volkszeitung" die Übersetzung von Dr. Karchowski. Die polnische Erstausgabe in Buchform erschien 1896 in Warschau bei Gebethner & Wolff, die deutsche kam 1898 in Wien in Collection Hartleben, V, Nr. 11-12 heraus. Die nächste Ausgabe wurde 1899 bei Linden-Lutz verlegt. Darauf folgten Dutzende von deutschen Ausgaben in verschiedenen Übersetzungen. 8

bfenryk Markiewicz schlägt in der Abhandlung "Fikcja a jego zawartość poznawcza"

w dziele

literackim

[Fiktion im literarischen Werk und sein

Erkenntnisgehalt] ("Studia Filozoficzne" 1961, Nr. 3, abgdr. auch in dem Buch desselben Autors "GXowne problemy 2 3

wiedzy



literaturze",

Krakow 1965, 1966, 1976) vor, Aussagesatze im literarischen Werk gemäß Sätze,ihres derenWahrheitsgehalts WahrheitsCharakter in die nicht 304 folgende bezweifelt Skala werden einzuordnen: kann, (2)(1)

DIE FRAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD höchstwahrscheinliche Sätze, (3) wahrscheinliche, aber nicht besser als ihre Negation begründete Sätze, (4) weniger als ihre Negation wahrscheinliche / aber keine allein durch das empirische Wissen für ungültig erklärbare / Sätze, (5) quasi-wahrscheinliche Sätze, (6) quasi-unwahrscheinliche Sätze, (7) Sätze, deren Falschheit aus den Gesetzen der empirischen Wissenschaften abzuleiten ist, (8) Sätze, die unübersetzbare metaphorische Ausdrücke enthalten, (9) Sätze, deren Wahrheitscharakter wegen der darin auftretenden nichtexistierenden, d.h. fiktiven, Gestalten ausgeschlossen ist. 9 Jerzy Pelc: Poetyka a semiotyka logiczna.

In: "Teksty" (Wroctaw-

Warszawa) 1977, Nr. 4. Vgl. Jürgen Landwehr: Text und Fiktion. einigen

literaturwissenschaftlichen

Grundbegriffen.

und

Zu

kommunikationstheoretischen

München 1975, S. 170 u.a.

J. Pele: op. cit.,

S. 21. Der Autor macht hier Gebrauch von der

Russeischen Theorie der Deskription, und zwar von der Differenzierung der primären und sekundären Anwendung von Ausdrücken / B. Russel: On Denoting.

In: "Mind" XIV, 1905 / .

Witold Marciszewski: Problem istnienia

przedmiotow

intencjonalnych

( Das Problem der Existenz intentionaler Gegenständlichkeiten). In: "Studia

Semiotyczne", IV, hg. v. J. Pelc, Wroctaw 1973, S. 192.

12

J. Pele: op. cit., S. 21.

13 Dieses Beispiel wird angeführt nach: J. Landwehr, op. cit.,

S. 184.

Der Autor setzt den / wahren / Satz "Werther endete durch Selbstmord" dem / falschen / Satz "Werther heiratete mit dreißig Jahren" entgegen. 14 Das Zitat entstammt "Der Rache" von Aleksander Fredro, der hervor­ ragendsten klassizistischen Komödie der polnischen Literatur / U. : 1834 / . Papkin - eine der amüsantesten Gestalten dieses Lustspiels­ ist der Typ eines "Miles gloriosus", Schmarotzers und Feiglings. 15 der Trilogie Feuer",

305 von Henryk Sienkiewicz, d.h. in "Mit Schwert

"Die Sintflut"

und "Der kleine

Ritter"

und

/ 1884-1888 / tritt die

komische Gestalt eines alten Adeligen namens ZagXoba auf, der nicht allzu

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS mutig und wahrheitsliebend, dafür aber recht sympathisch und ein zuverlässiger Freund ist. Obwohl die Handlung reich an historischen Realien und der Held selbst äußerst redselig ist, werden hier erstaun­ lich wenige Informationen über die Kindheit und Jugendzeit des letzteren vermittelt. Eine solche Rekonstruktion der Topographie des "Eugen Onegin" hat Vladimir Nabokov vorgenommen / vgl. "Literatura na Swiecie" 1978, Nr. 8 (88), S. 120 /. 17 Teodor Parnicki / geb. 1908 / , Schöpfer eines neuen Stils im polnischen historischen Roman, dessen künstlerischer Vorsatz darin besteht, alle Lücken der Überlieferung mit Mutmaßungen zu füllen / der Verfasser historischer Romane reproduziert die Quellen nicht, sondern setzt eben dann zum Sprechen an, wenn diese verstummen / . Parnicki hat / unter zahlreichen anderen neuartigen und bahnbrechenden Romanen / im Jahre 1965 den Roman " I moznych dziwny"

veröffentlicht, der auf dem

fiktiven Briefwechsel historischer und literarischer Gestalten aus dem 17. Jahrhundert / z.B. Shakespeare , drei Musketiere usw. / basiert. In einem der Handlungsstränge wird über das geheimnisvolle Schicksal eines Findelkindes und Jünglings namens Z. / = Zagұoba / fabuliert. Dieser Handlungsstrang ist folglich eine Art Vorgeschichte der Trilogie

von Sienkiewicz, d.h. eine Realisation und eine Elokution

der im fiktiven Bezuqsfelde versteckten Möqlichkeiten. 18

T.Parnicki: Wyklad

VII

(VII. Vortrag). W syropie

Sienkiewicz

podawaұ

rycyne. In: "Kultura" / Warszawa / 1978, Nr. 25. 19 Mit der Problematik des fiktiven Bezugsfeldes befasst sich J. Anderegg in seinem Buch "Fiktion

Theorie

und Kommunikation".

Ein

Beitrag

zur

der Prosa" / Göttinaen 1973 / . Ich habe jedoch den Eindruck,

dass Anderegg das fiktive Bezugsfeld einmal als eine texttranszedente, ein andermal als eine textimmanente Kategorie betrachtet- Daher stimme ich volkommen mit der Meinung überein: "Die Kommunizierbarkeit eines Fiktivtextes hängt ab von einem Bezugsfeld, welches durch diesen selbst erst konstruiert wird. Es stiftet der Kommunikation ihre eigene 306

DIE F0RAGE DER QUASI-URTEILE UND DAS FIKTIVE BEZUGSFELD Vorbedingung" (S. 37). Aber wenn d i e s d e r F a l l i s t , kann man kaum d i e folgende D e f i n i t i o n a k z e p t i e r e n : "Ein Bezugsfeld h e i s s e f i k t i v , wenn e s sich um e i n Bezugsfeld e i n e r f i k t i v e n Person h a n d e l t , um e i n Bezugsfeld a l s o , welches nur i n n e r h a l b d e s Textes s i c h m a n i f e s t i e r t und a u s s e r h a l b des Textes weder g e f a s s t noch r e k o n s t r u i e r t werden kann" / S. 31 / . 20 W. Marciszewski, op. cit.,

S. 198. Die Konzeption des intentionalen

Modells macht es - so Marciszewski - möglich, "verschiedene Relationen zwisehen den Inhalten sowie mannigfache Operationen an Texten / Zusammenfassung, Übersetzung, Fortsetzung /· genauer, als es bisher der Fall war, zu beschreiben. Eine Formulierung des Maßstabs der intentionaler Seinsweise, die der Gefahr der inneren Widersprüchlichkeit intentionaler Gegenständlichkeiten vorzubeugen vermag, scheint überdies mit der allgemeinen Intuition übereinzustimmen; dies trifft selbst auf die Intuition von Kindern zu, die Märchen zuhören. Von Märchen verlangt man keinerlei Wahrscheinlichkeit in dem Sinne, wie sie einen realistischen Roman kennzeichnen sollte; ganz im Gegenteil - je unwahrscheinlicher sie sind, desto besser (...). Die Welt der Märchen, Mythen und Romane soll demnach eine der möglichen Welten, aber nie die aktuelle Welt sein; der Grad der Unwahrscheinlichlkeit bzgl. der aktuellen Welt ist hingegen einer der Maßstäbe für die Differenzierung literarischer Gattungen".

21 Stefania Skwarczynska: Wstep do nauki

 literaturze,

Bd. 1, Warszawa

1954, S. 351. Skwarczynska meint jedoch damit das Ersetzen der ausgedehnten Fabel durch kurz gefaßte Information. 22 Kazimierz Bartoszynski: Problem konstrukeji

czasu

w utworach

epickich

(Die Frage der Zeitkonstruktion in epischen Werken). In: Problemy teorii

literatury,

Reihe 2, hg. v. Henryk Markiewicz, Wrocχaw 1976, S.

233. 23 Die Konzeption von Karl Popper ist für unsere Ausführungen insofern 307 brauchbar, als sie es möglich macht, von stärkerer oder schwächerer Begründung der Sätze / konkret: der entsprechenden Texteinheiten / im literarischen Werk zu sprechen, ohne daß diese als wahr, falsch oder

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS mehr oder weniger wahrscheinlich direkt in Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit gesetzt werden. Popper schreibt: "Here one can see very clearly the difference between truth and corroboration. The appraisal of a statement as corroborated or as not corroborated is also a logical appraisal and therefore also timeless; for it asserts that a certain logical relation holds between a theoretical system and some system of accepted basic statements. But we can never simply say of a statement that it is as such, or in itself, "corroborated" / in the way in which we may say that it is "true" /. We can only say that it is corroborated with respect to some system of basic statements - a system accepted up to a particular point in time" / Karl R. Popper: The Logic of Scientific

Discovery.

New York 1959, S. 275/.

24 Diese Frage wird in meinem Buch Powinowactwa l i t e r a t u r y (Verwandt­ schaften der Literatur) / insbesondere in dem Kapitel "Verwandtschaften durch die Fabel" / genau erörtert, das 1980 bei Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe in Warschau erschien.

308

JURIJ LOTMAN'S SEMIOTICS OF CULTURE AND LITERATURE

THE DIALECTICS OF CHANGE: CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL Ann Shukman

This study is concerned with three of Jurij Lotman's recent theoretical writings on the semiotics of culture: "The Dynamic Model of a Semiotic System"

(Lotman 1974),

"Culture as Collective Intellect and Problems of Artifi­ cial Intelligence" Culture"

(Lotman 1977), and "The Phenomenon of

(Lotman 1978). Lotman's recent works on the se­

miotics of culture have explored two areas: firstly, the theoretical premises for change in culture, the mechanism by which dynamism is brought about and the factors that contribute to evolution; and secondly, a series of stud­ ies, many of them with B.A. Uspenskij, on the semiotics of Russian culture. The latter works, which fall under the heading of historical semiotics, are applications of semiotic theory to the material of cultural history. The present study deals only with Lotman's theoretical studies.

The Semiotics

of

Culture

The systematic study of culture from the semiotic point of view, which has come to be a central topic in

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Soviet semiotics dates back to the fourth Summer School on Secondary Modelling Systems which was held in Tartu in 1970. The proposals put forward then by Lotman and his colleagues summarized thinking on this subject and put forward a programme of study

(Lotman 1970). The Pro­

posals postulated an understanding of culture as the in­ terrelation of semiotic systems, a complex mechanism for the storing and transmission of information. The notion of cultural

polyglottism

which was to be central to Lot-

man's later thinking was here put forward for the first time as the idea that no human culture exists (or can ex­ ist) without at least two constituent semiotic systems (or "languages"), for example, myth and ritual, litera­ ture and painting. Subsequently, Lotman reworked and de­ veloped this idea in two main directions: in terms of the essential fact of cultural polyglottism for cultural dynamism, and in terms of the essential binary nature of culture as a parallel to the intellect and to the human brain.

The Summer School Proposals postulated culture as one member of the oppositional pair: ture"

"culture/non-cul­

. Culture, being the information-storage and infor­

mation-transmission mechanism of human society, - the "memory" of the collective - must, in order to function, have the quality of structuredness. Nothing that is un­ structured can be either communicated or preserved. Cul­ ture can then be looked at as the oppositional member to "non-culture" which lacks the marked feature of struc­ turedness. The oppositional pair can be shown under the following headings:

312

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL Culture Organized Ectropy Culture Cosmos

vs. ↔

Non-culture Not

organized

↔

Entropy

↔

Nature

↔

Chaos

The notion of "non-culture" was an important methodolog­ ical device and aid to the definition of culture, but more than that, as Lotman's thinking about the dynamics of culture developed, he came to look on "non-culture" as an essential component in the actual process of cultural change and renewal, as will be discussed below. It should be mentioned here that the principle of op­ positional relationship, in particular of binary opposi­ tions, is typical of Lotman's mode of thought and its main motive force. "That which is", "the given" is to be de­ fined, or indeed can be cognized, only in its relationship to "that which is not", "that which is other". As text is defined by context, one semiotic system by its relation­ ship to another, or to the hierarchy of the whole, as one mode of consciousness (one "world view") is to be under­ stood by its juxtaposition to another, so culture can be understood and defined in its relationship to non-culture. This relativistic approach, the search for relationships rather than for essences, is tempered in Lotman's think­ ing by a strong sense of historical reality, of the act­ ual passage of time. Abstract relationships and universal features of culture have validity ultimately in their his­ torical givenness, and all abstractions are subject to the laws of diachrony and change. So it came about that Lotman

313

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS has become a pioneer in the study of how a semiotic system functions in time, how it alters, renews itself or decays, and of how the new ones come into being. The

Dynamic

Model

of

a Semiotic

System

Lotman's first major attempt at a theory of semiotic change w a s the m o n o g r a p h

System

The

Dynamic

Model

of

a

Semiotic

(Lotman 1974) . This work not only tackles the prob­

lem of the mechanisms of change in culture, but also the fundamental problem of how to account for dynamism in des­ cription which, by its nature, is static. An essential idea of Suassurean linguistics and the structuralist currents of thought that derive from it, is the separation of the diachronic aspect of language from the synchronic, and the concentration of study on to the synchronic and systematic aspect of language. Lotman, re­ cognizing the enormous importance of this separation and its consequences for scientific thinking about language and other semiotic systems, points to the dangers of making the separation into an absolute, and in this respect sees him­ self as a follower of Prague School linguistics

(Jakobson

1929, 1931, for instance) and of the ideas of Tynjanov and Bakhtin

(Tynjanov 1924, 1927; Bakhtin 1965, 1975). The no­

tion of synchronic system, suggests Lotman, is a heuristic device; any actual system is never static, but is in a con­ stant process of change and evolution. The problem of describing the evolutionary system is made harder by the fact that any description is always

314

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL more organized than its object which it simplfies by ex­ cluding as irrelevant everything outside the system. Yet dynamism and change come about, Lotman argues, by the pro­ cess of drawing in these seemingly irrelevant elements into the system, and by expelling certain already established systematic elements. The problem is resolved, of course, by the adoption of different

points

culture creates its own metalanguage

of

view:

while every

(or self-description),

from a standpoint outside that culture, from another cul­ ture, the elements that the culture rejects from its own self-description as extra-systematic will be seen to be essential to that culture as the source of its future de­ velopment. The relative standpoint, from which particular cultures, or cultural systems can be described, is that of history. The diachronic principle, then, with its ultimate and essential relativism must take priority over the syn­ chronic principle which, being static, is a methodological device rather than a correspondence with real experience.

In any structure, suggests Lotman, one of the primary organizing factors is the relationship of binarity. How­ ever, in any cultural semiotic system the "space" between the poles is given over to a large area of "neutraliza­ tion", of ambivalence, where the binary poles do not di­ rectly operate. Thus the actually existing system is an amalgam of structurally ordered elements and structurally disordered elements

(these may be, for instance, mistakes,

intentional or unintentional, in a text; variants left by the author in a text). More significant is the ambivalence caused by the juxtaposition of an accepted code with a half-forgotten, submerged, code:

315

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

This state of affairs is possible inasmuch as a culture's memory . . . preserves not one, but a whole set of, meta­ systems which regulate its behaviour. These systems may be mutually not connected and have different degrees of actual­ ity. This makes it possible by altering the position of a system on the scale of actualization and obligatoriness to transfer a text from incorrect to correct, from forbidden to permitted. But the significance of the ambivalence as the dynamic mechanism in the light of which the text was forbidden, does not disappear, but is preserved on the peri­ phery. . . . (Lotman 1974, 29)

The same p r o b l e m can be e x p r e s s e d the

relationship

ly organized) ized) . is

and periphery

"The c o n t i n u o u s

one of

1974,

b e t w e e n nucleus

30).

Under t h e s e cultural

spatial

( t h a t which i s

alternation

t h e mechanisms

p a r a d i g m of

in

( t h a t which

for

of

headings

is

as

structural­

fluid,

nucleus

structural

terms

and

dynamism"

unorgan­ periphery (Lotman

can be summarized a w h o l e

features:

Nucleus

vs.

That which i s d e s c r i b e d (worthy of d e s c r i p t i o n )

Periphery That which i s not d e s c r i b e d

↔

Considered t o be e x i s t i n g

↔

(not worthy of d e s c r i p t i o n ) Considered t o be " n o n - e x i s t ­ e n t " , t h a t which i s ignored

S t r i c t l y o r g a n i z e d , mono-

↔

valent The top, the valuable Recognized as important in

Loosely o r g a n i z e d ,

ambiva-

lent ↔

The bottom, valueless ↔

a synchronic approach

Recognized as important in a diachronic approach

316

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL In o t h e r words whatever v a l u e - s y s t e m of

w o r t h y of n o t i c e ,

marks i t s valuable.

consigns that

structure,

attention

as w e l l as to the change and

only the

or s t r u c t u r a l

proach with i t s

system,

the

recording,

as

important,

s u b j e c t m a t t e r which i t and e v e n of

the

non-existent.

approach,

the s t a t i c "nuclear"

or omits

with i t s

system,

elements

tends of

em­ to

the

given

system, whereas the diachronic to the extra-systematic alone

is

c a p a b l e of

structuralist

the synchronic

the diachronic

d e s c r i p t i o n was t a c k l e d n e a r l y

Lotman i n t h e p r o g r a m m a t i c

and Tynjanov

vs.

statement

fifty of

in

years

Jakobson

(1928):

A sharp o p p o s i t i o n between the synchronic ( s t a t i c ) and the d i a c h r o n i c plan of a n a l y s i s has since q u i t e r e c e n t l y

offered

a f r u i t f u l working hypothesis for both l i n g u i s t i c s and l i t e r ­ ary h i s t o r y , r e v e a l i n g the systematic n a t u r e of language

(or

l i t e r a t u r e ) a t each s e p a r a t e moment of i t s l i f e . We have reached a stage where the achievements of the synchronic approach oblige us t o reexamine the p r i n c i p l e s of diachrony. . . . The h i s t o r y of a system i s in i t s t u r n a system. Pure synchronism now t u r n s out t o be an i l l u s i o n : every synchronic system has i t s own p a s t and future as i n s e p a r a b l e

structural

elements of the system. . . . The o p p o s i t i o n of synchrony t o diachrony was an opposition of the notion of system t o the

317

ap­

elements,

recording

dynamism.

The p r o b l e m o f before

of

into

And t h e a c t o f r e c o r d i n g ,

the

the synchronic

p h a s i s on t h e d e s c r i p t i o n bring to attention

t h e a c t of

subject matter

t o t h e r e a l m of t h e v a l u e l e s s Lotman s u g g e s t s

is brought

the given c u l t u r e :

o r of d e s c r i p t i o n , of d e s c r i p t i o n ,

i s described

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS notion of evolution, and it ceases to be a principle of crucial significance when we recognize that every system inevitably represents an evolution, while on the other hand evolution itself is necessarily systematic in character. (Tynjanov 1928)

Although Lotman frames his argument in terms of the synchrony/diachrony opposition, it would probably be more justified to see his argument in terms of an opposition between a single point of view (one that is culture-bound) and multiple points of view (that can stand outside the culture being observed). What he is suggestincr is that in order to make a proper description of a culture, a wider viewpoint than that of the culture itself should be adop­ ted: that such a wider view point should include a tem­ poral perspective does not seem to be an obligatory pre­ requisite, though for an account of evolution it obviously must be. In Soviet scholarship the emphasis on multiplicity of point of view in semiotic research was early emphasized by Ivanov, Toporov and Zaliznjak

(Zaliznjak 1962: see also

Shukman 1977, 170-176). The Mechanism I.

The

Function

of

Change of

Non-Communication

Culture is the information-storing and informationprocessing mechanism of human societies. Yet in any real communications situation, the amount of information trans­ mitted from addresser to addressee is rarely constant: "noise" and other kinds of interference interrupt or block the channel and may distort the message. Moreover, Lotman

318

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL argues (Lotman 1973), it may not always be correct to as­ sume that addresser and addressee share an identical code: in fact, in most actual situations, it is usually more ac­ curate to speak of the overlap, rather than the coinci­ dence, of code. The phenomenon of the single code arises only at certain higher levels, e.g. in the scientific de­ scription of the act of communication, or at the level of self-description. This non-identity of codes is seen by Lotman to be one of the main factors contributing to cultural dynamism. In­ deed, partial communication, the result of the non-coinci­ dence of codes, is essential to a culture's continued ex­ istence and to its equilibrium. Every culture, suggests Lotman, manifests the dual tendencies, one towards a noncontradictory and unified metalanguage, while the opposite tendency is for the semiotic mechanism within a culture to multiply and diversify. If the first - the metalingual ten­ dency - becomes predominant, communication is rendered un­ necessary, but if the second tendency becomes overwhelming, then communication is impossible. In every culture then, what is random, individual, unstructured, is part of the culture's working mechanism to prevent the total predomi­ nance of the metalingual tendency and ensuing stagnation; non-communication, or partial communication, ensures that this "structural reserve" is maintained. II.

The

Need

for

Translation

The non-coincidence of codes gives rise to a need for translation

. But translation is already a factor in the

319

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS communication of complex s e m i o t i c complexity

of s e m i o t i c

systems.

complex one such as p o e t r y ,

signals

tendencies

a r e n o t e v i d e n c e of a f a u l t the system's functions.

capacity

should be

the

a

to a

complexity

f o r m a k i n g multiple

i n complex s e m i o t i c

de-

systems

in the system but r a t h e r

to fulfill

a plurality

The a c t of c o m m u n i c a t i o n

p l e x and c u l t u r a l l y

and p r o g r e s s

the greater

t h e h i g h e r number of p o s s i b i l i t i e s Polysemic

of

systems which might s t a r t with

simple system such as t r a f f i c

codings.

On a s c a l e

significant

of

of

cultural

o f a m e s s a g e i n a com­

system such as

poetry

regarded

not as a simple s h i f t of a message which s t a y s

identical

to i t s e l f from t h e consciousness of t h e a d d r e s s e r t o t h e consciousness of t h e a d d r e s s e e , but as a translation

of a

t e x t from t h e language of my " I " i n t o t h e language of your "You". (Lotman 1977, 12. Lotman's i t a l i c s ) Such a t r a n s l a t i o n participants,

i s p o s s i b l e b e c a u s e t h e c o d e s of

though n o t i d e n t i c a l ,

Yet i n t h e p r o c e s s of c u l t u r a l arise

diversification

s i t u a t i o n s where t r a n s l a t i o n

of t h e i n c r e a s e d i n d i v i d u a l i z a t i o n

the

form i n t e r s e c t i n g there

i s impossible of

sets. will

because

codes:

The s i t u a t i o n t h a t comes about i s l i k e t h e s i t u a t i o n t h a t a r i s e s with l i t e r a r y t r a n s l a t i o n : t h e need t o t r a n s l a t e , and the i m p o s s i b i l i t y of t r a n s l a t i n g , forces t h e e s t a b l i s h ­ ment of onetime correspondences, or of correspondences t h a t a r e of a metaphoric n a t u r e . . . . The e s t a b l i s h i n g of a correspondence always implies a choice,

320

i t i s accompanied

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL with many d i f f i c u l t i e s ,

and seems l i k e a sudden brainwave

or godsend. I t i s p r e c i s e l y t h i s s o r t of t r a n s l a t i o n of the u n t r a n s l a t a b l e t h a t i s the mechanism for of a new

the

creation

thought. (Lotman 1977, 16. Lotman's i t a l i c s )

In a more r e c e n t s t u d y (Lotman 19 78) Lotman r e f i n e s t h i s i d e a s t i l l f u r t h e r : t h e t y p e of t r a n s l a t i o n t h a t e n ­ g e n d e r s a new t e x t o r t h o u g h t i s l i k e a t r a n s l a t i o n from a l a n g u a g e of one t y p e (L 1 ) ( e . g . a l a n g u a g e of d i s c r e t e s e m i o t i c u n i t s ) i n t o a l a n g u a g e of a n o t h e r t y p e (L 2 ) ( e . g . a l a n g u a g e of n o n - d i s c r e t e , s p a t i a l , t y p e ) . T h i s i s a p r o ­ c e s s t h a t c a n n o t be a c c u r a t e l y r e v e r s e d , and t h e r e t u r n p r o c e s s p r o d u c e s a t e x t t h a t i s new.

A l l human c u l t u r e s have a t l e a s t two t y p e s of s e m i o t i c l a n ­ guage u s u a l l y a v e r b a l - d i s c r e t e one and an i c o n i c , and a l ­ though a t d i f f e r e n t s t a g e s of h i s t o r y and i n d i f f e r e n t c u l ­ t u r e s , one o r t h e o t h e r may c l a i m p r e d o m i n a n c e , the b i p o l a r o r g a n i z a t i o n of c u l t u r e i s not thereby destroyed but merely t a k e s on more complex and secondary forms. More­ over, a t a l l l e v e l s of the t h i n k i n g mechanism - from the

321

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS bi-hemispherical structure of the human brain to culture at any of its levels of organization - we discover binarity as the minimal structure of the semiotic organization. (Lotman 1978, 6)

Translation of some sort is thus a constant of all human cultural activity. Two "Languages

" of

Consciousness

Two such opposing types of language, or rather types of consciousness

(Lotman uses the term "language" in the

widest sense, as any structured system) are the homeo­ morphous, continual, type of consciousness which can be termed "mythic"; and the discrete, lineal, type of con­ sciousness which can be termed "narrative". These two types are observable at all stages and in all areas of human cul­ ture. The mythic consciousness has a closed, cyclic under­ standing of time, and everything is seen in homeomorphous relationship to everything else. Thus "autumn ~ evening ~ old age"; "conception ~ sowing grain in the earth ~ any entry into a dark enclosed space ~ burial of the dead ~ eating".

This powerful identification which lies at the basis of this type of consciousness entails seeing in different phenomena of the real world the signs of a single

phenomenon, and in

all the diversity of objects of one class to identify the

Single

Object. (Lotman 1978, 6. Lotman's italics)

322

CULTURE,

CODES,

AND THE I N D I V I D U A L

T h i s t y p e of c o n s c i o u s n e s s h a s a l w a y s been accompanied by another, ral

o p p o s i n g one t h a t i s o r g a n i z e d l i n e a r l y

in

tempo­

sequence. The world of e x t r a o r d i n a r y happenings, random (from t h e p o i n t of view of myth) e v e n t s , human deeds without p a r a l ­ l e l in the profound c y c l i c laws, was s t o r e d in the form of t a l e s in verbal form, t e x t s organized in a l i n e a r - t e m ­ p o r a l sequence. Unlike myth which t o l d of what must take p l a c e , the t a l e t o l d of t h a t which r e a l l y happened, t o the panchronism of the myth i t opposed r e a l l y passing time. Myth looked on those f e a t u r e s of r e a l events which did not have correspondences in the deep c y c l i c a l world as n o n - e x i s t e n t , while t h e c h r o n i c a l - h i s t o r i c a l world r e j e c t e d those profound laws which c o n t r a d i c t e d observable e v e n t s . On t h e l i n e a r - t e m p o r a l a x i s t h e r e grew up t h e c h r o n i c l e , the t a l e of everyday l i f e , the h i s t o r y . (Lotman 1978, 7) This primary opposition

consciousness

implications

a r e summarized by Lotman as

Childish consciousness

↔

Mythic consciousness

↔

Iconic t h i n k i n g

↔

Performance Verse

and i t s

f o r human

follows:

Adult consciousness H i s t o r i c a l consciousness Verbal t h i n k i n g

↔

Narration

↔

Prose

These poles can be further related to the structure of the brain. Actual human experience is a constant system of "in­ ternal translations and shifts of texts in the structural

323

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS field of tension between these two poles". Two Kinds

of

Integrational

Mechanisms

Just as in the personal level there can be no inte­ grated personality without some kind of resolution of the tension between the poles of consciousness, so on the cul­ tural level some degree of integration is essential for the culture to survive. The first important mechanism for integration is the metalanguage of self-description. By self-description the system gives itself organization and welds the opposing polarities into, what from the outside, looks like a unity. Secondly, there is the process of creolization: a profound interference by the principles of one language on another. An example of this is the principle of montage in silent films, which is the transfer into the field of representa­ tion of the principles of verbal art of the Futurist per­ iod (Lotman 1978, 11). In this way the tendency to diversify in a culture is countered by the tendency to form integrated semiotic units, hierarchically organized. The

Ultimate

Value

of

Human

Individuality

Culture can only be understood when the fact of human physical and psychological diversity is taken into account. In many philosophies, and in communications theory, it is usual to speak of man as an abstract, an invariant quality,

324

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL and of variations as "technical faults". We start from the opposite assumption [says Lotman], believ­ ing that individual differences (and group differences on the cultural-psychological level, which are superimposed on them) belong to the very fundament of the existence of man as a cultural-semiotic object. It is precisely the variety of the human personality, which has been promoted and stimulated by the whole history of culture, that lies at the basis of the innumerable communicatory and cultural activities of man. (Lotman 1978, 14)

I f one i m a g i n e s a r u d i m e n t a r y o r g a n i s m (or mechanism) which h a s one c a p a c i t y , t h a t of d i s t i n g u i s h i n g day from n i g h t , i t can t h e n be s a i d t o p o s s e s s t h r e e p r o p e r t i e s : 1) Omniscience.

Within the terms of the given alphabet i t s

knowledge w i l l be a b s o l u t e . In any s i t u a t i o n i t w i l l i s o l a t e the parameter " l i g h t / a b s e n c e of l i g h t " and, r e j e c t i n g every­ t h i n g e l s e as n o n - e x i s t e n t , i t w i l l r e a c t t o t h i s . The r e ­ sponse "I d o n ' t know" i s impossible for 2) Absence

of doubt and hesitation.

it.

Since i t s r e a c t i o n i s

automatic, t h e r e i s no room for doubts or h e s i t a t i o n s in the choice of the c o r r e c t r e a c t i o n . 3) Complete

understanding

between a d d r e s s e r and addressee

of a s i g n a l . The complete i d e n t i t y of encoding and decoding systems ensures i d e n t i t y of message.

Imagine such an o r g a n i s m e v o l v i n g and growing more complex. The q u a l i t a t i v e change w i l l come a b o u t w i t h t h e a c q u i s i t i o n of c o n s c i o u s n e s s , t h e p r e s e n c e , i n t h e mechanism

325

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS by w h i c h t h e o r g a n i s m r e a c t s rounding milieu, isolated

t o and i n t e r p r e t s

of an "empty c e l l "

a n d unnamed

for future,

the

sur­

as y e t un-

states.

With t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n of such "empty c e l l s " t h e r e a c t i n g mechanism of our organism a c q u i r e s f e a t u r e s of conscious­ ness: i t acquires f l e x i b i l i t y ,

t h e c a p a c i t y for s e l f - d e v e l ­

opment, i t becomes more e f f e c t i v e and i s able t o c r e a t e more e f f i c i e n t models ( r e f l e c t i o n s )

of o u t e r s i t u a t i o n s . But a t

the same time i t l o s e s omniscience any question - and absence

- t h e automatic answer t o

of hesitations

- the equally au­

tomatic connection between a c t i o n and the stimulus from o u t ­ s i d e . . . . The incomparably g r e a t e r e f f e c t i v e n e s s of a c t i o n [brought by] t h e p o s s i b i l i t y of choice between r e a c t i o n s i n ­ e v i t a b l y e n t a i l s t h e p r i n c i p l e of h e s i t a t i o n . (Lotman 1978, 15. Lotman's i t a l i c s ) Increased field

of c h o i c e b r i n g s w i t h i t

l a c k of knowledge and l a c k of c e r t a i n t y . prising,

a r g u e s Lotman, t h a t r e l i g i o n

i n g of t h o u g h t , lective lacks

and i t

intellect

t i o n s become more d i f f i c u l t or

i s not

sur­

as t h e

t o complement

disappear,

aris­ col­

the

c o n s c i o u s n e s s . As t h e a r e a of

knowledge grows and c e r t a i n t i e s needs "another"

It

arose with the

i s t h e r o l e of c u l t u r e

(supra-individual)

in the i n d i v i d u a l

ever-increasing

non-

so communica­

and c o m p l e x . Each

individual

"others":

The c o l l e c t i v e advantage for p a r t i c i p a n t s in t h e communi­ c a t o r y a c t l i e s in t h e development of the n o n - i d e n t i t y of those models in whose form t h e o u t s i d e world i s r e f l e c t e d in t h e i r consciousness. This i s achieved by the n o n - c o i n c i -

326

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL dence of the codes which make up their consciousness. In order to be mutually useful participants in the communica­ tions must "speak different languages". (Lotman 1978, 16)

What

is

Culture?

Human culture, argues Lotman, is different from other supra-individual unities such as the anthill in that each individual, being part of the whole, does not lose its own integrality. The relationship between the parts is thus not automatic but presupposes semiotic tension and colli­ sions, sometimes of a dramatic character. The structureformation principle works in two directions: within the individual consciousness, as it develops, psychological "personalities" arise; while at the same time the separate individuals are grouped into semiotic units. "It is the richness of the internal conflicts", concludes Lotman, "which ensures that culture, as the collective intelli­ gence, will have exceptional flexibility and dynamism" (Lotman 1978, 1 7 ) .

REFERENCES

Bakhtin, M.N.: 1965. Tvorcestvo srednevekov lais

'ja

and his

i Renessansa world

AND SELECT

Fransua

BIBLIOGRAPHY

kul

'tura

(Moscow); English translation:

Rable

i narodnaja

Rabe­

(Cambridge, 1968 1 , 19712)

: 1975. Voprosy literatury

i estetiki

(Moscow); English

translation forthcoming (University of Texas Press) Jakobson, R.: 1929. "Remarques sur l'évolution phonologique du russe

327

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS comparée á celle des autres langues slaves", Travaux du Cercle guistique

de Prague,

du Cercle

Linguistique

Lin­

II

: 1931. "Prinzipien der historischen Phonologie", Travaux de Prague, TV

Lotman, Ju.M. : 1970. "Predloženija po programme IV letnej školy po vtoričnym modelirujuščim sistemam", Tezisy po vtoričnym

modelirujuščim

sistemam

dokladov

IV letnej

: 1973. "Znakovyj mekhanizm kul'tury" , Sbornik vtoričnym

modelirujuščim

Semiotica,

sistemam

skoly

(Tartu) statej

po

(Tartu); English translation in:

12, 4 (1974), 301-305 : 1974. Dinamičeskaja

model'

semiotičeskoj

tut Russkogo Jazyka AN SSSR. Predvaritel'nye

sistemy.

publikacii,

reprinted in: Trudy po znakovym sistemam,

Insti­

60 ( M O S C O W ) ;

10 (1978), 18-33 [page re­

ferences are to the reprint], English translation in: Semiotica,

21,

3-4 (1978) : 1977. Kul'tura iskusstvennogo

kak kollektivnyj

intellekt

i

problemy

r azuma, AN SSSR, Naučnyj Sovet po kompleksnoj prob­

leme ' Kibernetika', Predvaritel

'naja

translation in: Russian

in Translation,

Poetics

Publikacija

(Moscow); English 6 (1979)

: 1978. "Fenomen kul'tury", Trudy po znakovym

sistemam,

10, 3-17 Shukman, Α.: 1977. Literature

and Semiotics:

Ά Study

of the

Writings

of YU.M. Lotman (Amsterdam) Tynjanov, Ju.N.: 1924. "Literaturnyj fakt", Lef, Tynjanov, Poetika.

Istorija

Literatury.

2, reprinted in: Ju.N.

Kino (Moscow, 1977)

: 1927. "0 literaturnoj evoljucii", Na postu,

10, reprinted in: Poetika.

Istorija

Literatury.

literaturnom Kino

: 1928. (with R. Jakobson) "Problemy izučenija litera­ tury i jazyka", Novyj Lef, Russian

Poetics

12; English translation [full version] in:

in Translation,

4 (1977)

Zaliznjak, A.A.: 1962. (with V.V. Ivanov and V.N. Toporov) "0 vozmož-

328

CULTURE, CODES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL n o s t i s t r u k t u r n o - t i p o l o g i č e s k o g o i z u c e n i j a nekotorykh modelirujuščikh semioticeskikh s i s t e m " , Struktumo-tipologičeskie (Moscow); English t r a n s l a t i o n i n : Soviet (Baltimore, 1977)

329

Semiotics,

issledovanija e d . , D. Lucid

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT Randbemerkungen zu den Arbeiten J. Lotmans

Henryk Markiewicz

Dieser Aufsatz ist ein Versuch, die literaturtheoreti­ schen Anschauungen Jurij Lotmans zu rekonstruieren und sie kritisch zu analysieren. Die wichtigsten Unterlagen sind zwei s e i n e r B ü c h e r : Lekcii

po

struktural'noj

poetike

(Teil

I, 1964), die im Folgenden als "Vorlesungen" bezeichnet werden, und Struktura

chudožestvennogo

wir "Studien" nennen.

1

teksta

(1970), die

In die zweite dieser Arbeiten hat

der Verfasser fast den gesamten Text der Vorlesungen auf­ genommen und überdies einige andere literaturtheoretische Aufsätze. Im Jahre 1972 ist das Werk Analiz teksta.

Struktura

sticha

poetičeskogo

erschienen. Im ersten Teil wie­

derholt und entwickelt der Autor die theoretischen Thesen, die er h a u p t s ä c h l i c h

in Lekcii

po

struktural'noj

poetike

dargelegt hat. Der zweite Teil enthält beispielhafte Ana2 lysen von 12 Texten russischer Dichter. Lotman untersucht die Literatur als ein "gleichzeitig

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS modellierendes und semiotisches System"

(L 1 5 ) : Es ist dua­

listisch und trägt Zeichen- und modellierenden Charakter, hat zwei Aspekte bzw. Funktionen - eine Erkenntnis- und eine kommunikative Funktion (L 3 7 ) . Man könnte hier eher eine dreifache Aufteilung erwarten: die systematische Aus­ arbeitung des semantischen, syntaktischen und pragmatischen Aspektes in der Literatur. Auf diese Zweifel geht Lotman in seiner Arbeit Stat'

i po tipologii

kul'tury

(1970) ein:

"Indem wir von der Unzulänglichkeit der semantischen oder syntaktischen Textanalyse sprechen, stellen wir ihnen keine pragmatische, sondern eine funktionale Einstellung gegen­ über." Der Gedankengang verläuft nicht so, daß "das Wesen des Textes nicht von der Semantik und der Syntax, sondern von der Pragmatik bestimmt wird" - sondern: "Die Verände­ rung der Textfunktion verleiht ihm eine neue Semantik und 3 eine neue Syntax". Die Funktion des Textes bezeichnet dabei der Autor als "seine gesellschaftliche Rolle, seine Fähigkeit, bestimmte Bedürfnisse der den Text bildenden Gemeinschaft zu befrie4 digen". In dieser Frage hat sich Lotman jedoch darauf beschränkt, eine skizzenhafte, auf die Beziehungsarten zwischen dem Kode des Autors und dem Kode des Empfängers beruhende Typologie der Texte vorzuschlagen. In den beiden behandelten Werken geht es noch um die zwei Aspekte enthaltende Auffassung; der funktionale As­ pekt ist sozusagen in die Analyse der zwei anderen einge­ bettet . Die Literatur zählt Lotman zu den sog. sekundären

332

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT (abgeleiteten) modellierenden Systemen. Das ist nicht nur in dem Sinne zu verstehen, daß sie die natürliche Sprache als Grundlage hat. Sekundäre modellierende Systeme sind dadurch sekundär, daß sie mehr oder weniger nach dem Muster (po

tipu)

der natürlichen Sprache als einem der frühesten

und vor allem wichtigsten Kommunikationssysteme der mensch­ lichen Gesellschaften aufgebaut worden sind. Diesbezüglich zählt Lotman nicht nur Religion, Riten, Philosophie, Wis­ senschaft und das alltägliche Bewußtsein zu den sekundären modellierenden Systemen, sondern auch die nichtsprachlichen Künste, z.B. die Malerei oder die Musik

(weil musikalische

Werke als syntagmatische Konstruktionen beschrieben werden können). Schließlich stellt sich heraus, daß außer den künstlichen Sprachen alle semiotischen Systeme nach dem Muster der natürlichen Sprache konstruiert werden. Folglich sind alle außer ihr sekundäre modellierende Systeme. Was also modelliert die Literatur, und wie? Indem Lot­ man diese Frage beantwortet, bedient er sich einiger, für ihn vertauschbarer, Termini: Literatur, Poesie, Kunst, Verssprache, künstlerischer Text, Kunstwerk. Wie zu sehen ist, gleitet er oft von der Systemebene zur Mitteilungs­ ebene ab; er handelt bewußt so, obwohl seine paradoxe These, daß das einzelne literarische Werk eine eigenartig organisierte, einheitliche Sprache sei, die der "ganzen natürlichen Sprache, und nicht ihren Teilen, ähnlich ist", nicht ganz klar ist. (Analiz

poeticeskogo

teksta,

86) .

Einige der vorher genannten Termini sind schillernd: "stichotvornyj jazyk" bedeutet manchmal eher dichterische Sprache als Verssprache, "chudožestvennyj" hat manchmal eine

333

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS allgemeinere, alle Gebiete der Kunst betreffende Bedeutung. "Text" bedeutet anfangs eine geschlossene Folge sprachli­ cher Zeichen, später jede geschlossene Anordnung der auf­ gezeichneten Informationen, neuerdings nur solche Anord­ nungen, die außer der sprachlichen Bedeutung noch eine zu­ sätzliche Bedeutung im System der gegebenen Kultur besit­ zen. Die Unterscheidung "Text - Kunstwerk" wird so erklärt: Das Kunstwerk ist der Text plus seine außertextlichen Be­ ziéhungen zur Realität und deren Kulturkodes, die sein Verständnis ermöglichen. Lotman erfaßt die Frage auf eine ziemlich verworrene Weise, etwas anders in den Vorlesungen (wo von den Beziehungen zur Realität die Rede ist, L. 163164) als in den Studien (wo nur vom Kodesystem der Kultur gesprochen wird, 3 45). Wenn der Autor in der Praxis vom künstlerischen Text spricht, erfaßt er ihn immer in seinen außertextlichen Beziehungen, was übrigens bei jedem Inter­ pretationsverfahren selbstverständlich ist, "ohne außer­ textliche Beziehungen wird der Text ästhetisch zu einem fremdsprachlichen Werk", L. 168. Wenn Lotman von den modellierenden Funktionen der Li­ teratur spricht, distanziert er sich entschieden vom Forma­ lismus, indem er - zwar in einer anderen Sprache - die herkömmlichen Konzeptionen der marxistischen und, weiter­ greifend, der revolutionär-demokratischen und Hegeischen Ästhetik fortsetzt. Das Kunstwerk "vossozdaet", rekreiert ein Objekt oder ein Gebiet der Realität. Es bildet nämlich ein ihr ähnliches, aber nie mit ihr identisches Analogon (infolge der Selektion der Abbildung und der Verschiedenar­ tigkeit des Materials). Dieses Modell entsteht auf der Grundlage der intuitiven Erkenntnis und hat einen komplex

334

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT strukturierten Charakter, wobei es oft nicht die Struktur des abgebildeten Gegenstandes nachbildet, sondern eine analoge oder auch nur eine zu diesem Gegenstand in einer Zeichen-Relation stehende Struktur hat (z.B. eine Skulptur als das Modell eines menschlichen Erlebnisses). Es ist zu­ gleich das Modell der Verfasserpersönlichkeit und stellt die "verkörperte Idee" dar. Aus all diesen Gründen unterliegt es einerseits keiner eindeutigen Interpretation, anderer­ seits besitzt es einen größeren Erkenntniswert

bzw. birgt

größere potentielle Erkenntnismöglichkeiten in sich, als ein wissenschaftliches Modell.

Die hier zusammengefaßte Darlegung stammt aus den Vor­ lesungen, aus einem umfangreichen Kapitel über "Einige Probleme der allgemeinen Kunsttheorie". Dieses Kapitel ist nicht in die Studien eingegangen, was aber nicht bedeutet, daß der Autor auf die in ihm dargelegten Anschauungen ver­ zichtet. Er verschärft und ergänzt sie eher. Die semanti­ sche Polydimensionalität und die Mehrdeutigkeit jeder Ebene des Kunstwerkes motivieren hier die These, daß die Kunst die "ökonomischste und komprimierteste Art und Weise der Informationsübermittlung sei" (33); die Tatsache, daß der Kunstt.ext im Laufe der Lektüre seinen Kode lehrt und so dem Rezipienten die Möglichkeit gibt, neue Informationen zu empfangen, kann Anregungen für wissenschaftlich-techni­ sche Entdeckungen auf dem Gebiet der Informatik geben; schließlich wirkt das künstlerische Modell sowohl auf den Intellekt

als auch auf die Gewohnheiten des Empfängers,

indem es eine einzigartige Vereinigung von Merkmalen wis­ senschaftlicher Modelle

(die stark von der Wirkungssphäre

abgegrenzt und auf Gesetzmäßigkeiten gerichtet sind) und

335

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS "spielerischer" Modelle

( die das Verhalten gegenüber der

Verflechtung von Gesetzmäßigkeiten und Zufälligkeiten lehrt) darstellt: "Im Vergleich zur Kunst ist das Spiel gehaltlos, und der Wissenschaft fehlt die Aktivität" (31). Stärker als bisher betont der Autor, daß das "sekundär modellierende System künstlerischer Prägung ein eigenes System von Denotaten konstruiert, das keine Kopie dar­ stellt, sondern ein Modell der Denotatenwelt im allgemein­ sprachlichen Sinne" (61). - Wenig überzeugend motiviert er übrigens diesen Satz durch ein Zitat aus dem Poem

Saška

von Polezaev, in dem zwei Vergleiche gleichzeitig ange­ stellt werden: Der Erste bezieht sich auf einen warägischen Schild, der Zweite auf holländischen Käse.

Eine solche "défense et illustration de la poésie" wie man diesen Teil der Lotmanschen Betrachtungen mit der alten Renaissancephrase bezeichnen könnte - weckt in der Arbeit des Vorkämpfers der "Literaturwissenschaft als einer exakten Wissenschaft" sowohl Sympathie

als auch eine ge­

wisse Beunruhigung; denn sie geht selbst in Metapoesie über, und es wäre wohl eine ziemlich unergiebige Arbeit, den Versuch ihrer wissenschaftlichen Verifikation zu un­ ternehmen . Die Struktura

chudožestvennogo

teksta

enthält weitere

Erörterungen, die sich auf das Thema des künstlerischen Modellierens beziehen. In ihnen behauptet der Autor, die "verkörperten Ideen" im literarischen Werk erwähnend, daß die "künstlerische Mitteilung das künstlerische Modell ei­ ner konkreten Erscheinung bildet. - Die Kunstsprache hin-

336

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT gegen modelliert das Universum in seinen allgemeinsten Kategorien, die als der allgemeinste Gehalt der Welt die Existenzform für konkrete Gegenstände und Erscheinungen darstellen" (26). Wir haben diese Formel auch deshalb an­ geführt, weil sie - zwar flüchtig und ungenau - die Unge­ wißheit beseitigt, welcher Unterschied zwischen dem Mo­ dellieren der Wirklichkeit durch das semiotische System einerseits und der in diesem System formulierten Mittei­ lung andererseits besteht. Diese Differenzierung wird je­ doch in der weiteren Arbeit verworfen, und das auf die ra­ dikalste Weise. Zum Problem des Modellierens kehrt Lotman nämlich im letzten Teil des Buches zurück, in dem er die Komposition des literarischen Werkes behandelt; im Grunde genommen versteht er darunter die syntagmatische Organisa­ tion der Fabelelemente (sjužetnye elementy) -(255). Wir können schon jetzt darüber sprechen, denn der Autor behan­ delt sie eigentlich getrennt von den sprachlichen Elementen des literarischen Werkes und deren konstitutiver Rolle hin­ sichtlich größerer Bedeutungskomplexe. Indem er die Forschungsperspektive, die die Zeitlich­ keit des literarischen Werkes öffnet, fast gänzlich igno­ riert, interessiert sich der Autor vor allem für dessen Räumlichkeit. Er stellt die These auf, daß die "räumliche Struktur des Textes zum Modell des Universums wird, die Syntagmatik der innertextlichen Elemente zur Sprache der räumlichen Modellierung, und das räumliche Modell der Welt wird zum organisierenden Element, um das sich seine nicht­ räumlichen Komponenten gruppieren" (269). Diese merkwürdige These begründet Lotman vielfältig.

337

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Erstens macht er auf die Symbolik der räumlichen Rela­ tionen aufmerksam

(groß - klein, links - rechts, nah -

weit) , die auch in außerkünstlerischen modellierenden Sy­ stemen verbreitet ist, jedoch in der Kunst auf reiche und originelle Weise präsentiert wird. Das zeigen z.B. die Analysen von Zablockis Gedichten, in denen auf der Haupt­ linie "oben - unten" eine ganze Reihe von kontrastierenden Varianten realisiert werden: weit - nah, geräumig - eng, Bewegung - Unbeweglichkeit, Metamorphose - mechanische Bewegung, Freiheit - Gefangenschaft, Information - Redun­ danz, Geist (Kultur) - Natur, Schaffenskraft - fehlende Schaffenskraft, Harmonie - Disharmonie.

Zweitens: Die in dem literarischen Werk dargestellte Welt bildet einen durch unübertretbare

oder schwer über­

tretbare Grenzen in zwei Teile geteilten Raum. Es handelt sich hier z.B. um die Teilung in Einheimische und Fremde, Lebendige und Tote, Rechtgläubige und Ketzer, Reiche und Arme, Naturmenschen und Kulturmenschen, wobei in den ein­ fachsten Fällen bestimmte Gestalten bestimmten Welten "zu­ geordnet werden"

(z.B. leben Gogols " altväterliche Grundbe­

sitzer" innerhalb vieler Schutzkreise, während Taras Bulba ein Held der weiten Welt ist). Zu bemerken ist, daß manch­ mal (Lotman behauptet fast immer) diese Räumlichkeit wört­ lich vorhanden ist, aber manchmal erscheint sie erst in der Metasprache des Forschers als metaphorische Bezeichnung der nicht-räumlichen Dualität der dargestellten Welt; wenn er z.B. schreibt, daß wir es in Puschkins Poltava

mit

zwei "nicht übereinstimmenden und sich auch nicht über­ schneidenden Welten zu tun haben - mit der Welt des roman­ tischen Poems und seinen starken Leidenschaften, mit dem

338

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT

Streit des Vaters und des Liebhabers um Marias Herz

und

mit der Welt der Geschichte und der historischen Ereignis­ se"

(279). Zu ergänzen bleibt noch, daß die Zweiteilung

weder im wörtlichen noch im metaphorischen Sinne das uni­ verselle Prinzip der dargestellten Welt ist, wofür die G'òttliche

Kom'òdie

das beste Beispiel liefert.

Manche Texte klassifizieren nur und bejahen die beste­ hende Ordnung, es sind Texte, die keine Fabel haben. Auf ihrem Hintergrund erst sind Texte mit einer Fabel (sjuzetnye teksty) zu verstehen. Alle ihre Ereignisse sind als die Entwicklung des grundsätzlichen Geschehens zu inter­ pretieren, das die Verletzung oder den Umsturz dieser Ord­ nung darstellt; in den räumlichen Kategorien wird es als das Überschreiten der Grenze sichtbar. Nehmen wir als Bei­ spiel - schreibt Lotman - die Fabel vom verkörperten Gott. Gott erscheint in seiner Andersheit, um von der Welt der Glückseligkeit in das Erdental herabzusteigen

(er löst

sich von seiner Umgebung), er wird auf der Erde geboren (das Überschreiten der Grenze), wird zum Menschen (der Menschensohn), identifiziert sich jedoch nicht mit den neuen Bedingungen . . . .

Auf der Erdenwelt ist er Teil

einer anderen Welt. Daraus folgt sein Tod (das Überschrei­ ten der Grenze) und die Himmelfahrt. Die Gestalt ver­ schmilzt mit der Umgebung - die Handlung bleibt stehen".

(291) Wie zu sehen ist, steht Lotman in seiner Suche nach Fabel-Universalien den Auffassungen von Northrop Frye sehr nahe. Man könnte es so ausdrücken: Während der kanadische Gelehrte den ganzen thematischen Reichtum der Literatur aus

339

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS dem zentralen Mythus des Suchens ableitet, macht Lotman das "Überschreiten der Grenze", die Verletzung der festge­ legten Ordnung, zur übergeordneten Kategorie. Er nimmt je­ doch wahr, daß diese Betrachtungen in gleichem Maße künst­ lerische wie nicht-künstlerische Texte betreffen, und so stellt er sich die nächste Frage - nach der Spezifik der "Dichtungswelt". Die Antwort ist leider nicht ganz klar oder zumindest nicht sehr gut formuliert. Mit einem gewis­ sen Interpretationsrisiko könnte man sie in den folgenden Feststellungen zusammenfassen: 1. "Die Spezifik der künstlerischen Fabel, die auf einer anderen Ebene die Spezifik der Metapher wiederholt, beruht auf der Tatsache, daß jedes Element der Fabel mehrere Be­ deutungen aufweist, wobei trotz ihrer Gegensätzlichkeit keine von ihnen eine andere aufhebt"

(296).

2. "Indem das literarische Werk einen unendlichen Gegen­ stand

(die Wirklichkeit) mit Hilfe eines abgeschlossenen

Textes modelliert, vertritt es mit seiner Räumlichkeit nicht einen Teil (genauer gesagt - nicht nur einen Teil) des dargestellten Lebens, sondern das Leben in seiner Ge­ samtheit. Jeder einzelne Text modelliert gleichzeitig so­ wohl das einzelne als auch das universelle Objekt"

(258).

Ein Beispiel, das sämtliche Zweifel beseitigt: Die Fabel der Anna

Karenina

stellt einerseits das Einzelschicksal

der Heldin dar, "die wir vollständig mit dem Schicksal einzelner, uns in der alltäglichen Wirklichkeit umgebenden Menschen vergleichen können". Aber gleichzeitig kann der dargestellte Gegenstand Allgemeingültigkeit beanspruchen: "Das Schicksal der Heldin kann man als die Wiederspiegelung

340

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT des Schicksals jeder

Frau einer bestimmten Epoche und eines

bestimmten sozialen Kreises, jeder

Frau, jedes

Menschen

ansehen" (258). Diese Universalität ist die wesentliche Eigenart der dargestellten Welt im Kunstwerk; jedes seiner Bestandteile bezieht sich auf sie, sobald es sich inner­ halb seines "Rahmens" befindet. Den ersten dieser Aspekte (den individuellen) nennt Lotman den Fabelaspekt, den zweiten

(verallgemeinernden) den mythologischen Aspekt des

literarischen Werkes. Er fügt hinzu, daß der zeitgenössi­ sche literarische Text aus dem Konflikt, aus der struktu­ rellen Spannung zwischen diesen beiden Tendenzen hervor­ geht.

Wir haben es hier mit dem Problem der Erkenntnisfunk­ tion von Literatur und Kunst zu tun, einem Problem, das früher nie so radikal wie bei Lotman dargestellt worden ist. Es war klar, daß literarischen Gestalten oft ein unbestimmter oder ein zu ständiger Ausweitung fähiger Repräsentations­ bereich eigen ist, in manchen Fällen jedoch ist dieser Be­ reich eindeutig festgelegt, oder er läßt sich wenigstens aus der Perspektive des Autors bestimmen. 3. Den literarischen Helden definiert Lotman mit strukturalistischer Strenge als einen paradigmatischen Komplex al­ ler seiner binären distinktiven Merkmale gegenüber anderen Gestalten

(304). Man könnte mit dieser Definition polemi­

sieren und nach den "substantiellen Merkmalen" der Gestalt fragen, die keine Beziehungen zu anderen Personen des Wer­ kes eingeht; man könnte fragen, was man von den Helden z.B. der Monodramen halten soll. Aber diese Frage notieren wir nur ordnungshalber, ohne von dem wesentlichen Gedanken-

341

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS gang dieser Ausführungen abzuweichen, in denen uns vor al­ lem die Ansichten des Forschers über die Spezifik der Struktur literarischer Gestalten interessieren. Im Ver­ gleich mit den Persönlichkeitsschemata, die in der Kultur einer gegebenen Periode auftreten, funktioniert die lite­ rarische Gestalt nicht nur als deren Realisierung, sondern auch als System bedeutsamer Abweichungen von ihr, die in verschiedener "Streuung", in verschiedenen Strömungen, Stilen und literarischen Gattungen auftreten. Infolgedessen "schafft die literarische Gestalt, die auf ihrer ziemlich abstrakten Ebene einheitlich ist, aber sich so auf tieferen Ebenen in eine gewisse Zahl wenn nicht gegensätzlicher, so doch einfach unabhängiger und verschiedener Substrukturen aufteilt, auf der Textebene die Möglichkeit gesetzmäßiger wie auch unerwarteter Wirkungen, d.h., sie schafft die Voraussetzungen dafür, die Informativität zu erhalten und die Redundanz des Systems zu senken"

(309).

4. Das Kunstwerk bildet eine einheitliche Struktur, in der verschiedene "Gesichtspunkte des Textes" auftreten können, mehrere Gestalten, die von verschiedenen Standpunkten aus dasselbe erzählen

(Les

Liaisons

dangereuses),

oder ein Er­

zähler, der einen Inhalt von "mehreren stilistischen Posi­ tionen" her (Jegenij

Onegin)

darstellt. Mit der Vielzahl

der "Gesichtspunkte" ist noch eine andere Erscheinung ver­ wandt, die sich im Werk niederschlägt: Das Zusammenwirken verschiedener ideologischer Systeme. Hier wird der Gegen­ satz zu wissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Arbeiten deutlich, die entweder nur ein System zulassen

oder ver­

schiedene Systeme der Reihe nach in ihrer polemischen Kon­ frontation darstellen. Daß der Autor sich auf Bachtin be-

342

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT ruft, ist ein Signal, daß es ihm um die "Polyphonie" der literarischen Texte geht. Man könnte hier auch an die "Ironie" der amerikanischen Neokritiker erinnern, die als Synthese gleichberechtigter, doch gegensätzlicher Haltungen in einem Werk zu verstehen ist. Lotman knüpft übrigens nicht an diese Feststellungen an; er stellt seine Ansichten über den "Gesichtspunkt des Textes" dar, indem er sich auf die Arbeit B.Uspienskis über die Komposition des Textes be­ ruft. Aber sowohl Bachtin als auch z.B. Brooks weisen dar­ auf hin, daß die Polyphonie

bzw. Ironie

durchaus nicht

das allgemeine Merkmal der Literatur sind, also für ihre Spezifik nicht entscheidend. Die analytische Illustration dieser Polyphonie durch Lermontovs Gedicht

Molitva

er­

füllt ihre Aufgabe ebenfalls nicht gut, denn die verschie­ denartigen ideologischen Systeme

(der christliche, roman­

tische und realistische Kode) erscheinen in ihm aufeinan­ derfolgend und beherrschen nur einzelne Abschnitte des Textes. Das Problem "literarisches Werk / Literatur als Reali­ tätsmodell" , das in der allgemeinästhetischen Einführung in die Vorlesungen nur skizziert worden ist, wird im letz­ ten Teil der Studien, besonders anhand von epischen und dramatischen Werken, erweitert. Das Problem "literarisches Werk / Literatur als Zeichensystem" ist in den Vorlesungen eingehend behandelt worden, hauptsächlich in dem Kapitel über "Probleme der Versstruktur", das als Ganzes in das spätere Buch unter dem Titel "Elemente und Ebenen der Paradigmatik künstlerischer Texte" eingegangen ist und von den Kapiteln über die "Konstruktionsprinzipien des Textes" und "Die syntagmatische Achse der Struktur" eingeschlossen wird. Den Zeichenaufbau des literarischen Werkes betrachtet

343

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Lotman also hauptsächlich anhand von poetischem Material und im allgemeinen unterhalb der Ebene höherer Bedeutungs­ komplexe . Nach Lotman ist die poetische Sprache gleich der na­ türlichen Sprache mit zusätzlichen Einschränkungen, doch zugleich auch mit zusätzlichen Ungebundenheiten gegenüber den Regeln der ethnischen Sprache. Den Gedankengang des Verfassers auf eigene Verantwortung weiterentwickelnd, könnten wir sagen, daß die gesteigerte lautlich-grammati­ sche Ordnung auf der paradigmatischen Achse durch die ge­ steigerte Ungebundenheit der semantischen Verbindungsfä­ higkeit auf der syntagmatischen Achse kompensiert wird. Denn die poetische Sprache wird durch das Prinzip des for­ malen Parallelismus geleitet (das Prinzip der Wiederholung, des Rhythmus') und durch das Prinzip der semantischen Un­ gebundenheit im Aufbau einer syntaktischen Reihe, die sich aus Elementen zusammensetzt, die in einem nicht-künstle­ rischen Text zu Verbindungen unfähig wären. (Lotman be­ zeichnet es als das Prinzip der Metapher - in freier Be­ deutung dieses Wortes.) Das erste dieser Prinzipien ist nach Lotman als poetisches, das zweite als prosaisches Konstruktionsprinzip zu behandeln. Wie man sieht, erfährt hier Jakobsons Prinzip der "Projizierung des Äquivalenz­ prinzips von der Selektionsachse auf die Kombinationsachse" eine Spaltung; der Terminus "Metapher" wird hier auf alle Situationen erweitert, in denen irgendwelche semantischen oder stilistischen Verbote übertreten werden. Er wird auf paradoxe Art auf Prosa angewandt, mit der Begründung, daß gerade die Kunstprosa viele auf dem Gebiet der Poesie gel­ tende Einschränkungen aufhebt.

344

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT Die Realisierung dieser beiden Prinzipien bringt zu­ sätzliche semantische Komponenten in das Kunstwerk. Dar­ über hinaus behauptet Lotman - in Übereinstimmung mit Mukařovskýs Thesen -, daß sämtliche Elemente der poeti­ schen Sprache bedeutend (smyslovye - 19) sind, eine Infor­ mation übermitteln (62). Die Semantik jeder Regelmäßigkeit im poetischen Text ist für ihn eine Grundvoraussetzung (135). Er bemüht sich, sie deduktiv zu beweisen, und das auf eine nicht sehr glückliche Art und Weise: Wenn die poetische Sprache als Kommunikationsform erhalten geblieben ist, enthält sie offenbar eine zusätzliche Information, anderenfalls wäre sie abgestorben. Jedoch muß nicht jede zusätzliche Information eine solche Bedeutung haben, daß sie sich mit der sprachlichen Bedeutung konfrontieren ließe. Wenn Lotman schreibt, daß "alles, was im literari­ schen Text wahrnehmbar ist, als sinnvoll (osmyslennoe) wahrgenommen wird, als etwas, das eine bestimmte semanti­ sche Bedeutung besitzt" (195), so bewegen wir uns in einem circulus vitiosus, denn es geht gerade um den Beweis dieser These. Überzeugender sind die induktiven Gedankengänge, die an Tynjanovs und Jakobsons Forschungen anknüpfen. Indem Lotman unterschiedliche Typen von Wiederholungen auf ver­ schiedenen Textebenen (phonologischer Aufbau, Rhythmus, Reime, Wortwiederholungen und Wiederholungen grammatischer Formen) analysiert, beweist er, daß "phonologisch-grammatische Elemente verschiedenartige semantische Einheiten in gleichwertige Klassen ordnen, indem sie in die Differenz­ semantik das Element der Identität hineintragen. Bei Über­ einstimmung der semantischen Elemente werden die formalen

345

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Kategorien der Andersartigkeit dadurch betont, daß sie in dem, was semantisch gleichartig ist (auf der Ebene der natürlichen Sprache), die Bedeutungsdifferenzierung

(auf

der Ebene der Kunststruktur) zum Vorschein bringen"

(105).

Anders gesagt: Die formalen Parallelismen bilden aus den entsprechenden semantischen Einheiten Synonyme oder Antonyme, wobei sie das näher bringen und identifizieren, was in der na­ türlichen Sprache semantisch entlegen ist, und das ent­ fernen, was nah oder identisch ist (205). "Indem sie sich in übersprachliche Strukturen einschalten - schreibt Lotman wohl in metaphorischem Sinne -, zeigen die lexikalischen Einheiten eine ähnliche Funktion wie bestimmte Pronomina, die ihre Bedeutung nur innerhalb der Wechselbeziehung

mit

dem ganzen sekundären System semantischer Bedeutungen er­ halten"

(210).

Das den semantischen Einheiten aufgelegte Raster der formalen Ordnung läßt zwischen ihnen eine merkwürdige Be­ ziehung entstehen, für die Lotman eine eigene Bezeichnung schaffen mußte: "soprotivostavljaemost'", sowohl Zusam­ menstellung als auch Gegenüberstellung. Den gemeinsamen semantischen Kern, der an dem Schnittpunkt der Bedeutungs­ felder aller semantischen Einheiten entsteht und die Grund­ lage einer solchen identifizierend-differenzierenden Kon­ frontation ist, bezeichnet Lotman mit dem Terminus "Archisem" in einer gewissen Analogie zu Trubetzkojs "Archiphonem". Über den Reim sagt Lotman, daß er in seinem Wesen dia­ lektisch ist: Er bringt das näher, was auseinanderstrebt, und deckt Differenzen im Gleichen auf (155) . Man gewinnt

346

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT den Eindruck, daß in der Interpretation dieses Forschers die sematische Bedeutung jedes formalen Parallelismus' der Beziehung der jeweiligen Elemente in der natürlichen Sprache entgegenwirkt. Hier ein charakteristisches Bei­ spiel - der Anfang von Lermontovs Gedicht: Glažu na buduščnost' s bojazn'ju, Glažu na prošloe s toskoj . . . Der allgemeine Parallelismus dieser ersten zwei Verse hebt zwei lexikalische Paare hervor: "buduščnost' - prošloe" und "bojazn' - toska". "Buduscnost'" und "prosloe" sind Anto­ nyme, "bojazn'" und "toska" bilden in der natürlichen Spra­ che kein lexikalisches Paar, sondern sind semantisch ver­ wandt. Aber der Versparallelismus im Paar "buduščnost' prosloe" bringt das gemeinsame Merkmal hervor - das nega­ tive Verhältnis des Dichters sowohl zur Zukunft als auch zur Vergangenheit. Dagegen werden die Bedeutungen im Paar "bojazn'" - toska" gegensätzlich und in dem, was verwandt ist, wird der Unterschied deutlich

(206).

Manchmal wird der Wiederholung bei Lotman nur die ver­ einigende und angleichende Wirkung in einer Richtung mit den semantischen Relationen auf der Ebene der natürlichen Sprache zugeschrieben. So behauptet er z.B., daß in den Versen: Ja utrom dolzen byt' uveren, Cto s vami dnem uvizus' ja. das Phonem u an sich keine Bedeutung besitzt; aber dadurch,

347

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS daß es sich in den Wörtern: "utrom", "uveren", "uvižuš"' wiederholt, bezieht es diese Wörter semantisch aufeinander. Bei dieser Aufschichtung wird ein großer Teil des Bedeu­ tungsinhaltes abgetrennt oder neutralisiert; dafür ent­ steht aber "eine außerhalb dieses Komplexes unmögliche Bedeutung, die auf unwiederholbare Art und Weise die Kom­ plikation der Gedankengänge des Verfassers ausdrückt": Das Archisem der Wörter "utrom", "uveren", "uvizus'" umfaßt die Kreuzung Felder

(den gemeinsamen Teil?) ihrer semantischen

(180).

Dies alles führt dazu, daß die einzelnen Wörter des poetischen Textes mehrfach und verschiedenartig miteinan­ der "verbunden" werden

(204). Fügen wir hinzu: Sie sind

mehr "Text" (im etymologischen Sinne) als der Text der na­ türlichen Sprache, und sie können als ein Wort, ein Zeichen behandelt werden. Hier drängen sich gewisse Analogien zur Auffassung der amerikanischen Kritik auf, die den kontextuellen Bau der poetischen Werke betrifft. Aber in den poetischen Werken läuft - nach Lotmans Auffassung - gleichzeitig ein entgegengesetzter Prozeß ab: Es verselbständigt sich das, was ein Bestandteil des sprachlichen Zeichens ist (Lotman betrachtet das Wort als ein Sprachzeichen), also die einzelnen Morpheme und Phone­ me. "So kann also ein und derselbe Text als eine bestimmte, nach den Regeln der natürlichen Sprache gebildete Zeichen­ kette gelesen werden, als Folge größerer Zeichen, als die Zergliederung des Textes in Wörter, bis zu seiner Umge­ staltung in ein einheitliches Zeichen, und als eine eigen­ artig organisierte Kette kleinerer Zeichen als das Wort

348

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT bis zur Grenze des Phonems" (176) . Anfangs behauptete Lotman, daß die lexikalische Bedeu­ tung des in den poetischen Text eingefügten Wortes sich auf seine einzelnen Laute überträgt: "Phoneme, die das Wort bilden, wirken auf die Semantik dieses Wortes" (L 96). Die­ se These ist schwer zu akzeptieren, zumal, wenn sie anhand von Lotmans Beispiel plausibel gemacht werden soll: Lotman sagt, daß in einem poetischen Text z.B. jedes Phonem des Wortes "Tisch" die lexikalische (semantische) Bedeutung des ganzen Wortes erhält. In den Studien verzichtet der Autor auf dieses Beispiel, aber die frühere These wiederholt er; er wiederholt auch die Schlußfolgerung, daß "allein die Ein­ fügung eines Wortes in den poetischen Text dessen Wesen entscheidend verändert: Aus dem Sprachausdruck wird es zur Abbildung des Sprachausdruckes und verhält sich zu ihr wie das Bild der Wirklichkeit in der Kunst zu dem abgebildeten Leben. Er wird zum Zeichenmodell

des

Zeichenmodells"

(177).

Was ist von den Thesen Lotmans zu halten, die die se­ mantische Aktivierung der Lautebene des poetischen Werkes betreffen? Erstens: Sie müßten empirisch überprüft werden. Die Lotmansche Darstellung der semantischen Rolle verschie­ dener Lautparallelismen gründet sich nur auf seine eigenen Empfindungen, sie ist weder selbstverständlich noch bewie­ sen. Manchmal scheint sie überzeugend zu sein, manchmal wirkt sie wie sogenannte "sich selbst erfüllende Progno­ sen" , manchmal weicht sie von den Empfindungen anderer Leser ab. Wenn der Autor z.B. behauptet, daß der Paralle­ lismus beider Glieder von Puschkins Gedicht:

349

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Dar naprasnyj, dar slučajnyj, žizn',začem ty mne dana, verursacht, daß die Worte "naprasnyj" und "slučajnyj" in diesem Kontext ein kontrastives Paar bilden, kann man schwerlich damit einverstanden sein; im Gegenteil, dank der Wiederholung des Nachbarwortes "dar", dem syntakti­ schen und Intonationsparallelismus, nähern sich die Bedeu­ tungen dieser Wörter einander und werden synonym. Lotman bemerkt weder die mnemotechnische Rolle des Reimes und der Alliteration

noch die künstlerische Funk­

tion des Effektes selbst, der daraus hervorgeht, daß das sprachliche Material seine Kommunikationsfunktion wirksam erfüllt und sich zugleich zusätzlichen formalen (erschwe­ renden) Regelmäßigkeiten unterzieht. Schließlich wird von dem Autor die weite Verbreitung und Funktion der Paralle­ lismen in der außerpoetischen Sprache, besonders in der Sprache der Rhetorik, also einer Sprache mit praktischen Zielen, nicht berücksichtigt. Lotman betrachtet auch die Rolle von Wiederholungen grammatischer Formen als einen die Semantik der dichteri­ schen Aussage organisierenden Faktor. Aber wenn wir von grammatischen Formen sprechen, befinden wir uns - wenn ich mich nicht irre - schon auf der semantischen Ebene, auch wenn es sich um die außerpoetische Sprache handelt; in diesen Formen wird doch das ausgedrückt, was wir die "grammatische Bedeutung" nennen. Die hier referierten Anschauungen werden von der oft

350

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT wiederholten These begleitet, daß das poetische Werk ein ikonisches Zeichen sei. In welchem Sinne? Eine geringe Rolle spielt hier die Onomatopöie, die Lotman wohlgemerkt anders interpretiert, als das gewöhnlich geschieht: Nicht die Wiederholung bestimmter Phoneme im Gedicht ruft die Assoziation mit realen Lauten hervor, sondern die Enthül­ lung mancher ihrer distinktiven Merkmale durch den Kontrast mit anderen Phonemen

(248). Lotman lehnt auch die Hypothese

von den festen synästhetischen Merkmalen bestimmter Phoneme ab, obwohl die experimentellen Forschungen I. Fonagys über die Lautmetapher

{Die

Metaphern

in

der

Phonetik

, 1963) die­

se Hypothese bestätigen. Worauf beruht also nach Lotman der ikonische Charakter des literarischen Textes? Die erste Antwort lautet: "Die Tatsache, daß das Zeichen in der Literatur gleichzeitig als Modell, als Analogon des Objektes

(der objektiven Wirklich­

keit, des Darstellungsgegenstandes) auftritt, beseitigt die Frage nach der Willkürlichkeit des Verhältnisses von Be­ zeichnendem und Bezeichnetem, wenngleich das Modell am ab­ straktesten ist" (L 4 3 ) . Diese Antwort kann nicht befrie­ digen, denn zu Modellen werden ebenfalls logisch-mathema­ tische Formeln gezählt, denen niemand ikonischen Charakter zuschreibt.

Die zweite Antwort: "Ikonische Zeichen werden auf der Grundlage der motivierten Verbindung zwischen dem Ausdruck und dem Inhalt gebildet. Deshalb wird die Abgrenzung des Ausdrucks vom Inhaltsplan in dem von der strukturellen Linguistik angenommenen Sinn zu einer sehr schwierigen Aufgabe. Das Zeichen modelliert seinen Inhalt. Es ist ver-

351

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ständlich, daß unter diesen Bedingungen im künstlerischen Text die Semantisierung außersemantischer

(syntaktischer)

Elemente der natürlichen Sprache auftritt" (31). Wenn ich diese Aussage richtig verstehe, verwendet der Autor den Begriff des ikonischen Zeichens zu breit: Über den ikoni­ schen Charakter entscheiden doch nicht die besonderen Ver­ bindungen zwischen signifiant

und signifié

im Zeichen,

sondern die wesentliche Ähnlichkeit zwischen dem

signifiant

zu dem bezeichneten Gegenstand: "Das semantische Prinzip der Anwendung des ikonischen Zeichens ist, daß es den Ge­ genstand bezeichnet, der Eigenschaften besitzt (in der Praxis: Eine Auswahl von Eigenschaften), die es selbst be­ sitzt" . 5

Die dritte Antwort: "Aus dem Material der natürlichen Sprache - dem System konventioneller Zeichen, das aber für jede Gemeinschaft soweit verständlich ist, daß diese Konventionalität im Vergleich mit anderen spezielleren "Spra­ chen" aufhört, wahrnehmbar zu sein - entsteht das sekundäre Zeichen des darstellenden

(izobrazitel'nyj) Typus. Möglich,

daß es dem "Bild" der traditionellen Literaturtheorie ent­ spricht. Dieses sekundäre darstellende Zeichen besitzt Ei­ genschaften ikonischer Zeichen: Durch die unmittelbare Ähn­ lichkeit mit dem Objekt, durch seine Anschaulichkeit er­ weckt es den Eindruck einer geringeren Konventionalität des Kodes. Deshalb - so scheint es - ist ihm eine größere Wahrheit und eine größere Verständlichkeit als konventio­ nellen Zeichen eigen" (74). Diese Darlegungen führen zurück zu der alten Diskussion um die "Anschaulichkeit" oder "Bildhaftigkeit" des literarischen Werkes, auf die wir hier nicht mehr eingehen wollen.

352

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT Der Vollständigkeit halber: Es gibt noch eine vierte, anthropologische Antwort: Der Mensch ist vor allem ein vi­ suelles Wesen, und so werden die Denotate der sprachlichen Modelle von ihm als räumlich sichtbare Objekte wahrgenom­ men, wenngleich sie durchweg abstrakten Charakter haben; "das ikonische Prinzip, die Anschaulichkeit, ist ihnen in jeder Hinsicht eigen" (266). Das ist sicherlich richtig; die literaturtheoretische Terminologie der Strukturalisten ist dafür wohl der beste Beweis . . . . Dadurch löst sich jedoch das ganze Problem auf, denn wir haben nicht nach dem ikonischen Charakter der Sprachmodelle überhaupt gefragt, sondern nach dem der in der Sprache der Poesie oder Literatur gebauten Modelle. Der Begriff "Ikonizität" ist nicht präzise und kann zum Gegenstand verschiedener Interpretationen werden. Je­ denfalls muß hier eine Ähnlichkeit des Zeichens zum be­ zeichneten Objekt auftreten. Ikonischen Charakter könnte man in der Literatur bei exakten, strengen Kriterien außer Randerscheinungen, solchen wie der Onomatopöie oder den carmina figurata - nur den Aussagen verleihen, die an­ dere Aussagen nachbilden oder fingieren, wobei es entweder Ikons (z.B. im Briefroman) oder Diagramme (z.B. Aussagen der Personen im Text eines Dramas) sein können. Aber wenn man elastische Kriterien anwendet, kann man behaupten, daß z.B. eine Aussage von der Art "veni, vidi, vici" auch ikonischen Charakter hat: Die Reihenfolge der Verben ent­ spricht der Reihenfolge der Handlungen und die Kürze der Aussage der Geschwindigkeit, mit der die Handlungen aufein­ ander folgen.

353

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Die Konstruktion des lyrischen Werkes auf der syntagmatischen Linie ist in den Vorlesungen und Studien nur flüchtig dargestellt worden. Diese Lücke füllt zum Teil die Abhandlung über Pasternaks Jugendgedichte: Hier zeigt Lotman, wie der Dichter die aus dem alltäglichen Bewußtsein stammenden semantischen Verbote durchbricht, das Nebenein­ ander heterogener semantischer Einheiten realisiert und ein neues, als einheitliches Ganzes gesehenes und empfundenes Weltmodell bildet, in dem die Unterscheidung zwischen Sub­ jekt und Objekt sowie die Grenzen zwischen den einzelnen Gegenständen und ihren Eigenschaften verschwinden. Umfassender beschäftigt sich Lotman in den Studien mit der Syntagm.atik höherer Bedeutungskomplexe (poetische Welt, Fabel, literarische Gestalt) auf dem Gebiet der Epik und des Dramas. Hier interessiert ihn allerdings nicht mehr das Prinzip der freien Verbindung der Elemente einer Ebene; vielmehr - wenn ich richtig verstehe - deutet er sie um als "neravnomernost'", als das Aufeinander verschiedenartiger Konstruktionsabschnitte: Die aufeinanderstehenden Abschnitte des Textes sollten verschieden organisiert wer­ den. "Infolgedessen leistet die künstlerische Struktur den Vorausberechnungen ständigen Widerstand - erhält ständig ihre Informativität" (340), unterliegt keiner Automatisie­ rung. Jedoch geht es Lotman nicht nur darum, daß aufeinander­ folgende Abschnitte einzelner Ebenen des literarischen Tex­ tes (phonologische, grammatische, lexikalische, semanti­ sche, mikrosyntaktische, makrosyntaktische, also über den Satz hinausgehende) dieses Prinzip der unvorsehbaren Ver-

354

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT schiedenartigkeit verwirklichen oder verwirklichen sollten (die künstlerischen Feststellungen und Postulate sind hier nicht ganz deutlich voneinander abgegrenzt). Fast am Ende des Buches stellt Lotman noch eine These von grundlegender Bedeutung auf: Die Komposition des künstlerischen Textes entsteht als Folge funktionell verschiedenartiger Elemente, als Folge struktureller Dominanten verschiedener Ebenen (336). Anders gesagt: In dem Maße, wie sich der Text "längs" entwickelt, werden Elemente verschiedener Ebenen mit nicht vorauszusehender Variabilität zu den "Hauptträ­ gern der Bedeutung". Solche nicht vergleichbaren Elemente der Struktur, wie "Gestalt und Reim, die Verletzung der rhythmischen "inertia" und das Epigraph, die Veränderung der Ebenen und Gesichtspunkte, die semantischen Verschie­ bungen in der Metapher treten als gleichberechtigte Ele­ mente einer einheitlichen synthetischen Konstruktion auf" (337). Eine ausführliche Beschreibung einzelner Ebenen ist zwar nützlich, aber nur für Spezialisten als Vorbereitungs­ studium; breitere Leserkreise können nur an der Beschrei­ bung jener "einheitlichen synthetischen Ebene strukturel­ ler Dominanten" interessiert sein.

Hier erheben sich folgende Fragen: Wie können die vor­ her genannten Bestandteile und Aspekte des literarischen Textes auf einen gemeinsamen Nenner gebracht werden, auf eine Beschreibungsebene? Was bedeutet "der wichtigste Be­ deutungsträger" , wie ist er zu identifizieren? Wie sind diese Thesen mit Lotmans früherer Behauptung zu vereinba­ ren, daß der literarische Text auf jeder Ebene, mit jeder in ihm liegenden Regelmäßigkeit bedeutungsvoll?

355

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Das hier diskutierte Fragment aus Lotmans Buch ist zu skizzenhaft, um in ihm Antworten auf diese Fragen zu fin­ den. Es ist aber ein wichtiges und bedeutendes Fragment: Es ist, als ob der Forscher beunruhigt und ungeduldig sei, daß die bisherigen Beschreibungen literarischer Texte ent­ gegen den Ansprüchen auf Strukturalität eine nur anatomi­ sche und statische "Obduktion" seiner einzelnen Schichten bringen. "Das Postulat, an den Text auf dialektisch-funk­ tionale Weise heranzugehen . . ., wiederholt sich mehrmals in den Arbeiten der Forscher. Man muß dennoch damit ein­ verstanden sein, daß in den konkreten Textbeschreibungen gerade statische Modelle in den Vordergrund treten, wenn man sich von den nur subjektiv-impressionistischen Erwä7 gungen entfernt." Die von Lotman vorgeschlagene Abhilfe mildert diesen Mißstand nur, ohne ihn zu beseitigen. Er schlägt nämlich vor, nicht das Modell, sondern die Beschreibung zu dyna­ misieren: Durch die Gegenüberstellung zweier statischer Modelle, z.B. des Metrums und des Rhythmus' im gegebenen Text oder des traditionellen Organisationsmechanismus' und seiner individuellen, neuartigen Konstruktion, die die Erwartungen des Lesers überrascht, indem sie die bestehen­ den Formen verletzt. Die Spannung zwischen dem traditio­ nellen und dem innovatorischen Modell kann - nach Lotmans Meinung - über die literarische "Energie" des gegebenen Textes entscheiden. In der Frage der Unvorhersehbarkeit des literarischen Textes (und ihrer Bedeutung für dessen Wert) schwankt Lot­ man zwischen mehreren verschiedenen Auffassungen. Die erste

356

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT ist die These, daß ein gewisses Maß der Unvorhersehbarkeit (ein Konflikt mit den Erwartungen des Lesers), wenn nicht die hinreichende, so doch jedenfalls die notwendige Bedin­ gung eines wertvollen Kunstwerkes sei. Die zweite lautet, daß es sich so nur in bestimmten Typen der künstlerischen Kultur verhält, die durch die Kontrastästhetik gekenn­ zeichnet sind (z.B. in der Romantik). Es gibt jedoch künst­ lerische Kulturtypen, die auf der Identitätsästhetik beru­ hen (z.B. die Folklore), die auf die Erfüllung der Empfän­ gererwartungen ausgerichtet sind. Bei einer genaueren Ana­ lyse zeigt sich jedoch, daß die Identität auf bestimmten Textebenen durch die Ungebundenheit auf anderen Ebenen kom­ pensiert wird (z.B. in der commedia dell' arte, wo die her­ kömmlichen Gestalten und Fabeln im Gegensatz zur schau­ spielerischen Improvisation stehen). Wenn nun aber anderer­ seits auf dem Gebiet der Kontrastästhetik der Text "nicht nur ein bestimmtes System umstürzt, sondern auch ständig 

daran erinnert, erhält er es im Leserbewußtsein" - die Ge­ gensätzlichkeit beider Ästhetiken erweist sich als nur relativ.Vielleicht reduziert sie sich auf den Unterschied in der Verteilung der Hauptakzente? Hinzuzufügen ist noch, daß Lotman in den Vorlesungen eine interessante Hypothese aufgestellt hat: Die Zweitei­ lung in eine Identitäts- und eine Kontrastästhetik über­ lagert die Aufteilung in Strukturen, in denen innertext­ liche Verbindungen überwiegen (die als künstlerisch kom­ pliziert empfunden werden), und in solche, in denen außer­ textliche Verbindungen überwiegen (die als künstlerisch einfach empfunden werden). Schließlich entsteht folgende Matrix:

357

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

Identitäts­ ästhetik

Innertextlice

Außertextlice

Verbindungen

Verbindungen

Mittelalterliche

Klassizismus

Kunst Folklore

Kontrast­

Barock

Realismus

ästhetik

In den Studien verzichtet Lotman auf diese Tabelle, viel­ leicht im Zusammenhang mit den unterschiedlichen Darstel­ lungen der Kulturtypologie, an denen er später zu arbeiten begann. Es wird Zeit, die ohnehin etwas zu lang geratenen Er­ wägungen zu beenden, obwohl die Probleme und Ideen, mit denen uns Lotmans Werk konfrontiert, sowie die Fragen und Zweifel, die es in uns weckt, noch lange nicht erschöpft sind. Sie nehmen zu, je tiefer wir in den Text eindringen. Parallel dazu festigt sich in uns die Überzeugung, daß wir es mit einer reichhaltigen und wertvollen Theorie zu tun haben: Mit einer der Theorien, die in der Wissenschaft als Anreize zu weiteren Entwicklungen viel bedeuten.

ANMERKUNGEN

1 Učenye zapiski

Tartuskogo

znakovym sistemam I Vvedenie.

Teorija

Gosudarstvennogo

I.Ju.M. Lotman: Lekcii sticha/

Universiteta.

po strukturalnoj

Trudy po poetike.

Vyp.

Tartu 1964/ Im Text weiter zit. nach dem

Abdruck in der Serie Brown University Slavic Reprints V, 1968, S. 191, 358

DIE LITERATUR AUS SEMIOTISCHER SICHT mit dem Zeichen L vor der Seitenzahl. In diesem Nachdruck ist die Numerierung um 2 Seiten "niedriger" als im Original/. Semioticeskie

issledovanija

chudozestvennogo

teksta.

po teorii

iskusstva.

Ju.M. Lotman,

Struktura

Izdatelstvo "Iskusstvo" Moskwa 1970, S. 383.

2 Lotmans gesamte Arbeiten aus den Jahren 1964-1970 auf dem Hintergrund der Evolution der Schule in Tartu werden in dem kürzlich veröffentlichten Buch: Ann Shukman, Literature of the writings

and Semiotics.

Ά Study

of Yu.M. Lotman. Amsterdam - New York - Oxford 1977,

Charakterisiert. Mein Artikel ist vor der Veröffentlichung dieser Arbeit entstanden. 3 Yu.M. Lotman, Stat 'i po tipologii kultury, Tartu 1970, S. 79. 4 Ebenda, S. 64. 5 Ch. Morris, A e s t h e t i c s and t h e Theory of Signs "journal

of

United

Science" VIII/ 1939-1940/ , S. 136. 6 Ju.M. Lotman "Stichotvorenija rannego Pasternaka i nekotorye voprosy strukturnogo izučenija teksta". Trudy po znakovym sistemam.

TV. Tartu

1969, S. 223-238. 7 Ju.M. Lotman, " nekotorych principiai'nych trudnostjach v strukturnom opisanii teksta". Trudy po znakovym sistemam IV S. 478. 

Ebenda, S. 481.

359

THEORY AND PRACTICE

ROMAN ET SOCIETE Discours et action dans la théorie lukácsienne du roman. Jacques Leenhardt Produire une théorie du roman, tel me paraît bien être le plus permanent des rêves qui hantent la théorie litté­ raire. Tout d'abord l'idée s'impose: les grands genres lit­ téraires ont leur théorie, un cadre conceptuel à peu près fixé autour duquel un consensus

s'est établi. Le roman, jus­

qu'aujourd'hui, s'y est montré rebelle. Certes, il y a la Théorie

du roman

du jeune Lukács, im­

posante reprise des intuitions hégéliennes, il y a Pour sociologie

du roman

une

aussi, dont l'ampleur du projet et le

succès intellectuel devraient combler toute attente. Et pourtant! Lukács s'est partiellement renié, et Pour ciologie

du roman

une

so­

apparaît chaque jour davantage comme un

problème plutôt qu'une solution. Force nous est donc bien de reprendre une fois encore la question. Le titre neutre, vague et général, que j'ai donné à ces remarques interroga­ tives, n'a donc nullement l'ambition de l'accomplissement, je ne vais pas proposer une théorie de la copule dans "Ro­ man et société". Peut-être est-ce d'abord des évidences que nous de­ vrions nous méfier. Il me paraît en effet nécessaire de re­ dire combien la Théorie

du roman

et Pour

une

sociologie

du

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS roman

sont des ouvrages dont l ' a i s a n c e

riques

frappent,

jusqu'à

la stupeur.

et

l'évidence

l'argumentation

t h é o r i q u e e t des t r o p r a r e s

laisse,

lecteur

chez

terrogation

le

captivé,

théo­

Le s o u p l e é q u i l i b r e citations

que peu de p l a c e

de

ne

à une

in­

critique.

Je p a r t i r a i , de deux t e x t e s

p o u r m e n e r ma r é f l e x i o n

de L u k á c s , b i e n p o s t é r i e u r s

s u r ce

problème,

à s a Théorie

du

roman,

i n t i t u l é s s i m p l e m e n t " R a p p o r t s u r l e r o m a n " e t "Le 1 roman", dans l e s q u e l s i l reprend e t c o r r i g e à l a f o i s les

grands

thèmes développés

avant

l a P r e m i è r e G u e r r e mon­

diale . Une t h é o r i e m a r x i s t e retour

du r o m a n ,

écrit-il,

doit

aux a c q u i s de l a p h i l o s o p h i e

classique

allemande,

par delà

les errements

man a u XIXème s i è c l e .

théoriques Il

faire

q u i o n t accompagné l e

ro­

précise:

Les acquis i n a l i é n a b l e s de l a p h i l o s o p h i e c l a s s i q u e quant à la t h é o r i e du roman sont donc . . .

l a découverte de l ' u ­

n i t é de 1 'épopée e t du roman, l a n é c e s s i t é de dégager l e s c a t é g o r i e s communes de t o u t grand a r t épique, ce q u i , à c e t t e p é r i o d e , a é t é accompli sur une grande é c h e l l e par Goethe e t S c h i l l e r , par S c h e l l i n g e t Hegel. La s i g n i f i c a ­ t i o n p r a t i q u e de c e t t e communauté r é s i d e en c e c i que t o u t 2 grand roman . . . tend vers 1'épopée . . . . J.

Le primat

de l'action

dans

la

théorie

lukácsienne.

Q u e l l e s s o n t c e s c a t é g o r i e s communes, p a r d e l à l e s d i f ­ f é r e n c e s , à l ' é p o p é e e t au roman? Pour L u k á c s : l ' a c t i o n . Epopée e t roman, d i t - i l : 364

ROMAN ET SOCIETE ont en commun l a f i g u r a t i o n n a r r a t i v e d'une action.

Car

s e u l e l a f i g u r a t i o n d'une a c t i o n peut exprimer sur l e mode s e n s i b l e l ' e s s e n c e par a i l l e u r s cachée de l'homme.

L ' a c t i o n a en e f f e t l ' a v a n t a g e d ' o f f i r f i g u r e r l e monde s e n s i b l e .

3

un moyen e f f i c a c e

de

L ' a r g u m e n t a t i o n de Lukács e s t fondée s u r l ' o p p o s i t i o n du sensible e t de 1 ' i n t e l l i g i b l e . L ' a c t i o n e s t l e moyen u n i q u e p a r l e q u e l l e roman p e u t e x p r i m e r l ' e s s e n c e de l'homme, parce qu'un d i s c o u r s l i t t é r a i r e qui s ' a d r e s s e r a i t immédiate­ ment å l ' i n t e l l i g e n c e , s a n s p a s s e r p a r l e s p r o c é d u r e s du v r a i s e m b l a b l e l o g i q u e e t de l ' i d e n t i f i c a t i o n e m p a t h i q u e , manquant donc l e mode sensible de f i g u r a t i o n p a r l e q u e l Lu­ k á c s d é f i n i t l a l i t t é r a t u r e , t o m b e r a i t ex definitione hors de l a l i t t é r a t u r e . La p é t i t i o n de p r i n c i p e e s t m a n i f e s t e , nous v e r r o n s p l u s l o i n à q u o i e l l e c o r r e s p o n d . L ' a c t i o n , comme f i g u r a t i o n s e n s i b l e , c a r a c t é r i s e donc à e l l e s e u l e l e roman. Ceci e s t , a j o u t e L u k á c s , une n é c e s ­ s i t é du r e f l e t l e p l u s a d é q u a t p o s s i b l e de l a r é a l i t é ( p . 9 4 ) . I l s ' a g i t b i e n , dans c e t t e t h é o r i e , de c o n f i e r â l'homme agissant l a t â c h e , t o u t e l a t â c h e , de f o u r n i r ce r e ­ f l e t a d é q u a t de l a r é a l i t é . Si l ' o n i n s i s t e t a n t s u r " l ' a g i r " de c e t homme, c ' e s t pour l e b i e n d i s t i n g u e r d ' u n " p a r l e r " que l ' o n c r o i t d e v o i r b a n n i r . Ce que l e p e r s o n n a g e p o u r r a i t dire n ' e s t r i e n a u p r è s de ce q u ' o n p e u t l u i f a i r e f a i r e , grâce à l'agencement h a b i l e d'une a c t i o n . L ' a t t i t u d e de Lukács à l ' ê q a r d du d i s c o u r s dans l ' a r t 4 n ' a pas v a r i e d e p u i s son p r e m i e r ouvrage s u r l e drame. Des c e t t e é p o q u e , i l l i e l a décadence du drame a l l e m a n d à l a montée du d i s c u r s i f s u r l a s c è n e , au d é t r i m e n t de l ' a c t i o n 365

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS elle-même. cette

Trente

opposition

d'acteurs

et

de

ans p l u s

tard,

se s p é c i f i e

d a n s Le roman

g r â c e aux t e r m e s

historique, antagoniques

caractères:

Tandis que l a c o l l i s i o n dramatique sépare l e s acteurs

en

deux camps en l u t t e , dans l e roman i l e s t non seulement p e r ­ mis, mais absolument n é c e s s a i r e que l e s caractères

soient

n e u t r e s ou i n d i f f é r e n t s à l ' é g a r d des q u e s t i o n s c e n t r a l e s .

Ce q u i d i s t i n g u e 1 ' a c t e u r du caractère, c'est d'être direc­ tement a r t i c u l é aux " q u e s t i o n s c e n t r a l e s " . Le caractère en r e v a n c h e p e u t b i e n d i s c o u r i r , p e s e r en p a r o l e s l e pour e t l e c o n t r e , 1 ' i n e s s e n t i a l i t ê de son d i s c o u r s , de t o u t d i s ­ c o u r s , en même temps que symptôme d ' u n e s o c i é t é d é g r a d é e ( l a s o c i é t é c a p i t a l i s t e b o u r g e o i s e ) , voue s a p a r o l e à l a n u l l i t é face au d é t e r m i n i s m e s o c i a l a u i s ' e n j o u e . Lukács e s t i c i f i d è l e å l a Poétique d'Aristote et g u l i è r e m e n t à sa t h é o r i e de l a t r a g é d i e :

sin­

C ' e s t l a fable qui e s t l ' i m i t a t i o n de l ' a c t i o n , car j ' a p ­ p e l l e i c i ' f a b l e ' l'assemblage des a c t i o n s accomplies. . . . La fable e s t donc l e p r i n c i p e e t comme l'âme de l a t r a g é d i e .

La q u e s t i o n que j e v o u d r a i s p o s e r e s t de s a v o i r s i l ' o u t i l l a g e i n t e l l e c t u e l mis en p l a c e p a r c e t t e t r a d i t i o n de r é f l e x i o n s u r l e drame e s t p e r t i n e n t pour l ' é t u d e du r o ­ man. La r é p o n s e å c e t t e q u e s t i o n i m p l i q u e évidemment que l ' o n é t a b l i s s e d ' a b o r d l a f o n c t i o n de l ' a c t i o n p a r r a p p o r t à l'univers tragique. *** En v e r t u de l e u r c o n c e p t , l e s h é r o s t r a g i q u e s s o n t , H e g e l , ce q u ' i l s

366

dit

ROMAN ET SOCIETE peuvent e t doivent ê t r e , c ' e s t - à - d i r e non une t o t a l i t é com­ posée d'éléments c o n s t i t u t i f s v a r i é s , s ' e x t é r i o r i s a n t

les

uns après l e s a u t r e s , mais des i n d i v i d u a l i t é s animées d'une force unique qui l e s pousse à s ' i d e n t i f i e r

avec l ' u n ou

l ' a u t r e des contenus s u b s t a n t i e l s . : . . Parvenus â c e t t e h a u t e u r , où ce q u ' i l y a de purement a c c i d e n t e l dans l ' i n ­ d i v i d u a l i t é immédiate d i s p a r a î t . . . i l s sont pour a i n s i 7 d i r e élevés au rang d'oeuvres s c u l p t u r a l e s .

Le h é r o s t r a g i q u e se d é f i n i t p a r r a p p o r t å une a c t i o n dont i l n ' e s t pas l e v é r i t a b l e a c t e u r . Ce s o n t l e s d e s t i n s e t l e s d i e u x q u i , à t r a v e r s l u i , a g i s s e n t . I l n ' e s t , dans l ' i n s ­ t a n t d é t e m p o r a l i s é du drame, que l e l i e u d ' u n c o n f l i t q u i l e d é p a s s e i n f i n i m e n t en t a n t qu' i n d i v i d u : Cet i n s t a n t e s t un début e t une f i n , r i e n ne peut l e s u i v r e 8

ni en r é s u l t e r , e t r i e n ne peut l e r e l i e r à l a v i e .

A i n s i l'action dans l a t r a g é d i e n ' e s t aue l a mise en p l a c e d'un d i s p o s i t i f par lequel sont désignées la place s t r u c ­ t u r a l e du h é r o s e t , c o r r é l a t i v e m e n t , c e l l e du d i e u {deus absconditus) . En r e v a n c h e , l ' a c t i o n t r a g i q u e ne l a i s s e a u ­ cune p l a c e au p r o c è s de c o n s t r u c t i o n de l a p e r s o n n e , à l a mise en forme de l ' i n d i v i d u a l i t é dans l e roman comme l e 9 montre s i b i e n Lugowski. Ni l ' a u t o - a f f i r m a t i o n , n i l a p r o b l é m a t i s a t i o n de l ' i n d i v i d u , p a r l e s q u e l l e s se d é f i n i t en une l a r g e mesure l a p r o s e r o m a n e s a u e , n ' o n t de p l a c e dans l a s t r u c t u r e du drame t r a g i q u e . I l e s t même e x c e s s i f , à p r o p r e m e n t p a r l e r , d ' a p p e l e r individu l e s u j e t de l ' a c t i o n tragique. II. Acteur

tragique

et

prose

romanesque.

Si, comme le pense Lukács â la suite de Hegel qu'il 367

S E M I O T I C S AND D I A L E C T I C S

c i t e , l a s o c i é t é c o n d u i t p r o g r e s s i v e m e n t å une s i t u a t i o n où l e s hommes modernes se s é p a r e n t avec l e u r s f i n s e t c o n d i t i o n s p e r s o n n e l l e s des fins d'une t e l l e t o t a l i t é ; l ' i n d i v i d u f a i t ce q u ' i l f a i t pour s o i , en t a n t que personne, à p a r t i r de sa p e r s o n n a l i t é e t

c'est

pourquoi i l ne répond que de son propre a g i r , mais non des a c t e s du t o u t s u b s t a n t i e l auquel i l

appartient.

a l o r s comment p e u t - o n r e f u s e r de c o n s i d é r e r , au p l a n de l a t h é o r i e du roman, t o u t ce que c e t t e i n d i v i d u a l i t é a â d i r e en son p r o p r e nom, en s e s p r o p o s p e r s o n n e l s , f u s s e n t - i l s d é t a c h é s du Tout s u b s t a n t i e l , p a r c e q u ' i l s s o n t d é t a c h é s de ce T o u t , p r é c i s é m e n t , e t q u ' i l ne s a u r a i t en ê t r e a u t r e ­ ment? Comment p o u r s u i v r e une a n a l y s e q u i r a b a t t e c o n s t a m ­ ment ce que l e t e x t e p r o d u i t comme d i s c o u r s e t a c t i o n s f i ­ g u r é s s u r l e s e u l axe é p i q u e de l'action aristotélicienne? P r é c i s o n s : l e t e x t e romanesque e s t f a i t d ' u n e m u l t i ­ p l i c i t é , d ' u n m i x t e d ' o p i n i o n s r a p p o r t é e s , de p r o p o s t e n u s e t d ' a c t e s n a r r é s , e t c ' e s t à t r a v e r s ces systèmes sémiot i q u e s d i s t i n c t s que se c o n s t i t u e l a f i g u r e i n d i v i d u a l i s é e du p e r s o n n a g e romanesque. P e u t - o n dès l o r s b a n n i r de l ' a n a ­ l y s e ce j e u des a c t e s vécus e t des p a r o l e s é c h a n g é e s pour ne c o n s e r v e r que l a s t r u c t u r e a c t a n t i e l l e de l a f a b l e ? Ce que Lukács d é v a l o r i s e comme e f f e t d ' u n e c o n s c i e n c e d é t e r ­ m i n é e , c e t t e masse t e x t u e l l e qui n ' a q u ' u n r a p p o r t m é d i a t à l ' a c t i o n , n ' e s t - i l p a s l a s u b s t a n c e même du roman, p u i s ­ que l a p a r t i c u l a r i t é de ce g e n r e , s i l e roman e x i s t e comme g e n r e , e s t j u s t e m e n t de m e t t r e en t e x t e l e p r o c è s de l ' i n ­ d i v i d u a l i t é se c h e r c h a n t une i d e n t i t é dans un échange de p a r o l e s e t d ' a c t e s , i d e n t i t é p e r d u e dès longtemps en même temps que la totalité des civilisations dites closes.11

368

ROMAN ET

SOCIETE

I l ne f a i t aucun d o u t e que Lukács r e n o n c e à l ' e x a m e n de ce p r o c è s au b é n é f i c e d ' u n e a p p r o c h e t o u j o u r s c e n t r é e sur la t o t a l i t é s o c i a l e : La l u t t e des i n d i v i d u s ne t i r e son o b j e c t i v i t é e t sa v é r i t é que du r e f l e t typique e t c o r r e c t , dans l e s c a r a c t è r e s e t l e s 12 d e s t i n s , des q u e s t i o n s c e n t r a l e s de l a l u t t e des c l a s s e s .

On se g a r d e r a i c i de c o n f o n d r e deux p l a n s , e t de r e p r o c h e r å Lukács de m e t t r e l a l u t t e des c l a s s e s au c e n t r e de s e s p r é o c c u p a t i o n s . La q u e s t i o n e s t p l u t ô t de s a v o i r comment une p r a t i q u e t e x t u e l l e , l e roman, s ' i n s c r i t dans l e p r o c è s de c e t t e l u t t e . Autrement d i t , l a q u e s t i o n å p o s e r e s t c e l l e du r a p p o r t de l a t e x t u a l i t é du roman au p r o c è s h i s t o ­ r i q u e , e t non pas immédiatement du r a p p o r t du p e r s o n n a g e romanesque à l a l u t t e des c l a s s e s . L o r s q u ' i l p r é t e n d que l a l u t t e d e s individus ( e t non des p e r s o n n a g e s ) ne t i r e son o b j e c t i v i t é e t sa v é r i t é que de son r a p p o r t à l a l u t t e des c l a s s e s , nous sommes p r ê t s â s u i v r e Lukács s u r c e t t e v o i e de 1' analyse politique. Mais l o r s q u ' i l a f f i r m e c e l a non de l a v i e p o l i t i q u e mais des a c t i o n s e t s i t u a t i o n s r o m a n e s q u e s , p a r l a m é d i a t i o n du fameux " r e f l e t t y p i q u e " , nous d i s c e r n o n s un g l i s s e m e n t de p l a n non j u s t i f i é , e t nous voyons a p p a r a î t r e l ' o r i g i n e t h é o r i q u e , e t / o u i d é o l o g i q u e , de l a n o n - r e c o n n a i s s a n c e p a r Lukács de l a s p é c i f i c i t é t e x t u e l l e du roman. Comme pour la tragédie, Lukács pense devoir, dans l'ana­ lyse du roman, projeter immédiatement toute manifestation individuelle - donc moyenne - sur l'écran de la vérité (ici la lutte des classes), laquelle est la seule réalité en dernière instance. Mais alors que cette procédure rend jus-

369

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS tice

à la t e x t u a l i t é tragique,

cept, elle

toute

individualité

ne s a u r a i t

et

laquelle bannit,

tout

sans a r b i t r a i r e

être

dont la p a r t i c u l a r i t é

est

tê,

des absolus

dans

l'entre-deux

compromis,

appliquée

de s e d é v e l o p p e r ,

en son

toute

con­

moyenne,

au roman

comme

de l ' a c t i o n

textuali­

e t du

dis­

cours . Le roman e s t c o n s t i t u é d'un

espace propre

abstraite

et

qui pourrait action.

Il

la

au p e r s o n n a g e ,

transcendance le

l i e u où s ' e f f e c t u e

s'étend

d'une

entre

a u t o n o m i e du s u j e t

1'énonciation

discursives

dialogiques les

intégrale,

la

son p r o p r e t i s s u . la biographie, dominent l e s formes

Lorsqu'il

non

d'une et

l'es­

parfaite

les

formes

à l a communauté

å l'image

judiciaires dominantes

aussi bien

que

du b o n h e u r

les

de l a r h é t o r i q u e , les

romans

tresse

formes

ou de l a p r é d i c a t i o n dans

que

Le problème de forme des grands romanciers c o n s i s t e donc de l a moyenne a b s t r a i t e se transforment en a c t i o n s antago­ n i s t e s concrètes e t t y p i q u e s , pour é d i f i e r , â p a r t i r de l a succession de t e l l e s s i t u a t i o n s t y p i q u e s , une a c t i o n épique réelle et significative.14

370

d'épreuve

les

picaresques.

. . . â i n v e n t e r des s i t u a t i o n s où l e s a c t i o n s p a r a l l è l e s

d o n c l e m o d è l e du roman

de

où

écrit:

Lukács p r i v i l é g i e

du

l'individualité

proprement romanesque

On y r e n c o n t r e

formes

å son

l a communauté t o t a l e ,

comme m y t h e ,

de l a c o n f e s s i o n

carnavalesques

limite

de l ' a u t o n o m i e ,

discursivité

(Dieu)

propre dans

que d i r e J E ,

e t de 1 ' h é t é r o n o m i e ,

ou du m a l h e u r ,

individualité

essentielle

de l ' i n t é g r a t i o n

deux l i m i t e s

appartiennent,

son

l'aménagement,

discursivitê

q u i ne s a i t

NOUS. E n t r e celles-ci

entre

problématique

a b s o l u e de l a v a l e u r

donner une s i g n i f i c a t i o n

est

moins p r o b l é m a t i q u e , pace qui

de l ' a m é n a g e m e n t

tel

ROMAN ET SOCIETE qu'il s'est manifeste dans les premières phases de son his­ toire, où l'ordonnance et la représentation de l'homme "se fonde sur une idée normative et immuable de l'homme, excluant tout devenir notable".15 Dans cette structure, l'unité de l'homme et de ses ac­ tions porte un caractère jurídico-rhétorique qui en accen­ tue le côté formel. La dévalorisation du psychologique, le­ quel est considéré comme ontologiquement inférieur ("moyen­ ne abstraite"), conduit à dévaloriser toute discursivité liée au plan de la

psychologie.

Cette dévalorisation méconnaît que le psychologique est toujours dialogique car, à une pure subjectivité close en soi ne correspondrait aue l'aphasie autistique. Elle mé­ connaît en outre la fonction médiatrice de ce plan de dis­ cursivité psychologique, entre individu et collectivité, ce qui aboutit comme toujours å la mise en oeuvre théoriaue, non-dialectique, du primat de la société sur l'individu: La création de caractères typiques (et également de situa­ tions typiques) signifie donc la manifestation concrète, figurée, des puissances de la société, . . . "

Ici, comme chez Durkheim, la société occupe la position des dieux dans la tragédie antique, et la théorie du roman de Lukács construit des schémes correspondant à cette notion radicale de la transcendance sociologique. Au plan de l'analyse du discours, la conséquence de cette option théorique apparaît immédiatement avec l'image qu'elle implique d'un langage unifié et hégémonique, à l'in­ térieur des cadres idéologiques duquel seuls une probléma-

371

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS tique peut être posée, laquelle ne saurait par conséquent qu'être consubstantielle au sérieux êpico-tragique. Comment, au cours de l'évolution du genre romanesque, ce sérieux a été attaqué par la parodie et la satire pica­ resque, par l'irrespect et le scepticisme, c'est ce que les travaux de Bakhtine ont admirablement mis en lumière â pro­ pos de Rabelais et dans son chapitre sur le "Discours romanesque „. 17 III.

Valeurs

et

discours

dans

le

roman.

Nous v e r r o n s p l u s l o i n de q u e l l e m a n i è r e e t dans q u e l l e mesure Lukács sauve q u e l q u e chose de c e t t e p r o b l é m a t i q u e . Avant d ' e n v e n i r l à , i l nous f a u t e n c o r e examiner comment l a p o s i t i o n l u k á c s i e n n e a é t é d é v e l o p p é e p a r Goldmann dans Pour

une

sociologie

du r o m a n , 1 8

Goldmann oppose à G i r a r d , pour q u i l ' é c r i v a i n , dans l ' e x e r c i c e de son é c r i t u r e , r e t r o u v e l a v o i e de l ' a u t h e n t i c i t e , 19 l ' i n c o h é r e n c e de c e t t e h y p o t h é s e o p t i m i s t e p a r r a p ­ p o r t à l ' e s s e n c e du g e n r e romanesque: Si vraiment la dégradation romanesque é t a i t dépassée par l ' é c r i v a i n , e t même par l a conversion f i n a l e d'un c e r t a i n nombre de h é r o s , l ' h i s t o i r e de c e t t e dégradation ne s e r a i t p l u s que c e l l e d'un f a i t d i v e r s

. . . .

La t h è s e l u k á c s i e n n e de l ' a b s e n c e de v a l e u r de t o u t e a c t i o n q u i ne se d é t a c h e pas s u r l e fond des a n t a g o n i s m e s f i n a u x , t e l s que l a t r a n s c e n d a n c e de l ' h i s t o i r e l e s f o r m u l e , e s t r e p r i s e i c i par la d é v a l o r i s a t i o n sêmantique: l ' a c t e e s t r a v a l é au r a n g de f a i t d i v e r s . Nous avons d é j à c o n s t a t é

372

ROMAN ET SOCIETE qu'une telle définition de l'action, conçue dans la perspec­ tive tragique de l'affrontement antithétique, ne laisse aue peu de champ â ce que nous pourrions appeler la

démarche

(actantielle ou discursive) du héros. Cette situation est parfaitement illustrée par la formule que Goldmann a reprise â Lukács et par laquelle il désigne le roman: "Le chemin commencé,

le

voyage

est

terminé"

est

. 21 Effectivement, dans un

tel schéma, l'action n'est créatrice de rien, elle n'est aue support des éléments essentiels antagoniques. Il n'y a en fait ni espace couvert par ce chemin, ni temps propre à une quête terminée aussitôt que commencée. Goldmann nous semble donc suivre de très près le schéma propose par Lukács et, bien qu'il en ressente les contrain­ tes, il cherchera moins à le modifier qu'à y trouver un fondement explicatif, ce qui le conduira à la thèse de 1'homologie structurale développée dans l'Introduction théorique à Pour

une

sociologie

du roman.

Ce texte, qui nous

semble en retrait sur ce que Goldmann avait donné dans Le 22 dieu caché, manifeste cependant chez son auteur une préoccupation qui rejoint notre problème. Goldmann s'est bien aperçu que le roman ne vise pas l'affirmation de telle ou telle valeur de manière exclusive mais, au lieu d'y voir la conséquence d'une modification du régime du sens dans la société moderne, il attribue cette absence de valeurs explicites dans le roman (et corrélativement 1'élision du "héros positif") à la disparition de toute

valeur

dans la

société capitaliste. A la vérité, cette solution semble Dien rester inscrite dans le cadre lukácsien de l'antagonisme valeur/absence de valeur. La particularité de la structure discursive romanesque se situe au contraire sur un axe où le problème de la tota­ lisation est posé non pas selon l'alternative valeur/absence

373

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS de valeur, mais de telle sorte que la multiplicité des dis­ cours tende à réduire toute totalisation à l'aporie, par où se révèle son caractère problématique. Une telle discursivité ne saurait donc être mesurée â l'aune de la tragédie (loi du tout ou rien), la particularité de son schéma actantiel étant justement de développer l'interdit de la pensée t r a g i q u e : et

le probable étant

roman a s s u m e , dicalement ca, lousie

consubstantiels

la discursivitê

dialogique.

e t p a s de d i s c o u r s

sur l'univers

de R o b b e - G r i l l e t , l'ai

qu'il

En o u t r e ,

le

sans

que

le

met en o e u v r e s e r a colonial,

la présence

Sancho

ra­ Pan­

d a n s La

Ja­

des d i s c o u r s

op­

sur le colonialisme

m o n t r é d a n s Lecture

multiple

au " v i v a n t " ,

P a s d e Don Q u i c h o t t e s a n s

p o s é s ou c o m p l é m e n t a i r e s comme j e

23

l e compromis v i v a n t .

politique

et du

ses

enjeux, 24 roman.

L ' e s s e n c e du roman se c o n c e n t r e a l o r s en c e t t e d i v e r ­ s i t é où l a d i a l e c t i q u e des d i s c o u r s f a i t f i g u r e de thème c e n t r a l , c a r s i p r o c h e que s o i t l e t e x t e d ' u n e p u r e r e p r é ­ s e n t a t i o n , i l ne l a i s s e pas de m a n i f e s t e r que c e l l e - c i e s t l i é e â 1 ' é n o n c i a t i o n d ' u n i n t e r l o c u t e u r , p r é s e n t ou p o s t u l é , qui l a p r o d u i t e t l a fonde. Lorsque,

d a n s La Jalousie,

nous

lisons:

Le personnage p r i n c i p a l du l i v r e e s t un f o n c t i o n n a i r e des douanes. Le personnage n ' e s t pas un f o n c t i o n n a i r e , mais un employé s u p é r i e u r d'une v i e i l l e compagnie . . . .

Les

affaires

de c e t t e compagnie sont mauvaises, e l l e s évoluent rapidement vers l ' e s c r o q u e r i e . Les a f f a i r e s de l a compagnie sont t r è s bonnes.

25

la séquence n'est contradictoire qu'en apparence. J'ai en effet pu démontrer 26 que chaque proposition renvoie à ce que

374

ROMAN ET SOCIETE pourrait

manifester

nisation

et le colonialisme.

fait

(ou f a i s a i t )

jourd'hui cité

partie

reconstituer,

renvoie-t-il

toires

une h i s t o i r e

des d i s c o u r s

Chacune de c e s

d'un discours

Ainsi

le

même d e s d i s c o u r s

passage contradic­

où s ' e s t e x p r i m é l e p r o c è s de c o l o n i s a t i o n

colonisation,

avec sa chaîne d ' a f f i r m a t i o n s ,

e t de d é n é g a t i o n s , l'autre

e t non å l a v é r i t é

e t de d é ­

de n é g a t i o n s

s u p p o s é e de l ' u n e

de c e s a f f i r m a t i o n s .

I l indique

à la fois

ment d e s l i e u x de p r o d u c t i o n

discursive

(métropole -

nie) , des époques options truit,

(avant

idéologiques La Jalousie

l'existence,

La Jalousie

les personnages réalité

la prégnance,

nécessaire

discursive

colo­

1945),

des

cons­

de

discours

et

peut-être

a b e s o i n de c e s r a p p e l s pour que

et les discours

tués dans l e r a p p o r t cette

après

ou

implicite­

En t a n t q u e t e x t e

met en j e u c e s f r a g m e n t s

p o u r en r a p p e l e r l'actualité.

19 1 0 , 1 9 2 0 - 1 9 3 9 ,

différentes.

colo­

que l ' o n p e u t a u ­

dater et situer.

à l'histoire

sur la

affirmations

qu'elle qu'ils

produit

soient

entretiennent

si­

avec

multiple.

Dans l e roman - s o u l i g n e B a k h t i n e - d o i v e n t ê t r e

représen­

t é e s t o u t e s l e s v o i x s o c i o - i d é o l o g i q u e s de l ' é p o q u e ,

autre­

ment d i t , t o u s l e s l a n g a g e s t a n t s o i t p e u i m p o r t a n t s de l e u r 27 t e m p s : l e roman d o i t ê t r e l e m i c r o c o s m e du p l u r i l i n g u i s m e . 2 7

Certes,

il

convient d ' i n t e r p r é t e r

t ô t comme une de s e s p o s s i b i l i t é s roman p e u t a u s s i , s'inscrire

parfois,

ment son

375

q u a s i monologique

dans une hégémonie

Là n ' e s t

destin.

du roman

plu­

e t ne p a s o u b l i e r que

s'avérer

presque parfaitement

idêologico-linguistigue.

ce " d e v o i r "

cependant pas

le

et

socio-

nécessaire­

S E M I O T I C S AND D I A L E C T I C S

IV.

Une théorie

ésotérique.

J ' a i annonce p l u s h a u t q u ' i l n ' a v a i t pas échappé â Lukács que l e problème de l ' h o m o g é n é i t é i d é o l o g i q u e dans l e roman se p o s a i t , e t que son a b s e n c e c o n c e r n a i t p r o p r e m e n t l a forme du roman. Dans l e t e x t e q u i m'a s e r v i de f i l c o n d u c t e u r Dour c e t t e é t u d e , Lukács c i t e à un c e r t a i n moment de sa démons­ t r a t i o n l e p a s s a g e s u i v a n t des illusions perdues de B a l z a c , q u ' o n r a p p r o c h e r a du t e x t e de La Jalousie reproduit plus haut: Tout e s t b i l a t é r a l dans l e domaine de l a pensée. . . . Rousseau, dans l a Nouvelle

Héloîse,

a é c r i t une l e t t r e pour

e t une l e t t r e contre l e d u e l , o s e r a i s - t u prendre sur t o i de déterminer sa v é r i t a b l e opinion? 2 8

Cet exemple v i e n t s o u t e n i r une d é m o n s t r a t i o n où i l a p p a r a î t que l a théorie du roman r e s t e i m p a r f a i t e e t a b s t r a i t e t a n d i s que l a pratique romanesque l a d é p a s s e en p r o f o n d e u r . I l y a, d i t L u k á c s , "un débordement de l a p r a t i q u e " p a r r a p p o r t à 29 "la théorie" de t e l l e s o r t e que l e s r o m a n c i e r s o n t é t é c a p a b l e s de f i g u r e r ce que l a t h é o r i e e s t e n c o r e l o i n de c e r n e r . C e t t e avancée " t h é o r i q u e " , r e p é r a b l e dans l a p r a ­ t i q u e de l ' é c r i t u r e r o m a n e s q u e , Lukács l ' a p p e l l e " t h é o r i e ésotérique". Il écrit ainsi: Cependant, à côté de l a t h é o r i e o f f i c i e l l e des grands é c r i ­ vains e t penseurs de l a période r é v o l u t i o n n a i r e de l a bour­ g e o i s i e , i l y a également dans l e u r s oeuvres une t h é o r i e ' é s o t é r i q u e ' où se manifeste une i n t e l l i g e n c e p l u s l u c i d e des c o n t r a d i c t i o n s fondamentales que dans l a t h é o r i e du r o ­ man proprement d i t e .

376

ROMAN ET SOCIETE On pourrait croire que ces "contradictions fondamentales" désignent les contradictions fondamentales du capitalisme sur lesquelles Lukács insiste par ailleurs, et qu'il se ré­ serverait en quelque sorte la confortable position du théo­ ricien matérialiste des "théories ésotériques". Il n'en est rien cependant. Curieusement, les exemples qu'il donne orientent l'attention vers un champ tout opposé au sien. Citant Balzac, ce n'est pas le maître du réalisme anti­ bourgeois qu'il convoque, mais un Balzac solidaire des pa­ roles relativistes qu'il met dans la bouche de Blondet. Dans le même développement, Lukács cite derechef un modèle de dialogisme, Le Neveu

de Rameau,

occupe dans la Phénoménologie

pour la place que celui-ci de

l'Esprit.

Ainsi s'esauisse, sous forme de "théorie ésotérique", une sorte de contre-théorie au coeur même de la démonstra­ tion lukácsienne. Il faut cependant prendre garde au fait que ces exemples de dialogisme ne mettent jamais en scène les personnages romanesques eux-mêmes, mais seulement des discours

rapportés.

Blondet pose la question de la vérité

des opinions, non à l'occasion d'un quelconque personnage des Illusions

perdues,

mais à propos de Molière, Corneille

et Rousseau. Dans La Jalousie,

on l'a vu, ce sont des pans

de discours, historiquement repérables, aui entrent dans le texte, comme des échos de débats plus ou moins proches dans la culture. La référence de Hegel à Diderot, on s'en sou31 vient, illustre l'analyse de la pure culture comme abso­ lue perversion des moments de la conscience, les uns dans les autres. Cette chaîne d'exemples est d'une parfaite cohérence. Elle parle d'une dialectique des discours concurrents où la

377

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS perversion du sens, sa labilité incontrôlable du plus au moins, du vrai au faux, devient la caracteristiaue même des discours, dans la culture.

Le l a n g a g e , d i t H e g e l , e s t l ' e f f i c a c i t é tion,

de

l'extranéa-

celle-ci arrive seulement dans le

langage,

qui se présente ici 32

dans sa signification caractéristique.

Voilà pourquoi ces exemples ne mettent pas en scène des in­ dividus, mais des discours. C'est la légalité des langages que ces textes mettent à la question et, par delà les lan­ gages, ce sont le règne de l'éthique et du commandement qui viennent à être problêmatisés. En effet, dans le règne de l' éthique le langage s'exprime par les catégories juri­ diques des droits et devoirs, comme dans la tragédie. Le con­ tenu du langage est alors l'essence même, et le langage lui-même est la forme de l'essence. Mais dans le monde de 1'extranéation, comme dit Hegel, dans le monde du roman tel que compris par Diderot, peutêtre Balzac et certainement Robbe-Grillet, le langage a pour contenu non plus l'essence, mais la forme qu'il est luimême. Il a désormais valeur comme langage. Ce qui frappe dès lors, c'est au'au coeur de sa théo­ rie, laquelle est fondée sur une interprétation "tragique" du genre romanesque, c'est-à-dire sur une lecture informée par une grille catégoriale rhétorico-juridique, Lukács ait placé deux exemples de ce que cette théorie ne peut inté­ grer, et qu'elle n'intègre d'ailleurs nullement dans son texte. Faut-il y voir, en suivant peut-être malgré lui ses

378

ROMAN ET SOCIETE propres indications, une manifestation du débordement de la praxis sur la théorie, et donc, comme in

nuce,

une

"théorie ésotérique" du dialogisme romanesque? Cette question me paraît importante, non pas tant pour mon propos actuel, qui est d'ordre théorique, aue pour une étude historique de la pensée de Lukács lui-même. On y trouve en effet, ici et là, des blocs erratiques où se dé­ veloppe cette même "théorie ésotérique", en rupture de ban avec les lignes de force de l'oeuvre globale. C'est parti33 culiérement le cas pour un article sur la satire, qui date des mêmes années que les textes analysés ici, dans lequel émerge, si je puis dire, le "refoulé" de la théorie du roman mise en place par Lukács. V.

Conclure? Je ne voudrais pas que le fait d'avoir centré sur la

théorie lukácsienne du roman l'essentiel de mon analyse occulte la visée de ce retour critique. Le sens constructif de cette reprise critique est de nous permettre de poser d'autres questions au roman que celles aue permet seule la conception rhetorico-juridique

(tragique) qui a servi à

Lukács et Goldmann. Aussi je désire, pour conclure, rassembler sous la forme lapidaire de thèses l'essentiel de cette trop longue démarche: 1) Pour des raisons qu'on pourrait développer sur le plan historique, la pensée de Lukács, dès le début de son oeuvre, est hantée par un modèle rhétorico-juridique dont la tragédie représente la formulation par excellence.

379

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 2) En situant le roman sur le même axe que l'épopée et la tragédie, Lukács privilégie dans son analyse de ce genre la structure actantielle propre à 1 ' a c t i o n

tragique.

3) Goldmann reprend globalement à son compte les choix lukácsiens. Là aussi une analyse historique pourrait mon­ trer comment la valorisation de la tragédie dans Le dieu che,

et indirectement dans Pour

une

sociologie

du

ca­

roman,

s'inscrit comme une réponse ou un dialogue avec la crise de la pensée marxiste d'après-guerre; le caractère indirect de la valorisation du tragique dans Pour

une

sociologie

du

roman

étant å rapprocher du pessimisme dominant å la fin des an­ nées cinquante et au début des années soixante chez la plu­ part des marxistes européens privés de tout espoir en l'af­ firmation du prolétariat, du sujet révolutionnaire de l'his­ toire . 4) Cependant, l'orientation

sociologique

que Goldmann

a donnée à la recherche sur le roman, si elle pouvait béné­ ficier de la méthodologie mise en oeuvre dans Le dieu

caché,

et que Goldmann lui-même a abandonnée pour des raisons liées à la conception qu'il s'était faite du roman et de l'inexis­ tence de toute valeur dans la société capitaliste, cette orientation

sociologique,

donc, permettrait de reprendre le

dialogisme discursif du roman dans la perspective d'une in­ sertion socio-idéologico-linguistique des discours. Tel a été, pour une part, le projet de Lecture

politique

du

roman.

5) Dans cette perspective, l'unité du roman, comme mise en forme du vécu et des discursivités réflexives produites sur ce vécu, est toujours à penser dans l'optique d'un procès dynamique. Cette unité, qui est le problème esthétique fonda­ mental de l'écriture romanesque, est un horizon, elle est

380

ROMAN ET SOCIETE devant,

et on ne saurait par conséquent en chercher la loi

dans un état donné de la société. 6) Les concepts goldmanniens de conscience possible, de structure significative et de conscience de classe ou de groupe social, s'ils doivent être, comme je le pense, rendus å la théorie sociologique du roman par delà leur re­ jet dans Pour

une

sociologie

du roman,

ne devront pas être

placés, dans un schéma explicatif, en-deçà du roman, mais au-delà, comme ce à quoi tend le roman comme praxis discur­ sive dialogique. 7) Mais le travail de la cohérence ou la tendance à l'équilibre n'est pas le travail de l'écrivain comme ma­ nieur de mots, ni du héros comme agent.

C'est le travail du

roman comme texte circulant et agissant dans la société. L'oeuvre littéraire agit comme principe structurant de con­ naissance esthétique de la situation dans le monde et du monde. L'oeuvre fait partie d'une subjectivité englobante, elle est, avec son auteur et son "utilisateur", partie in­ tégrante d'une intrasubjectivité

historique. Le roman est

un discours qui, en se produisant, constitue son sujet. 8) L'oeuvre est constituante intrasubjectivité

et non produit

de cette

dont je reprends le concept à Goldmann.

Certes elle est liée à des conditions de possibilité nom­ breuses qui la précèdent. Ces conditions de possibilité ne constituent cependant pas une subjectivité

organisatrice

(la situation est différente pour la tragédie).

9) La vocation totalitaire logie n'est qu'un a priori ne constitue pas un sujet

(hégémonique) de l'idéo­

de l'oeuvre romanesque, mais par rapport à sa production. La

seule subjectivité que l'on puisse reconnaître à l'oeuvre 381

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS est en avant de celle-ci, elle est 1'intrasubjectivité qui se constitue dans le procès social et culturel auquel par­ ticipe l'oeuvre. 10) Dans cette perspective d'une intrasubjectivité comme lieu d'activité sociale, la connaissance esthétique dont le roman est un des aspects joue un rôle constituant.

382

ROMAN ET SOCIETE

N O T E S

G. Lukåcs, "Rapport sur le roman" et "Le roman", in Ecrits

de

Moscou, traduction et introduction de Claude Prévost, Paris, Edi­ tions Sociales, 1974, pp. 63-78 et 79-140. 2 Ibid., p.87. 3 . Ibid., .66. 4 G. Lukåcs, Ά Modern Drama. Fejlödésének

története,

Budapest,

Franklin Tàrsulat, 1911. 5 G. Lukåcs, Le Roman historique,

Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 1977,

p.156. C'est nous qui soulignons. 6

Aristote, Poétique, 1450a. 7 G.W.F. Hegel, Esthétique, Tome III, 2ème partie, Aubier, 1944, p.248. 8

G. Lukàcs, L'Ame et les Formes, Gallimard, 1974, p.253. 9 C. Lugowski, Die Form der Individualität im Roman, Suhrkamp, 1976. 10 C i t a t i o n de 1'Esthétique de Hegel,

t . I , op.cit.

c i t é p a r G. Lukacs

in Ecrits de Moscou, op. cit., p.84. Cf. Lukacs, La Theorie du roman, t r a d u i t de l ' a l l e m a n d p a r Jean C l a i r e v o y e , E d i t i o n s Gonthier, 1963, Chapitre p r e m i e r . 12 G. Lukàcs, "Le roman", in Ecrits de Moscou, op. ci t., p.96. 13 Cf. M. Bakhtine, "Du discours romanesque" in Esthétique et théorie du roman, Gallimard, 1978, p.218-219. 14 G. Lukàcs, op.cit.,

p.97-98.

15 M. Bakhtine, op. it., p.219.

383

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 16 G. Lukàcs, op.cit., p.98. 17 Cf. M. Bakhtine, L'Oeuvre de F. Rabelais et la culture au Moyen Age et sous la Renaissance, Gallimard, 1970. 18 L. Goldmann, Pour une sociologie

populaire

du roman, Gallimard, 1964,

2ème éd. 19 Cf. R. Girard, Mensonge romantique

et vérité

romanesque,

Grasset,

1961. 20 L. Goldmann, op.ci t . , p.21. 21 lbid., p.22. 22 Cf. L. Goldmann, Le dieu caché. Etude sur la vision "Les pensées" de Pascal et dans le théâtre de Racine,

tragique dans Gallimard, 1955.

Significativement, Lukacs réduit toute tradition romanesque qui, à 1'example du wilhelm

Meister

de Goethe, explorerait la "voie média­

ne", à n'être que la prise de conscience philosophique de la diffé­ rence relative entre épopée et roman, une différence littéraire par conséquent qui ne rejaillit nullement sur la théorie socio-histo­ rique du roman. Cf. "Le roman", op.cit.,

p.89.

24 Cf. J. Leenhardt, Lecture Robbe-Grillet,

politique

du roman:"La Jalousie"

d'Alain

éd. de Minuit, 1973.

25 A. Robbe-Grillet, La Jalousie, éd. de Minuit, 1957, p.216. J. Leenhardt, Lecture politique du roman, op.cit., p.178-183. 27 M. Bakhtine, op.ci t . , p.223. 28 Balzac, La Comédie Humaine, Gallimard, Ed. Pléiade, t.IV, p.789. Cité par Lukàcs in "Le roman", op. ci t., p. 92-93. 29 G.Lukàcs, op.ci t . , p.91. 30 Id. 31 Cf. G.W.F. Hegel, La Phénoménologie de l'esprit, traduction Jean Hyppolite, Ed. Aubier Montaigne, 384 1941, vol.II, p.79.

ROMAN ET SOCIETE 32 Ibid., p.69.

33 G. Lukacs, "A propos de la satire", in Problèmes

du

réalisme,

texte francais de Claude Prévost et Jean Guégan, Paris, l'Arche, 1975, pp.15-40. J'ai consacré une étude à cet article, "Au coeur du débat Brecht-Lukács: la satire (à paraître dans le numéro spécial de L'Herne consacré à B. Brecht).

385

ON THE SPATIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE*

Karin M. Boklund

1.

INTRODUCTION

1.1. In a recent article in Semiotica

("On the Metalanguage

of a Typological Description of Culture", Semiotica

14:2,

1975, 97-123), Juri Lotman indicates that "the system of spatial characteristics of cultural texts, when isolated as an independent system, can act as a metalanguage of their uniform description" (p. 102, § 3.2.1). It can thus serve to analyze the structural transformations from one text to another, either within a given world view or between adjacent or related world views, as Lotman mentions. 1 Independently from its geometrical perspective, this method of description, when applied to the courtly verse romance of the Middle Ages, produces interesting results and aids considerably in our understanding of the texts. 1.2 The medieval courtly verse romance is a useful sub­ ject for such a description, since the fully developed

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS courtly romance is represented by a corpus composed of a small number of texts generally directly related to one another, with a known origin in the Erec

of Chrétien de

Troyes. While the texts generally are very close to each other in date and environment of composition, the influ­ ence of the courtly verse romance is widespread in all of late medieval culture. The texts also present problems of interpretation that a 'topological' description can re­ solve, and a series of structural transformations that show the versatility of the model. 1.3. We shall take as principal text for this descrip­ tion the Erec

of Chrétien de Troyes

(c. 1170), which is

the first fully elaborated courtly verse romance and serves as prototype for all later texts. To complete the description we shall refer to other texts as necessary. Once the standard model has been established, however, it permits us to interpret other texts with reference to this standard. An outline of the possibilities of such an inter­ pretation will constitute the final part of this study.

2.

THE

2.1.

COSMOLOGY

The basic

OF

COURTLY

ROMANCE

opposition

2.1.1. The most fundamental opposition in all courtly texts,including the romances, is the opposition between that which is courtly and that which is noncourtly, and vilain.

Cortes

cortes

is the strong member of the opposition.

As the opposition is projected in the text (forming what Lotman calls the "cultural space"), the space of

corteisie

'courtliness' is the internal, closed space: mathematically

388

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE because it contains a limited number of elements whereas •che area of noncourtly space is conceived of as unlimited and indeterminate; and cosmologically because is opposed to vileinie

corteisie

'commonness' as cosmos to chaos,

or as 'value' to lack of value. The courtly space is semiotically 'marked'; all remaining space is characterized principally by an absence of corteisie.

In terms of a myth­

ical cosmology, the courtly space is the center of the world

(see § 2.2.1). It is in contact with and in conform­

ity to the true order of the universe. The act of maintain­ ing intact the courtly space corresponds to the act of defending the only true and absolute order against dissolu­ tion and chaos. The courtly order is the only order, the only source of values that the text admits, the only source of meaning that the text accepts as possible. 2.1.2 The characteristics of corteisie are well known 2 from studies of the Provençal lyric, which is the most static of the courtly texts and corresponds to Lotman's type 4.0.1, texts characterizing the structure of the world. The romance introduces only one change in the char­ acteristics of corteisie: lationship of f in ' amors

instead of insisting on the re­ 'courtly love' as the necessary

qualification for belonging to the closed space of teisie,

cor­

it insists on the qualification of noble birth. To

enter the space of corteisie

one must belong to a court,

and in order to gain entrance to the court one must be of noble birth. The other characteristics are shared with the lyric: courtly space is marked by beauty, youth, elegance, luxury, generosity, courage, refinement in behavior, and sagesse,

i.e., knowledge of how to conduct oneself in

courtly activities such as wooing, hunting, jousting,

389

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS feasting, conversing, singing, dancing, and merry-making. 2.1.3 As Michael Meylakh has pointed out ("The of the Courtly Universe of the Troubadours",

Structure

Semiotica

14:1, 1975, 61-80, p. 71ff.), the courtly value system presupposes, even when it does not explicitly formulate, a neoplatonic ethical/aesthetic structure in which the values of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful are identi­ fied with each other (and in their absolute form are all identified with God). This is generally not explicitly stated in the courtly texts, but it is consistently im­ plied. As a consequence there is a relationship of corre­ spondence between the various characteristics of

corteisie

such that any one of these qualities necessarily implies the others. That which is beautiful is also by necessity good, wise, brave, noble, elegant, etc. Any breach in the sequence of correspondences - such as Erec encounters in the person of Enide, who is noble, beautiful, wise, etc. but poor and dressed in a torn shift - is a scandal and a source of danger. 2.1.4 Another consequence of the same absolutizing ten­ dency is that appearance must always and necessarily cor­ respond to essence. Someone who is richly dressed is by that fact alone identified as belonging to courtly space and hence as noble, good, brave, etc. Someone who is ugly, malformed, or merely poor is by definition vilain

'common'.

That supposedly courtly personages such as knights in armour can commit villainous deeds beginning of Erec)

(insulting a lady in the

is a threat to this necessary identifi­

cation of appearance and essence, and hence to the whole structure of the courtly cosmos. This is why insults must be avenged and the proper relation of appearance to reality

390

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE restored. 2.1.5 The 'natural' mode of existence of the court, the state which is the direct expression of its harmony with the order of the cosmos, is what the romances call

joie

'joy'. In this respect the romances differ from the lyric in a significant fashion. In the lyric, joie the poet's amor

results from

for his lady and from the recognition she

shows him; just as all other courtly virtues also result from this relationship of fin

' a m o r s . 3 The courtly space

of the lyric is centered on the lady. For the romance, fin

'amors

is, on the

whole

and with several significant

exceptions, only one of the activities of the court. The essential characteristic of courtly space for the romance is, as we have seen, nobility of birth. The space is or­ ganized internally according to the hierarchy of the feudal social order

(at least in theory), and its actual center

is the king. The symbolic king par excellence is Arthur. For the lyric the order of the cosmos depends on the figure of the lady, and the state of joie

which is the state of

being in harmony with the order of the cosmos is conse­ quently dependent on one's relationship to her. For the romance it is the court as a whole, when it is properly ordered around the king and closed with respect to the ex­ terior noncourtly space, which translates the order of the cosmos and it is consequently this condition of the court which is characterized by joie.

In particular joie

is char­

acteristic of the court when it has successfully defended itself against a challenge and reestablished its order, as when Enide is received at the court of King Arthur in

Erec,

or when Erec successfully achieves the adventure that is called exactly the Joie

de la

Cour

391

'joy of the court'.

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 2.1.6 The exterior space, the realm of vileinie,

is

defined negatively with respect to the space of the court: it is the domaine of the noncourtly, where appearances de­ ceive, where noble birth does not insure courtly behavior or a luxurious life, where phenomena resist structuring and remain incomprehensible. It is the territory of chaos and conflict, whereas no conflict is permitted within the space of the court: as soon as a conflict arises in the court, someone immediately departs from internal space and goes on a quest or an avanture,

as the texts call it, to

permit the conflict to be resolved. When Erec because of his love for Enide fails to participate in the courtly ac­ tivities of jousts and tournaments and is thus cut off from the community of the court, this threat to the perfect ho­ mogeneity of the courtly space gives rise in the text to a quarrel between Erec and Enide, an open conflict. To re­ solve this conflict, simply because

it

is

a conflict,

is necessary for Erec immediately to depart on an

it avanture,

to leave internal space where conflicts must not exist. 2.1.7 The noncourtly space - of avanture

, of

vileinie,

or of conflict - has a certain geography of its own. In Erec

it appears first as li

forest

avantureuse,

and the

forest remains its dominant geographical feature. The for4 est is the wilderness, lack of human civilization. It is the habitat of wild beasts, giants, robbers, and sometimes supernatural creatures

(though there are in point of fact

very few fairies in the verse romances). Within the forest and beyond it there is an odd assortment of people and places which the text classifies in the same category: cit­ ies and towns; isolated castles that can be either hospi­ table enclaves of corteisie

or the locus of an adventure

392

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE with the forces of chaos; vilains

'commonners'

intent on

business of their own. These elements are classified by the courtly romance, with the forest of wild beasts and supernatural creatures, as belonging to the category of the noncourtly and therefore in one fundamental respect essentially alike. They appear and disappear purely in relation to the hero and his quest and have no existence in the text independently of him and his purpose. 2.1.8 It is possible for various complex spaces to be differentiated from the nondemarcated space of a) There are enclaves of corteisie

avanture.

in the realm of

chaos: courts other than that of Arthur, isolated castles, and the courtly 'atmosphere' that adheres to the hero and imposes itself around him. But these are properly speaking simply geographical occurrences of the culturally and cosmologically unified courtly space. Provided that they share the characteristics of courtly space in general, they are not independent. b) There can, however, be spaces that share some, but not all, of the characteristics of courtly space, and that combine these characteristics with noncourtly elements. A striking example is the land of Gor, where Lancelot finds joie

with the queen, alone, in a space hostile to the

court, and long before any resolution of the central con­ flict of the narrative has been achieved. c) Spaces that are defined in various ways as magical can also be differentiated both from courtly and from non­ courtly space. Frequently there is nothing to distinguish these spaces internally from the dangerous and confused space of avanture

in general, but they are marked by very

emphatic boundaries. When Erec undertakes the Joie

393

de

la

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Cour,

he first comes to a city which is on an island in

the middle of a river. He is met by a host of people who all attempt to dissuade him from the adventure. He goes to a meadow where there is a garden entirely surrounded by a wall; the fruits and flowers of the garden cannot be taken out of it; indeed it is impossible to leave the enclosure once one has entered it. This is a boundary with a ven­ geance. Similarly, the Grail castle in Perceval

is by a

river impossible to cross; when on leaving the castle Perceval encounters a damsel, she indicates that in the direction from which he came there is nothing but wilder­ ness. The space of the Grail castle is outside the space of normal avanture

altogether.

2.1.9 The problem which such differentiated spaces pre­ sent is that they tend to act as alternative centers for the narrative and thus to conflict with the original cen­ ter, the court. This is quite explicitly the problem in the Lancelot

and Tristan

romances, and in the Parzival

ram von Eschenbach. As Lotman remarks

of Wolf­

(p. 108, § 6.2.1),

such a situation is impossible: the 'cultural space' does not permit more than one basic boundary, one center. There are according to the logic of Lotman's model two ways of resolving the situation: either the new differentiated space is assimilated to the old central space (the Joie la

Cour

turns out, after

perfectly

de

the victory of Erec, to have a

'courtly' explanation); or the new space dis­

places the old space as center of the narrative, restruc­ turing the external space so that it comprises the old in­ ternal space as one of its components in Wolfram's Parzival).

(this is what happens

In either case, the space has un­

dergone certain transformations. The operation of such

394

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE transformations constitutes the plot of courtly romance. 2.2 Mythological 2.2.1

cosmos

and

ideology

In the mythological cosmos formed by the courtly

texts, the court is the center and source of all value in the universe of the romance. The space of the court itself is structured, but in two contradictory ways. Since the external space of avanture

is extended in all direc­

tions around the courtly space, in a way which permits the identification of its confines with the confines of the earth, it becomes clear that the courtly space is identified with the central region of the world

(and the

universe). This center of the world is organized around one fixed point, the king. The king in the romances occu­ pies the position of the cosmic axis in cosmology: the cosmic axis passes through the center of the world in the form of a tree, cross, or ladder and permits the passage from one world to another, hence the communication with the realm of the sacred

(see § 4.1.1).

The king himself,

being thus the structuring principle of the courtly space, does not and cannot act, because the very definition of 'action' is the crossing of boundaries, their defense and reestablishment

(or, in Lotman's type 4.0.2, their founda­

tion) , and the king is by definition a fixed point with reference to which the boundaries are defined

(cf. the

fixity of the earth in the center of the universe in Ptolemaic astronomy). Of course he can move in geographical space, but in that case the whole of the cultural space simply moves with him: from Carduel to Broéliande to Cardigan, the structure moves intact and as a whole. The

395

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS active replacement of the king in the plot of the narrative is Gauvain, Arthur's sister's son.

The feminine counter­

part of the king is the queen. These standard personages are in fact various functional aspects of the king as center of the romance space. There are also certain objects as­ sociated with the king: the Grail, which is identified 7 with the center of the world, and the Table Round, which 

in Celtic mythology represents the turning world.

Thus,

the courtly organization of space corresponds to the gener­ al pattern of medieval maps, in which not only the external limits, but also the internal center, are circular in 9 shape. And in principle, the texts recognize as internal organization of the court only the structure of a perfect circle with the king as its center. The Table Round is the perfect symbolic object for the organization of the court, in which all members are equal by virtue of their identical relation to the central point. Though the court of Arthur and Guenièvre is habitually its narrative embodiment, the structure is identical when transposed to any court, any­ where. The household of Erec and Enide, the court of King Mark of Cornwall, the castle of Yvain and Laudine reproduce in principle the same organization and become when they appear the

court, the current embodiment of the abstract

structure. 2.2.2 But in fact there is another organization inter­ mittently visible in the texts, more closely related to the hierarchically structured feudal social and religious or­ der. In this case, which is not made explicit by the narra­ tive, the court is divided roughly into the very exception­ al knights, the ordinary knights, and a host of dependents. What distinguishes one group from another is the degree to

396

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE which they are the recipients of generosity, i.e. the de­ gree of their financial dependence upon the king. The heroes of romance belong to the category of exceptional knights, and the text often specifies that they are the sons of kings

(Erec is a prince, Yvain is the son of King

Urien): their clothing, armour, weapons all display con­ spicuous marks of wealth. The ordinary knights have no particular ancestry, expected inheritance, or wealth. Then there are the attendants, handmaidens, faithful retainers and other associates, who belong to the courtly sphere by virtue of their dependence on a lord

(but the lord himself

gains his courtly status as a result of the number and con­ dition of his dependents). Great celebrations, the occa­ sions for joie,

are marked by generosity on the part of the

lord: at Erec's wedding and again at his coronation, King Arthur gives away clothing to everyone at court. The gener­ osity is also hierarchically structured. Servants are paid for their services, ordinary members of the court are given items of courtly luxury such as clothing, and the highest ranking members are given largely symbolic objects: the crown and sceptre of Erec, the dress of Enide which is from the queen's own wardrobe. 2.2.3 These two conflicting versions of the internal structure of the court reflect the position and preoccupa­ tions of the original audience of the courtly texts. The great twelfth century courts of northern France were in 10 fact, as Erich Köhler has pointed out, composed largely of younger sons of minor noble families in a period when the feudal aristocracy was being gradually impoverished by a rising mercantile class. 1 1 The great lords of the realm, the counts in northern France, the counts and dukes

397

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS of the south, were in a position, as official protectors of the public order and especially as possessors of the privilege of coining money, to profit temporarily by the rise of commerce and could thus assemble around themselves groups of dependents, in theory their equals because tech­ nically of noble birth, in practise their inferiors be­ cause dependent for their livelihood on the financial sup­ port of their lord. This group of dependents would be a mixed lot: their social position and financial prospects would differentiate them from one another as well as from their lord. Frequently, of course, their relationship with their lord would include the old bond of vassalage as well. It is for this audience that courtly romance is written. 2.2.4 The dual internal organization of the courtly space reflects the ambiguous position of the courtly aris­ tocracy. In reality their organization is complex and hier­ archical, but ideologically the courtly aristocracy affirms the essential equality of all members of the court and wants to recognize no other organizing principle than the perfect circle around the fixed central point. The texts reproduce this split. It also appears in the tendency, al­ ready mentioned in §§ 2.1.3 and 2.1.4 above, to turn socio­ economic facts such as wealth, luxury, and elegance into moral virtues - beauty, wisdom, manners. The function of these narratives in the society which produced them was to justify and glorify the life of the courtly aristocracy. Their mythological cosmos, their cultural space, is in sol­ idarity with and homeomorphic with the ideological world view of their audience. 2.2.5 This solidarity between the romances and an ideo­ logical world view does not only affect the original orga-

398

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE nization and characterization of the romance space, but also frequently determines and limits the free play of structural possibilities and transformations introduced by the plot. It is the fundamental reason why the text will not tolerate more than one basic boundary within the ro­ mance space, and it regulates the kinds of transformations the space is allowed to undergo. There is no structural reason why Tristan and Isolt should not found a new center for the romance space 'in Gottfried's Tristan an ideological reason. Extratextual elements

, but there is (ideology,

socioeconomic reality, or both) limit the possibilities of structural transformations. Very few texts succeed in free­ ing themselves from these restraints, and if they succeed at all it is usually in presenting themselves as purely fictional, as 'entertainment' with no serious implications for the lives of their audience. One possible escape is in irony, and Chrétien's Yvain ironic elements. 1 2 3. THE JOURNEY

3.1

The

breakdown

OF THE

of

does in fact appear to include

HERO

the

boundaries

3.1.1 Courtly romance belongs to Lotman's category 4.0.2, "characterizing the place, disposition and activity of man in the surrounding world"

(Lotman p. 102, § 4.0.2). There

is a 'plot', an action, which may be defined as a journey across the boundary of the romance space. In the verse ro­ mances, this crossing·of the boundary is not presented as a spontaneous action. It is always a necessary response to a breach in the boundary which has already occurred. There

399

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS are two ways in which a boundary can be breached: either one of the normal activities of the court brings it into contact with the boundary area and a confrontation occurs (this is the case in the beginning of Exec,

with the hunt

for the white hart), or an agent of external chaos pene­ trates directly into the courtly space and issues a chal­ lenge (as in Lancelot).

In either case, the threat is pre­

sented as coming from the outside, and the ensueing quest or avanture

has as its purpose the reestablishment of the

boundary, the reaffirmation of order. 3.1.2 The immediate consequence of the breach is the intrusion of chaos into courtly space. Gauvain formulates this danger in his objections to the hunt for the white hart: he who kills the white hart gains the privilege of kissing the fairest damsel of the court, but every damsel has an ami

'friend' who will maintian that she

is the

fairest, and this will lead to dissention and fighting within the court. Thus, contact with the external space of chaos introduces the possibility of conflict within the space of courtly harmony, the possibility of revolt in the space of order. It is not the ostensible motives of honour and chivalry that determine the necessities of the narra­ tive structure, but the real necessity of maintaining in­ tact the cultural space and defending that courtly order which is seen as the order of the world. 3.1.3 The breakdown of the boundary between courtly and noncourtly space, threatening the clear distinction between them and the differentiation of order from chaos, tends to be formulated in the text as a divorce of appearance from essence. In the harmonious courtly space appearance corre­ sponds exactly to reality. When the space is threatened,

400

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE appearances become misleading, deceptive, dangerous. A knight in armour on horseback may not fight according to the rules of combat. A castle may not offer hospitality, may be a trap. A beautiful damsel, such as Enide, may not be properly dressed - a courtly vavasor

'lowranking noble­

man' may be living in abject poverty. The success of the quest will thus entail a restoration of the proper corre­ spondence between appearance and inner essence as one of its immediate results. 3.2 The

hero

3.2.1 For the preservation of the integrity of the courtly space, the conflict must immediately be carried away the court and out into the external space of

from

avanture.

The subject who effects this explusion is the hero. He is an ambiguous personage. On the one hand, the text will in­ sist on his perfection as a knight, his perfection in all the courtly virtues. On the other, frequently he becomes the hero of the quest because of some mistake or flaw of his - Erec does not participate in the hunt for the white hart, and when the queen is insulted in his company he is not even armed and cannot challenge the stranger; Lancelot and Tristan are exceptionally qualified as heroes of

because

their deviation from the standard courtly pattern

(this

is made quite explicit when Lancelot wins battles against overwhelming odds because he thinks of or sees Guenièvre). Each text insists on the exceptionality of its hero, but at the same time we, the readers, find that all the knights of Arthurian romance bear a strong resemblance to each other. The hero is thus presented as both typical and

401

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS unique, uniquely suited for this particular quest because he is a typical member of the court, a representative of its values. If he is more than this, the hero causes prob­ lems in the narrative structure, as indeed happens with both Lancelot and Tristan

(see below § 4.2 and 4.3).

3.2.2 It is possible to relate the function of the hero in courtly romance to the function of the sacrificial victim as conceived by R. Girard. 1 3 For Girard, the function of the sacrifice is to disguise and deflect what he calls violence within the community, by substituting a sacrifi­ cial victim who is marginally identified with the community without really belonging to it. The members of the commu­ nity, instead of struggling with each other and destroying their society, are united in their destruction of this single victim. By ritually killing or expelling the victim, they expelí or project their internal conflict outside the community. The victim thus gains for them peace, harmony, and order; he is himself transformed into a hero or a god. Whatever the merits of this theory on ethnological grounds, the hero of courtly romance partially fulfills such a func­ tion. Because he is both unique and typical, he can be singled out for the quest and yet represent the whole court. He takes the threatening conflict with him out of the court into external space of chaos, and he must not re­ turn to the court until the conflict is resolved. He is not himself sacrificed, of course. But, ultimately, every con­ flict that is resolved in courtly romance is resolved by a battle. The hero meets his opponent in single combat and defeats him, sometimes kills him. It would seem that the establishment or reestablishment of spatial and cultural boundaries is related to Girard's "sacrificial crisis":

402

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE order is reaffirmed through a ritually controlled venture into chaos, and the unity of the internal cultural space is guaranteed by the expulsion of the hero until he succeeds in transferring the conflict from himself to his opponent and in defeating that opponent in battle.

3.3

The

guest

3.3.1 The quest itself is the process of defining the con­ flict in such a way that it can be transferred to one sym­ bolic opponent. It consists of a series of episodes that can be multiplied at will. Their first purpose is to demon­ strate the breakdown of the cultural boundary: the dangers that threaten the universe when the clear distinction of courtly vs. noncourtly no longer holds. Enide, travelling with Erec, who is actually her husband but appears to be indifferent to her, is propositioned by a count in the inn 14 This is not a matter of

where she and Erec are lodged. fin

'amors

but purely a business arrangement. The count will

give Enide proper clothing and lodgings, will treat her as a lady

(which Erec does n o t ) , and in return will have the

use of her body. It is entirely outside all the accepted courtly relationships, and the mere fact that such a pro­ position can be made demonstrates the treacherous nature of appearances in a universe where the courtly order is threatened. 3.3.2 The second purpose of the episodes of the quest is the qualification of the hero. He demonstrates his power to resist the breakdown of order by defeating the various dangers that he encounters. In the case of Erec, the es­ sential qualification lies in the necessary collaboration

403

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS between Erec and Enide. Because of her love for Erec, Enide warns him of every danger even though he has for­ bidden her to speak to him. Their ami/amie

relationship

is essential to the victory of order, even though it has cut Erec off from the court and thus is itself a threat to the courtly order. 3.3.3 Thus, the qualification of the hero also entails the further definition of the conflict, and this is the third purpose of the episodes of the quest. In actuality the quest does not develop further a conflict that is posed from the beginning; it rather defines a conflict originally rather unclear, and defines it in such a way that it can be resolved. Instead of confronting the forces of cosmic disorder in general, the hero acquires a particular oppo­ nent, who is not so much noncourtly as anticourtly, not so much lacking in courtly virtues as actively championing the cause of 'vice'. Whereas the special relationship of Erec and Enide threatens to cut them off from the court, the couple in the magic garden of the Joie

de

la

Cour

have ex­

plicitly and specifically set themselves and their ami/amie 15 relationship in opposition to the court. The source of conflict is defined, localized, and fixed on a specific opponent in a specific place, a subdivision of exterior space which will be integrated into courtly space the mo­ ment the hero defeats his opponent and the crisis is over. With this temporary subdivision of the external space to isolate the conflict and define it in terms which are nega­ tive versions of courtly values, the reestablishment of order becomes a simple reversal of the negative into the positive. 3.3.4 The definition of the conflict and the creation of

404

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE a temporary negative pole in exterior space serve to ex­ press the conflict in terms and categories of the courtly order and thus to make it controllable. The chaotic, the meaningless cannot be wholly contained and understood by the categories of corteisie.

When through the structure

of the quest the conflict has been localized and identified with an opponent, it has also become understandable within the concepts of the courtly universe. This is necessary to its successful resolution. 3.3.5 When the conflict is resolved, the negative pole is immediately integrated into courtly space, and the har­ mony of the court is restored. Evil opponents are trans­ formed into regular members of the court, are given a name and a lineage

(this happens in both the first and the

second quest of Erec: in the joust for the sparrowhawk his opponent is, when defeated, revealed as "Ydiers, Nut",

and in the Joie

de la

Cour

le

filz

Maboagrains turns out to

have been a member of the court of Erec's father). The hero returns to the court of King Arthur, and his arrival and victory are the occasions for a great celebration, for

joie.

Since the order has been successfully defended, the harmony of the court is once again perfect and it can resume its 'natural' state of

joie.

3.3.6 In the pattern of courtly romance as elaborated by Chrétien de Troyes in Erec,

there is generally a 'provi­

sional' return to court at some point during the quest. It is provisional because the conflict is not yet resolved and the hero cannot remain at court. Indeed the function of this return seems to be to indicate precisely that the conflict has not

been resolved. In Erec

it occurs when the

hero has defeated three sets of robbers and Guivret le

405

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Petit, when the text has clearly stated that Enide loves him and that he knows it, thus when the apparent of Erec's recréantise

problem

'cowardice' and his quarrel with

Enide have in fact disappeared. The refusal of Erec to go to the court or to stay at court thus is a clear way of stating that the real conflict is not on the plane of the psychological complexities of the relationship of hero and heroine, but belongs on the level of the structural neces­ sities of the narrative. 3.4 The Provisional

Return

3.4.1 The basic pattern of the quest is thus as follows: breach of the cultural boundary, threat of internal con­ flict, journey of the hero away from the court and a grad­ ual definition of the conflict in such a way that it can be resolved by a single combat between the hero and an op­ ponent, followed by a return to court and rejoicing. This pattern can be extended or duplicated almost indefinitely. To prolong the quest, more episodes can be added to the qualification of the hero

(§§ 3.3.1 and 3.3.2), or the

unique character of the hero and the definition of the con­ flict can become more complex (§§ 3.3.3 and 3.3.4). Both of these techniques are used in the Lancelot

of Chrétien. But

Chrétien's favorite technique appears to be the doubling of the whole quest sequence through the 'provisional' or false return to court (§ 3.3.6). This exists in Erec, Lancelot,

in Perceval

in the German Tristan

in

and, following Chrétien's example, and Parzival.

Generally, the hero's

provisional return to court emphasizes simply that the ori­ ginal quest is not finished; occasionally, a quest sequence

406

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE in itself perfectly completed such as the "premier vers", the first section of Erec,

is in retrospect presented as

unsuccessful or partial, necessitating another quest. In the second case the 'threat' appears as internal to the courtly space, because

(in retrospect) the text presents

the boundary as having already been breached. A similar case is seen in the opening episodes of Chrétien's val,

Perce­

the only courtly romance to have the external space,

the forest

gaste

'uncultivated forest' as its point of

departure because the spatial and cultural boundary has already been breached in the previous generation.

4.

4.1

TRANSFORMATIONS

Preliminary

remarks

4.1.1 The original spatial and cultural organization of courtly romance can thus be represented by the diagram in Fig. 1, where  is the space of the court, and A is exter­ nal space, the locus of avanture.

The circular shape is

due, as we have seen, to a sociopolitical and to a cosmological code (§ 2.2.1). The space  is centered on the king

(K). In the basic model, the only indication that 

communicates

(through its center the king through which

passes the axis of the world) with the realm of the sacred is the state of joie

proper to the court. But there are

traces of the original Celtic mythology in which the king was indeed in communication with the realm of the gods, and there are transformations of this basic, two-dimensional model in which a third dimension is introduced low) .

407

(see be­

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

Figure 1 4.1.2 Complications of the basic model take the form of the creation of new, autonomous subspaces in the realm of A. One such complication we have already seen in

Erec,

where an anticourtly pole is created expressly to resolve the conflict by reversing the anticourtly values and in­ tegrating this temporary subspace into harmonious courtly space. But what happens if the reversal cannot take place, either because the anticourtly subspace includes some cru­ cial courtly element or because the hero does not win the final battle? This is the problem as posed by Chrétien's Lancelot

(c. 1177).

4.2 "Lancelot":

the

two

centers

4.2.1 The spatial organization presented by the first part of Lancelot

(up to his night spent in the queen's chamber)

is not fundamentally different from that of Erec.

There

is an intrusion into the court of chaotic forces, entailing a reversal of the proper hierarchy within the court (when the queen kneels to Sir Keye and subsequently when she is carried off by Meleagant). Gauvain is sent out to bring the queen back, but he is immediately joined by a stranger who for the full first half of the narrative remains name­ less, and who appears as if out of nowhere. His connection

408

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE with the space of the court is thus unclear, and that is the first indication we have that this text will not follow exactly the pattern of Erec.

Otherwise the structure of the

quest is a more elaborate and extravagant version of the original model discussed above (§§ 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3). The new hero demonstrates his ability against the forces of chaos in several adventures, and is qualified as a hero in a rather curious way: his success is made to depend on his absolute devotion to a lady who, it is gradually made clear, is the queen herself. This devotion is demonstrated in episodes that present the hero with a choice between amor

and more regular courtly virtues; in effect the hero

submits to a separation of 'appearance' and 'essence' sim­ ilar to what takes place in Erec,

but here openly accepted

by the hero in the name of the amor

which also renders him

uniquely qualified. This is a new twist, but it does not yet seriously modify the narrative structure. The quest also, in accordance with the model of Erec,

defines the

terms of the conflict - it will be one of disobedience to 17 authority, hierarchical and paternal - and defines the realm of Gor as the subspace in the general space A, where this disobedience is localized and exemplified by the vil­ lain Meleagant, who will not obey his father and king. Lancelot attains this space because of his unique qualifi­ cations, and is well on his way to freeing its captives and rescuing the queen when his duel with Meleagant is in­ terrupted. The whole conflict is postponed and is to be settled at the court of King Arthur. This is all within the bounds of the spatial and cultural organization estab­ lished by Erec,

though there are unresolved questions.

4.2.2 At this point in the narrative, the conflict

409

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS has not yet been resolved. According to the logic of the basic model, there can thus be no return to court, and joie

does not exist outside the courtly space. The queen

therefore does not greet Lancelot when she meets him in Gor, because such a greeting from his lady would necessari­ ly bring him joie.

But then the narrative breaks with the

original model. Lancelot sets out to see what has become of Gauvain, is captured by a sort of popular uprising and tied to his horse. The queen hears a false rumor of his death, repents of her harshness, and when he turns up alive permits him to spend the night in her chamber. There, in the land of Gor, as the result of no conflict he has resolved but only of a false rumor of his ultimate failure, in fact as the result of nothing that has any connection with the plot of the narrative up to this point, Lancelot has the highest joie

possible, as the text explicitly

states :

Tant li est ses jeus dolz et buens et del beisier, et del santir, que il lor avint sanz mantir une joie et une mervoille tel c'onques ancor sa paroille ne fu oïe ne seüe; mes toz jorz iert par moi teüe, qu'an conte ne doit estre dite. Des joies fu la plus eslite et la plus delitable cele que li contes nos test et cele. Molt ot de joie et de déduit Lanceloz, tote cele nuit. (11. 4674-4686) 410

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE ("Her games so sweet and good to him is, both to kiss him and to touch him, that without lie comes to him a joy and a marvel such that never yet its equal was heard of or known; but it will never be spoken by me, for it ought not to be mentioned in a story. It was the most choice and the most delightful of joys, the one the story keeps silent and hides from us. Lancelot had much joy and delight, all the night.") Suddenly joie,

the crucial element of the courtly

space, is transferred to exterior space, to the very nega­ tive subspace that has come to contain all the anticourtly forces of the text. The effect is to create two centers for the narrative,  and G (Gor), both autonomous

(Fig. 2 ) . 

is still the space of order, but G is the space of

joie.

Figure 2

This is a blatant contradiction on both the sociopolitical and the cosmological levels. As long as the love of the la dy (the queen) was presented as dependent upon the restora tion of courtly order

(as everything in Lancelot

, up to an

including the queen's refusal to greet him, indicate it is - or was the inspiration of the knight in his quest (as in Erec

and also in the first part of Lancelot)

- even the

abduction of the lady from the courtly space is not neces­ sarily a disaster. What places amor 411

in opposition to the

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS court is the queen's reinterpretation of the whole of the preceding narrative as wholly irrelevant to the court and its problems. The quest of Lancelot, according to her in­ terpretation, is a purely personal matter between him and his lady. This makes explicit the creation of a new center for the narrative, so that two centers now coexist in the romance space. It is difficult to see how they could be reconciled within the problematics of Lancelot has achieved his personal joie,

; since he

he has every reason not to

leave the realm of Gor, and since he has not resolved the original conflict he cannot return to the court. Lancelot is imprisoned in the land of Gor. He returns to the court only in disguise, wearing the identity of one of Meleagant's vassals, and must immediately leave only to be even more securely imprisoned in Gor. It is Gauvain who accompanies the queen back to court. 4.2.3 It is here that Chrétien abandoned the narrative, according to the epilogue. It was finished by Godefroi de Lagny. The conclusion wholly avoids the problematics of the text. The queen virtually disappears from the story; Lancelot's amor

disappears as well. He is rescued by a

damsel and gallops into court just as Gauvain is about to undertake the battle with Meleagant. He wins the battle, but no mention is made of the land of Gor, or its captives, or the queen. The whole matter is simply ignored. This con­ clusion leaves the spatial and cultural organization of the text in a manifestly unstable state. Lotman says that the 'cultural space' cannot tolerate more than one dominant boundary, which is equivalent to saying that it cannot to­ lerate more than one central space, integrated and harmo­ nious. Later romances concentrate on ways of resolving the

412

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE problem, and various models are contrived to reintegrate the spatial and cultural organization of the courtly uni­ verse. 4.3

C1

4.3.1

> C2:

The Tristan

"Tristan"

of Gottfried von Strassburg

(c. 1225)

constructs a spatial and cultural organization very similar to that of Chrétien's Lancelot,

posing from the beginning

the problem of the two centers and their relation. This is in fact the whole conflict of the narrative, and the struc­ ture of the hero's quest to resolve a conflict outside the court is practically abandoned. Though the hero moves in and out of the courtly space, his movements do not usually have the meaning that similar departures and returns have in Chrétien's romances. Twice, Tristan does go on a quest on behalf of the court: when he combats Morolt and when he wins Isolt for King Mark. But the combat with Morolt takes place in a space isolated within the courtly space and involves no quest in the usual sense; and the winning of Isolt is not the consequence of a breach of the courtly boundary from without, unless we want to regard the person of Tristan himself as coming from external space. 4.3.2 In many respects Tristan does appear as alien to 1 He comes from outside when he first appears

the court.

in Cornwall; he manufactures an identity for himself as a merchant's son, which is not a courtly identity at all; he is on constant journeys, especially sea voyages; ein der

man

ellen­

'a wandering man' he is called by the text. He is

associated with the magical and the wild, accused of sor­ cery by Mark's courtiers, qualified as vremede

413

'strange'

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS which is the word also applied to the magic dog Petitcrieu ("daz

vremede

werk

von

Avalun"

'the strange artifact from

Avalon', 1. 15 838). He is an excellent hunter: as a hunter he is first introduced into the court, and on a hunt he discovers the Minnegrotte

'cave of love', the sanctuary of

love where he takes refuge with Isolt. He speaks foreign languages and plays foreign music. These characteristics all serve to identify Tristan not with courtly space but with exterior space

(the sea and the forest), and particu­

larly with a space with magical connotations. When he has taught his music to Isolt, she participates in the same magic and has the same spell-binding effect on the court (11. 8071-8084). The alienness of Tristan and Isolt has thus been established well before the drinking of the love potion, but this episode - magical, taking place on a sea voyage - serves to define the cultural subspace of the lovers as the realm of Minne

'love', an identification

which has its geographical counterpoint in the The cave of Minne

Minnegrotte.

is in the inaccessible wilderness, but it

itself does not partake of the space of wilderness

(which

is external space, chaos). It is an autonomous magical space, the ancient temple of Tristan's erbefogetin itary liege lord' Minne.

'hered­

The spatial and cultural organiza­

tion which the text presents is thus identical to that of Lancelot

where Chretien left the poem (Fig. 3 ) : two auto­

nomous spaces, one (C) representing order, the other (M) representing joie

or freude

in the German text; in mutual

opposition to each other (Mark has expelled the lovers 'from the court) .

414

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE

Figure 3 4.3.3 Yet in many respects the text simultaneously presents the lovers as not only belonging to courtly space, but central and essential to it. Both Tristan and Isolt are epitomes of courtly perfection, have all the conventio­ nal courtly virtues. The courtiers of Mark take Tristan as their model of the perfect courtier

(11. 3710-3714). He

is not, in fact, alien to the court (as he appears), but is the son of Mark's sister - thus Mark is his maternal uncle, and to make their relationship more explicit Mark adopts Tristan as his heir. Isolt, apart from being a per­ fect courtly lady, is also the queen, thus firmly associ­ ated with the center of the courtly space. They cannot leave without destroying the court which depends upon their presence: when they are expelled, the whole court uproots itself and goes into external space (hunting in the wilder­ ness) to find its lost center. In the Minnegrotte

the lov­

ers create a court around them: the birds provide them with gruoz refloit

'greeting' and dienst

'service', sing schanzune

and

(courtly musical forms); love brings them all the

joys of Arthur's Round Table (11. 16879-901, 17354-366). Thus, geographically the courtly space reconstitutes itself around the Minnegrotte,

and in the spatial and cultural or­

ganization of the text the magical space of Minne

is situ­

ated at the center of the courtly space. Tristan and Isolt

415

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS return to court because they are the center of the courtly space. The model would thus appear as in Fig. 4, the space of the lovers separated from the courtly space  by 'deception', and by the leid

list

'suffering' that the need for

secrecy creates; the courtly space organized with the space of M as its center. As Gottfried poses the problem, Minne is not an alternative order that could really be opposed to the order of the court. It is a subversive force internal to and dependent on the courtly order. It appropriates the signs of corteisie

and uses them to create

its own meanings, while deceiving the court by means of their conventional meanings.

19

This is what Tristan and

Isolt do consistently throughout the text: it is the basis

Figure 4 of their conversation while Mark is in the tree listening, of Isolt's equivocal oath, of the drawn sword between them in the Minnegrotte.

The court in this process becomes pro­

gressively a place of corruption, intrigue, jealousy, and deceit; the king a stupid, sexually barbarian and physical­ ly cowardly cuckold. There are still two boundaries in the romance space, and the inner one that differentiates the space of Minne

from the court is well on its way to becom­

ing the dominant boundary. 4.3.4 Such a solution is not tolerable on ideological grounds. As we have seen Gottfried presents no counterorder

416

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE to replace the courtly one, and a courtly universe cannot tolerate the absorbtion of the court into the space of chaos. The solution that Gottfried proposes is twofold. It necessitates the death of the lovers, which since the romance is unfinished we can postulate only from his sources (the Tristram

of Thomas, written toward the end

of the twelfth century); and it includes the sacralization and 'aestheticization' of their story. As a courtly myth, the court can tolerate and absorb the subspace of

Minne.

It becomes part of the regular activities of the court: singing, reciting verse, telling stories of unhappy lovers (as Tristan and Isolt did in the Minnegrotte).

This is in

fact what Gottfried himself says about his poem in the prologue: "Ir

leben,

ir

tot

their death are our bread'

sint

unser

brot"

'their life,

(1. 237). Alive, Tristan and

Isolt subvert and destroy courtly space and the courtly order. Dead, transformed into a story, they are no longer a threat; their magic space is absorbed into regular court­ ly space and becomes a literary activity that enters per­ fectly into the harmonious joie

of the court. The dominant

boundary is that between  and A (Fig. 5 ) , but the center of  is no longer the king; it is, in fact, the aesthetic experience according to Gottfried. To describe this aes­ thetic experience Gottfried has recourse to sacramental

Figure 5

417

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS metaphors: the telling of the story is a kind of communion, a way for the court to enter into contact with the realm of the sacred. In effect, the method chosen by this text to resolve the problem of two spatial and cultural bounda­ ries is to project one space first into the other, and then above

the other, onto another level. This can be done

with no great violence to the romance space because the space is identified with the cosmos, as we have seen (§ 2.2.1). In the cosmolcgical model, the center communicates with the realm of the sacred because through it passes the axis of the cosmos. The realm of the lovers, the space of Minne,

is projected along the cosmic axis, thus remaining

within courtly space but at the same time not actively a part of it. What was previously negative is rendered posi­ tive by the death of the hero: the process is essentially the same as the reversal of anticourtly values in the de la

Cour,

Joie

but this time it is the hero who is sacrificed

instead of his opponent. The communication with the realm of Minne,

which was the function of Tristan and Isolt in

the text and which made them indispensible to the court, Gottfried proposes to continue himself. 20 It is through his poem, the recital of their life and death, that the communion will take place. This solution suggests the role of a third dimension that we find in Chrétien's 4.4 C1 = C2 on another 4.4.1 Perceval

or li

level: Contes

Perceval.

"Perceval" del

Graal

(. 1180) is the only

one of Chrétien's romances which begins away from the court, in the forest

gaste

'uncultivated forest'. In the

wilderness, that is in external space, we find a youth who

418

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE should have become a knight but hasn't, because of a series of events which have already taken place

(11. 412-488). His

father was a great knight, his mother of noble lineage, but as a result of a devastating war upon the death of the king

(Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father), his father was

wounded in the legs and forced to flee from his lands into the forest. Both the brothers of Perceval were killed in combat immediately after being knighted, and his father died of grief at this event. Because of his father's death, Perceval has not been knighted and knows nothing of chiv­ alry. He does not know his own name, i.e. he does not have an identity. He is outside the order from which identity and function derive. The breach in the spatial and cultural boundary has already taken place, and the anomalous situa­ tion of Perceval is the result of the intrusion of chaos into the ordered world. 4.4.2 The quest of Perceval will thus be a quest for his own identity, an initiation into the order where he belongs. It is his father's death which has kept him from his 'natural' destiny of knighthood; logically, therefore, the initiation will take the form of a reestablishment of 21 contact with his dead father. His mother cannot initiate him: her advice leads to nothing but blunders. Gornemanz de Goort makes him a knight, and he acquires a kind of tem­ porary identity as li

chevaliers

vermoil

'the red knight',

but Gornemanz substitutes himself for Perceval's mother, not his father (11. 1675-1677, 1685-1688), and Perceval still doesn't know his name. We might say that on a first, more profane level Perceval has been sufficiently initiated and can assume his role of restorer of order to lands laid waste, as he does with the kingdom of Blancheflor. But on

419

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS the cosmological level the initiation has not been accom­ plished. The full initiation, which would restore to Per­ ceval his complete identity and probably permit him to avenge the death of his father as well as to take posses­ sion of his inheritance and repair the breach in the bound­ ary of the courtly space, should have been accomplished at the grail castle. The grail castle is carefully differenti­ ated from the external space of wilderness through which one must journey to reach it. It lies by a river which cannot be forded, on a cliff which cannot be passed. It is reached through a narrow chasm not at first apparent to Perceval, and the castle itself cannot at first be seen at all (11. 2985-3050). Distances to and from the castle are measured differently by different people: his host indi­ cates Perceval has had an excessively long journey, but Perceval does not find it particularly long

(11. 3120-

3130). The following morning the damsel whom Perceval meets tells him there is no human habitation within twentyfive leagues of their meeting place. The castle simply does not exist in the normal space of the narrative. This in itself creates for the grail castle an autonomous space which we might loosely qualify as 'magical'. There is no evidence that it is opposed to the courtly space, but it exists se­ parately, and we thus have two different boundaries for the spatial and cultural organization of the text (Fig. 6 ) .

Figure 6

420

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE Since the quest of Perceval concerns principally his rela­ tions with the space of the grail castle, it is not exces­ sive to say that G serves as a second center (C2)

for the

spatial and cultural organization of the text but the re­ lation of  to G (or C 2 ) is not yet clear. 4.4.3 The intended initiation fails. Perceval receives a sword destined for him, and the next morning finds that he now knows his name. But his cousin alters his name im­ mediately: not Percevaus

li

Galois

it should have been, but Percevaus

'Perceval of Wales', as li

cheitis

'Perceval

the failure', because he did not ask who is served from the grail. If he had asked, he would have discovered that the old man served from the grail is his maternal uncle; his host with the wound in his thighs is Perceval's cousin. While Perceval is at the castle, we are told, he does not ask because of the instructions of Gornemanz; his cousin the damsel attributes his failure to the "pechié mere"

de

ta

(literally 'the sin of your mother', but usually

translated

'the sin against your mother') who died from

grief at their parting. Later the hermit

(who is also a

maternal uncle of Perceval's) explains that Perceval's guilt for his mother's death prevented him from speaking, and formally absolves him of this sin. Apart from the dubi­ ous theology of such an explanation, Perceval's problem re­ mains approximately the same: how to establish contact with the dead, first his father and now also his mother, and by this contact restore the broken sequence of generations and receive his full identity. Every indication is that the people in the grail castle can and do take the place of Perceval's dead father. His host's wound is very similar

421

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS to the old wound of his father. His uncle has not left his chamber and has eaten only the most spiritual of foods (one mass wafer a day, served from the grail) for fifteen years. Perceval's father died when Perceval was still a child; the beginning of his quest takes place when he has reached young manhood, i.e. roughly at the age of fifteen or some ten years after his father's death; he then spends five years wandering in the wilderness before he encounters the hermit, so that the time which has passed since his fa­ ther's death closely approximates the time his uncle has spent in seclusion being fed from the grail. Perceval him­ self, when he comes to the river by the grail castle, ex­ pects to find his mother on the other side, but his mother has already died. Finally we know that the maternal uncle can and does take the place of the father in several of the courtly romances; it is the relationship of Arthur to Gauvain, of Mark to Tristan. The question Perceval does not ask about the grail would thus have served to link him to his dead father, to his identity and his heritage, and would have restored the order disrupted by the break in the sequence of generations. This order is also the order of the courtly space, because the court goes looking for Perceval

(11. 4136-4140) and is concerned in his quest.

When the initiation fails and Perceval returns to the court of Arthur, he is expelled by the Loathly Damsel, a personi­ fication of the anticourtly chaos that now invades the space of the court: Dames an perdront lor mariz, Terres an seront essiliees Et puceles desconseilliees,

422

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE Qui orfelines remandront, Et maint chevalier an morront; Tuit cist mal avandront par toi. (11. 4678-4684) ("Ladies will lose their husbands because of it, lands will be taken from their owners and maidens will be left or­ phaned and without counsel, and many a knight will die be­ cause of it; all this evil will come through you.") 4.4.4 The breach in the boundary has not been mended, and chaos threatens the space of the court. Whereas Perce­ val is the hero apparently predestined to restore the or­ der, Gauvain has the task of holding the forces of disorder at bay until Perceval completes his

quest.22

Gauvain accom­

plishes a series of minor 'restorations of order' by rigo­ rously adhering to the letter of the courtly value system. He intervenes in a battle between foster son and foster father, reestablishes the proper relation between love of a damsel and valor in battle

(i.e. his lady inspires the

chevalier to fight for a just cause), loses but regains his horse, partially dispells an enchantment on a castle that in many respects resembles the grail castle, and effects a conversion that changes an insulting, abusive lady into a properly courtly one. Unlike Perceval, he finds out in time about his own close relationship to the people of the en­ chanted castle

(which include his mother, his aunt the

mother of Arthur, and his sister, all having taken refuge there during the same war that drove Perceval's father from his lands). Thus he will presumably avoid the incestuous marriage with his sister that his mother and aunt are plan­ ing. But incest, the loss of all distinction between mem-

423

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS bers of the same family, is the logical extreme result of the destruction of order by chaos, or of the lack of con­ tinuity between the generations and clearly established identity, which is Perceval's quest. There is thus an im­ mediate link between Gauvain's quest and Perceval's, and it seems unlikely that Gauvain will be able to resolve his original problem - an accusation of murder which turns into a quest for the bleeding lance, i.e. for the grail castle - without encountering Perceval in the process. 4.4.5 Unfortunately, Chrétien did not finish the poem, and we thus do not have the final resolution of the problem of the grail. But the text as we have it indicates that the space of Gauvain's enchanted castle is in many of its characteristics identifiable with the space of the grail castle, that this space is conceived of as the realm of the dead, and that communication with this realm can be established through the grail, the "sainte

chose"

'sacred

thing' as the hermit calls it. When such communication is established - when Perceval asks the question about the function of the grail - his own identity will be estab­ lished, his initiation into the courtly order will be com­ plete, and by the same act this order will itself be com­ pleted. The breach in the boundary will have been mended. The spatial organization of the text would thus be repre­ sented by Fig. 7. The supernatural space C2 (G in Fig. 6)

Figure 7 424

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE reinforces on another level the space of C 1 , and the me­ dium of communication between them, through which passes the axis of the world

(xx), is the grail (g).

4.4.6 Everything indicates that this communication would have been established successfully. It is not necessary to speculate on what the final resolution of the narrative would have been. We know that Perceval has been

'absolved

from the sin' of abandoning his mother; there is now noth­ ing to hinder him from asking the crucial question. He can unite in his person all the oppositions of the cosmos. (father/mother, male/female, red/white), the more so if he 23 marries Blancheflor. The boundaries would once again be firmly drawn, the supernatural nature of the grail castle would probably disappear just as the enchantment on Gauvain's castle would be permanently lifted, the half super­ natural inhabitants of both places would become regular and perfectly alive members of the court. It seems likely that Perceval would become king of the grail castle, thus restoring the king to the central point of the cosmos by making him the possessor of the grail, and the wilderness would become fertile, i.e., order will replace chaos. But the absence of a conclusion to the poem does not invalidate the analysis we have made, and the relative

'christianiza-

tion' of the realm of the supernatural in the hermit epi­ sode is, as we have seen, largely irrelevant to the spatial and cultural organization of the narrative. 24 4.5 2 replaces

C1:

"Parzival"

4.5.1 However, in the Parzival

of Wolfram von Eschenbach

(. 1225) the christianization of the grail is crucial to

425

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS the final organization of the romance space. Parzival a translation and expansion of Chretien's Perceval,

is rein­

terpreted and finished by Wolfram. Here also, Parzival searches for his own identity, but his descent differs from the purely courtly ancestry of Perceval. Parzival's father is a knight, a kinsman of Arthur, but he has been in the service of a great pagan king and has founded a kingdom of his own among the pagans. Arthur's court is thus only one courtly space among many others; though a rough distinction is maintained between the wilderness and the court, the court is from the beginning only rela­ tively more important. Parzival seems to have no difficulty entering into his chivalric heritage. Gurnemanze de Grahart really is his substitute father

(Bk. Ill, 11. 177, 13-24).

At the same time, whether Parzival joins the court or not is largely irrelevant to the court. His quest is personal. It is not the defense of an order. Indeed there is no evi­ dence in Wolfram's poem that the courtly order is endan­ gered at all. It is at the grail castle, Munsalvaesche, that things are not as they should be. 4.5.2 When Parzival first visits the grail castle, it does not appear different from the forests, towns, castles that he had already travelled through - it appears to be­ long to the general territory of avanture,

to exterior

space. Gradually, it is differentiated from exterior space. It does not acquire a name until after Parzival has left, when he is told that it is called Munsalvaesche and its realm Terre de Salvaesche

(Bk. V, 11. 251, 1-4). Shortly

thereafter, in Book VI, Arthur acknowledges that he has no authority in this kingdom (11. 286, 1 0 - 1 4 ) . 2 5 Terre de Salvaesche is thus separated from courtly space, but it is

426

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE also differentiated from the rest of external space. No one can enter this territory except its own inhabitants. Gawan, in the second half of the narrative, is also on a quest for the grail, but he never gets to Terre de Salvaesche. Nor can Parzival enter at will. This is not because the land is guarded by the grail knights, for Parzival de­ feats one of them in Book IX and presumably other knights could do the same. But when he tries to follow the defeated grail knight towards Munsalvaesche, Parzival gets lost. The spatial and cultural model with two autonomous spaces within the external space thus applies to the spatial or­ ganization of the world through which Parzival moves (Fig. 8 ) . As in Chrétien's Perceval,

the narrative is concerned

principally with the relations of the hero to T, which thus functions as a second center

(  2 ) ; in addition, in

Wolfram's text there is an opposition between  and C2 (the knights of Arthur are challenged by the guardians of the grail) .

Figure 8 4.5.3 It is not access to the court, but access to Terre de Salvaesche which is difficult in Wolfram's poem. The boundary between C2, and external space appears to be the dominant one. The spatial and cultural organization is gradually altered in the course of the narrative so as to make C2 the dominant center. Access to the space of the

427

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS grail is by two means: by inheritance if as Parzival one belongs to the family appointed to guard the grail; or by an inscription which appears on the grail itself

(as ex­

plained by Trevrizent in Book I X ) . Since the grail in this text is divine in origin and is a direct communication between God and the world

(function of the center of the

world), to be called by the grail is to be elected by God. The space of the grail is by connotation the equivalent of a state of grace. Parzival belongs through his mother to the family elected by God to guard the grail. His dis­ covery of his identity on his mother's side - and it is this 'initiation' which is the difficult quest for Pazival - is in fact analogous to the journey of the soul toward God: the conviction of sin, repentance, forgiveness, and conversion. It is only by this road, through his visit to the hermitage of Trevrizent, that Parzival can enter Terre de Salvaesche again. Parzival performs the same journey twice - from external space to the space where he belongs, from ignorance to perfection - but first on the level of the courtly order, and then on the level of the Christian order.

26

His first journey

(the first six books)

is oriented toward the court. He meets his cousin Sigune twice, each time on his way to the court of Arthur; she is mourning her dead lover, who was a knight; she gives him directions which do not lead him where she intends him to go, but do lead him where he must go (to the court). Where­ as on his first arrival at court he was ignorant of chival­ ry, on his second arrival he corrects his previous mistakes and is accepted by the court as a perfect knight. The sec­ ond journey of Parzival

(the second six books) is his quest

for the grail and is thus oriented toward Munsalvaesche.

428

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE Here too he meets Sigune twice, but the first time she has become a hermit and spends her time in prayer; she is nour­ ished by food from the grail. The second time she is dead. At their meeting at her hermitage she again gives Parzival directions which lead him again not where she intended him to go but where he must go in order to reach Munsalvaesche (to the hermitage of Trevrizent). The last time they meet he buries her before continuing to the grail castle. This second journey of Parzival is a spiritual one, from a state of sin to a state of grace

(perfection), which he achieves

through repenting and doing penance

(i.e. 'correcting' pre­

vious mistakes). At its conclusion he is called to become king of the grail castle and to heal his uncle Anfortas of his wound, an act that simultaneously proves Parzival's triuwe

'charity' and hence his worthiness to become king,

and restores the order of the grail castle which had been disrupted when Anfortas entered a courtly love service. On Parzival's first journey, the grail castle was an epi­ sode on his way to the court. On the second journey the court is an episode on his way to the grail. The two jour­ neys are homologous, but the first is oriented towards the court as center of the romance space, and the second is oriented towards the grail. The space of the grail has taken the place of the court as dominant center of the romance space. 4.5.4 The order of the court is thus displaced by the order of the grail which is an aristocratic form of the Christian order of salvation. For this order, courtly ac­ tivities and virtues are largely irrelevant. The quest of Gawan is concerned with courtly perfection through faithful service to a lady, and this appears to be valid on its own

429

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS level, but it is of no interest in the space of the grail. Thus, Parzival goes everywhere that Gawan goes, but whereas Gawan is engaged in the various conflicts he encounters, Parzival is merely passing through on his way to somewhere 27 else. The space of courtly order becomes a slightly dif­ ferentiated zone within external space, and the final spa­ tial and cultural organization of the text may be repre­ sented by Fig. 9. T, Terre de Salvaesche, the space of the grail (g), is the space of order and the source of value and meaning in the poem.  ( 1 ),the original courtly or­ der, 'surrounds' Τ (C2) - the guardians of the grail are recruited from the courtly nobility, courtly perfection is assumed before the special spiritual perfection of C2 can be achieved - but is only loosely differentiated from ex­ ternal space (A). The dominant boundary is between C2 and C 1 . The cultural space is now stable.

Figure 9 5.

CONCLUSIONS

5.1 A summary of the transformations of the spatial and cultural organization of courtly romance in the texts we have discussed can be found in Table 1. From the models in Table 1 the following conclusions can be drawn: a) The most common transformation of the original model  (Fig. 1) is the model with two centers, c/c2. This is the

430

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE spatial and cultural organization taken as point of depar­ ture in Tristan,

Perceval,

and Parzival

(Figs. 3,6, and 8 ) :

It is developed for the first time in Lancelot

(Fig. 2 ) .

There may or not be a clear opposition between the two centers

(↔) ; in Perceval

there is not.

b) The romance spaces are always centered, though we have not always discussed precisely what constitutes the central point in each text. The space  is centered on the king. The land of Gor in Lancelot

appears to be centered

on the castle of Lancelot's opponent Meleagant, perhaps on the queen's chamber in that castle (Fig. 2 ) . The space M in Tristan

is centered first on the circular bed/altar to

the love goddess in the Minnegrotte the two lovers themselves

(Fig. 4 ) , and then on

(Fig. 5 ) . The space G in

is centered on the grail (Fig. 7 ) . Terre Parzival

de Salvaesche

Perceval in

is centered on the castle Munsalvaesche and more

specifically on the grail (Fig. 8 ) , as is made more clear in the final spatial and cultural model of the text (Fig. 9). c) The solution most frequently adopted for the problem of the two centers is the one represented by the two last models for Tristan

and the final model .for Parzival

(C1

> C2 -

Figs. 4, 5, and 9 ) . The solution is inclusion of one space in another. The models differ in which spatial and cultural boundary is dominant, but their similarity remains strik­ ing. d) The most complex spatial and cultural organization achieved by the texts discussed is that of Chretien's ceval

Per­

(Fig. 7 ) . However, the analogy of this model with the

final organization of Tristan

(Fig. 5 ) , as discussed in

9 4.3.4 above, should be pointed out. The final organiza­ tion of Tristan

has tendencies to become three dimensional.

431

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Though a third dimension is implied also in Parzival,

it

does not in fact play a direct role in the plot structure of the narrative, as it does in

Perceval.

5.2. Application of Lotman's 'topological' model to medi­ eval verse romance permits us to integrate the major pre­ occupations of scholarship on the subject of the romances, and at the same time to situate and relate these different preoccupations with respect to each other. 5.2.1 The relation of courtly romance to its sources in Celtic mythology is considerably clarified by a 'topo­ logical' analysis. A myth is firmly connected with the cos­ mology of its culture. Romance, on the other hand, expres­ ses a cosmology which reflects the ideology of the dominant class. The social structure of feudal society, though more complex, includes many of the structures of the societies of pre-Christian Europe: a class of hereditary nobility based on possession of land, a class of subordinated popu­ lation, a king with semisacred functions. The ideology of feudal society can therefore incorporate many Celtic ele­ ments. This social organization entered a period of trans­ formation in twelfth and thirteenth century Europe. But the ideology of the courtly nobility did not develop at the same pace as the social transformation, and corresponds to the older organization of society. Thus, many of the ele­ ments of Celtic mythology - combat with monsters, magical or sacred objects such as the grail, the mythical marriage or hieros

gamos

which insures fertility and unites the ele­

ments of the opposition male/female - can serve the same function in the romances as they once served in the myths. The work of scholars such as R. Loomis and J. Marx

432

28

can

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE thus be integrated with a 'topological' analysis. 5.2.2 It is also possible to specify the relation of the romance cosmology to medieval theology and philosophy (and cartography), the preoccupation of J. Schwietering, 29 Gottfried Weber, and others.

As we have seen, the cos-

mological model space of Order/space of Chaos is very widespread, probably universal in the early stages of hu30 man culture, and easily adaptable to the ideologies of a class society in later stages. But not all ideologies elaborated in a complex society such as that of the High Middle Ages will necessarily be compatible with each other, as Schwietering would have it. There will be contradictory organizations of the cultural space. In the course of his­ torical development these may influence one another, as well as develop internally. Thus it is not necessarily true that every object or formulation invested by romance with sacred significance must be considered Christian, though it is true that if such a sacralization is insistent and consequent it will probably meet with objections from the advocates of the dominant orthodox Christian cosmology. This is in fact what happens with the Tristan story and the Lancelot/Guenièvre story, as well as with the grail. 5.2.3 Studies of the internal structure and composition of medieval romance reinforce and elaborate a 'topological' analysis, while at the same time they are clarified and in­ tegrated by it. The work of Jean Frappier, Wilhelm Keller31 mann, Hildegard Emmel, and Ingrid Hahn appears to us gen­ erally to support our analysis both in the interpretation of individual texts and in the elaboration of the formal structures of romance as a genre. In particular, Keller­ mann ' s view of the role of the court and the journeys of

433

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS the hero to and from the court in no way contradicts what we have found about romance spatial and cultural organiza­ tion. On the other hand, a 'topological' analysis clarifies many of the difficulties of motivation and psychology which have been the subject of much discussion in the poems of Chrétien de Troyes, particularly in the work of Jean Frap­ pier. 5.2.4 However, analysis of the spatial and cultural or­ ganization of romance is not sufficient to specify the re­ lationship of courtly romance to its historical audience, or to the realities of the social structure of twelfth and thirteenth century Europe. To relate narrative structure specifically to social structure

(an area of study where

up to the present moment virtually the only work has been 32 that of Erich Köhler ) , analysis of the texts alone is not sufficient, but must be completed by a study of the socio­ economic development of medieval society that leads to the formation and ideology of what we have called the courtly nobility. 5.3 The nonmimetic text presents special problems that do not really enter into the concerns of the present study, but should nevertheless be mentioned. By nonmimetic text we mean a text that does not present itself as an accurate representation of reality - ironic, satiric, or frankly fictional texts. Such texts exist among medieval verse romances: both the Yvain

and the c l i g é s of Chrétien (c. 1177 and 1175 resp.) contain ironic elements, 33 and the

Middle English Sir

Gawain

and

the

Green

Knight

(c. 1380)

proposes an even more complex relation of fiction to real34 lty which cannot be discussed here.

434

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE 5.3.1 Since the nonmimetic text does not present itself as an accurate representation of reality, there is less ideological pressure to make the cosmology of the text isomorphic with the cosmology of its audience

(this fact

is manifestly related to the changing social structure of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe). To mention briefly the principal differences between mimetic and nonmimetic texts among medieval romances. a) Whereas the mimetic text cannot tolerate more than one cosmological center or one dominant boundary within the cultural space, the nonmimetic text can very well ac­ commodate more than one center without specifying their mutual relationship. The exact relation of the castle of Laudine in Brocéliande to Arthur's court is never very clear in Yvain.

There is joie

in both places, and this

creates no difficulty or contradiction for the text. Yet they do not appear to belong equally to courtly space, and Yvain leaves the court at the conclusion of the poem to be reconciled to Laudine. b) The motivation for the quest need not be a threat to the courtly order, but can be haphazard or personal. Yvain's kinsman Calogrenanz goes looking for an

avanture,

something that never occurs in the other romances we have discussed, Yvain himself does not act as defender of the courtly space on his own quest. He has to learn to be on time for his appointments, and the deeds he accomplishes have no other significance than to prove his personal worthiness to be forgiven a previous blunder. c) The resolution can be positive even if the hero falls. In Sir

Gawain

and

the

Green

Knight

the structure of

the narrative follows quite exactly the model of

435

Erec:

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS what is at issue is the defense of the courtly values in the face of a reality which they do not seem adequate to cope with. The hero fails to uphold these values at all cost, the courtly order is thus invalidated, but the result is not disaster. When Gawain returns to the court, there is the same joy as there would have been if he had been successful. 5.3.2 The nonmimetic romances thus in varying degrees create a utopia - a space that is not presented as if it existed in reality. This space contains the same elements as the space of mimetic romance - courtly space, exterior space, various subspaces in the exterior space, journey of the hero from interior to exterior, return and celebra­ tion. The nonmimetic text simply has more liberty in the manner in which it relates these elements to each other. The nonmimetic romances are not properly speaking another set of transformations parallel to those of the mimetic romances. Rather, mimetic and nonmimetic are two separate modes of treatment of cultural texts, among which medieval romance forms a subcategory. The nonmimetic mode is evi­ dently secondary co the mimetic mode, historically and structurally: there must be an elaborated cosmology before its structures can be treated in a nonmimetic fashion, and the social factors permitting a nonmimetic treatment must also be present. But it may be that all mimetic structures tend toward the freer interplay of structural possibilities that the nonmimetic or utopic mode allows. In the case of romance, what is no longer an adequate cosmology after the middle of the thirteenth century survives as a form of utopic fiction and is occasionally revived in later centu­ ries in this form.

436

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE

N O T E S

* Formerly published in Semiotica

20: 1/2, 1977

"The mobile heroes conceal within themselves the possiblity of destroying the given classification and establishing a new one or of representing the structure not in its invariant essence but through its multifaceted variety". Lotman 1975: 103, §4.1.4 2

See for example Bezzola 1944, Lazar 1964, Zumthor 1972. 3 Ibid.

4 See Stauffer 1959. 5 See Eliade 1964:94-101, 246-51; Eliade 1965: 126-27. The relationship of maternal uncle to nephew serves in many roman­ ces as a parallel to or a substitute for the relationship of father to son. 7 See L'Orange 1953:16-18, the discussion of Perlesvaus; Loomis 1963.

and

8

L'Orange 1953:16-18, the discussion of Layamon's

Brut.

9 See Miller 1961:54, 110-11 and Muller 1895a; l895b:28, 116; 1896. 10 Köhler 1956. 11 Pirenne 1939. 12 Uitti 1969 and Nolan 1971. 437

13 Girard 1972. 14 Cf.

Hrùby 1966.

l'harmonie saire 15Cf. 16"Par f.ex. en son tant au Fourquet haut sein qu'individu fait de1956, lalecour, protagoniste Frappier ennemi mais il 1972, à a la n'a encore Nitze cour, pas seulement intégré 1954, il l'a Payen son assujetti rétabli 1969. adver­ à

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS l ' o r d r e du royaume a r t h u r i e n n e . " (Köhler I 9 6 0 ) . For t h e importance of names i n C h r é t i e n ' s romances, see Bezzola 1947. 17 Cf. Mandel 1964-65 and Rychner 1968. 18 See Hahn 1964. 19 See Wünsch 1972. 20 Cf. Jackson 1962. 21 Cf. Marx 1961; see also Jackson Knight 1936:143. 22 Frappier (1971:420) à propos of Gauvain speaks of "cette disloca­ tion de 1'univers où se fourvoie le héros". 23 See Fowler 1959. 24 Cf. Frappier (1966-67:20): "Chrétien ... a voulu élever un mythe originellement païen à la suggestion - la suggestion sans plus d'une valeur chrétienne." 25 Cf. Emmel 1951. 26 See Haug 1971, Schröder 1952. 27 Cf. Wynn 1962; see also Schröder 1952. 28 Lcomis 1963, Marx 1952. 29 Schwietering 1960, Weber 1953.438 30 Eliade 1964 (especially 310-325), Eliade 1965, Lagopoulos 1969, Lagopoulos 1975:216. 31 Frappier 1957, Kellermann 1936, Emmel 1951, Hahn 1964. 32 Köhler 1956. 33 34 Yvain, See Cligés Benson see isUitti nearly 1965. 1969 a parody and Nolan of the 1971. Tristan story. For irony in

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE

REFERENCES

Benson, Larry 1965

Art and Tradition

in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Bezzola, Reto 1947

Le Sens de 1'aventure

et de l'amour.

Paris: La Jeune

Parque. 1960

(1944) Les Origines courtoise

et la formation

en occident.

de la

littérature

Tomes I-II. Paris.

Eliade, Mircea 1964

Traite

d'histoire

1965

Le Sacré

des religions.

et le profane

Paris: Payot.

(Collection Idées). Paris:

Gallimard. Emmel, Hildegard 1951

Formprobleme des Arturromans und der

Graldichtung.

Bern: Francke. Fourquet, J. 1956

"Le Rapport entre l'oeuvre et la source chez Chrétien de Troyes et le problème des source bretonnes", Romance Philology

9, 298-312.

Fowler, D.C. 1959

Prowess and Charity Troyes.

Frappier, 1957

in the Perceval

of Chrétien

de

S e a t t l e : University of Washington P r e s s .

J. Chrétien

de Troyes,

l'homme et 1'oeuvre.

Paris:

Hatier-Borivin. 1966-67

"Le Conte du Graal e s t - i l une a l l é g o r i e judéo-chré­ tienne?

1971

(2)", Romance Philology

20, 1-31.

"Le Graal e t ses feux d i v e r g e n t s " , Romance Philology 24, 373-440. 439

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 1972

"Sur un procès fait à l'amour courtois", Romania 93, 145-93.

Girard, René 1972

La violence

et le sacré.

Paris: Grasset.

Hahn, Ingrid 1964

Raum und Landschaft Strassburg.

in dem Tristan

Gottfrieds

von

München: Eidos Verlag.

Haug, W. 1971

"Die Symbolstruktur des höfischen Epos", Deutsche

teljahrschrift geschichte

für Litteraturwissenschaft

und

Vier­

Geistes­

45, 668-705.

Hruby, A. 1966

"Das Sinngefüge der Galoainepisode in Chretien's Neophilologus

Erec",

50, 219-33.

Jackson, W.T.H. 1962

"Tristan the artist in Gottfried's poem", of the Modern Language Association

Publications

77, 364-72.

Jackson Knight, W.F. 1936

Cumaean Gates: A Reference Initiation

Pattern.

of the Sixth

Aeneid

to

the

Oxford: Blackwell.

Kellermann, W. 1936

Aufbaustil

und Weltbild

val-Roman.

Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

Chrestiens

von Troyes im

Perce-

Köhler, Erich 1956

Ideal

und Wirklichkeit

in den höfischen

Epik.

Tübingen:

Max Niemeyer. 1960

"Rôle de la coutume dans les romans de Chrétien de Troyes", Romania 81, 386-97.

Lagopoulos, A.-Ph. 1969

L'Orientation

1975

"Semiological urbanism: An analysis of the traditional

des monuments.

Athens: J.N. Zacharopoulos.

Western Sudanese settlement", Shelter,

Sign and

Symbol,

ed. by Paul Oliver, 206-18. London: Barrie and Jenkins.

440

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE Lazar, Moshe 1964

Amour courtois XIIe siècle.

et "fin

'amors" dans la littérature

du

Paris: Klincksieck.

Loomis, R. 1963

The Grail

from Celtic

Myth to Christian

Symbol.

New

York: Columbia University Press. L'Orange, H.P. 1953

Studies

on the Iconography

Ancient

World. Oslo: H. Aschehoug and Co.

of Cosmic Kingship

in

the

Lotman, J. 1975

"On the Metalanguage of a Typological Description of Culture", Semiotica

14, 97-123.

Mandel/ J. 1964-65 "Elements in the 'Charrette' world: the father-son relationship", Modern Philology

62, 97-104.

Marx, J. 1952

La Légende Arthurienne

et le graal.

Paris: Presses

Universitaires de France. "Le Conte du Graal de Chrétien de Troyes", Moyen Age

1961

67, 439-77. Meylakh, Michael 1975

"The Structure of the Courtly Universe of the Trou­ badours", Semiotica

14, 61-80.

Miller, K. Mappac Mundi:Die Ältesten

Weltkarten.

Stuttgart:

Jas. Roth'sehe Verlagshandlung. 1895a

I. Heft: Die Weltkarte

1895b

III. Heft: Die kleineren

1896

IV. Heft: Die

des Beatus

(776 n.

Chr.)

Weltkarten

Herefordkarte

Miller, W. 1961

Die Heilige

Stadt.

Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

Nitze, W.Α. 1954

"Joie de la Cour", Speculum 29, 691-701.

441

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

Nolan, E . P . 1971

"Mythopoetic evolution: Chrétien de Troyes' Er et Enide, Cligès,

and Yvain",

Symposium 25, 139-61.

Payen, J. 1969

"Chretien de Troyes et la destruction des mythes cour­ tois", Revue des Langues Romanes 79, 213-28.

Pirenne, Henri 1971

(1939) Les Villes

du Moyen Age (Collection SUP). Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France. Pychner, J. 1968

"Le Sujet et la signification du Chevalier de la charrette", Vox Romanica 27, 50-76.

Schroder, W.J. 1952

"Der dichterische Plan des Parzivalsromans" ,

Beiträge

zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und Litteratur

74,

160-92, 409-53. Schwietering, J. 1960

Mystik und höfische

Dichtung im

Hochmittelalter.

Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Stauffer, Marianne 1959

Der Wald. Zur Darstellung

Mittelalter.

und Deutung der Natur im

Bern: Francke Verlag.

Uitti, Carl 1969

"Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain: Romance Philology

fiction and sense",

22, 471-83.

Weber, Gottfried 1953

Gottfrieds

von Strassburg

hochmittelalterlichen

'Tristan'

Weltbildes

und die Krise der

um 1200. Vol. I und II.

Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag. Wünsch, Marianne 1972

"Allegorie und Sinnstruktur in 'Erec' und 'Tristan'", Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift und Geistesgeschichte

für

46, 513-38.

442

Litteraturwissenschaft

ON CHARACTERISTICS OF COURTLY ROMANCE Wynn, Marianne 1962

"Parzival and Gawan" -hero and counterpart", zur Geschichte

Beiträge

der Deutschen Sprache und Litteratur

84,

142-72. Zumthor, Paul Essai de poétique

1972

médiévale.

Paris: du Seuil.

Quotations and line references are from the following editions: Chrétien de Troyes 1955-60 Les Romans de Chrétien

de Troyes,

ed. by Mario Roques,

Vol. I-V. Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion. 1955 Erec et Enide 1957 Cliges 1958 Le Chevalier 1960a Le Chevalier

de la

Charrette

au Lion

b Le Conte du Graal

(Yvain)

(Perceval)

Gottfried von Strassburg 1967

Tristan,

ed. by G. Weber. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche

Buchgesellschaft. Wolfram von Eschenbach 1963

Parzival,

ed. by G. Weber. Darmstadt: Wissenschaft­

liche Buchgesellschaft. Karin M. Bokland was born in Uppsala in 1948. Her principal research interests are medieval literature and culture, semiotics, and Scan­ dinavian literature and culture. Among her publications are "Herr Ivan:

A Stylistic Study" (1976); and Myth, Code, Order

tions

in the Narrative

Structure

of Courtly

transforma­

Romance (Doctoral disser­

tation, University of Colorado, 1975). She is currently the holder of a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Center for the Humani­ ties, Wesleyan University.

443

Author

C h r é t i e n de Troyes

G o t t f r i e d von S t r a s s b ia r g

Text

Erec

Lancelot

Tristan

Date

c a . 1170

c a . 1177

c a . 1225

C / C2

C / C2



Typology

Cl>C2

C h r é t i e n de Troyes

' Cl>C2

Wolfram von Eschenbach

Perceval

Parzival

c a . 1180

c a . 1225

C / C2

Cl-C2

Cl/C2

C1>C2

S p a t i a l and Cultural Organization

Legend

i  A 

courtly space external space king center spatial and cultural boundary



courtly space A external space G land of Gor center *■» opposition



courtly space A external space M Minnegrotte center ** opposition

 A M —

—

courtly space external space space of Minne center secondary spatial and cultural boundary dominant spatial and cultural boundary

 courtly space A external space M space of Minne center — secondary spatial and cultural boundary dominant spatial and cultural boundary



courtly space A external space G space of the grail castle center

A' external i space C^ courtly Ì space Cp space of the g r a i l castle I king g grail xK axis of the world spatial and cultural homology center



 courtly

space A external space T Terre de Salvaesche m Munsalvaesche center

opposition



courtly space A external space T Terre de Salvaesche g grail center — secondary spatial and cultural boundary — dominant spatial and cultural boundary

i

Fig.

fig. 1

fig. j

2

fig. 3

fig.

4

fig.

5

fig.

6

| f i g .

7

fig.

8

fig.

9

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETA

MOVER

ÜBERLEGUNGEN ZUM VERHÄLTNIS VON PHONISCHER STRUKTUR UND SEMANTISCHER STRUKTUR*

Erich Köhler

A poem's content is not just emotion, it is organised

emo­

tion, an organised emotional attitude to a piece of exter­ nal reality. Christopher Caudwell, Illusion

and

Reality

Nicht ohne Grund gilt Bernart de Ventadorns Lied Can vei

la

lauzeta

mover

als eines der gelungensten Gedichte

der Trobadordichtung. Mit der Bewunderung, die es bei Ken­ nern findet, verbindet sich die Frage, weshalb dieses Lied, ein Lied des 12. Jahrhunderts, entstanden unter völlig an­ deren historischen Bedingungen und für ein längst vom Schauplatz abgetretenes Publikum bestimmt, auch heute noch als schön empfunden und erlebt werden kann. Diese Frage­ stellung, die sich seit geraumer Zeit immer wieder an einem

* Herrn Professor Ramon Aramon i Serra, Barcelona, in herzlicher Verbundenheit gewidmet.

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS berühmten Passus aus Karl Marx' Schrift Zur litischen

Ökonomie

Kritik

der

po­

entzündet und implizit oder explizit die

Problematik der jüngeren literarischen und philosophischen Hermeneutik mitbestimmt, soll hier unerörtert bleiben. Sie ist indessen unausgesprochen mitbeteiligt an etlichen Ver­ suchen, das berühmte Lerchenlied des Sängers von Ventadorn nicht nur als schön zu qualifizieren, sondern sichtbar zu machen, was seine Schönheit ausmacht;

sie mag auch dafür

ausschlaggebend gewesen sein, daß wir uns abermals einem Text zuwenden, den zu verstehen und zu erhellen wir uns schon früher bemühten. In unserer ersten Studie zu Can vei

la

lauzeta

mover

haben wir Bernarts Lied einer historisch-soziologischen Analyse unterzogen, es gleichsam als "Ideologem" betrach­ tet, ohne doch seine formalen Qualitäten außer Acht zu las2 sen. Die inhaltliche Struktur der Kanzone erwies sich da­ bei, vermittelt durch die spezifisch höfische Liebespsycho­ logie, als Projektion einer gesellschaftlichen Konstella­ tion, als deren bedeutsamster Faktor das Aufstiegs- und Ingegrationsstreben des niederen Rittertums, besser: der 3 Gruppe von Joven, anzusehen ist. Das Lerchenlied erschien als Gattungsvariante, welche die gescheiterte

Integration

zum Hauptthema macht und seinen poetischen Sinn über die konventionelle Thematik hinaus kraft einer konvergierenden, durchaus logisch verfahrenden Kombination und Distribution der jene Thematik entwickelten Motive konstituiert. Es war uns dabei klar, daß mit dieser Einsicht das poetische Ver­ fahren, das die Transposition von gesellschaftlicher Erfah­ rung in ästhetische Erfahrung, liebespsychologisch die Ver­ wandlung von Umwelt in intersubjektiv erlebbare In-welt

446

CAN VEI

LA LAUZETA

MOVER

leistet, noch nicht angemessen erklärt ist. Wir wollen hier an die Überlegungen, die wir vor vierzehn Jahren anstellten, anknüpfen und dabei die Hilfe von Methoden, welche die jün­ gere Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft einschließlich Strukturalismus und Semiotik erarbeitet hat, nicht ver­ schmähen. Unabdingbare Voraussetzung der konstitutiven Beziehung zur historisch-sozialen Wirklichkeit ist die doppelte Refe­ renzqualität des literarischen Textes: außertextliche und innertextliche Referenz. Die Schwierigkeit besteht darin, die Konvertierung der ersteren in die letztere als einen den Text strukturierenden Prozeß der Poetisierung und Ästhetisierung sichtbar zu machen. Diese Schwierigkeit exi­ stiert nicht, wo außertextliche Referenz ersten Grades, d. h. direkter, eindeutiger Verweis vorliegt, den die exklu­ sive und interiorisierende Kanzone Sirventes) vermeidet

(anders als etwa das

und der uns hier nicht unmittelbar

interessiert. Sie beginnt bei jenen Referenzen zweiten Gra­ des, deren sprachlichen Trägern semantische Ambivalenz oder Polyvalenz eignet. Gerade sie sind, wie man weiß, aber noch ungenügend ausgewertet hat, für die Trobadordichtung 4 allgemein und für die Kanzone speziell charakteristisch. Der Signifikant wird mit mehreren Signifikaten besetzt, w o ­ bei es von einem komplex organisierten Kontext abhängt, was aus dem latenten Bedeutungspotential primär abgerufen und dadurch manifest

(und somit interpretierbar) wird. Denota­

tion wird, wie uns scheint, fast systematisch erschwert zu­ gunsten von Konnotationen, welche die Referenz zu außer­ sprachlichen Systemen, speziell dem Gesellschaftssystem (einschließlich seiner juristischen und ökonomischen Sub-

447

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS systeme) herstellen und zugleich verdunkeln. Die Vermitt­ lung durch ethische, religiöse, philosophische oder auch mythologische Systeme wie der literarischen Tradition soll­ te dabei stets im Auge behalten werden. Der Konnotatoren (L. Hjelmslev) sind auch im 12. Jahrhundert wenn nicht schon sehr viele, so doch bereits mehrere. Wir müssen dem Umstand Rechnung tragen, daß es gerade die Schlüsselbegriffe der Trobadordichtung sind, die - als Referenzträger zweiten Grades - mit jener doppelten Refe­ renzqualität ausgestattet sind und ihrer Ambivalenz auch durch den Kontext nicht verlustig gehen, vielmehr dessen Elemente mittels besonderer Verfahren der Semantisierung beeinflussen und sie, gleich welcher Herkunft sie sein mö­ gen, mit Referenzqualitäten ausstatten, die wir solche dritten Grades nennen wollen, deren unmittelbare Wirkung zwar innertextlicher Natur ist, die aber über die Referenz­ träger zweiten Grades mit den außertextlichen soziokulturellen Systemen vermittelt sind. Wir wollen diesen Prozeß der Strukturierung an dem Lied Bernarts de Ventadorn aufzeigen und beginnen damit, im Ge­ samttext diejenigen Wörter besonders zu markieren, denen infolge ihrer Rekurrenz und/oder ihres semantischen Eigen­ gewichts bzw. als Thema- und Schlüsselwörtern Relevanz zu­ kommt:5 I 1 Can VEI la lauzeta mover 2 de JOI sas alas contra·1 rai,

448

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETÄ

MOVER

3 que s'oblid' e·s LAISSA CHAZER 4 per la doussor c'al COR li vai, 5 AI ! tan grans

enveya

m'en ve

6 de cui qu'eu VEYA jauzion, 7 meravilhas ai, car desse 3 lo COR de DEZIRER no·m fon. II 9 A I , las! tan cuidava SABER 10 d'AMOR, e tan petit en SAI! 11 car eu d'AMAR no-m posc tener 12 C E L I S don ja PRO non aurai. 13 TOUT m'a mo COR, e TOUT m'a me, 14 e se mezeis' e tot lo mon; 15 e can se.m TOLC, no-m LAISSET re 16 mas DEZIRER e COR volon III 17 Anc non aguí de me poder 13 ni no fui meus de l'or' en sai 19 que.m LAISSET en sos olhs VEZER 20 en un MIRALH que mout me plai. 21 MIRALHS, pus me MIRET en te, 22 m'an MORT li sospir de preon 23 'aissi·m PERDEI com PERDET se 24 lo bels Narcisus en la fon. IV 2 5 De las DOMNAS me desesper; 26 ja mais en lor no-m fiarai; 27 'aissi com las solh chaptener, 28 enaissi las deschaptenrai. 29 Pois VEI c'una PRO no m'en te 30 vas LEIS que.m destrui e cofon,

449

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 31 totas las dopt' e las mescre, 32 car BE SAI c'atretals se son. V 33 D'aisso·s fa be femna parer 34 ma DOMNA, per qu'e.lh  retrai, 35 car no vol so c'om deu voler, 36 e so 'om li deveda, fai. 3 7 CHAZUTZ sui en mala MERCE, 38 et ai be faih co-I fols en pon; 39 e NO SAI per que m'esdeve, 40 mas car trop puyei contra mon. VI 41 MERCES es PERDUDA, per ver 4 2 (et ieu NON 0 SAUBI anc m a i ) , 43 car CILH qui plus en degr' aver, 4 4 no.η a ges; et ON la querrai? 45 A! can mal sembla, qui la VE 46 qued aquest CHAITIU DEZIRON 47 que ja ses LEIS non aura be, 48 LAISSE MORIR, que no l'aon! VII 49 Pus ab MIDONS no-m pot valer 50 precs ni MERCES ni.l dreihs qu'eu ai, 51 ni a LEIS no ven a plazer 52 qu'eu l'AM, ja mais no-lh o dirai. 53 Aissi-m part de LEIS e.m recre; 5 4 MORT m'a, e per MORT li respon, 55 e VAU M'EN, pus ILH no.m 56 CHAITIUS, en

rete ,

issilh , NO SAI ON.

450

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETA

MOVER

VIII 57 Tristans, ges no-n auretz de me, 58 qu'eu M'EN VAU, CHAITIUS, NO SAI ΟΝ. 59 De chantar me gie e.m recre, 60 e de JOI e d'AMOR m'escon. Sogleich fällt auf, daß einige der rekurrenten Elemente sich über das ganze Lied verteilen 48; (no)

saber

(vezer

größerem Abstand wiederholen 2, 60; amor

(laissar,

vv. 3, 15, 19,

9, 10, 32, 39, 42, 56, 5 8 ) , andere sich in

10, 60; perder

joi

1, 6, 19, 29, 45;

23, 41; domna

(midons)

2 5, 34,

4 9 ) , eine dritte Gruppe nur in einer einzigen Strophe vor­ kommt - und sie beherrscht - (tolre (mirar)

Str. I, 13, 15;

III, 20, 2 1 ) , eine vierte Gruppe hingegen

Strophen zu einer Einheit zusammenschließt II, 13, 16; dezirer

{cor

I, 4. 8;

I, 8; II, 16); schließlich auch

Strophen umfaßt (merce

V, 37; VI 41; VII, 50; chaitiu

46; VII, 56; VIII, 58; mort

(morir),

miralh

zwei drei IV,

anschließend an III,

22; V I , 48; VII, 5 4 ) .

Angesichts dieses ersten, noch provisorischen Befunds ist, zumindest was Can vei

la

lauzeta

mover

betrifft, die

traditionelle Auffassung nicht zu halten, derzufolge nicht von einer Einheit des Gedichtes, sondern nur von einem En­ semble autonomer Strophen die Rede sein könne. Wenn hunder­ te von Kanzonen diesen Eindruck erwecken,

dann sollte da­

bei nicht vergessen werden, daß die Trobadors bei ihrem höfischen Publikum eine Kenntnis voraussetzen durften, wel­ che die dem neuen Lied fehlende Einheitlichkeit aus eige­ nem Vorwissen herzustellen erlaubte. Intertextualität pri­ vilegiert nicht nur den Dichter, sondern in hohem Maße auch

451

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS die Rezipienten. Beide verfügen über den paradigmatischen Code, der sie ermächtigt, das einzelne Lied als Phänotext in eine Beziehung zu einem imaginierten, idealen Genotext zu bringen.

P. Zumthor stellt fest: "Le lieu de la con­

vergence dans la grand chant courtois, est la strophe plutôt que la chanson comme telle", relativiert indessen selber diese Behauptung mit der Beobachtung einer "circu­ larité du chant".8 Eben diese "Zirkularität" beruht auf der kohärenzbildenden Distribution rekurrenter Elemente, denen, je nach Frequenz, Stellung im Text, Ort im höfischen Wertsystem, mitgebrachter oder erst sekundär vermittelter Bedeutung, eine Hierarchie eignet, die sie in Elemente eines strukturierten funktionalen Systems verwandelt. "Jamais poesie ne fut plus rigoureuse, plus totalement 9 et consciemment calcul, mathématique et harmonie" - auch wenn man diese Charakterisierung der "poésie formelle" durch R. Guiette nicht ganz wörtlich nehmen darf, so gilt sie gewiß nicht bloß in Bezug auf Metrik, Strophenbau und Melodie, sondern trifft auch auf Makro- und Mikrostruktur des Texts zu, auch das einschließend, was R. Dragonetti in der Nachfolge Guiettes die "Kunst des dynamischen Cliches" ge­ nannt hat.

"Organisation thématique"

binatorik der Topoi und der Clichés

(Guiette) und Kom­

(Dragonetti) gewähr­

leisten eine relative Freiheit der Komposition innerhalb des Bedingungsrahmens konventioneller und normativer "Re­ gister": "C'est en tant que registre d'expression organisé et cohérent, avec les multiples rsonnances dues â ses cor­ respondances internes, que ce monde verbal est poésie".

452

CAN VEI

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LAUZETÄ

MOVER

Die Hervorhebungen der rekurrenten Textteile, die wir an dem Lerchenlied vorgenommen haben, lassen den Gedanken, ihre Anordnung sei willkürlich, von vorneherein als unwahr­ scheinlich erscheinen. Ihre Distribution ist sicherlich keine "mathematische", gewiß aber eine wohldurchdachte. Wir verweisen lediglich auf die herausragenden Fälle. Die Verbindung von cor Strophe

und dezirer

im letzten Vers der I.

(8) erscheint in umgekehrter Folge im letzten Vers

der II. Str. (16) wieder. Joi

(2) und amor

(10), durch 7

Verse getrennt, aber an genau derselben Stelle in Str.I und Str. II stehend, sind in v. 60 (Tornada), den sie aus­ füllen, zu einem Syntagma gefügt, das den Sinn des ganzen Gedichts besiegelt. Die sinnverdichtende, den Rhythmus der Gefühle zur vollendeten Resignation hin steigernde Kombination von zu­ nächst getrennten Elementen ist für das ganze Lied konsti­ tutiv. Dezirer,

in den ersten beiden Strophen mit cor

ver­

knüpft, verbindet sich als adjektivisches Präsenspartizip mit chaitiu

(chaitiu

deziron,

4 6 ) . Dieses aber, hier ein­

geführt und das ganze ambivalente semantische Gewicht mit­ bringend, das ihm eigen ist, bestimmt, an zweimaliges

mort

(54) anknüpfend, den Abschluß von Str. VII und die Tornada, indem es seinerseits jetzt zuerst eine syntagmatische Ver­ knüpfung mit vau auch mit no sai

m'en on

bzw.

m'en

vau

(55, 56) eingeht, aber

(56), und sich somit der vollständigen

Sequenz des sich in der Opposition "wissen - nicht wissen" auslegenden Leitmotivworts

(no) saber

(9, 10, 32, 39, 42,

56, 58) bemächtigt, um sich schließlich, in der Tornada, in das dreigliedrige, emotional inzwischen hochgeladene Syntagma m'en

vau,

chaitius,

no sai

453

on

(58) zu integrieren.

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS M'en

vau

schließt sich inhaltlich - und lautlich an zwei­

maliges no sai

on

Lieds: m'escon

an. Merce,

(Reimstellung) - an das letzte Wort des fundamentales Schlüsselwort der

Trobadordichtung, tritt, gemäß Gattungsvariante der ge­ scheiterten Liebe, verspätet, aber sogleich als mala (Str. V, 37) auf, in Str. V I , 41 als merce

perduda,

merce wodurch

es semantisch wie phonisch die Assoziation mit dem doppel­ ten perder

von Str. III, 23 bewirkt. Als mala

und als eine, der auch apophonisches precs nicht zu helfen vermögen, steht merce

perduda,

und

und dreihs

(50)

ohnehin bereits unter

dem doppelten Assoziationszwang des mythologischen Motivs von Narzissus (morir)

(Str. III) und in einer intensiven, von

ziehung. Die Serie des laissar-Vorkommen Str. V I , 43 in die Verbindung mit morir in ihr auf, läßt das laissar "Todes" werden vezer

mort

(22, 48, 54 bis) ausstrahlenden phonematischen Be­

{laisse

und laissar

morir).

(s.o.) mündet in (mort)

ein, geht

der Herrin zur Ursache des Die Koppelung der Serien

in que.m laisset

en sos

olhs

vezer

(19)

geht in der phonologischen Instrumentation des NarzissusThemas in der Metaphorisierung der olhs: über mirar

(21), das für vezer

miralh

(20, 21)

eintritt, eine durch Allite­

ration gestützte Verbindung mit mort

(m'an

mort,

22) ein.

Zu den Schlüsselwörtern mit doppelter, außer- wie in­ nertextlicher Referenzqualität, denen wir in unserem Lied (s.o.), gehört merce, sowohl "Lohn" wie 12 "Gnade" bedeutend. Wir haben indessen bei der Reproduk­ tion des Textes graphisch auch zwei Wörter hervorgehoben, die jeweils nur einmal erscheinen, in denen wir aber eben­ falls Schlüsselwörter mit der gleichen referentiellen Ei­ genschaft sehen dürfen: enveya (5) - "Neid" und "Begehren",

mehrfach begegnen

454

CAN VEI

LA

"Sehnsucht" - und issilh

LAUZETA

MOVER

(56) - "Exil" und "(seelisches)

Elend", "Vereinsamung". Wenn beide semantisch doppelpoligen Begriffe nur einmal vorkommen, so sind sie doch nur scheinbar isoliert. Enveya

ist eingekreist von homophonen

Elementen, die ein dichtes phonologisches Netz bilden: anVeia

-

Vei

( 1 ) , mover

meraVilhas

( 7 ) ; envEYa

( 1 ) , Vai -

vEI

( 4 ) , Ve

( 1 ) , vEYa

( 5 ) , Veya

( 6 ) ; enVEYA

(6), -

VEYA

(6) (mit dem Charakter eines Binnenreims). Etwas anders verhält es sich mit issilh,

dessen mitgebrachte Bedeutung

eine besondere Relevanz dadurch gewinnt, daß es 1. im letz­ ten Vers der letzten Vollstrophe

(VII) des Gedichts, 2. in

der Mitte dieses Verses und 3. im Zentrum eines semantisch durch rekurrente Teile maximal aufgeladenen, den Vers fül­ lenden, dreigliedrigen Syntagmas steht: chaitius, no sai

on.

en

issilh,

Wir gehen wohl nicht zu weit, wenn wir die Rele­

vanz von issilh

zusätzlich dadurch konstituiert sehen, daß

es, ähnlich wie enveya stehenden ilh

mit veya,

mit dem an gleicher Stelle

des vorausgehenden Verses

reim bildet. In diesem ilh

(55) einen Binnen­

gipfelt, wie wir meinen, para­

grammatisch die phonologische Serie der Pronomina, welche für die domna(s) 28, 3 1 ) , leis la

eintreten: celeis (30, 47, 5 1 ) , ilh

(45, 5 2 ) , cilh

Zwischen

(12), lor

(26), las

(34, 52, 5 5 ) , li

(27,

(36, 5 4 ) ,

(43).

enveya,

der Ursache, und issilh,

der Wirkung,

ist der Komplex der Gefühle eingespannt, dessen Fortschrei­ ten das Gedicht mit den Mitteln, die wir zu beschreiben und zu erhellen suchen, artikuliert und damit herstellt. Die Pronominalisierung der domna,

der, wie wir feststellten,

eine funktionale Semantisierung zugewiesen wird, hat ihre Parallele in der obliquen Pronominalisierung des Ich des

455

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS des Dichters bzw. Liebenden. Dabei ist allerdings ein wichtiger Umstand festzuhalten: Die domna

bleibt stets

autonomes, allein schon durch ihre Unzugänglichkeit han­ delndes Subjekt, das Dichter-Ich aber letztlich immer nur, und immer mehr, hilfloses Objekt seines Schicksals. Selbst wenn, selten genug, ieu weitem das me.

im Text steht, überwiegt doch bei

Die Verse 13 ss. enthalten den dichtesten

Ausdruck dieses für das ganze Gedicht geltenden Sachver­ halts: Tout lo

mon;

/

m'a

 cor,

e can

se.m

e tout

tolc,

m'a

no.m

me,

/

1 ai s s et

e se re

mezeis'

e

tot

. . . Das ein­

zige Handeln, das dem Ich bleibt, ist zu tun, was die Her­ rin ihn "läßt", nämlich sterben (laisse dieses ist die einzige Tat: . . . vau en issilh,

no sai

on.

morir, m'en

4 0 ) , und chaitius,

. . .

Hieße es, ins Blaue hinein zu spe­

kulieren mit der Vermutung, die phonische oder auch polyphonische Verstrickung der Serie leis laissar aisso,

usw. mit der Serie

und dieser wiederum mit der Serie ai ai,

sai,

mit miralh,

chaitiu

mirar,

merce,

in

aissi,

usw., oder diejenige von me, gar auch mort

mi

usw., produzierten

neue semantische Strukturen und damit auch neuen Sinn? Es ist an dieser Stelle angebracht, mit P. Zumthor die 13 Frage zu stellen: "Des paragrammes chez les troubadours?" Sie war fällig nach dem Bekanntwerden von F. de Saussures inzwischen bereits folgenreicher, obgleich bei ihm selbst 14 verunglückter, weil zu eng gefaßter Anagrammtheorie. A. Roncaglia hat das Problem neuerdings anläßlich der Stu­ die Zumthors lauzeta

mover,

aufgegriffen.15

Unsere Analyse von Can vei

la

basierend auf Lektüren, deren erste viele

Jahre zurückreicht, macht eine Stellungnahme unumgänglich. Zumthors vorsichtiger Optimismus 456

ermutigt ihn zum Entwurf

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETA

MOVER

eines Forschungsprogramms, dem wir nur zustimmen können. Roncaglia gibt die anfänglich betonte Skepsis im Verlauf seiner Überlegungen zu den "interferenze nuove di suono e di senso" und der Betonung der potenzierenden Wirkung der Beziehung zwischen "livello fonico" und "livello semantico" 17 gerade für Schlüssel- und Themawörter letztlich auf. Sowohl Zumthor wie Roncaglia brechen - ebenso wie noch entschiedener die Gruppe Tel

Quel18

- das zu enge und daher

unhaltbare Konzept von Saussures Anagrammtheorie auf, um in seiner Erweiterung nutzbar zu machen, was in ihm literatur­ wissenschaftlich zukunftsweisend war. Wir meinen, es sollte in dieser Richtung noch weiter gegangen werden, und zwar in Anlehnung an den berühmten Satz von R. Jakobson: "The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination." Die von der poetischen Funktion bewirkte, diese realisie­ rende Übertragung des Äquivalenzprinzips - das jene Funktion erst wahrnehmbar macht - auf die Achse der Kombination erfaßt auch und nicht zuletzt das an sich bedeutungsindifferente 20 "système euphonique", die organisierte phonische Text­ struktur, deren serielle Elemente Dominanten aufweisen, die sie den phonologisch adäquat ausgestatteten Leit- und Themawörtern des Textes zuordnen. Wir haben oben schon mehrere Fälle dieser Art im Zusammenhang mit der Feststel­ lung rekurrenter Lexeme kennengelernt. Eine Reihe weiterer euphonischer Serien ist unschwer auszumachen: Im Bereich der Assonanz:  - mover

(1), joi

cor

(8), no (8),

tout

(13), cor

(2), Oblid'

amor

(3), doussor

(10), no (11), posc

(13), tout

(13), tot

457

(4), cor (4), (11), pro

(14), tole

(12),

(15), no

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS (14), cor sos

(16), volon

olhs

(19), mout

(16), poder

(17), no

(18), Or'

(20), mort (22), sOspir

berücksichtigt blieb das  des Artikels

(18),

(22) usw. Un­

(lo).

Es dürfte

kaum zweifelhaft sein, daß die Sequenz der o-Laute, einge­ leitet durch das bedeutungsschwere Signalwort joi, z.T. rekurrenten Kernworten doussor, (tolc),

mort,

pro

cor,

von den

amor,

tout,

lautsymbolisch funktionalisiert wird. Die

erste konzentrische Semantisierung in Str. II - amor, posc,

pro,

cor,

tout,

tout,

tot,

tolc,

cor,

volon

no,

- wird für

den Rest des Gedichts bestimmend und hat einen weiteren, von Str. IV (lor,

no,

solh,

pro,

no,

cofon,

vorbereiteten Schwerpunkt in Str. V: aisso, voler,

so,

co,

fols,

no,

trop

totas,

dopt')

, no,

(wozu man auch domna,

vol,

so,

,

rechnen könnte). Die innerstrophischen Verdichtungen der Klangwiederholungen - und das gilt für alle phonologisch relevanten Sequenzen - geben zwar der Einzelstrophe ihren Eigenwert, aber, infolge der interstrophischen Kontinuität, doch nur als Schwerpunkt setzendes

funktional-strukturelles

Moment des ganzen Lieds. Durch η nasaliertes  - on bildet eine durchgehende phonematische Serie, die ihr besonderes Gewicht vermöge des metrischen Prinzips der "coblas unissonans" durch betonte Stellung im Reim des Abgesangs erhält (v. 6 und v. 8 jeder Strophe). Ihr über Homonymien

(fon,

8, 24; mon,

14, 40)

und über semantisch oder lautlich mit Leit- und Schlüssel­ wörtern korrelierte Partizipien deziron

(jauzion,

6 ) , volon

(16),

(46) angesammeltes assoziatives Potential kulmi­

niert, sich gleichsam retrospektiv emotional explizierend, in dem bedeutsamen zweifachen no sai

on

(56, 58) des Ge­

dichtabschlusses. Wir vernachlässigen, um uns keiner Über-

458

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETA

MOVER

treibung schuldig zu machen, den Bezug von on zu , dem als Paronomasie vielleicht doch Aufmerksamkeit gebührte, können jedoch nicht umhin, unter dem Aspekt der "Achse der Kombination" die Serie der ai-Laute zu betrachten, die sich in der zentralen resignativen Formel der Ratlosigkeit no sai

on syntagmatisch mit der n-Serie wie mit der o-Serie

verbindet. ai

- reimbildend wie on - bezieht nicht wie dieses

seine Bedeutungssubstanz primär von der eigenen phonematischen Qualität, sondern von einer phonetischen Korrespon­ laissar

denz mit der interstrophischen, an Leitwörtern wie (3, 15, 19, 4 8 ) , chaitiu

(46, 56, 58) sai

(saber)

(10, 32,

39, 56, 58) semantisch festgemachten, dichten Sequenz (ne­ ben den Reimen in teilweise privilegierter Stellung im Vers: ai enaissi

[5], ai [28], aisso

[7], aissi [33], ai

[23], mais [38], f aih

[26], aissi

[27],

[38], aissi

[53]).

Die Korrespondenzen verdichten sich zum engmaschigen Netz, nimmt man alle ai-Reime

(2. und 4. Vers jeder Strophe) hin­

zu. Diese sind in ihrer Mehrzahl durch finite Verbformen gebildet, indessen hat die literaturwissenschaftliche Semi­ otik längst erkannt, daß Morpheme ebenso wie Phoneme, wenn sie in Reihen geordneter Wiederholungen treten, eine Semantisierung erfahren,, durch die sie selber zu Zeichen werden, 21 welche auf andere Zeichen verweisen. Die Funktion der ai-Sequenz erfüllt sich, wie diejenige von  und on, der Ratlosigkeit des no sai chaitiu.

on,

des ins issilh

in

getriebenen

Die a-Serie erfährt, soweit wir sehen, keine

selbständige Semantisierung, tritt vielmehr unterstützend zu ai

hinzu und bindet dieses allusiv über amor

die Ebene intertextueller Isotopie.

459

- amar

an

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS e - als einem "Archiphonem" ,22 dem die literarische Sprache sowenig entrinnt wie die Alltagssprache, die lyri­ sche Sprache sowenig wie die narrative, gebührte ihm hier keine besondere Beachtung, käme es nicht viermal im Reim jeder Strophe

(   ) vor und affizierte somit die e im

Versinnern, besonders markant schon in Str. I: vEi, movEr

( 1 ) , quE,

E.s,

(6), mEra-vilha,

chazEr

dEssE

( 3 ) , envEya,

(7), dE dEzirEr

m'En,

vE

lauzEta, (5),

vEya

(8). Unter den

a-Reimen, mehrheitlich in Infinitiven, kommt den Reimwör­ tern chazer

(3), saber

(9), vezer

(19) ihrer Rekurrenz

wegen die Bedeutung von Dominanten zu. Ähnliches gilt im Falle der c-Reime für me recre

(53), rete

(55), me

(13), merce (57), recre

(37), ve

(45), be (47),

(59). Bedenkt man die

innerstrophische Rekurrenz und Emotionalität von me, dann erkennt man auch, daß die zwei phonematischen Hauptlinien auf die Dominanten merce

und rete

zulaufen, Schlüsselwörter

mit doppelter Referenzqualität.

Die Erörterung der Serie e lenkt den Blick auf das Prä­ fix des-,

Zeichen für eine Negativität, die jeweils das

Positivum evoziert - desesper destrui

(25), deschaptenrai

(30) -. Lautlich schließen an: mescre

(39), respon

(54), escon

(28), (31),

esdeve

(60). Assoziationspsychologisch

läßt sich diese Phonemgruppe auf die Ebene einer Isotopie beziehen, die von allen wesentlichen, innertextliche wie außertextliche Referenz tragenden, primär bedeutenden oder erst semantisierten sprachlichen Elementen konstituiert wird desamatz

und in deren Zentrum die emotionsschwere Formel des amar

auszumachen wäre - fataler Zwang zur Liebe

ohne Gegenliebe, ohne pro

zu finden, zum Zu-"hoch"-Lieben-

Müssen (trop

mon

puvei

contra

[40]); Dienst ohne Lohn, gar

460

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETA

MOVER

ohne Gnade; Fall in das Nichts, in die Heimatlosigkeit, aus der man nur noch als "Toter" (mort respon)

m' a,

e per

mort

li

sprechen kann. Gescheiterte Integration als exi­

stentielle Erfahrung von Joven.

Am Anfang der Gedankenreihe

- und der Semantisierung der phonischen Serien - stand die enveya,

der Neid auf den erfolgreichen Rivalen, dessen ju­

belndes Glück ins Bild der aufsteigenden, von joi

beflügel­

ten Lerche gefaßt wird. Sollte die LAUZEta

LAUZEngier

den

evozieren?22 Wir halten inne, unter Verzicht auf die Erläuterung weiterer phonologischer Serien, besonders auch der Allite23 24 rationen

und Konsonantengruppen,

deren Anteil an der

Bildung von Kontiguitätsassoziationen erheblich ist, unter Verzicht auch auf die Erörterung syntaktischer Parallelismen neben den phonischen, aber auch der Frage, bis zu welchem Grade es legitim ist, Paronomasie und Apophonie (z.B. enveya-m

' en ve)

etwa auch in amor

mort

- m'an

mort

einer bewußten Paragrammatisierung, wie sie - mort

m'a

-

(tout)

m'a

 cor

-

am .

vorliegt, zuzuschreiben. Unsere Analyse

hat ihre Möglichkeiten keineswegs erschöpft, es war dies auch nicht unsere Absicht, sowenig wie wir meinen, in allen Fällen das Richtige getroffen zu haben. Worauf es uns ankam, war zu zeigen, in welcher Weise die außertextliche, auf kon­ krete gesellschaftliche Realität bezogene Referenz über die - meist mit Schlüsselwörtern identischen, jedenfalls auf dem Schnittpunkt von innertextlichem und außertextlichem System liegenden - Referenzträger zweiten Grades in inner­ textliche Referenz transferiert wird mittels einer Semanti­ sierung sprachlicher Elemente, welche diese zu innertextli­ che Kohärenz stiftenden Referenzträgern dritten Grades

461

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS macht. Von dieser Semantisierung wird nicht bloß jener Teil des selektionierten sprachlichen Materials erfaßt und - vermöge topischer Kombinatorik - neu kombiniert, das man dem höfisch-ritterlichen Soziolekt zuschreiben kann, sondern auch jene kleinen und kleinsten phonetischen Segmente, deren grundsätzliche Bedeutungsindifferenz sie gerade für eine Semantisierung der oben beschriebenen Art disponibel macht. Die homogenisierende Semantisierung von heterogenen Elementen erstellt, konvergierend in den Refe­ renzträgern zweiten Grades, für das einzelne Gedicht (hier Can vei la lauzeta) eine an Intertextualität angeschlossene Isotopie, die ihr volle Wahrnehmbarkeit sichert. Die konvergenz- und kohärenzbildende Affizierung der phonischen Elemente durch Leit-, Thema- und Schlüsselwörter, ihre serielle Euphonien funktionalisierende Semantisierung, hebt für den Augenblick des Gedichts die Arbitrarietät des Zeichens auf, macht das Zeichen zu einem bestimmten, das auf andere Zeichen weist, vor allem auf solche, welche der Dichter als bedeutsame aus dem Zeichenrepertoire auswählt, über welche die Kommunikationsgemeinschaft bereits verfügt oder die ihr zugemutet werden können. Ihre primär (konnotativ) wie ihre erst sekundär (assoziativ) hergestellte Referentialität enthält Anweisungen an die Kommunikationspart­ ner, wie sie den Text zu "realisieren", d.h. zu verstehen 25 hätten. Es geht hier um eine Textstrategie, deren Ursa­ che, Art und Ziel mit bloßer Beschreibung nicht beizukommen ist. Will man sie analysieren und auf ihren Sinn befragen, dann ist es unumgänglich, drei grundlegende Sachverhalte zu berücksichtigen:

462

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETA

MOVER

1. Der Trobador spricht im Interesse von Joven, jener Gruppe von Aufsteigern, deren sozialpsychologische Erlebnisstruktur diejenige der "marginal men" ist. 2. Die Kommunikationsgemeinschaft, für die sein Dichten bestimmt ist, ist homogen nur soweit, als soziale Interdependenz bzw. Angewiesenheit zwischen altem, mächtigem Adel und neuem Ritter­ tum eine partielle Interessengemeinschaft her­ vorbringt, die, ohne den sozialen Antagonismus zu tilgen, diesen doch auf einen gemeinsamen ethischen und ästhetischen Nenner bringt. 3. Der Harmonisierungsdruck, der von dieser Kon­ stellation ausgeht, bewirkt, daß sich im Gat­ tungssystem der trobadoresken Lyrik die kompromissuelle Gattung par excellence, die Kanzone, als Dominante etabliert. Sie feiert, transpo­ niert auf die Ebene des "paradoxe amoureux", zugleich sozialen Aufstieg als verdienten Lohn und Bereitschaft zum Verzicht als Ausweis edler Gesittung. Der Ort dieser Feier ist der Hof; die Kommunikations­ situation, von der diese Dichtung lebt

und die von ihr zu­

gleich mitgestiftet wird, ist das höfische Fest. Nicht das Spiel, wie oft behauptet wird, sondern das Ritual ist das Kennzeichen dieses Festes. Auch die herrschende thematische Variante der verweigerten Identität, die gerade für Bernarts Lerchenlied charakteristisch ist, wird mittels der festli-

463

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS chen Ritualisierung noch zur Hoffnung, indem sie in der soziokulturellen Identität der höfischen Kommunikationsge­ meinschaft aufgeht. Das ritualisierte Erlebnis der erfüll­ ten künstlerischen Form, die gesellschaftliche Erfahrung in ästhetische Erfahrung umsetzt, wird zur Vorgriffliehen Aufhebung des realen gesellschaftlichen Widerspruchs, zur vorweggenommenen Integration des Individuums in den Status, für den es sich qualifiziert wähnt. Als kompromissuelie Form und Dominante des Systems, als Produkt einer soziokulturellen Allianz von Hochadel und niederem Rittertum (Joven) kann die Kanzone zum "Kernstück eines gesellschaft­ lichen Rituals", zur Darstellung der "höfischen Ideologie der Freude als gesellschaftlicher Realität"

werden. Der

Hof ist Zentrum einer Kommunikationsgemeinschaft, bei deren Partnern, drängend und widerstrebend zugleich, sich das Be­ wußtsein einer Solidarität ausbildet, die im Ritual des höfischen Festes immer aufs Neue beschworen wird. Die Rolle, welche der Kanzone dabei zukommt, ist eine quasi-kultische. Wir zögern nicht, für diese Behauptung auch die Musik ins Feld zu führen, ohne uns eine Kompetenz anzumaßen, die wir nicht haben. Mit Recht hat P. Zumthor nachdrücklich in Erinnerung gebracht, daß die Kommunikation dieser Dichtung sich nicht im Verhältnis "écriture lecture", sondern in demjenigen von "chant - audition" voll27 zieht. Nimmt man diesen Sachverhalt so ernst, wie er es verdient, dann wird die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Text­ struktur und Melodiestruktur zu einer Frage ersten Ranges, und zwar nicht bloß im Sinne einer allgemeinen Übereinstim­ mung von inhaltlichen, syntaktischen, metrischen und musi­ kalischen Strukturen, sondern auch in Bezug auf das Verhält-

464

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETÄ

MOVER

nis von phonologisch konstituierten semantischen Interfe­ renzen zur Melodie. Der u.W. bislang einzigen detaillierten Studie, die von musikwissenschaftlicher Seite der Beziehung von Text- und Melodiestruktur bei Bernart de Ventadorn ge­ widmet wurde, ist zu entnehmen, welche Bedeutung dem Melisma für die Hervorhebung bestimmter Textsegmente zukommt. Die ästhetische Funktion des melismatischen Schmucks ist zugleich eine strukturelle; die Interpretationsmelismen intensivieren die Semantisierung der phonischen Sequenzen des Texts und ihr affektisches Wirkungspotential. Die Botschaft des Lieds ist gesungene Botschaft. Ihr auditives Vernehmen erfolgt im feierlichen Rahmen nicht bloß eines Vortrags, sondern einer Inszenierung. Nicht zu­ fällig ist in der jüngeren Forschung von einer "TheatraliRede.29

tät" der Kanzone die

wie Christopher Caudwell

Wenn die lyrische Dichtung,

überzeugend lehrt, ihren Ur­

sprung im magischen Ritual hat, in dem ein zukünftig Mög­ liches antizipiert und eine Solidarität erzeugt wird, die auch nach dem Ende des Rituals vorhält, dann hat sie diese Funktion in der höfischen Dichtung des Mittelalters bewahrt. Im Ritual des höfischen Fests entfaltet, um mit Caudwell zu sprechen, die "organised emotion" der Kanzone die volle Wirkung der sozialisierenden, bildenden und integrierenden "collective emotion".

A

N

M

E

R

K

U

N

G

S.zuletzt Peter E. BONDANELIA, The Theory

Case of Bernart

de Ventadorn,

E

N

of

the

Gothic

Lyric

and

the

"Neuphilologische Mitteilungen" 74 (1973).

ps. 369-81. Dort auch eine Übersicht über frühere Deutungsversuche.

465

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 2 E. KOHLER, Observations troubadours,

historiques

et sociologiques

sur la poesie

des

CCM VII (1964), ps. 40-51.

3 Cf. unseren Aufsatz Sens et fonction des troubadours,

du terme "jeunesse"dans

la

poesie

"Melanges offerts à René Crozet" (Poitiers 1966), ps.

569-583. 4 Cf. Pierre BEC, Nouvelle anthologie de la lyrique occitane du moyen áge (2e éd. Avignon 1972), p. 65: "... les mots significatifs (termesclefs)

qui reviennent constanment, jouissent d'une richesse sénantique

particulière, d'une pluralité de valeurs, d'une puissance allusive, qui font le désespoir du philologue, mais étendent très loin le message poétique et compensent par là la pauvreté numérique des unités lexicales." 5 Text nach der Ausgabe von Carl APPEL, Bernart Lieder (Halle a.S. 1915), p. 250 ss.

von Ventadorn,

Seine

6 Was etwa Stephan G. NICHOLS, Jr., veranlaßt, von der "amazing autonomy" der Strophe, von "juxtaposition rather than logical development" zu sprechen: Toward an Aesthetic

of the provençal

Canso,

"The Disciplines

of Criticism. Essays in Literary Theory, Interpretation, and History", Ed. Peter Demetz, Thomas Greene and Lowrie Nelson, Jr. (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 352-3. 7 Cf. Paul ZUMTHOR, Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris 1972), p. 185. 8

Loc. cit. p. 193, zur "circularité" cf. pp. 115, 140 und passim. 9 Robert GUIETTE, Questions de littératures (Gand 1960). 10 Roger DRAGONETTI, La technique courtoise.

Contribution

à l'étude

poétique

des trouvères

de la rhétorique

dans la

médiévale

chanson

(Brugge

1966), p. 542. 11 Paul ZUMTHOR, Langue et techniques

poétiques

à 1'époque

romane

(Xle - xille siècles) (Frankfurt a.M. , Paris 1963), p. 143. 12 vocabulaire Cf. unserencourtois Anm. 2) des genannten troubadours Aufsatz 466 de l'époque sowie Glynnis classique M. CRO, (Genève Le 1975),

CAN VEI

LA

LAUZETA

MOVER

ps. 174-7. 13 Paul ZUMTHOR, Langue, texte, énigue (Paris 1975), ps. 55-67. 14 Cf. d i e a u s g e z e i c h n e t e k r i t i s c h e Würdigung von P e t e r WUNDERLI, Ferdinand

de Sausure

und die Anagramme, Linguistik

und

Literatur

(Tübingen 1972). 15 " C u l t u r a n e o l a t i n a " XXXV (1975), p s . 269-272. 16

"Mes relevés ne m'ont pas entièrement convaincu. Il me semble toutefois que subsiste un doute plutôt favorable à l'hypothèse de jeux hypophoniques intentionnels dans la chanson" (LOC. cit. 17 Loc.cit. p. 271 und p. 272. 18 Cf. WUNDERLI,loc. cit. p. 113 SS. 19 Roman JAKOBSON, Closing

statement

p. 65).

linguistics

and Poetics,

ed. Th.A.

Sebeok, "Style in Language" (New York - London 1960), p. 358. 20 M. GAUTHIER, Systeme

euphonique

et rythmique

du vers

français

(Paris 1974). 21 Cf. Jurij M. LOTMAN, Die Struktur

des künstlerischen

Texts

(Frankfurt

a. M. 1973, "edition suhrkamp", 582), p. 42 s. 22 Natǘrlieh behaupten wir nicht, daß dem so sein musse. Wir befinden uns eingestandenermaßen im Bereich einer Fragestellung, wo der Schritt von der Evidenz, auf die freilich größter Wert zu legen ist, ins rein Hypothetische zur großen Versuchung werden kann. Wir geben jedoch zu bedenken, daß eine paragrammatische Beziehung zwischen la lauzengier

uzeta und

sich nicht allein auf die Lautgruppe lauze- stützt, daß

vielmehr phonisch-semantisch wie etymologisch verbundenes joi und jauzion

gewichtig im Text stehen, daß in vei und veys eingebundenes,

dominantes nveys auf ein enveios Lauzengier

verweist, das ein Synonym von

ist. Schließlich sei nicht vergessen, daß Bernart de

Ventadorn sein Lied an Tristan

adressiert, Senhal für einen Dichter­ 467 der in seiner eigenen Dichtung kollegen und Mäzen, Raimbaut d'Aurenga, nachweislich die Kunst des Anagramms geübt hat, so z.B. in Ar

resplan

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS la flors

enversa

(P. -C. 389, 16); s. dazu RONCAGLIA loc.

cit.

p . 271.

23 Allen anderen, z.B.  (), 1-,

ρ-,

t-,

ν- voran: m- mit den vielfach

gestützten Schwerpunkten me, aMor - aMar, miralh- mort, semantischen Fluchtpunkt mala merce

mit dem

zu Beginn des 2. Teils nach dem

kompositionellen Einschnitt zw. w . 36 und 37; feMna, doMna und Midons sind gleichfalls tangiert. 24 Z.B. rd, perder).

rt,

rc

(perder,

mort,

Narcisus,

merce),

pr (sospir,

preon,

25 Cf. Siegfried J. SCHMIDT, Texttheorie

(München 1973), p.82 ss.: "Die

instruktionssemantische Frage nach der Referenz eines Ausdrucks kann also nicht lauten: Was bezeichnet Ausdruck X? sondern: welche Anweisung an Kommunikationspartner gibt X in typischen Kommunikationssituationen? Wie wird X von Kommunikationspartnern realisiert?" Peter BÜRGER, Zur ästhetischen

Wertung mittelalterlicher

Les oisillons de mon pa'ís von Gace Brulé,

Dichtung.

"Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift

für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte" 45 (1971), p. 26. 27 Langue,

texte,

énigme, . 55 ss.

28

Gisela SCHERNER- VAN ORTMERSSEN, Die TextLiedern

des Bernart

de Ventadorn

Melodiestruktur

in den

(Münster Westf. 1973), "Forschungen

zur romanischen Philologie", Heft 21. 29 Cf. P. ZUMTHOR, Essai

de poétique

médiévale,

p. 37 ss.; P. -Y. BADEL,

"Poétique" 17 (1974), p. 259; D.R. SUTHERLAND, L'élément la

canso chez les

troubadours

de 1'époque

classique,

théâtral

dans

"Revue de Langue

et de Littérature d'Oc, 12 - 13 (1962-63), ps. 95-101. 30 Illusion

and Reality,

468 of the Sources

A Study

of Poetry

(London 1937').

Cf. die im Druck befindliche Freiburger Habilitationsschrift von Ingeborg WEBER, Evolution

und Literatur

: Zur Theorie

Caudwell. 31 Illusion

and Reality,

p. 216.

der Poesie

bei

Christopher

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY: FRAME FOR A TEMACHIC APPROACH, APPLIED TO EISENSTEIN'S OCTOBER

Luk De Vos Marc Holthof

.

Ouverture Modern types of cognitive theories, not in the least

scientific approaches of reality and/or discourse commonly labeled materialistic theories, claim their validity on grounds of a principle of relative objectivity, the con­ straints of which the act of self-reflection, curiously enough, grants to be of deterministic heritage or delimination, but refuses to recognize as fundamentally metaphysi­ cal in logic and construction. Mouloud, for instance, is eager to declare that in language a hierarchy of dialecti­ cal opposition culminates in "une dialectique ultime: celle de '1'interobjectivité' et de '1'intersubjectivité'",

1

but

sticks to the axiom that "une tentative pour 'neutraliser' ou pour 'dépasser' philosophiquement les différences de la pensée ou de l'expression se heurtera toujours au fait que

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS le langage humain comporte des polarisations inverses". Even Kristeva, sharing Greimas' concern for the ideologi­ cal contingency of scientific discourse,3 maintains the reified notion of self-reflexiveness as a standard for a maximum of objectivity, when stating that semiology should "devenir le point d'où s'élaborerait un discours nouveau, qui, de l'intérieur de la scientificité, l'énonce en dénonçant sa théorie. Discours critique et autocritique, donc dans une posture scientifique par rapport à sa propre scientificité, il débouche sur l'idéologie: la dénonce et se pense comme telle, l'idéologie de ses 'objets' et celle de son propre tissu. Nous réserverons, provisoirement et à titre distinctif, le nom de sémiologie

à ce type de

discours. Il se constituera comme une théorie de la science qu'il est".

Science declared science through

ideology.

The mechanistic principle, however, of splitting up object and subject, reality and language, langue-objet

and

metalanguage, science and ideology, etc. differs in no way from the positivistic belief in one-way thinking: "Binary oppositions are intrinsic to the process of human thought. Any description of the world must discriminate categories 5 in the form 'p is what non-p is not'". ception

The dualistic con­

(when talking about objects or 'real' situations)

is reflected in the procedure of thinking, dialectics

(when

talking about processes or the mechanism of thinking). It is highly surprising - though logical, indeed, since struc­ turalism suffers from its peculiar defects of neo-scientism6

and pretended universality

- that the status of the

process of thinking itself was never put to question. Hence the obvious refusal to look

at

and, consequently, perceive

470

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY the idealistic, and even metaphysical origin of this con­ viction. The irrationality of the scientific concept tes­ tifies to a pre-hegelian tradition, despite concealing re­ ferences to notions like intersubjectivity (the Husserlsyndrome) , conscience

collective

(Goldmann) or le

décentre-

ment du sujet (Kristeva, Lacan) - strategies to hide the fundamental bias of objectivity by means of a metalinguis­ tic (supposed) tautology: the scientific circle. Two obvious questions force themselves to our atten­ tion. First, in what way do present-day theories adhere to an idealistic principle? And secondly, can a scientific theory possibly escape idealistic roots at all, viz., if this proves to be impossible, why do we still have to re­ ject the concept of dialectics, or, at least the way it is generally interpreted? The answer to the first question is easily summarized in three essential objections: actually, the conception of science itself labours under a hoax of reductionism, of an ethicized determinism, and of transcendentism. Reduc­ tionism, typical for neopositivism and structuralism, fancies to simplify the dynamic evolution of 'entities' to a uniform tick-tack game; the movement of the dynamic principle, dialectics itself, would then form a mechanistic clockwork, deprived of any variation possibilities. This excessive simplification of complex processes (substituted 

by a universal mechanism) blinks at indivisible systems with intricate nets of relations, the ontological state of which changes at the moment of forced assimilation to the operative methods. Idealism, aiming at neutralizing 471

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS two opposite factors by a mediating and synthesizing third one is founded on the idolization of the idea of harmony; of platonic origin and hegelian as principle of thinking, it pops up as well in the logic of propositions as in, for example, the three-term models of i.a. Dumézil, Saussure 9 or Greimas. The kind of irrational veneration described here owes its wide spreading to ideological and ethical interaction. It causes the determinism of a closed uni­ verse to take the form of a determinism of the reflection theory, as will be shown further on. The framing of uni­ versals, after all, induces the problem of how the dialec­ tic mechanism and eschatological inherence are connected to each other. From an ethical point of view, any inter­ pretation then leads, and must lead to the constitution of a final model, functioning as an ideal and recuperative set of rules with regard to the human being. Under the cloak of 'ideological progressiveness', the universally valid model gets a transcendental quality, thus evading the material world. The transcendental, i.e. "die Grenzen möglicher

(nicht nur individueller oder gegenwärtig mögli­

cher) Erfahrung übersteigende, . . . den Bereich des menschlichen Bewußtseins überschreitende"

world gives

the material world its proper sense, while, on the con­ trary, the belief increases that the material world, rec­ ognized as objectively existing, can be controlled and un­ derstood by a system of signs. Obviously, the reification of this primary division debouches into an argument pure and simple in favour of a nebulous dualism, whether meta­ physical or Stalinist. Yet we do not reject the dialectic procedure at all,

472

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY since a deterministic principle seems to us quite valid a starting-point. The basic idea of bipolar constructions becomes possible only if one realizes the universe as a closed system. Language and the world then form a vicious circle, which implies the possibility of a central point, and, because of this point, oppositions with respect to the centre. So, an epistemology institutes itself. In principle, the existence of reality and a totality-concept are thereby denied, and an objective knowledge of the material world made impossible. Each cognitive procedure ultimately appeals to its own generative epistemology. Each cognitive procedure aims at self-elimination by try­ ing to make itself tautologically explicit. Therefore, each cognitive procedure must be and dualistic and meta­ physical

(in the etymological sense), within the world of

language

(which is the only world), that is. The implica­

tions are all too clear: dialectical procedures are, though not necessarily continuous, at least as indispensable as 11 ineluctable. Accordingly, in this preparatory study, it will be our intention to show that not the dialectic principle is wrong, but the content attributed to it until now. That cognition is tributary to idealism, we ascribe to inherence to epistemology as such. The reorientation we have in view with regard to the cognitive principle will entail the complete elimination of the signifié,

and the necessity to

search for new propositions to set up a praxeology, e.g. for textanalysis. There will be a shift from narrative con­ tinuity, either based on categories or typologies

(both

being static, none the less), towards the dynamics of an

473

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS oscillating delimitation. In point of fact, the text as a 'relation-packet' gives form to a dynamics of demarca­ tion in the first place; schematically:

Scheme

1

In other words, a matrix starting from the material qualities of language on the one hand

(the textlimit being

crossed either when its image-feature or its sound-quality breaks loose from the conditioning exercised by the second, horizontal axis) and from functionality on the other (i.e. maximization or annihilation of information - in both cases, the realm of language is left behind, and compre­ hension absent). What matters is that one should renounce mystifying axioms like: 'Language strives for unequivocality'. One should, on the contrary, recognize the

of a permanently

shifting

circumscription.

dialectic

The latter con­

sists of an interaction of centripetal and centrifugal forces, that keep the text necessarily within a fairly concentrated, but always sliding mid-area, in a spectrum of ideologically acceptable strategies of decoding: "Redun­ dancy increases

information - that is the uncertainty of 12 the possible means of decoding the message". To reduce inevitable noise, we intend to focus two other objectives:

474

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY the primacy of attribution by systemic organisation (a holistic approach) over structural analysis

(an atomistic

approach); and, on principle, the closedness and ideologized concept of the (re)constructed universe. 1. Bulgarian

Rhapsody

A symptomatic excerpt from a recent interview with Julia Kristeva may show how deep modern textanalysis is impregnated with a pseudo-rationalized, but fundamentally transcendental dualism. "Par ailleurs", she says, replying to trends of empathic writing, "Une autre attitude, qui est la mienne, consiste à maintenir, après la phase in­ évitable d'identification, qui est la phase même de la lecture et de l'interprétation, une exigence de connaiss­ ance - par un retour au lieu considéré neutre de métalangage, c'est-à-dire, d'une part à cette 'phase thétique' dont parle Husserl et qui pose l'existence d'un objet réel garanti par la prédication, et d'autre part, aux capacités de connaissances syllogistiques et métalinguistiques que cela suppose. Il s'agit donc de décrire, avec les matériaux disponibles, cette identification préalable 13 au texte". The almost mystique dimension is based on some logical contradictions in this seemingly closely-reasoned argument, following an already misleading question put forward by Quellet, who, on grounds of "une attitude de plus en plus mimétique et identificatoire du sémioticien par rapport à l'objet qu'il se donne", believes to have discovered in the evolution of textanalysis a transforma­ tion of attitude, "une sorte de rabattement de l'hétéro­ généité que constitue tout texte en tant qu'objet de connaissance, sur un espace indifférencié, homogénéisant,

475

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 14 où le texte et sa lecture au font plus qu'un".

The hid-

den, though barely dissimulated reference to Lacan

{Ecrits,

especially his analysis of Edgar Allan P o e ) , and perhaps even m o r e ments

d'un

so to B a r t h e s Discours

{S/Z,

Amoureux)

Le r

Plaisir

du

elucidates

Texte,

the

Frag-

metaphysical

dualism haunting Kristeva's semiology. It is striking, indeed, that she clings with desperate tenacity to vulgar dialectics, while Barthes' oeuvre phase of identification

leaves more and more the

(in view of the text as an object,

at least), and introduces instead the awareness of the ideologized premise of any approach, and the construction of an integrating process of systemic interaction. "Par [ce] retour au lieu considéré neutre", Kristeva credits the metalanguage with a quality of correcting the construction of the act of reading. The only legitimation, however, of this imputation rests on an extrapolation Kristeva cannot fill up: who decides how and why the detour made is neutral? In other words, one has to recur to a norm of 'objectivité', which

does

not

belong

to

the

same

universe.

An artificial standard is built in, and overarches, so to speak, in a reifying way the analysis of a text as a procedure: metalanguage.

The clue of this insidious shift in the status of the cognitive process from systemintegration towards the reified metatext finds its origin obviously in the conviction that an "objet externe" and metalanguage are distinguished according to the parameter 'absence/presence of 15 the dichotomy ideology/non-ideology'. In this way, objectifying ontology

(in its husserlian

sense)16

can be

argued, but the appreciation of the ideological factor is

476

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY utterly defective. Kristeva manages to evaluate Barthes' approach of texts in terms of "style repetitive" and em­ pathy only. Due to the absence of the central notion of system (defined otherwise: due to structuralist reductionism), 17

it becomes entirely impossible for her to

recognize her own technique

of thinking as sheer ideology.

The ultimate consequence, the appeal to a transcendental objectivity, follows logically from a mechanistic dialectic, but owes its being concealed to the closedness of the pro­ cedure of analysis 2. We sing

the

(the tautological project).

Body

Electric

Hence, one can accept the thetic phase

("la

coupure

produisant la position de la signification") 18 being in­ terpreted as a factor delimitation, but not that it gets its ideological stratification from a dialectical-causal ("il n'y a qu'une seule relation with textproduction signification: c'est celle de la phase thétique, qui tient aussi bien de la proposition que l'objet, et la complicité l'autre"), 19

de l'une avec epistemological

systems.

but from the

interaction

of

Questions of origin and primal

source are irrelevant, as Kristeva quite rightly remarks, but one should avoid also to make the description of the operative mechanism in the last resort dependent upon such a question belonging to a metaphysical category. One cannot think outside the universe. In other words, no individua­ tion process

(atomic reduction), but an organizational to­

tality-approach. Metalanguage, then, no longer appears as an extra-physical touchstone. It becomes a process equi­ valent to the text, i.e. the text comes

only

into

being

as a cognitive self-assertive phenomenon and as a so-called

477

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS medium referring to reality within

the science of texts.

The system creates its objects. Generalizing, one could say that the precarious notion producing dichotomies like language and metalanguage, or language and reality, is the act of interpretation.

Even

in the most advanced theories, interpretation was always considered as a response, a secondary procedure, "recreation of the text", as Hirsch puts

it,20

the recognition

of the author's intention. Our starting point claims a process of construction

by a taxonomy of propositions will

be at the same time the only condition of relevancy for the human being. The process of language acquisition and cognition cannot be opposed dialectically to a non-human stage

(the way animals 'think', for instance), because

the universe, by all means, turns into a different uni­ verse. Therefore, it should rather face its own, contingent variables. The study of any norm outside this area is bound to be meaningless, even "unaussprechlich"

(Tractatus,

6.522). Consequently, the elimination of the notion of interpretation as a dualizing mechanism, i.e. a mental intervention rendering two relation-packets unequal (ob­ ject/referent and a referring metatext), induces the selfevident inanity of the notion of 'reference'. The dialecti­ cal process between signifié

and signifiant

becomes utterly

void, and so will the use of the mediating dividing-line (or Greimas' versus).

The (unescapable) opposition should

be reorientated, since there is a clear dynamic relation between the s igni fiant

and its circumscription; put in a

different way: the former signifié

(Sé) consists in point

of fact in a closed universe of a packet of related

478

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY signi

fiants

(Sa) . The s h i f t

i s shown i n t h e f o l l o w i n g

diagram:

Interpretation

Construction

Dialectics Scheme

2

Essential for our approach is the graph, not its Sa-stuffing. We'd like to introduce this primitive model as temachic

dynamics

(τό

: a slice, a cut), which

means that a totality presentation

(a taxonomy) of the

cohesion of moving boundary- or dividing-lines projects the construction of a 'reality' on grounds of their ideo­ logical origin (the interplay of epistemologies, that i s ) . Evolutively:

Scheme

3

The cognitive process addresses itself accordingly to it­ self, and loads itself with signifiant-constructions in a four-dimensional universe. It is the oscillation of the 479

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Sa-delimitations that shows how any cognitive acquisition is based on an essential falsification, namely a provi­ sional stabilization of processes generated and kept evolving by the cognitive approach itself. It follows that this deterministic imperfection is at the same time as well constitutive as a condition for knowledge at all; the stabilization as action becomes a prerequisite for the conception of a neutral norm. The construction of a worldimage takes on this tentative form:

Scheme

4

The cognitive approach we're concerned with here ap­ pears as a reconstruction of a pretended

gradual develop­

ment in human thinking. In other words, as the formulation of a non-systematical progression of converging ad hochypotheses concerning structure and nature of a likewise pretended

(viz. posited) reality. The approach is funda­

mentally tautological, though its effect is seemingly, and therefore mostly complementary of pseudo-antinomous, 480

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY due to its wide range of differentiation in the composi­ tion of the fragmented object 'reality'

(i.e. the subar-

eas). The oscillating movement of the cognitive processes crops up at every stage and layer (ideology, science, etc.), and starts, by that, a dialectical interaction with already existing and/or residual approaches or hy­ potheses/methods, not so much in the sense of a one-to-one relation, but rather of relation-packets of, comparably, "une mosaïque de pratiques

signifiantes".22

models are rarely if ever primitive

Hence, conflict

(that is, their most

simplified and irreducable relation); on the contrary, they show quite a varying size and impact. Pretending uni­ versality, then, relies on simplification and abstraction. Both procedures, however, are undeniably ideological: practical, determined, but artificial falsifying con­ structs. Its pendant counters Kristeva's contention that "partir de systèmes ou d'opérations mathématiques pour essayer d'encadrer le procès de la signifiance dans cer­ taines formules - ce qui est parfaitement faisable n'aboutit en fait qu'à transposer un certain développement de la mathématique sur une interprétation": 2 3 irrespective of the contradictory notion of 'interpretation' itself (as will be shown in Scheme 6 ) , there are good grounds to ac­ cept that at least in principle part of the relational network of an arbitrary subarea is compatible with those of other subareas. It follows that methodological integra­ tion in different fields of cognition is quite feasible and that a rigorous distinction between e.g. the human and the positive sciences is highly artificial. Moreover, it strengthens our position that the ty

is

made

up of

a complex

game

construction of

ideological

of

a

reali­

plates,

which have no precise demarcations; there is a continuous interaction

(as a process, that is, not as a principle)

in data-exchange, methodological growth and outgrowth, 481

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS perspective and focal shift. One should not, by the way, confuse terms of the diagram like 'mythology' and 'ideol­ ogy'. They are purely technical terms, i.e. constructive set-ups: 'mythology' in the sense of a reconstruction of a universe, 'ideology' in a sense closely related to Veron's definition: "le nom du système [a practical, specifying system, in our view] de rapports entre un ensemble signifiant donné et ses conditions sociales de production", Anyway, the

a fourdimensional "grammaire de production". control

own materials,

the

of

the

game-construction

relation-packets

it

lies

in

participates

its in,

that is. The stabilization of models or ideological plates rests on social powerstructures. The inertia powergrids are striving for includes what constitutes itself as a subject, i.e. a seemingly paralysed intersection of finite series of combinatory possibilities in 'reality'. The sub­ ject owes its equilibrium to the diachronical and synchronical oscillating of ideological plates. One can make a most appropriate use of Wegener's theory of continental drift, indeed, and consider the gliding of plates as evolu­ tionary patterns, directed by underlying power patterns, determined magmatism, for

instance;25

on the other hand,

eruptions or earthquakes can be regarded as revolutions, the results of which can be just as well insignificant or superficial as radical. Interaction of continuity and discontinuity

(or 'catastrophes'; cfr. Thorn). It is con-

ceiveable that the rejection of one or more basic axioms, or the introduction of new ones, are at the same time present in human history. Within the constructions of world images, conflicting views and visions serted into a

time-continuum,

27

such a state of things

could be described in the following diagram:

482

appear.26

In-

DIALECTICS AS

IDEOLOGY

Scheme 5

:

- Cube: spatiotemporal continuum. - A1 to A6 (eventually An ): basic axioms to construct a reality (e.g. the world exists; there is a con­ structive analogy between the world and language ; the world can be perceived; there is logical order in the world; etc. etc.) - z1 and z2 : moving, oscillating borderlines, form­ ing a perspective. (and thus referring here to two different world images). - arrows from A6- and A1 : focus (focalisation within the perspective) .

- black spots:

reality known with regard to a selected set of conditions and rela­ tions (study-object); the selection starts from a combination of procedures (the Arabic figures), and constitutes arbitrary non-system­ atic hypotheses. Within a given universe-concept (circumscribed by ζ , for instance), a unifying mythology links up these non-systematic the­ ses, and forms a cosmology. At the same time, for pragmatic reasons, the desintegration-process starts: myths are formed, become more and more complex, and are but partially transformed within the cluster of ideologies that specify the mythological concept. (This is however a simplification: it is also possible that a given ideology borrows from several mythological systems, even to become self-contradictory: e.g. the combination of the Old and the New Testament-Gods ; a dynamic ideo­ logy proposes, none the less, a solution, e.g. in the form of mysteries). The game of these antagonistic forces is exactly what we mean by dua­ lism, contingent to the closedness of the universe created (projected). - Y: Einzelfall (Adorno). - World-visions: W1 = A1 - A2 - A3 - A4 - A5 - A6 - A1 W 2 = Α1 - A 3 - A 5 - A 6 - Al 483

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS The question now arises what implication the descrip­ tion of such a temachic dynamic within a projected uni­ verse (e.g. W 1 ) has for scientific research. The interac­ tion of relation packets, delimitated by arbitrarily cho­ sen ad hoc-hypotheses entails that a theory functions not so much as an intertextual "point de passage" but rather as interprogrammatic

(Veron),

intersections: the only

way to allow us to disentangle the interwoven ideological forces and to reveal the axiomatic nature of any realityconstruction. Interprogrammatic research aims at carrying out the following programmatic platform: 1) to state the foundations of the basic axioms, which are adduced as arguments for the existence itself of a matrix of cognitive procedures, pro­ fessed to establish a program. 2) since each program is already perverted by its mere nature, i.e. cannot be completely circum­ scribed viz. overlapping other programs, and since each program contains internal contradic­ tions due to the closedness of the universe, one should also try to explicitate these contradictions

(in Brecht's

28

sense) and the artificiality

of the text. 3) it is clear that the projective creation of a universe/a reality implies that one what

one

is

looking

for.

always

finds

If up till now most

scientists thought that the aim of a research program precedes its method

(like Lacan), it

follows from the description of the cognitive process that the mapping out of a perspective 29 generates in fact the goals of a program.

484

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

Empirical control, then, is but created by the cognitive model, and takes up the form of a seeming applicability designed by the model itself. The program selects the fragments to which it will be applicable, casting out every­ thing else as nonrealistic. Metz'

'Grande Syn-

tagmatique' will be shown to be a striking ex­ ample

(cfr. infra). It is therefore necessary

that a text theory makes its aims and perspec­ tive explicit, for in this way only

'empirical

reality' which it should be valid for (but which it actually generates), is delimitated. 4) describe in an adequate way the ordering mecha­ nism, structural models, problems of interfer­ ence, strategies of ethical concealment (i.e. the negation of the Sa-character, the delimita­ tion of functionality etc.). Use, indeed, is mean­ ing.

3. Le Simulacre a) Concenteration

du

Printemps ?

The aims of a text theory can also be formulated in a negative way. Not meaningful and not applicable, then, is the use of non-circumscribed and non-defined basic axioms in text theories, since it is the program viz. the theory that selects the object to which it is applicable. One should keep in mind that the critical text does not describe nor analyse reality, but is

(that) reality it­

self. The dualism theory/object, critical text/text, meta­ language/language, positing/reflecting etc. should be

485

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

rejected, at least when one would try to render the terms opposed equivalent. A theory always calls on itself, it is self-assertive and totalitarian. The final controlling instance is the theory itself in its ideological perspec­ tive. Hence the limitations inherent to the sociological theories of the novel, for example

(Goldmann, Lukâcs,

. . . ) , theories that in their ideological myopia impose a well-defined and particular selection and reading of texts: Balzac in Lukâcs' view conforms to the maximaliza­ tion of the neutral norm social realism put forward, dec­ adent writing on the other hand is completely neglected though it can be shown that the latter's treating some real basic axioms

(e.g. the problem of artificiality, and the

status of that much applauded 'reality') awards it a much more crucial place in the development of literature and so­ ciety

(and a deserved place, too, especially from a marx­

ist point of view) than apparently is the case.

A theory's self-reflexiveness, as propagated by Kristeva in La Sémiologie

comme Science

des

Iáéologies,

is in this sense but an ideological circumvention: no theo­ ry escapes its ideological constraints

(and which are im­

posed by its basic axioms, even if these are rendered ex­ plicit) . If theories fail to dispose of a centre, they can at least avoid getting anchored to a fixed centre the presence of lived reality. Instead, they start floating around in the space (within the continuum) they have created themselves. Centre that - be it eidos, energeia,

ousma,

aletheia,

arché,

telos,

transcendency, consciousness

or Man - is always God in the judaic-Christian dualistic/ dialectic narrative tradition.

486

Imposing such a centre

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY is inevitable in theories longing to discover the reflec­ tion of their alter

ego

in the mirror of their own presup­

positions. Hence their profoundly metaphysical nature. If, on the contrary, we reject an invariable centre as first principle and base for the framing of an epistemology (be it God, présence

or the analogy-principle), we

have to regret the mystification that there 'is' 'some­ thing' to be found, explained, described or analysed. Everything is found in the act of creation itself. There are no explanations. There is no referent. Nothing but the continual reality created by the theory used (in its determination by powergrids). Every theory then is just a challenge to other theories - and this in an ideological sense. Our theory builds on Lakatos' improvement of Kuhn, and goes one better and includes several theories in a system, not in a chain of linear growth. b) The

Truth

Principle

Facts are constructions of the program. Paraphrasing Lakatos, one could premise a difference between scientific and scientific-like theories. The former, which Lakatos calls 'mature science', "consists of research programmes in which not only novel facts but, in an important sense, also 31 novel auxiliary theories are anticipated". However, in our view 'anticipation' is a void notion, in the sense that all anticipation as testcase and virtual proof with regard to reality is abrogated: the anticipation.

program

is

its

own

Mature science, Lakatos continues, "unlike

pedestrian 'trial-and-error' - has 'heuristic power'", i.e. the possibility to construct a reality starting from

487

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS a powergrid. Trial-and-error on the contrary can be inter­ preted as scientific-like balancing between different power-grids, as the weighing against one another of con­ struction possibilities offered by a discourse before ideologically straightening them out to a 'mature science'system. Hence, the world is not the facts (as opposed to Wittgenstein's view in Tractatus,

1.1), but merely itself.

The facts are the program. But the program as an ideological-epistemological option depends on powergrids that constitute the world

(Schemes 4 and 6 ) .

Not the relation world/facts

(in its Wittgensteinian

sense) is essential, but peremptorily the awareness of the recursivity

principle

(Scheme 4: pragmatic evolution

vs. cognitive approach) tending towards self-elimination: the reconstruction of the world equals the constitution of the facts, and vice-versa. Knowledge in its traditional, transitive sense becomes virtually impossible, uttering itself as a paradoxical, apparent (fictive) problem {Scheinproblem,

as Carnap would have put i t ) . This is the

scientific circle, to be denoted with ideological param­ eters only, and manifesting passively

itself

neither

actively

nor

but in the form of an ideologized program. It

follows that no theory, no fact is true - and even, that the essentially dualistic problem of 'being true' (the dualism appears in the dichotomy

'theory to be verified'/

'truth-standard') is utterly devoid of sense. Leaves the only possible position: a pragmatic-ideological one. A pragmatic-ideological, systemic approach to a text theory evidently clashes with the structural constraints

488

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

that form the dominant powergrid in modern text science (from Lévy-Strauss to Greimas; it is even partially present in negative dialectics, the avant-garde principle of

'l'expérience

des

limites'

in the w o r k of

Kristeva-

Sollers, or Grivel's residue-theory). But there are at 32 least hints m Foucault and Adorno to oppose consis­ tently fragmentation to the structural coercion of the Western episteme. The problem however remains; it is the very unsound­ ness of the notion 'structure' itself. From a traditional 'empirical' position, the argument has already been put forward against Greimas' structural semantics that he could not account for the "subtleties of reality" in the binary foundations of his isotopy theory or his semantic square. One can turn round the argument: is it absolutely necessary

to r e d u c e

'reality' to m i n i m a l

tures? As a matter of fact, what ly as

the

existence

of

a passive

is

reality

s c h e m e s or s t r u c ­

presupposed one

can

is

precise­ reconstruct

meaning. Greimas' dualistic reductionism does not take full ac­

count of the pre-eminent concept of demarcation, and pos­ its all too lightly a minimalistic white box grid based on power patterns present in the text and which are regard­ ed if not as ontologica!, at least as unique all the same. Scheme 6 proves this process to be a mere

reconstruction

(cfr. the scientific circle, a vicious one, indeed), while textreality aims at construction, i.e. imposes a rigid 'textinterpretation'. 3 3 Once again, one should realize that the relation between

(meta)text and textual reality

489

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

is as precarious as is the relation between 'real' reality and the text. The text is not a new fact, but part of reality - better: the text is one of the strings, a strate­ gy, of a projective system constituting reality. Greimas, or Zima,

for instance, describe quite rightly social

practices as discourse, as text (- they are indeed no more than that: construction - ) ,

but fail to solve the problem

of the relation text-metatext

(a variant of the yin-yang

principle, if you like). A text is clearly its own metatext, a metatext no more than a text-on-its-own

(without

referent, though probably sharing part of another Sa-relation packet). To combine them, however, testifies to a reinstalment of the already refuted duality reality/text on a different plane (the reason why, obviously, this plane is safeguarded). The relevance principle Greimas 35 borrowed from the Prague Circle does not suffice to form a criterion of de­ marcation, because it constitutes a non-ideologized,

'evi­

dent' criterion, presupposing an external reality in the form of a text, meaning etc., and so distinguishes once again text and metatext. Human text ('meaning'), however, is always

relevant. If this were not the case, we'd be

stuck with nothing, chaos, absence, anything, or in other words, an extralinguistic reality one cannot talk about. The transition from non-differentiated elements to rele­ vant ones is but possible within the frame of an epistemology postulating reality as non-signified, and this irre­ spective of Greimas' remark that "le monde humain nous paraît se définir essentiellement comme le monde de la signification. Le monde ne peut être dit 'humain' que dans

490

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY la mesure où il signifie quelque chose".

A most typical 37

example of his clinging to the absurd distinction Sa/Se can be found in the belief that "la signification, par

conséquent, est indépendante de la nature du signifiant  

grâce auquel elle se manifeste"

- two factors are over­

looked: the diachronical movement of the plates of symbolization, and the common

(and unique) nature of medium and

sense. c) The

Subject

Consequently, the subject within this system is but a matrix of s igni fiants

determined by powerpatterns. It is

the illusory relation between distinct Sa's that originates from the dominating, Western grid inaugurating the existence of a 'subject' beside an 'object' and 'reality'.39 The dualism established by the 'phase fundamentally metaphysical

thétique1

is false,

(since tied to an imperialist

judaeo-christian tradition - cfr. our analysis of

Genesis

further on) and denying the influence of conditioning power patterns. One'd better define the subject (in the sense of an Sa-matrix) as a fusion of different programs. One of these programs, in spite of the subject's plurality (Kristeva), dominates on grounds of power mechanisms (still to explicate) and determines, largely diadetically (cfr. infra), the 'lecture',

the reading of a text. In

our view the importance of power patterns exceeds by far "l'effet du sujet", which we consider as a non-relevant consequence of a reflection-theory

40

so characteristic of

the power grid of Western thought (and responsible for the dialectical restrictions - reality/thinking; Sa/Sé; etc. and transforming the dividing line into a

491

mediation-in-

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

stance, as well in Husserl's epistemology as in Lacan's psychoanalysis).

The preponderant rôle of the subject

(and of interpretation) in semiology

(Lacan, Kristeva,

Bouazis, etc.) is but a logical result of non-recognized determinism. 4 1 4. Du

Sans

To sum up the argument of the previous paragraphs: an epistemology is a temporarily stablized research program, a matrix of Sa's constituting a theory on grounds of other theories, which, in turn, are steered by competitive power-structures and reconstructed determinisms

(e.g. with

regard to perception). A most interesting argument in favour of our hypothesis is furnished by Watzlawick in 42 Whenever

his report on a perception experiment by Asch.

an individual develops a personal and exclusive ad hoc hypothesis, the fact of his being isolated by his social surrounding will be sufficient to entail an immediate adaptationeffect, even though the individual's hypothesis at issue is the only correct one (probable one as long as the test isn't finished, and evidently in respect of the deter­ ministic parameters at work: the convexity of the human eye-lens, the potential spectral correlations, the angle of light incidence, contrast etc.). Watzlawick for that matter quite rightly draws our attention to the importance of the interactional context, viz. the rejection of a monadic perspective; otherwise, "le mal ou la folie" would become "l'attribut d'un seul individu qui aurait de toute évidence besoin d'une thérapie: la thérapie devenant ellemême alors un facteur de distorsion de la réalité" (rather: the distortion of the constructed

reality).

492

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY The epistemology merely exists in its linguistic ex­ pression, which creates in the first instance a reality. The correction of Watzlawick is contained in the phase where a projection takes place. The human being as a speaking

instance posits a direct correlation between his

epistemological field and a so-called empirically per­ ceived, 'objective' reality. In virtue of a similar logical

reconstruction

of the universe

ana­

(and we repeat it:

outside the boundaries of language the universe would have no point of contact at all with what we circumscribe epistemologically as the universe), two further parameters are involved: the ideological and the need for a neutral

ontology of the universe, norm.

This norm is valid for

all forms of cognition and science. Starting from the analogy-concept and from causal logic, we think we can identify it with realism, with the mimesis.

In studying

texts, for instance, the neutral norm appears as the cen­ ter of the closed

(linguistic) universe, around which op­

positions are growing and turning. In the widest sense, one could describe this system in terms of attraction and repulsion towards the mimetic spectrum. In his most recent proposal of textpragmatics, Eco, for example, refers in this respect to "blowing up and narcotizing properties".

43

Even more explicit, Culler writes: "The text is a region in which characters are placed in relation to one another and inaugurate 'a play of meaning'. The job of literary theory is to specify the forms of this game: the procedures 44 to defer meaning, and the procedures of recuperation". It can be easily understood why so much attention is paid in modern criticism to 'non-genre literature, to the a v a n t - g a r d e , to l'expérience

des

493

limites,

4 5

residues,

la

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS pratique

poésie

des

pure

restes,46

anti-literature, totaal1iteratuur

,

(Abbé Brêmond), absolute prose and the like.

"Finnegans Wake", Culler continues, "is probably not recu­ perable - or only for some future audience who might read it as a realism of the process of writing"

(259) . The di­

chotomy resulting from an analogy projection grounds the basic dualism of thinking, inducing that the means of ex­ pression become schizophrenic themselves: the split between the communicative function and the assertive quality of language

(their margin being to be set probably somewhere

between yeah yeah and the lalalah-song). One virtually needs an inverted projection

(assertive

→

functional)

to restore the equilibrium of the balance, and to repair the seemingly interrupted continuity chain of the thinking process. It becomes obvious, then, that a metalanguage in­ augurates its meta-quality all by itself in creating ,

a

, and not by appealing to objective premisses. Sys­

tematically, one can follow the evolution of cognitive processes

(and the draft of a false dialectic) in a last

inclusive diagram, which gives a synthesis of schemes 1 to 5:

494

Scheme

6

47

In the diagram, E stands for epistemology, RL for the linguistic reality, RQ for the objective

reality,  for the communicative function of language, and RM for material reality as a self48 sufficient premise, necessary but unspeakable as Wittgenstein held it (and thus unknowable, too).

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS If we accept that it is the purpose of every epistemol­ ogical system to render itself explicit, i.e., to recog­ nize itself as a tautology, and thus to eliminate itself, one discovers the exact rupture in the cognitive process: the layer of the ontology. The closedness of the universe is attained by extrapolating a material reality as mate­ rialistic starting-point and final explanatory stratum. The problem, however, stems for the reversed

order

of the

construction of a world image: against their own logic, epistemological systems start from an objective reality, which is in fact a reconstruction, i.e., a stabilization of a research program in virtue of intertwining ideological plates. A world construction can but proceed from such a projected

ontology.

How to fill the gap between this projection and its reverse operation? Scheme 6 is very clear on this point. The cognitive procedure does not egories

contain two distinct cat­

(linguistic and material universe). Just for the

sake of clearness we distinguished two columns. On prin­ ciple, the processes described are indivisible; one should therefore double the scheme, fold column two on column one (cfr. folding arrows), so that they form but one process. The reconstructed ontology actually takes up the form of a 49 black box theory (because knowledge of the world is ut­ terly impossible), but which itself is stuffed with ele­ ments from a white box ideology, as will be shown further on. At the moment, we confine ourselves to stating the functioning of dialectics, and how it can be interpreted. The oppositions between construction and projection on the level of 'reality' and language are identical, because they coincide intrinsically and form each other's condi­ tion. These moving borders link up with one another, and close an oscillating borderline around the black box. If 496

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY the dialectical procedure until now has been interpreted exclusively as a succession

of conflicting phases (opposi­

tions, synthesis), it becomes clear now that one has to redefine the notion as an inherent game of oppositions be­ tween the black box/white box-stratification on the one hand, and its circumscription, i.e., the variables demar­ cating the no man's land. We propose to call this (theo­ retical) no man's land the pragma,

since it is right here

that the ideological operations will manifest themselves. We do keep the notions of metaphysics

(and metalanguage)

and physis for reasons of the conventional use of the terms, though it would be more correct to distinguish between physics and hypophysics

(if a distinction is necessary at

all). A subsidiary field of investigation as regards the dialectical procedure will be exposed when describing the mechanism of the pragma/delimitation-interaction. A first conclusion, however, for a pragmatic analysis is already established: what there isn't is as important as what there is (and what there isn't can and will only be defined in terms of other knowable programs).

5. Genetic

Constructuralism

In illustration of the description of the cognitive process, we'd like to proceed to a test by comparing two Genesis-stories and their cosmological concepts: the story of the Bible, and the

Edda.50

Both narrative texts answer

the deterministic pattern of their own design. We will show that the Bible serves a fundamentally transcendental purpose, the Edda, on the contrary, proclaims a kind of materialistic worldconcept. Consequently, the former system has to rely on autarchic social institutions, the latter

497

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS will be the blueprint of a Council-legislation. The transcendental option of the Bible induces automat­ ically a system of oppositions, because the recognition of a Reality outside this world, of a super-natural reality (God, perfection is attributed t o ) , projects an antipole from a reconstruction, which is the text itself. Chaos and perfection virtually coincide, a logical equivalence as a matter of fact, for if the perfect really be perfect, it should include the imperfect as well, being, not

knowing.

Being and becoming

that

is,

(ontology and ontogeny)

stand for the basic oppositions, and the trigger of their mutual dynamics is formed by knowledge

as mediation: the

"tree in the midst of the Garden" provides the human being with the faculty of discernment so, of fragmentation

(Gen. 3: 7 ) , and, in doing

as the soil of insight. The founda­

tion of the idea of organic unity the inevitability of an action

is thereby laid. Hence

as God's first articula­

tion (Gen. 1: 1) - and it is noteworthy that the text al­ ways uses the impersonal third person. Creating means de­ liberate intrusion in another universe. The action itself, by the way, is nothing but a linguistic reconstruction producing an environment for itself" 5 1 : man's fall truly is a s eduction framed.

by

language,

out of which primal

And it is done by someone

times

are

(the serpent) who knows

the rules of the game, shares in other words the qualities present before man could discern them - therefore, no dif­ ference but a difference post snake

quem

can be imputed to the

(who appears, quite logically, as an emanation of

God, if not God himself). The introduction of the concept of demarcation enables God to impart insight and imperfec-

498

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY fection as complementary basic axioms. This clue is further specified by the rest of the biblical texts. The bible as a whole then becomes a deterministic application of the Garden-scene, i.e., of a program-frame, and explains the idea of degradation.

Man is essentially a fallen creature,

and his doom is a direct implication of his knowledge. Im­ perfection induces his unescapable fragmentation, but at the same time, man remains, none the less, a divine hypo­ stasis

(Gen. 1: 26). Although God refuses being identified

with man (Gen. 3: 22-23: the reason why man is sent forth from Eden), man has to carry on God's transcendental indi­ visibility, being the imperfect within the perfect - a purely rational reconstruction. The Bible is the story where nothing happens, perfect stasis. The creation

mustn't

become independent, and in this sense the mission of Gen. 1: 28 ("Be

fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth,

and subdue i t " ) , which assures the creation being continued and remaining contingent to God's transcendental essence, is properly assigned to man before

the fall. The man-woman 52

relationship, at that moment, is still hermaphrodite,

an androgynous unity, as the necessary distinction between the sexes can't but follow

from knowledge itself, imputed

by the bible's textprogrammatic reconstruction in the treescene. In other words, the fall is deterministically pro­ grammed, and it is in the logical order of things that Eve becomes pregnant only after

the fall and Eden

(Gen. 4: 1 ) .

The infringement will continue to act as the dialectical and ontologizing procedure. Knowledge, subordinary and subsidiary to God's non-dimensional essence. Besides, the central character is Cain. He is offered three choices. Either he can deny God's command, that is he can reject the

499

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS mission of continuity, and refuse to found a family. In a concrete form, this would have meant parricide, i.e., the return to the first generation

(and its virtual elimination

by closing the generation-circle: the Oedipus-complex). To avoid this choice, God confronts the act of propagation with the non-possible propagation, c.q. with homosexuality. The theme of homophily was borrowed from the Gilgameshepic: Gilgamesh rebuffs Ishtar, the goddess of lust and fertility, in favour of his artificial double, Enkidu (6th tablet, line 190), who, in turn, pays for Gilgamesh' ini­ tiative

(and guilt) with his life.

only Abel's assassination

In the same way,

(Gen. 4: 8) can prevent parri-

cide, because Abel's death leads to Cain's banishment 54 (the Land of Nod or 'wandering' - like Gilgamesh' vain search for immortality - Gen. 4: 14: "Behold, thou driven

we out

hast

this day from the face of the earth"; com­

pare Luther: "Du treibest mich heute aus dem Lande"). The murder of Abel results from an intervention of God, who is the real agent: "But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect" (without reasons given! Gen. 4: 5; WeEL QÅJIN

WeEL MINCHATO LO'

lenge, a causal decision

SJÄ'AH).

T O God's deliberate chal­

(cfr. 4: 7-8 as retroprojection)

or reply is forced upon man. Sin, however, remains con­ tingent, as is given utterance to by the third alternative: heterosexuality, which in the last resort is always tuai.

55

ISJTO"

"And Cain knew his wife" - "wajêDA'

inces-

QUAJIN ET

(Gen. 4: 1 7 ) , but, as Leach pointed out, he can

only marry his own sister. God's concern for continuity (his own being) is shown by Cain's special protection: the Mark of Cain

(Gen. 4: 15). Thus, God's mission of imper­

fection is thoroughly anchored in his perfection, and the

500

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

idea of degradation can only be neutralized by mediation of a third factor. In this case, the vicious circle is closed by the appearance of Christ, who at the same time restores the prerequisite of unity, linking and incarnating God's paradoxical attitudes: the Jealous God of the Old Testament, and the New Testament's God of Love. The circle makes that perfect order

(the New Jerusalem) and perfect

chaos, expressed by the absence, the emptiness indispens­ able for the opening of the Genesis-text

("beRÊSJIET" -

the translation "created" or "had created" loses the sym­ bolic value of this absence: the non-pronounced

aleph

stands for God's eternity, creation therefore has to start with the second letter) meet again in one point (or a nondimensional continuum): outside

reality, inside transcen­

dence.

The Edda story, on the other hand, gets very close to the form of a modern epistemology: it presents itself as a research-program. Its arbitrariness and closed project can be demonstrated on grounds of several elements. First of all, the supreme god, Odin, was begotten

by Giants,

and cannot claim an eternal transcendental existence, or, as it is noted in the völuspå

(The Prophecy of the Seeress

or Wolwa): I call to mind the kin of etins

Ek man jötna àr

which in times long gone did give me life

of borna, þà

er forðum mik

fæd da höfðu (Stanza 2)

501

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS The Giants, living before the Gods, do not act, they are there : År var alda

In earliest times

at er ekki var

did Ymir live (Stanza 3)

Even more important for our argument is that the gods are credited with a status which is at most gradually

different

from man's, not ontologically. Odin, indeed, is evidently a defective god: he loses one of his eyes to gain and foresight himself

knowledge

(Stanza 28: "Allt veit ek, Óðinn,

hvar Þú auga falt, i inum mara Mímisbrunni" 5 6 ) - the motif of the imperfect and blind god, to be sacrificed to save humanity; but not exactly so in the Edda: with Odin's death ceases the research program, i.e., the "old world" or the universe

(a universe), to exist. Another feature,

which shows and the ideological reconstruction of a cos­ mology and the god's imperfection, is his consulting his brothers prior to creation

(transposition of the ping;

Stanza 6: " Þà gengu regin öil à rökstóla"). Asgard, where the gods reside, belongs to the same reality as the humans' Midgard and Niflheim. Odin does not really create in the first place, he narrates:

"at ek, Valföðr, vel fyr telja"

(Stanza 1 ) . Unlike de Vries's interpretation, the system described does not rest on fundamental dichotomies and 57 oppositions, but constitutes itself as a finite program. In our opinion the correct focus should be turned towards this finiteness.

As E l i o t p u t it in his Four

Quartets,

"in my beginning is my end", so will die in Ragnarok gods, giants and human beings alike, and time with them. The

502

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY worldtree, Yggdrassil, is assigned a completely different function from the bible's, the model's unity-conception namely

(from root to top) which is even more emphasized by

the World-serpent

(the Midgarth-worm) around the three, sym­

bolizing like the ouroboros the closedness of the system, and which lets go of its tail when the system breaks up: Stanza 50:

= Stanza 42:

3 snýsk Jörmungandr

2a the Midgarth-worm

4 i jötunmoði; 5 ormr Knýr The

system

functions

2b in mighty rage unnir as

58

 scatters the waves

a game-theory,

since the gods fix

the course of the world by means of the holy board-game, they "played at draughts in the garth"

(Stanza 5 0 ) , "Tefldu

i túni", i.e., they were aware of a matrix and its poten­ tial relation-packets. Moreover, the human being was al­ ready in the world without interference of the gods, as Stanza 17 relates: aesir[. . . ]

= Stanza 9: 2a three great aesir[. . .]

fundu à landi

3a on the land they found

lìtt megandi

3b of little strenght

Ask ok Emblu

4a Ask and Embla

Even so, the gods are mightier

(gradual difference): they

confirm the human being in his self-identification and thereby, in his knowledge, by removing

(Stanza 18) his

defects, his "örlöglausa"-nature, as is mentioned in Stanza 17: 8. Exemplary, therefore, and inherent to the program as such, the human being is not created by an allmighty

503

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS outsider, but completed

by three gods.

When compared to Scheme 1, the confrontation of two different (religious) research programs makes clear that the point of reconstruction is determined syntagmatically in the bible, diadetically (cfr. infra) in the Edda:

Scheme BIBLE: Perfection (God) of

7 EDDA: relativistic,

Transcendency

programmatic theory.

(= totalitarian theory)

6. Möbius

and

Penrose

: from

black

box

to

black

hole.

The representations in the diagrams of scheme 7 are nothing but the completion of the hole sprung up in the traditional cognitive process, in other words, we did de­ scribe in fact the white box ideology, "delegated" by the black box by reason of its trying to come to a tautological selfannulation. The facts are evident, the logic irrefut-

504

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY able: ontology, generically and organically connected with 'objective' reality, cherishes a projected

status, and ap­

pears in consequence as inevitably reconstructed. The real operative forces - if they exist at all - we cannot know, we postulate them. The black box, therefore, assumes the shape of a

theory.

The theory is the blueprint of the program in force, the epistemology constructs its own progress with. The completion theory is fired, so to speak, in what can be positively studied: a white

box

ideology.

So if we define,

after Ross Ashby, the black box as "les maillons inter­ médiaires entre A et  [qui] peuvent être ou bien variés (dans ce cas ils échappent a votre observation) ou bien, tout simplement, inaccessibles à l'observation", "Untersuchung der Funktion

11

the

(Watzlawick) remains anchored

in the mould of the white box ideology. We define the lat­ ter as "systems that are studied in their being determined by the models they constructed for the environment they're interacting with", environment being a network of imposed Sa-patterns

(by dominant or residual power-structures).

The problem relating to the dialectical procedure rises be­ cause "the information carried by a particular message de­ pends on the set it comes

from",61

and since we've recog­

nized the ideological nature of the text, any new informa­ tion or operation is but valid in respect of the ideology steering the white box. A method particularizes with re­ gard to its user, i.e., its designer only; that is: one can never ascertain whether the description of what is ob­ served, of the projected network of relations, becomes more correct or not. Correctness is but a subsidiary, im-

505

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS plied hypothesis of the starting point, the methods applied, the paradigm Lakatos - quite rightly from our interprogrammatic position - extends to a research program. Theories, like makro-Sa's, can but refer to other theories, or other makro-Sa's. The arbitrariness of the program and its tem­ porary stabilization leads Kuhn to the awareness of its einmalig,

almost unique appearance

(as far as it is not

being continued by a process of ideologizing, or more pre­ cisely, by a power-pattern): "In a science, on the other hand, a paradigm is rarely an object for replication. In­ stead, like an accepted judicial decision in the common law, it is an object for further articulation and specifi­ cation under new and more stringent

conditions".62

While

one specifies the functionality of new data, and the analy­ tical model in force is being refined, input and output are, none the less, intrinsically linked to the black box. Therefore, any conclusion drawn on account of the white box (implementation), is wrongly connected with input and output

(one cannot

know, as shown before). Thus, the rup­

ture within the cognitive process can be explained: the ad hoc-hypotheses contrived by the white box rest on par­ tially different connections with relational packets other than the episteme itself, so that its striving for a tau­ tological self-definition is interrupted.

The fluctuations generated, due to the gliding of dif­ ferent program-layers over and into one another

(like an

adhesive strip on a tube), constitute at the black box/ white box border a dynamic process, to be compared with ruptures and movements at geological plate margins, in other words, a second operation-field of the dialectical procedure. 506

DIALECTICS AS

IDEOLOGY

Each theory with regard to an arbitrarily chosen object (i.e., a packet of relations), then, has to specify and define as rigorously as possible the ideological startingpoint of its method, that is to say to ascertain its prem­ ise in a closed universe

(its basic axioms), the direction

it's looking at (the focus) and the scope embraced

(per­

spective) . In a diagram:

Scheme

8

On purely mathematical grounds, it is a trifle to figure out the two other phases of the research program (the black box - a, and the white ideology - b, both inseparable as an object of study) as the angles of a triangle, at least by approximation, since angle χ is all but static, and on condition that, on principle, both phases are of the same value to the researcher. We then get an isoceles triangle :

Scheme

507

9

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS For the very reason that the researcher's ideology is sub­ ject to the same falsifications

(in spite of a maximalisa­

tion of conscience), χ is equably conditioned by a and b, and forms with them a closed system (the triangle). The triangle, however, becomes necessarily a Penrose-trian63 gle :

Scheme x,

10

b and a are continually projections from and on each

other. Nor can one prove their independence. The triangle, therefore, must be contained in a fourdimensional stratum of similar construction, because each angle forms at the same time - potentially or effectively - another angle of another triangle. It is clear then that each point of the triangle's angles itself becomes a potential implosionpoint, thereby cancelling the dualistic structure of the cognitive procedure in a closed universe. The dimensions escape their being determined, and contract to a hole,

to use the astronomical concept.

black

It seems appro­

priate to prove our point by explaining the zero as such a point in the mathematical framing or constitution of the (a) universe

(which itself is a set of shifting tri­

angles linked up by implosion points).

508

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY 7. It

ought

to

be

naught.

The zero is the partition between natural and unnatural numbers, between rational and irrational ones, positive and negative, real and imaginary, fractional and whole numbers etc. Each category fills the world, as does the set of different categories. The zero had already been assigned a peculiar status in Frege's arithmetical theory.

Miller also ascribed it a peculiar function, in the

light of Lacan's psychoanalytical approach. Counting presupposes a marked delimitation of a Sa (and is therefore typical of idealism in Western signifying practice; it is no coincidence that the zero was introduced no sooner than in Renaissance). Things can only be counted if classified under an identical concept, and this cate­ gorization requires an ideological operation to circum­ scribe a Sa and to group them in a marked class of Sa's (which is the 'sense', the 'concept'), posited to be iden­ tical. If one counts 'fruit', for instance, one adds up apples and pears, and by that changes the signs in compa­ rison with an operation handling apples alone. The number one is a Sa that can be repeated as a powergrill for all Sa's in the universe, in that it is the principle of countableness and separability. If one wants to keep counting as a distinct system and activity, marked off from other Sa's which it discriminates in classes of iden­ tity, one needs must introduce a neutral term: the noncountable, something which is not identical to itself since it is not

(and therefore always equal to itself),

an absence. This neutral term or implosion-point is the zero.

509

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Counting as a dualistic operation starts functioning if and only if one has invented the zero, and if this zero is a starting point: nothing someone adds up some­ thing to, so that a series of endless enumeration can be set up: η + 1. To come to this 'one', the zero is necessary, though one counts it as 1 whatsoever. Suppose we have a progression of natural numbers containing the four terms 0, 1 , 2

and 3. There is only a correlation with 3 Sa's, in

spite of the four terms in the series. The neutral term 'zero' is then a function opposite

which one starts count­

ing. Systems not containing the zero difinitely present difficulties when adding up or subtracting: dating is one such operation; .-problems, to quote but one element, arise immediately, since there is no year zero. In this way it is not the one (the delimitation concept) but the zero, the paradoxical emptiness

(it is not a negative num­

ber either: neither debit nor credit) that renders the process of counting possible. Das Nichts

serves to

prove

there is something: Miller actually interpreted this magi­ cal point as the marking of the subject's presence. In our view, one should better see it as the breaking-point of the powergrid

'counting': the instance where the so-called

material process reveals its idealistic-metaphysical foun­ dation. Metaphysical, we say, because counting is essenti­ ally dualistic, structuralist and reductionistic, vowed to codifying the delimitation-concept.

Eschatology then, ranging from zero to the infinite and by that establishing the operation of counting - and out of its dualistic-metaphysical nature

(cfr. the power-

grid of the Bible it parallels) -, rests on a non-temachic

510

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY cognitive pattern. Moreover, the failure of dualism becomes clear at point zero: the zero being neither positive nor negative, cannot be caught in any dualism within the uni­ verse. 0 and

oc are but intersections the universe is

based upon. But when one looks at them from a dualistic point of view, transcendency is supposed beyond these bor­ ders (and inevitable to define them as borderlines at all: consequently, they do not belong to the system but legiti­ mate the system because they function as non-terms). Scheme 7 showed how chaos and order could be identified in the christian, dualistic system.If a universe is mapped out mathematically, a parallel way of thinking consists in identifying 0 and ∞ . Taking into account, moreover, de­ terminism, closedness and implosion

(cfr. scheme 1 0 ) , we'd

like to present a model of the universe we'd call the bolo-model,

dia­

and in which the zero acts as the mediation

in traditional dialectical thinking:

continuum

Zero as point of intersection, and implosion area where a Möbius-fold takes place. 1,2,3,4 ··· η are categories of numbers, the upper part of which (upper part of the ellipses) are e.g. postive, the lower negative (or share a comparable feature like fractional against whole numbers). E.g. 1. real vs. unreal numbers 2. fractional vs. whole numbers 3· natural vs. unnatural numbers 4.. rational vs. irrational numbers filling the universe. 511

etc.

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS As such, the diabolo-model can be compared with Mil­ ler's hypothesis in "La Suture" that the intersection equals the dividing line between Sa and Sé. However, by defining it as the implosion point of the powergrid in a fourdimensional continuum, and by positing that in

it the

Möbiusfold of the elliptic bands is to be set (Scheme 1 1 ) , the zero shows at the same time the relative perspective of the grid

(c.q. the dualistic basis of counting) and

that it legitimates this very

grid.67

If a binary, dia­

lectical system is to function at all, one needs a start­ ing point outside the system. The paradox lies in the fact that traditional dialectics does not recognize the ness

alien-

of 0 and ∞ , and introduces oppositions between 1

and more than 1 (1 + n ) . Any element of the finite series of numbers, however, belongs to tne same universe. It is therefore evident that a real dialectical procedure is to be found in the opposition between 0/ oc on the one hand, and the finite series on the other, i.e., between the uni­ verse and its margin. Traditional dialectics is based on the idea of fragmentation

(as we have seen, a constitutive

element in the judaeo-christian world-image), which ulti­ mately resulted in bourgeois idealism and individualism, eagerly copied as premise by so-called materialistic, viz. marxist theories. Against this fallacy, one could put the constructive appearance of a fluctuating system, as was shown in Scheme 1. 8. Score

for

a

Praxeolg .

To escape the deterministic delimitation of the closed universe is the Utopian longing of the cognitive approach. Radicalizing the ideological premisses, on the other hand,

512

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

focuses the growing probability of a potential denial of the self-assumed research program. All theories are their own refutation. The most encouraging proposals are there­ fore not so much to be found in doctrinaire, dualistically inspired forms of structuralism

(from Levy-Strauss

right

up to Greimas) as in constructions of variables, in inte69 grational theories, and in theorist that permanently in­ culcate their own artificiality, present themselves overtly as artificial constructs. Maldonado, for one thing, refers explicitly to the instrumental nature of Gehlen's Welt70 concept, and to von Uexküll's conviction that "notre environnement est un système d'artefacts: d'une part, des artefacts pour opérer

('Werkzeuge')

artefacts pour percevoir

d'autre part, des

('Merkzeuge').

En d'autres mots,

le 'welt' - la culture au sens anthropologique - est un tissu d'instruments-artéfacts et de symboles-artéfacts, tous deux mutuellement dépendants et conditionnants". Other, conceptual theories worth studying like those devel­ oped in Wittgenstein's Philosophical no's Negative

Dialektik,

Investigations,

Ador­

Barthes' idiosyncratic semiology,

catastrophe theory and game theory, provide new, imagina­ tive and bewildering proposals to extend textanalysis to a multidimensional approach. Most recently, a renewed and flexible frame was put forward by Eco, starting from the 71 floating notion of 'possible worlds'. The structuralist powerprogram, however, shows more stubborn and contingent tentacles than can be scientifically acceptable. In this respect, the wording of the initial hypotheses facing Allais's text deserves all critical attention: "The three hypotheses are: (i) narrative texts are

syntactic-semantico-pragmatic

513

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS devices whose foreseen interpretation is a part of their generative process; (ii) a narrative text, in order to establish and foresee a possible cooperation on the part of its interpreters, builds up as a part of its own strategy a model of the possible reader (thereafter the Model Reader). (iii) the cooperation of the Model Reader involves a series of expectations and forecasts concerning the development of the narrative structures and these forecasts can be studied from the point of view of a semiotic notion of possible worlds 72 from the logical one)."

(borrowed

Our comments can be brief: Ad

(i): Eco, true enough, recognizes and the determining nature and the actualization from the ideological grid, but cannot detach himself from the mechanism of dualism/dialectics, in the sense that pragmatics acts as the synthesizing manifestation of an Sa/Sé game (surface and deep structure). He gives account of the contingency with respect to the generative process, but forgets that the relevancy

of this

process owes its validity exclusively to his own white box ideology

(and not merely to the

projected

input/output demarcation). Ad

(ii): The excessive complexity of the notion Reader'

'Model

(in all its abstraction) - which by the

way drops back to a power pattern in that it is a projection of the 'interpreter' himself via a projection in the text of a relation between the pro-

514

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY ducing instance of the text and the epistemes pro­ vided by the background - made Eco substitute too many correlations by a simplifying reification. Ad (iii): Most firmly one should reject the misconception of a universal archetype

(an analogical construct:

"borrowed from the logical world"). Given one wishes to use the 'truth'-parameter

(already re­

futed) in structuralizing theories. If then an ana­ logical operation is true, one cannot speak - from a logical point of view - of forecasts or extrapo­ lation, but only of hypotheses Tractatus,

(Wittgenstein,

a.o. 5.555, 6.36311, 6.37 and 6.5). If

the operation, on the contrary, is untrue, the no­ tion of possible world itself gets unsettled. In sum, we reject the principles

of Eco's proposal because

of its fundamental option: the primacy of the concept of 'structure' as against our notion of 'system'. We define system as a fourdimensional matrix, a "boundary-maintain73 ing" (Buckley ) continuum of programmatic organization with regard to the indeterminate

(i.e., designed by out­

dated systems, and therefore partially variable) Sa-networks, which are seen as "integrated wholes of their sub­ sidiary components and never as the mechanistic aggregate 74 of parts in isolable causal relations". Compared to structuralizing theories, the diadetic intervention in the system's approach inculcates

the structure

(and is not re­

duced to i t ) . Structure we define as the freezing of a threedimensional Sa-pattern, conditioned by the closed universe, and based on binary oppositions; 75 the narrative construction is founded on time and syntagm

(narrative

logic); paradigm and pragmatics from with them a Greimas-

515

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS square, if interpreted in the classic 'structuralist' ap­ proach. The square itself owes its mechanism to a reduc­ tionist, universalizing opposition-dialectic. In our view, however, the pragmatic component consists of a dynamic of delimitation variables, while the diadesma

(δια: through;

δεσμά: anything that binds) indicates, so to speak, a re­ lation from outside the text with the world

(which itself

is a network of relations). In this sense, the diadesma takes on itself mode

(colouring the discourse by

modality

- to have to, to seem, to want, etc., as compared to the neutral norm, which is mimesis words: the norm of factuality

of

action,

(Darstellung);

or in other factuality

means that the ideological constraints of the plate, from which the construction started, are fully covered. But also aspectual

mode

- irony, scientific discourse, etc.,

as compared to the neutral norm, which is mimesis ism)

and continuum organization

as

real­

(implication: motif and

theme, e.g., lose their strictly narrative functioning, and can now be interpreted in a non-causal w a y ) . One more word on the problem of mode. Narrative theories give no closely-reasoned solution to it, just like phonetics or structural linguistics fail to account for a systematic inclusion of intonation as signifying factor. By intro­ ducing the diadetic field of force it is not inconceivable that the diadesma, which inculcates mode as one of its strategies, is truly the first construct

instance permitting to

(and read), giving shape to a text (a packet of

relations). We came upon a typical case of structuralist impotence, when attending the Colloquium on "Lucien Gold­ mann et la Sociologie de la Littérature Aujourd'hui" in Paris

(March 1979). In her plea for a renewed totality-

516

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY approach, F. Gaillard had to (and we quote her own words) "mettre entre parenthèses pour le moment" the ironical layer in Flaubert's oeuvre, none the less. The reason is obvious: if she wanted to remain within the boundaries of a structural(izing) approach, the only way to make an evident use of the narrative structure as a dialectical element was to exclude all disturbance - mode in the first place. Or we could put it this way: the structure is the system's 9. Eisenstein

Mercator-projection. on the

ficial

stone.

To elaborate our outline of a theory, we envisage a rough analysis of one of the least complex relationpackets. The theory suggested in the previous pages is still too embryonic, and not yet consistent enough to broach it as fully developed platform. However, a minimal coherence and some of its contours have been worked out, and where it was put to test, the theory proved promising enough to claim provisional validity. It seems to open new ways to a more comprehensive and integrating approach, while unambiguously stating its ide­ ological indebtness. The reasons why we chose a film to frame a sketchy praxeology are abundantly plain: the film depends heavily upon its manufacturai nature (velocity, simulation adapted to perceptive determinisms, etc.), on mimesis (i.e., higher inertia of the pragma, and of the neutral norm, too), and on montage (a more restricted set of possible operations as compared with written texts). We singled out, moreover, a classic example of transparent modelling (maximalisation of the neutral norm, schematiza-

517

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS tion of the symbolic strings, standardized diadesma): Ei­ senstein' s October sequences Towards

a

(1928), and more specifically the first

(cfr. prints 1 to 3 ) . Praxeology

A film is not what is the case. Maybe nowhere more than with film-Sa's it becomes obvious how much the signifying effect relies on a black box (in this case the film) being impressed by a white box in the form of a pre-structured powergrid

(which relates the Sa's with each other and does

not take the form of a Se-effect as in 'vulgar' filmtheory). Indeed, each text (filmtext) consists of filling in a frame, but this operation is utterly irrelevant because of the paramount importance of the ellipses,

the delimita­

tion-process where the viewer has to switch over to his white box ideology. The chain of ellipses is a series of breaking points where analysis can reveal the ideological presuppositions imposed by the power grid. Film then is a rhetorical mechanism, comparable with a kind of stimulus inviting a white box ideological response. And thus it asks for an epistemological position. In that sense, the Sa-structure of a film is completely ideologically deter­ mined. These epistemological programs can be recovered in the ideological positions underlying the filmgrammar im­ posed on the viewer. The aim of a study in search of the epistemological deviation, the border of the black box, in short the disturbance-factors in the tautology of the construction/reconstruction dynamics of epistemologies r should not

be the fixed delimitation of the Sa-chains in

their traditional-ideologized

'meaning', but to decode

them'(inevitably starting from an ideological premise) as

518

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY an epistemological effect

- the effect of signification -

originating from the delimitation, the border-concept of the Sa-chains. One shouldn't forget in our analysis of October

that it

adds, as a text, a supplementary white box ideology to the al­ ready complex relation 'October'

as a text (i.e., an epis­

temological position underpinning at a certain time and place the process of filmproduction), while the reader projects once more his ideological tenets into this text ( 'interpretation') . Decoding the black box limits and the ideological de­ viations which take part in the signifying process is in­ deed especially complex in the instance of film-production; broadly, one can pose that one can distinguish three in­ stances in the simple fabrication of a photographic/filmic still: (i) C (= focus): the instance of the cameraman (even­ ni tually replaced by a machine, as in Michael Snow's La Region Centrale),

responsible for framing, cam-

eramovements, choice of lens, definition, depth of field etc. (ii) C (= perspective): the instance of the camera,76 which is itself a (signification-)'empty'

system,

and already ideologically determined in its figu­ ration potential. Actually, it creates a two-di­ mensional, perspectival, 'moving' (i.e., 24 images per second) image. (iii) R (= perception): the instance of the pragma, of L the constructed reality (through and in language).

519

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS The pragma can be divided in pro- and antefilmic components, 77 whether a reality is 'constructed' in

toto

(sets, costumes, etc.) for the film, or

simply constructed as an excerpt of 'reality' {cinéma

vérité,

etc.). But in both cases it remains

an ideological construct, the only difference being the d i v e r g i n grelationbetween RL and C/Cm . These three phases correspond to what in Schemes 4 and 5 have been called:

(i) the focus: the selective principle

in constructing a reality; (ii) perspective: the angle from which reality is constructed

(cfr. the central rôle

of perspective in L'Appareil Cinématographique de Base as 78 an ideological construct); (iii) perception: the frame in which the constructed reality obtains a particular form. All these fields are seen from an epistemological/ideological perspective, as was clarified in our introduction of the Penrose-triangle

(Scheme 10). The only possible way

to discern and specify the ideological networks filtered 79 is

through this (at least) threefold system M , , R L , to introduce term

(within an ideological perspective) a

neutral

as comparing factor. This neutral term requires a series of more or less

exhaustively described perspectival mechanism on the three levels

(focus, perspective, perception-pragma construction)

as foundation for the paradigmatic level, and qua montage and narrative construction as foundation for the syntagmatic field. The reintroduction of the terms syntagm and paradigm

520

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY has to be understood solely in function of the theoretical construction

'neutral term'. In a temachic approach, it is

clear that an abstracted semantic use of the notion 'paradigm', independent of the concrete Sa's, is out of the question:

80

such a use is based on the notion of

pertinence

in the sense of the Prague Circle, and reveals nothing but the power grid of the interpreter, being a mere function of the metalanguage used. In a temachic approach, no para­ digm can be substituted for another. They are concrete Sa's with different syntagmatic and diadetic relations, and unless they are identical, also with different paradigmatic structure - a paradigm, then, is not a Sé-unity, but a composite Sa. The delimitation of paradigms - like a shot in the cinema - or syntagms

(cfr. Metz's Grande

Sytagmatique)

are

subdued to and exclusively determined by an ideological operation. Therefore, we have to adopt or presuppose a temporarily stabilized ideological starting point to arrive at delimitated entities, fixed on that base, and between which a dialectical relation is possible. The ideological posi­ tion itself is, as we have seen, determined by power pat­ terns. It is clear that at this point of the

(historical

evolution of) the framing of epistemologies, it must be the analogy-principle

(the equation RL = 'R'; reality as

constructed in language equals 'reality') that should be used as clue of the construction of such a neutral term. As point of reference, a social-realistic effect might be desirable.

We will make use in our filmpraxeology of classic

521

real-

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS ist

cinema

as neutral norm. In view of the lack of suffi­

cient analysis of non-fiction or non-narrative cinema, one could equate this term with classic Hollywood-Mosfilm Jost pointed

narrative

cinema

, or

as Godard would call it. As Chateau and out,81

the notion of narrative, traditionally

seen as a 'transmutation' of a narrative discourse of one medium into another, as supramedial structure, that is, is hardly appropriate. A narrative grammar

(Propp, Greimas

and the like) which does not take into account the semiotic manifestation, i.e., the Sa's, proper to film seems illegitimate. Metz's Grande

Syntagmatique82

could give the im­

pression of a more adequate strategy to tackle elements proper to the medium since it combines the bande

image

with the narration. But although developed and articulated as a universal theory, it is unable to describe 'non-clas­ sic' filmtexts; Chateau and Jost, for one thing, refer ex­ plicitly to Robbe-Grillet's production. On the other hand, taking Robbe-Grillet's or Ozu's

83

cinema as a neutral norm

for a ' n o u v e l l e s é m i o l o g i e ' would hardly be more legiti­ mate: the theory remains as ideologically biased as the text it is based on. Metz's Grande

Sytagmatique

can define

a neutral norm in a negative way only, and if it can articulate its grammar, it cannot provide it with a definition whatsoever. A more subtle and more encompassing approach, covering a wider field than just the narrative aspect, was derived from the Barthesian concept of 'l'effet

du

réel'

.84

Paul

Willemen, synthesizing a theory developed by Metz and Mulvey, discerns three forms of look at work in the cinema: (i) the camera recording a pro-filmic event (Cm , C, RL).

522

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY (ii) the spectator looking at the screen, (iii) the way characters look at one another in the fiction, the diegesis. Quoting Mulvey, Willemen states: "The conventions of (clas­ sic) narrative film deny the first two (forms) and subordi­ nate them to the third, the conscious aim being always to eliminate intrusive camera presence and prevent a distanc­ ing awareness in the audience".

85

And he goes on: "Such a

distancing awareness occurs precisely when the viewer is confronted with marks of the subject, which directly inter­ pellates the viewer-addressee of a constructed message, forcing him/her to abandon the cloak of invisibility which allowed the viewer to fantasize himself/herself as subject of the discourse". Although marred by its psychoanalytical terminology and its Verfremdungseffect-ideology

(according

to which a cinema in which the audience can become "aware of reality" always seems possible in some w a y ) , this defi­ nition of classic narrative cinema allows us to derive typical 'neutral' procedures like: the use of space solely in function of the characters or of the narrative, conti­ nuity in characters and space, perspectival build-up of the image, continuity-editing, 'don't look in the camera'rules, eyeline matches between the characters so that they are looking at each other (in the fiction) and not at the spectator, fade out/dissolves to separate pieces of fic­ tion, time ellipses, and of course narrative continuity characteristic of the analogy-principle governing our neu­ tral norm/ideology. The latter, as social realism, uses a register of coded rhetorical mechanisms which generates a white box ideology in view of the reader: l'effet

du

réel.

We won't go further into the details of these mechanisms and

523

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS refer to the literature given in the bibliography.

Having taken the classic narrative text as the neutral ideological norm

(which means: the norm of which the ide­

ology is sufficiently known to be more or less transpar­ ent) , we can proceed to delimit the syntagm/paradigm model. Practical and theoretical problems, objections and blanks are raised, however, both in our own theory and in those of others. It appears that the two-dimensional or, if we define the paradigm as a complex of Sa's not reducible to one Sé, if, in other words, we give it some substance, the threedimensional model is inadequate, even within the con­ straints of our 'neutral norm', the boundaries of a classic narrative/realist text. In stratifying his Grande

Syntagmatique,

Metz had to

distinguish between denotation (which his theory covers) and connotation, under which he ranges "les effets artisti­ ques, même s'ils sont substantiellement inséparables de l'acte sêmique par lequel le film nous livre l'histoire, n'en constituant pas moins une autre couche de Significa­

.

tion, qui du point de vue méthodologique vient 'après'".86 One wonders, however, if this 'coming after' is legitimate when one considers the example he gives: the film

noir,

where the mode or, by extension, what we have called 'diadesma' is of paramount importance, has indeed been respon­ sible for the delimitation of the genre.87 "Dans les films 'noirs' américains où les pavés luisants d'un dock maritime distillent une impression d'angoisse ou de dureté

(= signifié de la connotation),

524

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY c'est à la fois le spectacle représenté (des quais déserts et obscurs, encombrés de caisses et de grues, = signifié de la dénotation), et une technique de prise de vue misant à fond sur les vertus de l'éclairage pour aboutir à une certaine image de ces quais( = signifiant de la dénotation), qui convergent pour constituer à eux deux le signifiant de la connotation. Les mêmes quais filmés platement ne 

produiraient pas la même impression." Yet, Metz parries this problem, in spite of its largely constituting the rhetorical mechanisms of the film, and concentrates on the denotation. The problem lies in the false dualisms inaugurated: denotation/connotation, Sa/Se. They render it inevitable that the fundamental question, namely how to escape such a reductionist and easy duality, be ulti­ mately deferred. Pigeon-holes, the squares containing the image are also signs, Sa's in the complex Sa of one photographic image, as is lighting. The effect of a frightening atmo­ sphere - though relying on ideological identification pat­ terns - is very much coded into the image as signifier through those devices (lighting, a particular building up of the image as in expressionist paintings or Nosferatu, etc.), which fall outside a syntagmatic/paradigmatic ap­ proach. Such elements mark the mode of the discourse. In coining the diadesma, we introduced a fourth dynamic level into the (re)construction of textual realities. We want to show that these elements are so important that they can constitute subtexts quite independent of the main text, and in some cases dependent on another white box ideology, on another epistemology even, than the yes/no-epistemology

525

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

avowed by the paradigmatic/syntagmatic text. Similarly, both Barthes and Kristeva drew attention to elements falling outside the scope of a traditional (dual­ istic) semiotic approach, and not accidentally both in con­ nection with Eisenstein. In Le Troisième

Sens,

Barthes

distinguishes a communicational, a referential symbolic, and a 'third' obtuse level of meaning. This third meaning exceeds the copy of the referential motif; it compels an interrogative reading (the interrogation bears precisely on the signifier, not on the signified, on reading, not 89 on intellection: it is a 'poetical' grasp). Starting from the study of some photograms from Eisenstein-films, Barthes is forced to reject a structuralist semantic approach to describe this third meaning. "The obtuse meaning", he writes, "is not situated structurally, a semantologist would not agree as to its objective existence (but then 90 "Same uncertainty when what is an objective reading?)". it is a matter of describing

the obtuse meaning

. . . .

The obtuse meaning is a signifier without a signified, hence the difficulty naming it." Intuitively he grasps the connection with the analogy-principle, the ever present compulsion to 'represent': "If the obtuse meaning cannot be described, that is because, in contrast to the obvious meaning, it does not copy anything - how do you describe something that does not represent anything?" He then places this obtuse meaning outside articulated language, outside the critic's metalanguage. "Obtuse meaning is discontinu­ ous, indifferent to the story and to the obvious meaning (as signification of the story). This dissociation has a de-naturing or at least distancing effect with regard to

526

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY the referent

(to 'reality' as nature, as realist instance).

Eisenstein would probably have acknowledged this incongru­ ity, this im-pertinence of the signifier." On the syntagmatic level this third meaning constitutes for Barthes a counterlogical narrative: "It is the epitome of a counternarrative: disseminated, reversible, set to its own temporality, it inevitably determines

(if one fol­

lows it) a quite different analytical segmentation to that in shots, sequences and syntagms (technical or narra91 tive)". While Barthes, like Kristeva, will recuperate in the best neo-structuralist tradition the failure of the dualistic critical metalanguage into a psychoanalytically inspired discourse where the undescribable can assume transcendental qualities

('avant-garde', 'chora', 'jou­

issance' e t c . ) , in a temachic approach it becomes clear that this third meaning is nothing but the first meaning. And not all of that meaning can be caught in a dualistic grid, hence the existence of residues and the appearance of left-overs

(Grivel). Yet, that third meaning is in no

way characteristic of any avant-garde practice.

Barthes

discovers it in no more than a few of Eisenstein's images. Kristeva exclusively in Eisenstein, Hitchcock and Chaplin. It

is

there

in

every

text,

for it is precisely this: the

textual reality before critical discourse. Its intensity increases in texts obstructing the closing of the epis­ temological tautology between the epistemology of the text and that of the critical discourse, between the constructed and the reconstructed text. In short, a text which echoes the dualistic-dialectical epistemology of most discourses will have less third meaning than others.

527

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS Similar objections can be raised against Kristeva's notion of 'traces

lektoniques'

which she specifies as fol­

lows: "Nommons donc spéculaire le signe visible qui appelle au fantasme parce qu'il comporte un excédent de traces visuelles, inutiles à l'identification des objets, parce que chronologiquement et logiquement antérieur au fameux 'stade du miroir'. Cette information n'a plus trait au "réfèrent" (ou à l'objet), mais à.l'attitude du sujet visà-vis de l'objet, donc déjà à ce contrat désirant qu'est l'exprimable

(le lekton

des stoïciens), dont l'existence

fait d'un signe (qu'est l'image) un symptôme

(qu'est le

spéculaire). Appelons ces informations supplémentaires des "traces lektoniques": il s'agira toujours d'une distribu­ tion bien réglée de ce qui apparaît comme un relève des processus dits par Freud "primaires", ou des processus préverbaux, "sémiotiques", dans le fonctionnement "symbol­ ique" complet d'un sujet parlant, fait de langage en même temps que de représentation: déplacements, condensations, tons, rythmes, couleurs, figures - toujours en excès par 92 rapport au représenté, au signifié".

Once more, the re­

cuperative rôle of psychoanalytic theory becomes clear, naturalising

the dominant dualistic ideology, reducing

temachic to a pre-mirror stage

the

(pre-dualities, then -

though it is true of course that the textual reality is in that sense rationally, dualistically unknowable to crit­ ical discourse) , to an effet

du sujet

rather than to an

ideology. The attribution - perceiving is projecting - of "ces informations supplémentaires" to avant-garde art only exemplifies the automatism of dualistic ideology to split up all processes into tautological informations.

528

DIALECTICS A S IDEOLOGY

It then seems o b v i o u s to i n t r o d u c e d i t i o n to s y n t a g m and p a r a d i g m .

No m a t t e r h o w m u c h

latter p a i r o f n o t i o n s gets i n t e r p r e t e d as fluctuating

a third term in ad­

(the w h i t e b o x ideology

this

in a t e m a c h i c delimiting

sense

their

field of a c t i o n ) , it r e m a i n s e s c h a t o l o g i c a l , p r o c e d i n g on a h o r i z o n t a l p l a n e . S t a r t and finish of a s y n t a g m a t i c a l l y p r o c e d i n g t e x t , h o w e v e r , are equally e p i s t e m o l o g i c a l tions.

Within

a closed

but dualistic delimitation

concepts

b i b l e , w h e r e the n a r r a t i o n

is e x a c t l y the d i a l e c t i c

beginning

op­

l a n g u a g e u n i v e r s e , even those are

and e n d ; c o m p a r e Scheme

(compare e.g., t h e

7 ) . Hence

to i n t r o d u c e , in addition to p a r a d i g m ,

between

it is i m p o r t a n t

s y n t a g m and the

third d i m e n s i o n of t i m e , a fourth o n e : the d i a d e s m a ,

Scheme

12

The traditionally dismissed region, covering motifs, connotation, third meaning, chora, traces

lektoniques,

mode etc., makes no exception to the rule that Sa-strings can be delimitated

(in a neutral termsystem). As black box

phenomena, they can provide information about the underly­ ing epistemological program and the underlying

ideological

options. In this sense, diadesma's are but one more pos-

529

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS sibility to connect

Sa's in a Sa-string. Yet, they do not

necessarily proceed in one dimension, they are not neces­ sarily continuous, but include the discontinuity-potential (cfr. the catastrophe-theory) and Einzelfälle

(Adorno).

(Cfr. Scheme 5.) It is interesting at this point to make once more the contrast with traditional structural attempts at framing a filmanalysis. The relativizing of traditional concepts like syntagm/paradigm with regard to their delimitations, and the completion with a fourth dimension, the diadesma, obviously implies a rejection of traditional structuralist analyses. Neither a structural-semantic approach, nor a syntagmatic one based on a Sé/Sa distinction, fundamentally escape the unacceptable and as non-problematical repre­ sented identification of RL and 'R' (the analogy-principle). The essentially idealistic basis for an analysis con­ sequent on structuralism clearly appears in the diegesis transcending the film-Sa's that Metz had to posit and out of which the film would then represent elliptical ments.

frag­

In a causal-structural attempt to artificially re­

cover a continuity, the film becomes a reflection of a transcending signification-reality. The transcendental na­ ture becomes evident from the following quotation: "Car toutes les unités que nous avons relevées sont repérables DANS le film mais PAR RAPPORT à 1'intrige. Ce va-et-vient constant de l'instance écranique diégêtique

(signifiante) à l'instance

(signifiée) doit etra accepté et même érigé en

principe méthodique, car c'est lui seul qui permet la com-

530

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY mutation et par conséquent l'identification des unités (= ici, des segments autonomes) . . . .

Vouloir découper des

unités sans tenir compte du tout de la diégèse, c'est opérer sur des signifiants sans signifiés, puisque le 93 propre du film est de narrer." To demarcate his concepts

{unités

minimales)

, Metz once

again makes use of the relevance-principle. Surprisingly enough, though he clearly exposes the transcendental nature of its impact, he fails to realize, not even in the least, the relativity of the delimiting factors. As we know, they do depend on a white box ideology

(the diegesis) determined

by power patterns. The latter do not give to the whole the rigid ontological structure the diegesis is supposed to rely on. That the primacy of the neutral norm

(Hollywood/

Social Realism) becomes, in consequence, also the primacy of the white box ideology, illustrates at once the limited use-value of Metz's system. It is only applicable to the 94 classic narrative text - for which it was constructed: "le propre du film est de narrer". So, metalanguage appropriates the principle of the film-language, and the tautology can be closed: the con­ struction called Grande the analysis

Syntagmatique

completely covers

(i.e., reconstruction) it pretends to pro­

vide. 10. Ά Sober

Analys

is

of

October

We can now tackle a textual analysis based on the ar­ gumentation put forward

(which articulates at the same

time our ideological and epistemological presuppositions).

531

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS As such, this analysis can only be provisional, an indi­ cation of what we think to be a new direction, or rather an extended approach. For practical reasons we had to confine ourselves to a detailed discussion of one principal sequence: the opening sequence of October.

Since we postulate that a text is a

closed language universe, we realize that a thorough anal­ ysis cannot be complete without taking into consideration the whole text. But we have chosen

(and limited ourselves

to) the first sequence, not only because it provided the material suitable to clarify some of the theoretical issues raised, but also because a traditional analysis, focalizing the syntagmatic aspects, is available in Octobre. et

Idéologie

Ecriture

by Pierre Sorlin and Marie Claire Ropars

(Paris, Ed. Albatros 1976). The découpage

they give, not­

withstanding the reticence and objections we will formu­ late, was of great help: practically and theoretically as 95 a standpoint against which we could test our own views. We have seen how the ellipses - what is not there but has to be (pre-)supposed, the diadetic, what is lost in a normal syntagmatic/paradigmatic approach, the lektonic (before the phase

thétigue

of the mirror stage), the con­

notative co-sounding - are so important that we have to institutionalize them as a mode

in what we have called the

diadetic. The diadetic dimension appears as the reflection of the failure of the dialectic thinking centered around separation of unities. It is the return of the temachic, the unstructured falling outside the binary oppositions, outside the Sa/Se-system, outside the dividing line of

532

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY the included mediation. This implies that every text, as we shall see in the example of October,

is potentially

polyvalent as black box phenomenon, in spite of the fact that the text, on grounds of power structures in a given society, - and as is the case with October monovalence and monosemy

- can aspire to

(e.g. a revolutionary purpose).

Monovalence in the Eisenstein text will obviously be a revolutionary

(vulgar) dialectic underlying even the para-

digmatic/syntagmatic textual organization

(cfr. Ropars).

The analysis of modes, motifs and Einzelfälle,

however,

can reveal more, as we will try to show.

Thus, the levels that have to be analysed are: (i) The RL , m ,  level (whereby C, bound as it is to the camera technique of the time, remains con­ stant in the analysis of one film). This first step entails tabulating the parameters, involving: -  : length, angle, focus

(depth), focal length

(lens), camera movements, direction of camera'look' etc. - RL : representation: characters, objects, background, facial expressions, make-up, . . .; move­ ment of characters or objects; lighting; direction of the looks of the characters; etc. Although we think the découpage-table provided by Sorlin and Ropars

(op. cit., 15-26) to be insuf­

ficient for a detailed analysis, we will partly rely on it for present purposes, (ii) The syntagmatic level (including punctuation: fade out/over between shots/sequences). The way in which shots are combined according to certain

533

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS rhetorical principles and mechanisms of which even the 'regular ones' have not yet been suffi­ ciently described, can only be indicated in the form of ad matique

hoc-strategies.97

Metz's Grande

Syntag-

relies too heavily upon the comparison

with the diegesis to provide a real help here ; it does not reveal, for example, the possible ways of organizing shots within a "scene" (one of Metz's

unités

minimales).

(iii) The diadetic level. A.

The

Dialectic

Structure

of

the

Fragment

Sorlin and Ropars - although with some disagreements between their respective analyses - give us an indication of the dialectic structure sustaining the organization of the shots within the fragment. They also give a fair dis­ cussion of its syntagmatic structure, discussion whose main line we will shortly summarize here before annotating it and adding our reading of the other than syntagmatic levels of the text. Ropars - and we largely agree with her syntagmatic analysis - considers the 69 first shots of October

to form

one unity, an introduction already offering the spectator the 'theoretical conditions of the revolution', and hence the clue to the whole film. However, we think it also necessary to include in our construction shot 70 from the film. It is the title: "To All, to All", which links up the first fragment with the rest of the film {in plains

its

function)

fact,

ex­

by establishing the narrative. This

title, repeated later on in the film and any way also of

534

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY vital importance in Eisenstein's original

script,98

plays

a key-rôle in the diadetic subtext of the film. Ropars classifies these first 69 shots of the film to­ gether, not only on grounds of what they represent

(but

representing - denotation - means also being present on the photographic image as sign, as S a ) , on grounds of the dif­ ferent types of spatio-structural relations, too. If we strip this formulation of its Se-ideology, its belief in a 'denotational meaning', we notice that it is quite strictly

(and avowed ideologically - cfr. the different

interpretation Sorlin gives) a syntagmatical analysis which is inevitably conflated with the m, R

L

 level

(which is nevertheless wrongly treated as 'contents' rather than as Sa-chain analysable through a white box ideological approach). The marcrostructure of her analysis, Ropars bases on the transformation of the statue of the Tsar: introduced, presented in the first shots, it falls down in the last One 99 (a scene to be repeated in later stages of the film ) . Centered around shot 40 (marking a rupture that causes a mutation from a diegetically motivated destruction of the statue to a more abstract realization of i t ) , Ropars pro­ poses the following structure of the fragments 29) :

535

(op. cit.,

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

This purely relational model does not reveal the finer (ideological) mechanism grouping together the Sa's, the more intricate dialectical structuring. Ropars' analysis for example conflates illegitimately shots 10-13 with 1427 and with 28-32. This three part structure does not form a unified whole but represents three widely diverging phases in the dialectical process of the film. As criteria for such a division, we do not use the denotative

(hence

diegetical, pseudo-Sé) effects, but the epistemological presuppositions uttered through the modifications in the Sa-string, which are at the roots of the program of the textual structuring. Well within a traditional dialectic scheme, October

uses the dialectic triad thesis/antithesis

- synthesis to run through a three-term process (stasis/ stasis

(antagonistic) - dynamics) which can easily be re­

covered in the construction and assembly of the shots. Thesis and anti-thesis thereby belong to 'statically' de­ limited unities opposed to each other, a dualism which in its turn is solved by, evolves into and is mediated through a third 'dynamic' component, thus reinstating a new 'stat­ ic' opposition etc.

Instead of the crude diegetical opposition which Ropars imputes to the three stages of this sequence

(cfr. Scheme

13: "la première proposant une présentation de la statue, la seconde entamant sa déconstruction, et la troisième en rélisant sa chute"100 ) , we obtain a much more flexible grid which results from epistemological options and governs the 'signifying' processes of the text. A different reading of the structure of the fragment is therefore required, in the first place of shots 10-13 and 28-32. We do not con-

536

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

sider them to act as introduction viz. consequence to the 14-27-series and to perform a "natural" denotative relation with it, but we rather think them as the realization of another dimension, the articulation of another delimita­ tion: a new stasis in a conceptual dialectic. - Segment

I

(shots 1-9) presents the articulation of a

filmic construction of the statue of Alexander III (ar­ ticulation, because of the syntagmatic combination of well delimited fragments of the statue: a first shot shows its. head, the next its sceptre, then its sphere etc.). - II

(Shots 1 1 — 13) articulates the negative aspect of Seg­

ment I, the opposition within a dualistic structure: the masses who, indeed, are represented as moving against monumental values

(the stairs, the sphere, . . .) embod­

ied in I by the Tsar. An antagonistic structure, even in the cutting, which shows the masses running to the left in shot 10, to the right in 11, and once more

(from an­

other angle and in close shot) in 12 and 13. II is thus marked as an oppositional structure. - If I stands for the thesis, and II for its anti-thesis, segment

III

(shots 14-27), in which we get individual

characters as identification-focus and (with some differ­ ences) an articulated narrative structure, presents the mediation between the two. Mediation in the sense that both entities are present at the same time: while the focus in I is solely the statue and in II it is restricted to the people running up the stairs, in III both 'actants' (or should we speak of 'passants'?) are present. More­ over, a mediation instrument par

537

excellence

(cfr. the

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS diadetic

,truction)

gether: th - In segment

brings the two protagonists to­

ladder. IV

human beings

(shots 28-32) , the appearance of

individual

(another important mediation factor in III,

namely human beings not as a mass, but as agents,

acting

on an individual level) has ceased completely. The statue is shown with ropes attached to it; the end of the ropes, however, and who hold them are hidden, and even left out of the frame. That framing - the way the image is delim­ ited - is extremely relevant here. As we shall see in detail, IV is another stage in the dialectical process: the new synthesis

(statue and the condition for its fall­

ing down) which in turn will be a thesis for a new anti­ thesis . - ν - a contested sequence in the respective analyses by Ropars and Sorlin - presents a new anti-thesis built up with two images, a mass of soldiers and a mass of scythes

(without

human presence). The depiction of the

masses here is quite different from the picture in III, but the antagonistic structure between the camera move­ ment to the left (shot 34) and the waving of the scythes to the right somewhat echoes the structure of III. - For the central rôle of shot

40,

we refer to our dis­

cussion of the diadetical systematizing. Syntagmatically it plays a symmetric function, separating as it were the two opening structures: 41-69 is virtually a kind of repetition of 1-39. - Segment

VI,

indeed, starts with a series of shots echoing

the structure of I, but impregnated with its contrary (the masses): the statue is now presented as staggering before tumbling down. The segment after shot 40, till

538

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY shot 63, consists of a more intricate, less dialectically delimited system than the first part. Still, we can dis­ tinguish the following moments: * 4 1 - 4 7 : anew a figure of the statue is constructed, this time however on a different mode: staggering, its hand falling off in 43. VI is the result, the mediation of the oppositions of IV and V, as is on an allegorical level also shot 40 (the title ' F e b r u a r ' ) . *47

can be seen as performing the function of a transitive shot to 48-51, since there is no real demarcation except for an 'actantial' level:

*48-51

is marked off because of the falling down and reappearing again of sceptre and arm. Again this could be read as a kind of stasis in the dia­ lectical process, but also as a (tautological) continuation of the trembling of the statue in 41-47 - hence as an illustration of the labile moment in the political situation referred to and marked by the title

*52-54

'Februar'.

(once again, the delimitation is relative: there is a link, a raccord

between 51 and 52/53, while

54 is taken from about the same angle as 51) continues this process in that there is

action,

evolution: the statue loses its left leg, which reappears in 53, but seems to fall again defi­ nitively in 54. * Dismantling goes on in 55-57; the statue begins to fall apart. *58-63

is a combination of 3 χ 2 shots showing the statue with and without background

539

(cfr. our

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS diadetic interpretation), from two different angles: this difference in camera position could point at a new dialectic opposition, as do ob­ viously the different types of shot (with/with­ out background). One process binds 41-63 together: the dawn slowly becom­ ing visible (cfr. diadetic approach), but in fact, the fragment can be seen as the conflation of a mediation instance (the falling) and a thesis (the resistance of the statue). The mediation takes place at three differ­ ent levels: 41-47, to fall or not to fall; 48-51/52-57, falling/mending of hands and knees; 58-63, background or no background. This strange ambivalence gives the fragment its particular dynamic/static structure: hands falling and then falling again because restored by a filmic cut, by the alternation of background/no background etc. The labile situation at issue needs a final strong anti-thesis: the scythes and guns reappear (64-66) , before the statue really falls down (67-69). From our reading of the structure of the fragment, we could depict the sequence as follows:

540

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY B.

The

Diadetic

System

After this mainly syntagmatic m - RL analysis, we can render our reading more explicit by showing the interactions between these levels and what we have coined a diadetic ap­ proach, thus concentrating on the system

of the text-con­

struction instead of on its structure as such. "L'Ordre symbolique est assuré dès qu'il y a des images auxquelles on croit immanquablement, car la croyance est elle-même image" (Julia Kristeva). "beRÊSJIET BARA'ELOHIEM ET haSJAMÁJIM weÊT haÀRETS. WehaÁRETS HAJetah TÓHOE waVÓHOE"

(Genesis). 1 0 2

I. Against a dark background, the first nine shots of October

construct the outline of the statue of Alexander

III, "dans un espace non-référentiel" series

(Ropars). In a first

(1-6) , from close up to long shot, details of the

statue, its head, the sceptre, a side shot of the head, the globe in the left hand (except in the anomalous shot 6 where the objects sceptre and globe have changed places), the torso, and finally situated in a long shot (6) the whole statue on its socle. 7 then shows the eagles at the base of the socle, 8 the inscription, and 9 is a close shot of one of the eagles. "La caméra tourne ainsi autour de la statue, la con­ struisant symboliquement par le croisement des vues qu'elle prélève sur elle autant que par leur agrandissement et leur

alongement".103

The fact that it is indeed the camera

(C ) that structures the discourse and not what happens in

541

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS front o f it ( R L ) , is quite important. Compared to the neutral norm of classic realist cinema, this is deviant, since in this way the camera-work becomes obtrusive; one

shows

how it works. But this also implies that it is the

camera

(and not something before i t ) , the écriture

which acts as

delimitating, articulating instrument. And that brings us to the diadetic level. A few seemingly non-essential, but co-existing elements altogether are striking in the first segment

(1-9). The

dark background, for one thing, the camera looking upwards to the statue, the indirect lighting producing in a majes­ tic halo around the impressive head of the Tsar. On the explicit, ideological, dialectical level, this clearly re­ presents the old feudal power. But what is co-present with it, is another

'meaning' closely connected to the organiza­

tion of the narrative; just as the bible text imposes it­ self by separation of dualities, but can't but start from chaos, none the less, from nothing, that which is described in Segment I is in a similar way a black stasis, an implo­ sion point from which image by image elements

(of the stat­

ue) are demarcated. And while the eagles appearing in shot 7 codify, besides the Tsar's repressive power, the produc­ tion of an intradiegetic opposition, the Word attributes signification to the segment, fixes finally in its narra­ tive delimitations that which we are faced with: "To Alex­ ander Alexandrovic, Emperor of all Russia, 1881-1894".

II. The four shots

(10-13) present the direct dialectical

opposition to the preceding segment: the people.

542

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY A few diadetic elements are of utmost importance, and we'll come back to them later on: a) the light has become direct daylight, b) forms spilling over, so to speak, the boundaries of the segment: the spheres dominating the stairs, reminiscent of the globe in the statue's hand, and ultimately artic­ ulating themselves as instances of the fil

rouge:

the

cupola system, running throughout the fragment. c) The fact that the masses run up the stairs. As is very marked in III, stairs and ladder are mediation-instru­ ments

(cfr. Jacob's ladder in the bible; Gen. 28:12).

III. Contrary to I and II, in which RL produces an impres­ sion of stasis because the camera-instance the discourse

(C ) organized m

(even when the masses are running in II, they

are not followed, just depicted as running up the stairs), we get a dynamic description in III of a dynamic process. The dualism of I and II is brought into a dialectical re­ lation: statue and masses affect one another. The result takes the form of some sort of (traditional) narrative: "C'est donc le temps de l'événement qui détermine ici le devenir global du montage: les répétitions [which consti­ tuted I and II] ont disparu, comme le discours qu'elles désignaient. Un acte orienté dans une seule direction commence au début du fragment et s'achève avec lui."104 However, there is a difference with a classic realist narrative: the action is not outlined as a spatio-temporal unity

(as scene,

Syntagmatique)

in the classification of Metz's

Grande

but as representing different elliptical

543

SEMIOTICS AND

DIALECTICS

fragments

from "l'action e n t r e p r i s e par le p e t i t groupe (on 1 05 s e r a i t tenté d'écrire) p a r le p e t i t groupe m i l i t a n t " .

The action is d e v e l o p e d

and followed

b u t w i t h the stress on its abstract

in a n a r r a t i v e nature

p l a y i n g a more or less i n d i v i d u a l i z e d reappear

later on in the

On a s y s t e m i c

(e.g., the w o m a n

r ô l e , does

not

film).

l e v e l , not on a s t r u c t u r a l o n e , some

evant diadetic elements mediation-function form a d i a d e t i c

way,

can be found w h i c h e m p h a s i z e

of this s e g m e n t . Two e l e m e n t s

rel­

the

(Sa's)

s y s t e m w i t h i n the shots and at least

one

of t h e m is always p r e s e n t : the ladder or the rope. W h i l e the latter refers to the ropes in IV and can be

justified

from a d i e g e t i c a l p o i n t of v i e w , the former - a l t h o u g h o b ­ viously

likewise d i e g e t i c a l l y m o t i v a t e d , n a m e l y

the w o r k e r s

permitting

to climb on the statue - has also m o r e

t a t i o n a l ' q u a l i t i e s - to m a i n t a i n the t r a d i t i o n a l

Lévy106points fantasy

'connoidiom.

at the fact that in m y t h i c a l texts

and science

fiction

(where b e c a u s e of the

like

relative

a b a n d o n i n g of the analogy p r i n c i p l e the o b s e r v a t i o n of a d i a d e t i c e f f e c t is f a c i l i t a t e d ) nects two levels of écriture:

a ladder or stairway

the surface

a n d , c o n s e q u e n t l y , serves as i n i t i a t i o n

W h i l e the d i a l e c t i c a l to many

structural

con­

and the a b y s s ,

rite.

approach opposes

(hence the s t r i c t d e l i m i t a t i o n of u n i t i e s ) , a

t e m a c h i c o p p o s i t i o n e x i s t s b e t w e e n 0 and ∞ o n the one a finite series on the o t h e r . On a d i a l e c t i c a l could God.

one

'symbolically'

identify

Such an i d e n t i f i c a t i o n

the Tsar

level

(as statue)

is h o w e v e r n o t e n t i r e l y

544

hand, one

with correct

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY (in spite of the direct correlation with the church). In a narrative systemic field

(cfr. our analysis of

Genesis

and Edda) , the Tsar - and we refer to the first images is on the contrary the

chaos

that has to be mastered (de­

limitated and thus created as Tsar; cfr. the syntactic structure of I ) . Hence the identification with the black emptiness, the abyss

(= the zero). An additional argument

provides the copula system: the image only becomes realis­ tic in daylight, with a real setting, when the statue col­ lapses. Not accidentally the delimitation of the concepts in the structure, the oppositions posed against the image of the Tsar, run parallel with an evolution towards day­ light (shots 10-13, as opposed to the darkness in I, show the masses by daylight; in III, and especially in VI, an evolution towards daylight is definitely marked - looking for diegetical explanations for these day/night alterna­ tions seems quite nonsensical). The Tsar then is not only God, but also dark abyss, black hole, the zero which functions as point of reference and which inevitably has

to

be taken as the beginning of

the film ('black leader', the darkness in the cinema pre­ ceding the start of the film) and then structured, artic­ ulated, hence disguised as God, or here as Tsar. The ladder then functions as mediation between abyss or God and sur­ face; the people, reassuming the model of continuity we pointed out as mission, paradox and tautology in our anal­ ysis of Genesis.

It is significant that the operation of

delimitation projects a probably non-recognized ideology into the framing of the text: the shots in the series 1422 never show the bottom of the ladder, and the top only

545

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS when the head of the Tsar is partially cut off

(upper

part), i.e., continues the act of climbing to heaven, by suggesting further soaring; compare now with Gen. 28: 12: "SOELLAM moeTSAV ÂRTSah weROSJO ma(N)GHIEA' haSJAMÁJMah" "a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven"

(literally: into

heaven). Eisenstein cleverly

leaves out the earth and heaven itself. The act of media­ tion is clearly focused, not only between

'God' and 'Jacob'

(significantly, his name implies the replica of the CainAbel story, and the Woman-Serpent relation; politically the Kerensky-Lenin, ideologically the transcendence-mate­ rialism pairs), but more so because of the function and extension attributed. Indeed, the human beings climbing up the ladder perform the action described in the biblical model: "MAL'AKHÊJ ELOHIEM 'OLiem WeJOReDiem Bo" - "The angels of God ascending and descending on it". Once again, the common nature of the transcendental and of 'reality' (as we conjectured speculatively on grounds of the Jacobmodel) is stressed; the human being is a divine hypo­ stasis, realizing his own nature, and the 'revolution' as­ sumes a metaphysical quality. The eschatological extension, on the other hand, intensifies the super-natural inspira­ tion: the ladder is an element in the dynamics of a prom­ ised land, Jerusalem, since "the Lord stood above it, and said . . .: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed" stein's Tractatus

(Gen. 28: 13). And like Wittgen­

"erläutern (die Sätze) dadurch, daß sie

den, welcher mich versteht, am Ende als unsinnig erkennt, wenn er durch sie - auf ihnen - über sie hinausgestiegen ist.

(Er muß sozusagen die

auf ihr hinaufgestiegen

Leiter

wegwerfen,

nachdem er

ist)" (6.54). This is exactly what

546

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY happens: the statue tumbles down, the notion of God becomes void because the recognition has taken place, and mankind itself performs its true qualities - being meta-physical (cfr. Gen. 3: 22 - now fulfilled on grounds of the reali­ zation of the promise). The ropes, on the other hand, function as separating specifications, preparing the down­ fall of the statue, leading as it were the initiation to knowledge and selfrecognition. Therefore, they are the statue's structuring (out of and against dark chaos). IV. IV is on a diegetical level (diegesis as white box ideology, presupposing a narrative grid one puts on the film-structure) equal to the conclusion of III, and is similarly marked by the presence of complete daylight (hence a premonition of 67-69: an indication of the double opening structure, symmetrical around shot 4 0 ) , but it is also quite different because of the abandoning of the human agents. The statue is remarkably presented as being 'up there'. The camera looks upward, renders the statue power­ ful, limits and severs that power by means of the ropes it is attached to. No human presence is in the image, hence its abstract quality. There exists a relation with the masses in 33 of course

(the ropes are the consequence of

that action), but that relation is indirect - imputed from a diegetical structure; it is an abstract dialectical re­ lation. V. V presents the masses in upheaval. A few movements are striking: soldiers rising their guns, then waving them

547

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS laterally while the camera pans to the left, leaving only the guns in the image. Again an abstracting movement (and as Sorlin stresses, op. cit., 76, a meaningful one: panoramics are rare in the film). In shot 34 the scythes move from left to the right, opposing the direction of the cam­ era-movement. Sorlin concludes from this that either the movements complete each other or annul themselves. In his 'es­

reading, he connects the abstracted objects with the pace

tsarique'

A by far more obvious construction would

be to detect a reference to the hammer and sickle, the union of the people

(here the soldiers) and the peasants

(the scythes), and to give this fragment a dialectical function as opposed to IV.107 The credibility of our projection increases when tak­ ing into account two other arguments: the scene is prob­ ably borrowed from Kosinzew and Trauberg's film SWD Welikogo

Dela

of 1927; and like this film, October

blueprint of the archetypal judaeochristian

Sojus

is a

(and therefore

metaphysically founded) genesisgrid. One could say

October

elaborates and extends the 'revolution' as metaphysical performance initially mapped by Kosinzew. The description of the abortive uprising of the Decabrists in 1825 recap­ tures the Tree-scene of Genesis; knowledge,

the failure is due to

not to the validity of convictions. The ser-

p e n t ' s r ô l e 1 0 8 ( a divine h y p o s t a s i s , as we p o i n t e d is resumed by the c a r d - s h a r p e r M e d o k s , a man w h o and sets

out)

knows

the rules of the g a m e ; in o t h e r w o r d s , M e d o k s

not subjected to imperfection

is

as long as his work is not

entirely finished - 'treason', i.e., the spreading of knowledge, the aim of the serpent, and Judas

548

(under the

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

protection, by the way, of the Mark of Cain, the ring of the Bund)

- and is brought back within the essence of God

(society), ceases therefore to be an independent faculty. The game is over, Medoks disappears from the scene. Oc­ tober

, then, traces down the evolution of mankind to the

promised land, i.e., the restoration of the knowledge of the inclusion of imperfection in final transcendence. If the serpent and Judas are suited to the phase of fragmen­ tation, Jacob ultimately reduces fragmentation, via the initiation, back to the model it was taken from. Unity, in spite of dialectics, was never broken, and its essence was transcendence

(Jacob's heel is a counterweight for the

serpent's heel attraction). A diadetic approach might, moreover, explain the par­ ticular images used by Eisenstein

(in shots 33 to 3 9 ) .

There is a process of metaphorisation at work in the seg­ ment: from the representation of a mass of people towards - obviously under the influence of the scythes - an image of a 'human cornfield'. Jacob linked up with Christ; re­ demption after the fall. So far, a perfect structural sign­ ification process

(strangely enough missed by Sorlin and

Ropars). As such, the image of cornfield and scythes may be systemized as 'fertility'

(the continuity-mission) and

then connected to some other elements of the subtext we are slowly disengaging: the ladder as equivalent of the Jacob's ladder includes the prophecy of the promised land. In the same way, Eisenstein plays on 'Go and Multiply', which is, as we have seen, the basic narrative structure in the biblical modelprogram, its fundamental dynamic mechanism

{and

ideological procedure as a justification

549

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS of powerstructures resembling the autarchic family in the judaic tradition). This is the reason why the human protag­ onists have to leave the stasis velop the narrative.

of the paradise and so de­

(Once more, in a narrative eschatology

like the Bible's, each incident is but a

justification of

powerstructures, a legitimation to go on with it: the text keeps itself going.) It is not difficult to see how such 'denotations' fitted in a revolutionary dialectical pattern could give that more 'symbolic' impact, in spite of the fundamentally different epistemologies both textual ele­ ments derive from. Shot 40 is very important in this respect. It functions exactly like the expulsion from paradise and the 'Go and Multiply': it is an implosion point demarcating the end of the basic story

(the rest of the text produces but vari­

ants on the fundamental options of ' l a condition

humaine').

the full stop in diadetic interpunction. It also sets the narrative in motion

(the black hole as potential universe-

creator) . The title Februar

is not only a reference to the

actual political situation described in stracto

dialectical

ab­

by Eisenstein in the preceding images, but it

stands in relation with the filmtitle October,

too. For­

mally, it is noteworthy that the same typography was used for both titles.

In that space of time: February will be developed. The title Februar

- October,

the

récit

thus sets up an ex­

pectation pattern: waiting for . . ., thereby reinstating itself in an eschatologic dialectical approach as neces­ sarily incomplete and conjecturing October

550

as fulfillment

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

and endstage. It is not surprising either that the sequel or follow up planned by Eisenstein, The Army

of

Tamagne,

Campaign

of

the

was abandoned for narrative-internal or

maybe for political reasons. October up as The New Jerusalem

is none the less set

(the promise to Jacob), the endgoal

of the eschatology. After the timeless

stasis of Tsarism

- knowledge failed entirely -, now potentially on the verge of breaking down, the

sacred

story

can begin (by

means of the delimitation, the giving of form, the Jacob's ladder, the 'Go and Multiply', etc.). VI. But the story doesn't start yet. As said before, V can be seen as a combination of mediation and stasis, it is that magical moment before the fall, which Eisenstein stretches out over 22 shots. To strike up the hymn of praise, the segment starts off again with darkness against which the statue is staggering; consequently, we get a syntagmatical structure not unlike that of I, although we stay in close shot and do not evolve towards a long shot. Important are the falling and reap­ pearing of arms and legs. The series begins with shot 34, ending only with shots 57/58 - 63, which finally represent the statue without limbs. 48/49 and 50/51, each repeating the same shot with the arms falling off (so that one gets a filmic cut from a statue without arms to one with arms), are in that respect symptomatic for the 'dynamic stasis' culminating in this segment.

At this point, the diadetic elements constitute a mode,

551

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS a discontinuous system. Their impact determines how the statue is going to fall (within the narrative and without reference to the external reality alluded to before: the revolution). In fact, there are two elements parallelling in some way the (r)evolution constructed. First of all, there is the system of the cupola's. In shot 6 (in many respects an Einzelfall), in the background

we get a first glimpse of a cupola

(qua external Sa significantly enough

that of the Christ the Saviour-Church). In shot 47, again a queer shot (cfr. infra), we get another glimpse. The system of cupola's starts definitively to play its rôle in 52-57, dominating the game-construction in 58-63 and 67-69, as will be shown. The form of the cupola is also echoed in the globe the statue's hand is holding and in the spheres crowning the stairs in 10/11 and 13. Though no more than a figurative overtone, stratifying connota­ tions of power

(via the transfer globe - spheres - cupola

of church), this system starts colouring and steering the projective organization more intently from the pair 52/57 onwards. At the moment the doubt between falling or not is resolved in favour of the former

(shot 5 7 ) , the dark

shadow in the background becomes for the very first time demarcated as the cupola of a church by daylight. There is a perspicuous relation with the second important diadetic factor: the light. Shot 41 starts anew

(compare segment I) against a dark

background with indirect lighting. Shot after shot, it is getting lighter, slowly at first, suddenly and even unex­ pectedly in shot 47. 47 shows distinct contrasts, and falls outside of the structure, in this respect, too.

552

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY

Compare e.g. 4 7 with 6, where the appearance of the cupola is also related to a less dark background. Segment 52-57, containing the definitive fall of the statue, is cornered by a dark cupola in the background of 52, and the visible cupola in plain daylight of 57. The daylight persists till the end of the fragment. The fact that dawning coincides with the statue's fall reinforces our reading of the statue as fundamentally representing dark chaos. The copula's might indicate a transfer of negative power

(in the dia­

lectical procedure) from the statue to the church. Shots 58-63 are a fine illustration of this diadetic system, which is articulated here even on a syntagmatic level: shots of the mutilated statue with a realistic background (the church) are opposed to shots with a light, flat back­ ground. In doing so, these shots represent the final static stage in this segment

(41-63), the final item

(trembling/

falling of arms/background-no background) in which the de­ finite opposition between stasis and dynamics is taken advantage of. It is in fact a struggle about the mythical of the statue: will it become a well delimited

statute 'realistic'

entity within a narrative, or will it remain an abstrac­ tion, despite its mutilation and the exposing light, will it confirm itself as a timeless myth, a zero unfit to fall within the constraints of a more traditional narrative? VII/VIII. Once more, an intervention, a dialectical opposition of guns and scythes is necessary to decide upon the issue: in close shot against a distinct background, the statue falls

553

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS

from its socle to the front. Eisenstein underlines the de­ cisive act by shifting from close shot to long shot, re­ echoing the structure of segment I. "To All, to All" (Shot 70), then, is the 'message', but also the second full stop in the diadetic interpunction: the evening and the morning were the first generation. Therefore, the text will imme­ diately relativize the 'all': more interventions and sev­ eral upheavals will be necessary for the masses to over­ throw the provisional government and Kerensky

(the Ezau

of the biblical copy): the statue has gone, all right, but the cupola is still there - a few shots later, the metropolite of Novgorod carrying a thurible enters the scene.

A final point has to be made. The symmetrical construc­ tion of the shots following shot 40 with those preceding it, not only on the syntagmatic level (41-47 echoing 1-9; the return of the guns and scythes), but also on a diadetic level. As a matter of fact darkness invades shot 41 again, and is once more gradually expelled; the anomaly of shot 47 parallels that of shot 6; and finally, of course, the diegetic level inaugurates that symmetry, too: the fall of the statue is prepared one more time, and after a final inter­ vention of guns and scythes decisively carried out. Characteristic of the parallellism between dialectical narratives is their depending on the ideological archetype. The bible has the same kind of double start-symmetry: the creation in seven days

(whereby the notion of delimitation

is stressed, and the creation as a creation of opposites) is duplicated by a new start, containing also the tautolog­ ical, renewed creation of man

(Gen. 2: 7 ) , before the nar-

554

NOTES

N. Mouloud, "La Science du Langage et les Problèmes Philosophiques du Sens", in Coll., Epistemologie et Marxisme, Paris, U.G.E. - 10/ 18 1972, 206. Since this article takes the form of a preparatory study, it might be advisable to read extensive notes in direct connection with the text. We were obliged to mention all loose ends and suggestions in this register; the reader will understand that the rough frame of a temachic theory as presented here, leaves still many ways open for further development. 2 id., ibid. ,201.

3 Cfr. A.J. Greimas, "Du Discours Scientifique en Sciences Sociales", in Sèmiotique et Sciences Sociales, Paris, Seuil 1976, 9-42, esp. 38-42. Compare with T. Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology, London, N.L.B. 1976, 73-74 and 102-161; F. Jameson, "The Ideology of the Text", Salmagundi, 31/32, 1975-1976, 204-246; and H. Rose et al.,

L'Idéologie de/dans la Science, Paris, Seuil 1977. 4 J. Kristeva, "La Semiologie comme Science des Idéologies", Semio­ tica, I, 1969, 197. 5 E. Leach, "Genesis as Myth", Discovery, XXIII, 5, May 1962, 31. 6 H. Lefèbvre, L'Idéologie Structuraliste, Paris, Anthropos 1971, and R. Makarius, "Structuralism - Science or Ideology?", Socialist Register, 1974, 189-225. 7 M. Aguirre, "The Structure and the System", Restant - Review for

Semiotic

Theories

and the Analysis

of Texts,

VII, 2, Summer 19 78,

105-115. Our rejection of 'universal' 'truths' (as opposed to skepticism) aims exclusively at reified combinatory patterns, not at the possibility of a universal logic. (Cfr. L. Wittgenstein's

defense of an absolute logic in the closed

universe

we live

in,

against Mauthner's nominalism and skepticism. The problem is trea­ ted by H.P. Gallacher, "Wittgenstein over Kennis", Kennis en Metho­ de, II, 1, 1978, 18-29). The problem remains, however, whether more than one mythological model exists or can exist, or we'd sooner look for a common, indispensable basic axiom which would be connected with the concept of universality. We can't go further into the matter here. Compare also scheme 4. 8 557theories before their break­ For a reception of structuralist through towards genetic ideologizing induced by psycho-analysis,

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS see the rather rude article by W. Hädecke, "Strukturalismus - Ideo­ Rundschau, LXXXII, 1, 1971, 45-59: logie des Status Quo?", Neue "Der Strukturalismus erscheint eher als Ideologie der Auslöschung des Individuums, Ideologie eines neuen 'l'homme machine', des ge­ heimnislosen, manipulierten, von übermächtigen Ordnungen niederge­ haltenen Menschen, des winzigen Rads im allgewaltigen System, auch als Ideologie der endgültigen Konfiskation des Humanismus - (...) Signal einer nur zu schrecklichen Veränderung, einer tödlichen Drohung, die uns im Zeitalter hochindustrialisierter, totalitär gerichteter Grosssysteme naherückt" (59). The causal relation between triadic conceptions like Dumézil's three functions (he systematically attributes to Indo-European cultures and cognitive procedures; cfr. L'Idéologie Tripartite des Indo-Europèens, Brussels, Latomus 1958), hegelian dialectics and structuralism is self-evident. Let us have a closer look at Dumézil's example: the dichotomy between warriors and shepherds in the social organization can only be controlled and superseded (lest the group intends to commit collective suicide) by a syn­ thesizing, dominant force: the dirigist caste of the priests, who can legitimate their dominant rôle precisely on uncontrolable forces: the transcendental link. These harmony-models like Dumé­ zil' s and Lévy-Strauss' (cfr. "The Structural Study of Myth", Journal of American Folklore, LXXVIII, 270, October-December 1955, 428-444) were easily absorbed by Greimas ("Description de la Signi­ fication et la Mythologie Comparée", L'Homme, III, 1963, 51-66). The materialistic influence appears in the economical adaptation of the model; its clue lies in the adoption of the contract as causal synthesis. Vuillod very properly observed the common ground in Brémond's and Greimas' theories ("Exercises sur de courts ré­ cits", Langages, 22, 1971, 24-38). Historically, a kernel text Lévy-Strauss wrote in 1956 links up Russian Formalism with vulgar Structuralism ("Structure et Dialectique", in M.Halle et al., For Roman Jakobson, The Hague, Mouton 1956, 289-294). But as early as 1959, John Brough already pointed out that an experiment of his on another (Hebrew) body of literature resulted in what could have been expected, namely the suggestion "that the Indo-European 'tri­ partite-ideology' could be due very largely to bias in the selection of data combined with 'la nature des choses'" ("The Tripartite Ideology of the Indo-Europeans. An Experiment in Method", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XXII, 1, 1959, 6886 (86)). In spite of Dumézil's vehement attack on Brough's fairly fundamental objections (in "L'Idéologie Tripartie des Indo-Europeéns et la Bible", Kratylos, IV, 2, 1959, 97-118), which reduce the 'tripartite ideology' in its abstract form to a mere trivial automatism, structuralism proves him right in an unexpected and indirect way: the 'actantial model' unveils - obviously - parallel constructions in the Passion-text (an analysis by Marin, quoted by

558

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY R. Jacobson in "The Structuralists and the Bible", Interpretation, XXVIII, 1974,146-164 (163)).

lOG. Schischkoff (Ed.), Philosophisches Worterbuch, Stuttgart, Kroner Verlag 1974, 663. 11

Somewhat anticipating, we can state already that our theory, which takes up an 'integrationist' point of view, tries to reconcile starting from the concepts of 'determined closedness', 'dialectics' and 'diachronical ideological determinism' - the rationalization asked for and the logic universalism pretended by logico-positivism (as practised by L. Wittgenstein; cfr. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in Schriften I, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp 1969, 1183; see 6.37 to 6.3751,6.41,6.421 and 6.431), the schematizing and generality of structural approaches (in a relativized way) and the sociopsychological conditioning focused by historical materialism (in a corrected way, by imputing criticism formulated by the theory of science) .

12E . Leach, art. cit., 31. 13 J . Kristeva, "De la Generalite Semiotique", Etudes Litteraires, X, 3, De cembe r 19 7 7, 34 1 . 14

P. Ouellet, in J. Kristeva, art. cit., 340.

15 , ' h t 1 y, D. SperDer ' ' ' Qulte rlg states: " The attri b utlon 0 f sense lS an essential aspect of symbolic development in our culture. Semiologism is one of the bases of our ideology" (Rethinking Symbolism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1975, 83). 16Evidently, Husserl' s phenomenological project is self-contradictory, as Hindess pointed out: das Bewusstsein von etwas appears as a variant of empiricism (in the sense that it accepts a dualistic correlation between object and subject) , getting into trouble if that subject (knowledge) is considered as being a cognitive object itself. "If the knowledge process of transcendental subjectivity is to be the object of investigation, then that investigation itself requires reference to a higher subjectivity, since the existence of its object requires that of a non-objectionable subject-correlate of knowledge, the transcendental movement can only be repeated" (B. Hindess, Philosophy and Methodology in the Social Sciences, Hassocks, Harvester Press 1977,85 ). The reason for this indefinite (or arbitrarily halted) movement lies in the schizophrenic way Husserl tries to solve the dualism underlying empiricism: by founding an empirist ontology on a tra~scen­ dental subjectivism, "der Uebergang zum reinen Wesen liefe rt auf

559

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der einen Seite Wesenserkenntnis von Realem, auf der anderen (...) Wesenserkenntnis von Irrealem" (E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologischen Philosophie (Hrsg. K. Schumann) - Husserliana Band III, 1, The Hague, M. Nijhoff 1976, 7 ) . Hence the paradoxical impossibility of a non-ideologized metalanguage, which is the re­ sult of an ontologically interpreted subject/object dualism. The fact that Kristeva, misled by the psychoanalytical premisses she yields to, fails to recognize the paradox, explains why it becomes utterly impossible to ground a neutral metalanguage on thétique', i.e. "toute énonciation exige une identi­ the 'phase fication, c'est-à-dire une séparation du sujet de et dans son image, en même temps que de et dans ses objets" (J. Kristeva, Paris, Seuil 1974, 41-42). La Révolution du Langage Poétique, The split between subject and object, like in Husserl's philos­ ophy, renders the creation of a neutral metalanguage, aimed at defining the ideological premisses of a reading, a spontaneous generatio sui generis, a contradiction. Not only reading is ideological, but "lire les textes en articulation avec les scien­ ces, la philosophie" (P. Sollers) alike. 17 This reductionism assumes the form of vulgar signifyism, a criti­ cal remark made already on Lévy-Strauss' approach of myths: "If Levy-Strauss thought of myths as a semiological system, the myths thought themselves in him, and without his knowledge, as a cogni­ tive system" (Sperber, op.cit., 84). 18 J. Kristeva, La Révolution du Langage Poétique, 41. 19 id., ibid., 42. 20 E.D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, New Haven, Yale Univer­ sity Press 1967. For a philosophical defense of Hirsch, see J.W. Meiland, "Interpretation as Cognitive Discipline", Philosophy and Literature, II, 1, Spring 1978, 23-45. 21 We will not go into the problem of the status of perception as related to the cognitive process, though we back Dicker's refu­ tation of reductionism to the sense-data theory ("Is there a Problem about Perception and Knowledge?", American Philosophical Quarterly, XV, 3, July 1978, 165-176). On the other hand, the unquestioned premiss of an organized reality (a cluster of phys­ ical objects and facts) is by no means valid (cfr. Scheme 6 ) . We await another occasion to define the exact position and rôle of perception in the cognitive process. None the less, some hypo­ thetical suggestions can already be formulated: it seems advisable to accept perception as a deterministic condition of knowledge; this determining function should be inserted in a wider, fourdimensional continuum. We suppose that every (perceptive) recon­ struction rests on eliminating shifts in, and on rendering equally

560

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similar processes of recognition, marked by a provisionally (and varyingly) stabilizing point of perception (instead of a 'subject') listing Sa-chains - better: a point of projection selecting Sachains -,which, in fact, form its own constitution (tautological elimination). Perception becomes a functional research program, attempting to increase redundancy with regard to power patterns and historical-ideological systems of conditioned Sa-stabilizations (basic axioms, etc.; cfr. Scheme 4 ) , the mechanism of which will also be studied on another occasion. (It is clear that the probable materialistic-energetical nature of processes shuns the danger of idealistic theories - see Scheme 6; for a refutation of Objects, the idealistic arguments, see R. Wollheim, Art and Its Harmondsworth, Penguin 1970, 51-61). 22

J. Kristeva, De la Généralité

Sèmiotique,

340.

23 id., ibid., 339. 24 E. Veron, "Sémiosis de l ' I d é o l o g i q u e e t du Pouvoir", Communica­ tions , 28, 1978, 14 and 15. 25 J.C. Briden & J.G. Gass, "Plate Movement and Continental Magmatism", Nature, Vol. 248, April 19, 1974, 650-653. A tentative and exemplary application on Dutch experimental poetry I offered in L. De Vos, "Le Statut Dualiste de la Perception et la Méfiance de l'Idéologie", Etudes Germaniques, XXXIII, 4, OctoberDecember 1978, 375-389. 27 In view of quantumgeometrodynamics, our theory itself is a fallacy and correctly so, since the condition and refutation of knowledge as such coincide in a theoretically inadmissible stabilization. There is, indeed, "een waarschijnlijkheidsgolf die zich voortplant door de superruimte. Het golfkarakter van de dynamica brengt mee dat: 1) de ruimte op zeer korte afstanden fluctuerende vormen heeft; 2) men niet meer kan werken met begrippen als 'tijdruimte', tijd, voor en na, behalve als men de grove benadering van de klassieke fysica volgt; (...) 4) we moeten aanvaarden dat er andere alterna­ tieve geschiedenissen zijn van ons heelal" (J.A. Wheeler, "Het Raadselachtige Heelal - 3: Geometrodynamica en Superruimte", Na­ tuur en Techniek, XXXVI, 8, August 1968, 257. Transi.: (there is) "a probability wave travelling through superspace. The undulating nature of dynamics induces that: 1) space has fluctuating forms at very short distances; 2) one cannot think in terms of 'spacetime', time, before and after anymore, unless one sticks to the rough approach of classic physics (...); 4) we have to accept the existence of other, alternative histories of our universe").

561

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 20

While in "realism", or any other research program based on the analogy principle - sheer dualism, as we have shown - these opposi­ tions are obscured, Brecht's theatre e.g. is an intuitive attempt to criticize this kind of (bourgeois) ideology. Cfr. R. Coward & J. Ellis, Language and Materialism, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1977, 36-37. 29 An idea already launched in L. De Vos, "Enkele Bedenkingen omtrent Science Fiction" in: Science Fiction Status of Status Quo?, Ant­ werp/Ghent, Restant Ed. 1977, 32-36. Cfr. J. Derrida, "La Structure, le Signe et le Jeu" in: et la Différence, Paris, Seuil 1967, 411.

L'Ecriture

31 I. Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Re­ search Programmes" in: I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, London, Cambridge University Press 1977, 175. 32 Cfr. T.W. Adorno, Negative Dialektik, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp 1966, and M. Foucault, Histoire de la Folie à l'Age Classique, Paris, Plon 1961. 33 Greimas' ultimate rigidity, his 'carré sémiotique', can be exposed and denounced in several ways. Our frame, for one thing, and Witt­ genstein's Tractatus (4.463, 4.4611, 4.462 and 5.143) offer a firm basis to prove that the relation of contradiction in the square not only contains the impossibility of creating a world image, but also reduces the circumscription to an internal relation. ("Die Kontra­ diktion ist die äussere Grenze der Sätze, die Tautologie ihr sub­ stanzloser Mittelpunkt" - It is striking how close this logical reasoning comes to our suggestion of implosion and explosion, i.e. the black hole theory). In his lecture at Antwerp University of_ June 14, 19 76, J. Petitot showed "la degeneration du carré" on grounds of its own limitations: the conflict of formalisation as opposed to the modes of negation on the one hand, and the impossi­ bility to include a theory of the "sujet" on the other hand. Petitot ' s use of Thorn's theory of catastrophes brought him to the con­ clusion that "ces limitations sont complémentaires, et font clôtu­ rer la syntaxe sur elle-même", and that narrative grammar fails entirely to master the demarcation concept. On pure mathematical grounds, he could prove that "les deux axes (du carré) s' identi­ fient" , Some of these arguments have been further developed by J.L. Cornille ("Greimatika, of hoe een Lezer tot Bedaren Komt", Res­ tant, VII, 2, Summer 1978, 29-35), who takes up (again!) the problem of absence or point zero, the "place du mort" and the fundamental collapse of the square's equilibrium. The breakdown of the system, he argues, is contingent to its very structure, and can be attrib­ uted (a reifying operation, in our view) to the "third term" - the symbolic order.

562

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IDEOLOGY

34 Read P.V. Zima, "'Rezeption' und 'Produktion' als ideologische Be­ griffe" in: J. Kristeva et al., Textsemiotik als Ideologiekritik, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp 1977, 271-311. Compare with 7-31. 35 A.J. Greimas, Sêmiotique et Sciences Sociales, 18 ff. (1.3.3). id. , ibid., 5 37 id., ibid., 10 38 id., ibid., 11 39 Cfr. J.A. Miller, "Suture (Elements of the Logic of the Signifier)", Screen, XVIII, 4, Winter 1977-1978; for a critical evaluation of Miller's approach: M. Holthof, "328 Sekonden Oedipo Re", Restant, VII, 2, Summer 1978, 45-75. 40 For a naive application, see R.C. Culley, "Structural Analysis: Is it done with Mirrors?", Interpretation, XXVIII, 1974, 165-181. 41 See i.a. C. Bouazis, Essais de la Sêmiotique du Sujet, Brussels, Ed. Complexe 1977; J. Lacan, Ecrits, Paris, Seuil 1965; Séminaire II; Le Moi dans la Théorie de Freud et dans la Technique de la Psychanalyse; J. Kristeva, La Révolution du Langage Poétique, 17360. 42 P. Watzlawick, La Réalité de la Réalité, Paris, Seuil 1978, 88-92. 43 U. Eco, "Possible Worlds and Text Pragmatics: 'Un Drame bien Pari­ sien 1 ", Versus. Quaderni di Studi Semiotici, 19/20, January-August 1978, 10 (3.1). 44 J. Culler, "Towards a Theory of Non-Genre Literature" in: R. Federman (ed.), Surfiction. Fiction Now ... and Tomorrow, Chicago, Swallow Press 1975, 258. 45 P. Sollers, L'Ecriture et l'Expérience des Limites, Paris, Ed. Anthropos 1968. 46 A term coined at the Urbino-colloquium, the results of which were published in Manteia, 21/22, 1978; the review announced new publi­ cations in 'the same perspective, namely C. Grivel, La Negation, and Collectif, La Mutité. Les Résidus. 47 Cfr. M. Black, Ά Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1964, 296. 48 Previous drafts, especially of schemes 1 and 4, and theoretical 563

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DIALECTICS

problems of world-conception related to it, were widely discussed through a series of seminars and lectures in which I have been helped by the criticism and suggestions of my colleagues and stu­ dents. Preparatory proposals I tested at the Université Nationale du Zaire (ISP Bukavu, 1974 and 19 75) , and papers were published in the Polish review Zagadnienia Rodzajòw Literackich (XX, 2, 1977, Cultural Magazine (I,· 3, May-June 1977, 45-59) and in Sap. English 24-73) . First drafts were presented in lectures at Ghent State Uni­ versity (April 1978), Monash University (where I profited particu­ larly from criticism by C. Nettelbeck and M. Maclean) and the Uni­ versity of Melbourne (August 1978). Final improvements were made during a three month-seminar at Antwerp University (UIA, JanuaryMarch 1979). I am also greatly indebted to M. Holthof and S. Gillis (both UIA) , Μ. Aguirre (then at the University of Cardiff) , M. Pavlyshyn (Monash University), F. Reybrouck (Université François Rabelais à Tours) and G. Van Hoeydonck (University of Melbourne) , and to the editors of the Vlaams Marxistisch Tijdschrift for publishing the Ghent lecture (XI, 3/4, 1977, 83-103) and Spieghel Historiael (Ghent) for a modified and completed reprint (XX, 3/4, 1978, 74-111) . (LdV) . 49 P. Watzlawick, J.H. Beavin & D.D. Jackson, Menschliche Kommunika­ tion, Bern/Stuttgart/Wien, H. Huber 1974 , 45: "In einem allgemei­ nen Sinn wird dieser Begriff heute für elektronische Systeme ver­ wendet, deren Komplexität es nahelegt, ihre Beschaffenheit prak­ tisch ausser acht zu lassen und sich auf die Messungen ihrer Einund Ausgaberelationen {input-output relations) zu beschränken. Zwar trifft es zweifellos zu, dass diese Relationen oft Schlussfolge­ rungen darauf erlauben, was innerhalb des Geräts "wirklich" vor­ geht; für die Untersuchung der Funktion jedoch, die das Gerät als Teil eines grösseren Systems erfüllt, ist dieses Wissen nicht we­ sentlich" . The texts we used present a translation sticking closely to the original, and are not overgrown with exegetic annotations. This does not impede that the texts used, too, render an account of a definite ideological option. A comparable but officialized case form, for example, the translations of the Koran: they are all con­ sidered as comments only, and there is but one canonical, true and valid text: the original, Arabic version. The texts epitomized or worked upon are the Luther translation of the Bible, edited in three volumes and entitled Die Gantze Heilige Schrift (München, DTV 1974), and the King James version, The Holy Bible (Oxford etc., Ox­ ford University Press et al. s.d. (1902) on the one hand; ephemeral use was also made of M. Reisel, Genesis. -Transcriptie. Ver­ klaring. Vertaling, The Hague, Kruseman 1972, a most literal trans­ lation from the Hebrew original. For the Edda we started from J. de Vries's edition (Amsterdam, Elsevier 1938). The English equivalent

564

DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY i s quoted from L.M. H o l l a n d e r , The Poetic Edda, A u s t i n , U n i v e r s i t y of Texas P r e s s 1928; moreover, because of t h e nuances and the by commentary f a i r l y unobscured n a r r a t i v e , t h e o r i g i n a l v e r s i o n s e r v e d as model t e x t , and i s quoted from G. Jonsson, Eddukvaedi, Akureyni, 0 . Björnsson 1954 (2 volumes). S p e l l i n g and s t r u c t u r e were k e p t un­ altered. R.A. P a u l , "The F i r s t Speech E v e n t s : ' G e n e s i s ' as t h e Nursery for Consciousness", Psychoanalytical Review, I , 2, Spring 1977, 184. We do r e j e c t , however, P a u l ' s misconception as t o t h e c o n s t i t u t i o n of the ' f i r s t p e r s o n ' . 52 Other religious myths are still more explicit about the hermaphro­ dite nature of man's origin. Neumann, more in particular, quotes a passage from the Upanishads, that runs as follows: "In the begin­ ning, this world was Soul (Atman) alone in the form of a person. Looking around, he saw nothing else than himself. He said first: "I am" ... He was, indeed, as large as a woman and a man closely embraced. He caused that self to fall (pat) into two pieces. There­ from arose a husband (pati) and a wife (patni)". (E. Neumann, The Origins of Consciousness, Princeton, Princeton University Press 1971, 9. For a further discussion, see E. Bär, "Myth and Primary Process: a psychoanalytical approach", Ars semeiotica, Ι, 5, 19 77, 101-119) . R. Labat, A. Cagnot, M. Sznycer & M. Vieyra, "L'Epopée de Gilgamesh" in: Les Religions du Proche-Orient, Paris, Fayard-Denoël 19 70. For further description and undeveloped hints at the theme of homosexu­ ality, see C. Der Melkonian-Minassian, "Les Symboles dans 'L'Epopée de Gilgamesh'" in: R. Page & R. Legris, Problèmes d'Analyse Symbo­ lique, Montréal, Presses Universitaires du Québec 1972, 147-184, esp. 169-175. There is an undeniable shift, however, from reconcil­ iation with the destiny of man towards the causal credo of divine mission and continuity in the Bible. 54 The reverse function also proves - by its very negativity - this goal envisaged: Adam refrains from killing his son, even when he could exert this indefeasable right. The power of life and death, as I. Shapera points out in "The Sin of Gain", Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great-Britain and Ireland, LXXXV, 1-2, January-December 1955, 33-43, safeguards by its mere inertness in Gen. 4 the continuity aimed at by the transcendental program, ascribed to God (33). This necessarily 'positive' interpretation of a seemingly ,'negative' punishment (i.e. banishment) is also de­ fended by E. Leach in his article "Lévy-Strauss in the Garden of Eden: An Examination of some recent Developments in the Analysis of Myth", Transactions of the New York Academy of Science, II, 23, 1961, 395.

565

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55

An infringement which is less severe than parricide combined with incest (first alternative). It is interesting to notice how even the hierarchy of infringements appears as a reconstruction, as Leach convincingly argues (art. cit., 34) on grounds of (among oth­ ers) the Story of Noah and Ham, of Lot and the inhabitants of So­ dom, of Abram and Sarah, etc. "The implication is", Leach con­ cludes, "that Lot's incest is less grave than heterosexual rela­ tions with a foreigner, and still less grave than homosexual rela­ tions" . 56

Stanza 20: 4 21: 1 2

Well know I, Ygg, where thy eye is hidden. She knows that Othin's eye is hidden in the wondrous well of Mimir.

57 Its finiteness is indirectly proved by the common teleological and eschatological tendency common to mythological relatings and epic stories alike, while dualisms remain significant within the bound­ aries of a closed program itself. Convincing proof was delivered by S. Wikander, "Germanische und Indo-Iranische Eschatologie", Kairos, 1960, 83-88. 58 The same idea of final chaos is reassumed by "The Short 'Seeress Prophecy'" (p. 162) (Völuspà in skamma), where the heavens them­ selves are brought out of balance: "an loft bilar" (II, 502-13:4). 59 The relation with Scheme 1 is strikingly obvious: where Wittgen­ stein lets coincide the implosion pivot and the borderline (5.143; compare note 33) ,  and ∞ , too, or chaos and perfection, are identified. Scheme 11 perfects in fact Schemes 1 and 7. Positivism and metaphysics, surprisingly but logically none the less, meet with one another at this transcendental point. G. Durand, for in­ stance, posits that the sign strives for and refers to a for ever ineffable Sa (p. 18) "par le pouvoir de répéter que le symbole comble indéfiniment son inadéquation fondamentale. Mais cette ré­ pétition n'est pas tautologique: elle est comparable en cela à une spirale, ou mieux un solénoíde [compare note 52 and Scheme 11: a valid suggestion, no doubt! ], qui à chaque répétition cerne davan­ tage sa visée, son centre" (L'Imagination Symbolique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France 19763 , 14).

60 I.I. Revzin, "Les Principes de la Théorie des Modèles en Linguis­ tique", Langages, 15, September 1969, 28-29. Compare R. Barthes, "Par où commencer?". Poétique, I, 1970, 4. 61 W.Ross Ashby, Introduction to Cybernetics, London, Methuen 1964, 124.

62 T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific566 Revolutions, Chicago, Chica-

DIALECTICS AS

IDEOLOGY

go University Press 1971, 23 (International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. II, No. 2 ) . 63

An "impossible object" designed by L.S. and R. Penrose in 1956, and reprinted in the queer and most imaginative booklet by P. Hughes & G. Brecht, Vicious

Circles

and Infinity.

An Anthology

of

Paradoxes,

Harmondsworth, Penguin 19 78, ill. 17-18. 64 For this notion, consult J. Taylor, Black Holes, Glasgow, FontanaCollins 1974; . Carter & J.P. Luminet, "Les Trous Noirs: Mael­ ströms Cosmiques", La Recherche, IX, 94, November 1978, 944-953, esp. fig. 1 (p. 946), fig. 4 (p. 950) and fig. 6 (p. 951). 65 G. Frege, Les Fondements de 1'Arithmétique, Paris, Seuil 1969 (18841). 66 J.A. Miller, "La Suture", Cahiers pour l'Analyse, 1-2, JanuaryFebruary 1966, 37-49. 67 alternative explanation we don't want to venture into because of our not being familiarized enough with the theory and its appli­ cations, might be offered by a variant of the parabolic umbilic model in catastrophe theory. Cfr. R. Thorn, Structural Stability and Morphogenesis, Reading - Mass., W.A. Benjamin 1975, Fr. 1972 , and the pragmatic research of E.C. Zeeman (.. Catastrophe Theory. Selected Papers 1972-1977, Reading - Mass., Addison-Wesley 1977). Most stimulating and closest to our tentative ideas is, we believe, the latter's description of the umbilic bracelet (pp. 566-5 73) and its relation with catastrophe theory (pp. 583-591). A discussion both on tenets and applicability of the theory between Thorn and Zeeman was published in two special issues of Manifold (14, Spring 1973 - esp. 16-23 - and 15, December 1973, esp. 4-15). Comparable procedures might also be found in SF-novels: notions like 'hyperspace' or 'teletransportation' clearly surmount the limits of the determined reality concept, and assume the rôle of implosion or the catastrophe. Finally, for the implications of Wheeler's 'superspace '-hypothesis mentioned before, cfr. J. Taylor, op. cit., 109113. 68 Recent criticism on a.o. phonologically grounded reductionism (a Jacobson-relict) was put forward by A. Neschke-Hentschke, "Grie­ chischer Mythos und Strukturale Anthropologie", Poetica, X, 2/3, 1978, 135-153. 69 A good introduction, treating a wide range of 'integrationist' the­ ories, can be found in the working papers of the Communication and

Cognition point,

Congress,

International

Workshop on the Cognitive

Ghent, State University 1977, 436 pp. 567

View-

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 70 T.M a l d o n a d o ,Environnement et Idéologie, P a r i s , 10/18-UGE 1 9 7 2 , 120. U. E c o , Possible Worlds and Text Pragmatics, 5-72. 72 id., ibid., 5. 73 W. Buckley, Sociology and Modern Systems Theory, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall 1967, 5. 74 E. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, Oxford, Basil Blackwell 1972, 14-15. 75 When Laszlo (op. cit., 23) conceives a hierarchy debouching into fundamental dualism ("My term for this highest level of organiza­ tional invariance is 'natural system'. In this use 'natural' con­ trasts with 'artificial' and not with 'social'"), but fails to re­ late it with a diadetical connection and the closed universe as margin boundary, he comes dangerously close to what we defined as 'structure'. For a nearly exhaustive approach of this notion (at least in width), see R. Bastide (Ed.), Sens et Usage du Terme Structure, The Hague, Mouton 1962, 165 pp. 76 Cfr. J.L. Baudry, "Effets Idéologiques de l'Appareil Cinématogra­ phique", Cinétique, 7/8, 1970. 77 Distinction introduced by E. Souriau. Cfr. . Metz, Essais sur la Signification au Cinéma, I, Paris, Klincksieck 1968, 103. 78 J.L. Baudry, art. cit. 79 In how far the delimitation concept is the result of ideological options, of a power grid covering the Sa-chains, may become clear from the following simple examples, the first of which was borrowed from Ά. Vandenbunder who used it in his course at the Brussels Film Institute. Example one: if one brings a camera into a red sphere, which is then completely closed, transparent and lit from the outside, the seemingly obvious units of traditional filmmaking will lose their relevance: neither montage, nor framing, nor change of focal length (lens), nor cameramovement nor any other parameter will be able to have any impact at all on the rhetorical presentation to the viewer. The image will remain plain red. C m and  having become unmarked and therefore irrelevant, R L will lose its pluriformity: language will become structureless. R L , in losing its distinctness, hence its dialectically determined meaning, stresses the fundamental ideological perspective necessary to impose delimitation concepts. Example two: a soccermatch broadcasted to e.g. the TV-screen, shows

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another peculiarity. Suppose we manage to keep the ball permanently in the exact middle of the screen (some cameramen apparently try to do so). Since the ball moves 'in reality', and while it is in the background moving in our report, we get a shift in our ideologi-, cally determined and programmed expectation pattern (ideological patterns based on entertainment: we never expect the ball to be out of the image. Cfr. E. Buscombe (Ed.), Football on Television, BFI-Television Monographs, London 1975). This shift we cannot com­ pensate. However, our representation of the football-game is just as valid. In this example, it is quite clear how rhetorical mecha­ nisms and the place of the viewer influence the construction of a reality. Even in changing one parameter, one comes into trouble. A simple example can be taken from R. Corman's film The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963): as soon as the protagonist's eyes lose their convex preception, his world-view becomes incompatible with reality as other people frame it; he's repelled into isolation, and only blindness can save him from annihilation (i.e. though joining a minority, he remains within an ideologically acceptable structuring). 80 Very central, though, in Metz's Grande Syntagmatique, for example. Cfr. C. Metz, op. cit., 102, or more recently, D. Chateau & F. Jost, Nouveau Cinéma, Nouvelle Semiologie, 10/18-UGE, Paris 19 79, 44-45. 81 D. Chateau & F. Jost, op. cit., 13. 82 . Metz, op. cit., 121-146.

83 Cfr. K. Thomson & D. Bordwell, "Space and Narration in the Films of Ozu", Screen, XVII, 2, 1976. Compare with M. Holthof, "Ozu's Reactionary Cinema", Jump Cut, 18, August 1978, 20-22. 84 A term coined by R. Barthes, "Rhétorique de l'Image", Communica­ tions 4, 1964. The concept was developed by . Metz, "A propos de l'Impression de la Réalité au Cinéma", op. cit., 13-24, and by C. Me Cabe, "Realism and the Cinema. Notes on some Brechtian Theses", Screen, XV, 2, Summer 1974. In a psychoanalytical perspective, it was also integrated by C. Me Cabe, "Theory of Film: Principles of Realism and Pleasure", Screen, XVII, 3, Autumn 197 7; L. Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Screen, XVI, 3, Autumn 19 76; S. Heath, "Narrative Space", Screen, XVII, 3, Autumn 19 77; "Anata Mo", Screen, XVII, 4, Winter 1977; "Notes on Suture", Screen, XVIII, 4, Winter 1978; P. Willemen, "Voyeurism, the Look and Dwoskin", After­ image, 6, Summer 1976; C. Metz, "Le Signifiant Imaginaire" and "Le Film de Fiction et son Spectateur", Communications, 23, 1975 85 569 P. Willemen, art. cit.

SEMIOTICS AND 86 C. Metz, op. cit., 100. 87 Cfr. Borde & Chaumeton, Panorama Minuit 1955.

DIALECTICS

du Film

Noir

Américain,

Paris,

88

. Metz, op. cit., 100. 89 R. Barthes, "Le Troisième Sens: Notes de Recherche sur Quelques Photogrammes de S.M. Eisenstein", Cahiers du Cinéma, 222, 1970. The English translation used here was published in R. Barthes, Image-Music-Text (ed. S. Heath), Glasgow, Fontana-Collins 1977. 90 R. Barthes, op. cit., 60. 91 R. Barthes, op. cit. 92 J. Kristeva, "Ellipse sur la Frayeur et la Séduction Spéculaire", Communi ca ti ons, 23, 1975. 93 . Metz, op. cit., 143. 94 Cfr. the criticism on Metz's theory by D. Chateau & F. Jost, op. cit., 59. 95 The reference to the photograms is to the illustrations offered in that text. 96 "The Eisensteinian aesthetic does not constitute an independent level: it is part of the obvious meaning, and the obvious meaning, in Eisenstein, is always the revolution" (R. Barthes, op. cit., 56) 97 Most practical analyses (unless purely syntagmatic) have revealed the organization in regard to the intradiegetic exchange of looks of characters. However, this does not correspond to the operative rhetorical (ideologically marked) mechanisms in force. Cfr. R. Bellour, "Le Blocage Symbolique", Communications, 23, 1975; T. Kuntzel, "Le Travail du Film 2", ibid.; N. Browne, "Rhétorique du Texte Spéculaire", ibid.; S. Heath, "Touch of Evil", Screen, XVI, 1 and 2, 1975; M. Holthof, "328 Sekonden Oedipo Re", Restant, VII, 2, 1978. 98 Reproduction in S.M. Eisenstein, Octobre - Découpage Intégral, Seuil/Avant Scène, Paris 1971. 99 The statue will reassemble in a later sequence of the film, namely at the moment general Kornilov leads the counterattack against the Bolshevists. 100 P. Sorlin & M.C. Ropars, Octobre, Ecriture et Idéologie, Paris, 570

DIALECTICS AS

IDEOLOGY

Ed. Albatros 1976, 30. 101 J. Kristeva, op. cit., 77. 102 Genesis 1: 1-2 ("In een begintoestand had God geschapen de hemelruimte en de aarde. Die aarde is geweest ontzettend (en) chaotisch ook (was er) duisternis" - "In an initial stage God had created the firmament and the earth. That earth has been terrible (terribly) (and) chaotic, (there was) darkness, too" - M. Reidel, Genesis, 15). 103 M.C. Ropars, in P. Sorlin & M.C. Ropars, op. cit., 32. 104 id., ibid., 38. 105 P. Sorlin, ibid., 75. 106 M. Lévy, "Du Fantastique", in R. Asselineau, Du Fantastique Science-Fiction Américaine, Paris, Didier 1973, 13-26 (17).

à

la

107 Cfr. the Seuil/Avant Scène interpretation: "Plan général en légère plongée de la foule où se trouvent mêlés hommes, femmes, enfants, ouvriers ou paysans ou soldats. Une autre fois face à nous: des soldats, gui, d'un mouvement d'ensemble, lèvent les crosses des fusils vers le ciel. Panoramique sur les crosses, puis sur des faux tendues vers le ciel. A nouveau les crosses de fusil, puis les faux, les crosses, les faux ...". And in Eisenstein's original script: "Les colossales manifestations s'agitaient en vagues d'océan. Vague après vague, les masses ouvrières, vague après vague, les masses paysannes, les masses de soldats". A beautiful example of the common grounds of Western ideologies, impregnated by the judaeochristian grid. No better refutation of exclusive preponderance of any ideol­ ogy than a comparison with the similar claims made by Dumézil (compare note 9 ) . Irconically enough, 571 the only shift in triadic construction is the replacement of the priest-caste by the wor­ kers - which proves again the redemptionist transcendentalism of the group of saviours (who, in this way, legitimate their domina­ tion) . Cfr. also the last title in October: "La Révolution Ouvrière et Paysanne s'est Accomplie": the eschatological fulfillment (Cfr. L. De Vos, "Tijd en Utopie: Varianten en hun Verklaring", Nieuw Vlaams Tijdschrift, XXX, 10, December 1977, 875-880). (All quotations 10 1098Formally, the R. from identification. Barthes, peaky Octobretoo, face op. - of Découpage the cit., Medoks make-up, 63-64. Intégral, underline the eyeline, op. the suggestion cit.). the fine-cut of this features rôle and

SEMIOTICS AND DIALECTICS 110 J. Kristeva, op. cit., 78. (*) We'd like to thank for their material and critical help, and for linguistic revisions, A. Vandenbunder, P.V. Zima, J. Odmark, F. Peeters, J. Louage, the Audovisual Center of the University of Antwerp U.I.A. and the Seminar for Scandinavian Studies of the State Universi­ ty of Ghent. (**) For different technical reasons, and because of the sudden death of the editor, John Odmark, who left the revision of the text practi­ cally untouched, the publication of this contribution was delayed for almost two years. In the meantime, some other articles have been pub­ lished which rely more or less substantially upon this synthetic out­ line. We apologize to the reader for any inconvenience or obscure pas­ sage he found either in this text or in other articles, and which were developed elsewhere. To put things straight, one should keep in mind the following correct chronology: first the list mentioned in footnote 48; then this contribution proper; its sequel was published in Linguistica Biblica (Luk De Vos: "Entwürfe von Universumssystemen. Entstehungsmythen und Ideologie. Einige Erkenntnis- und Wissen­ schaftstheoretische Neuorientierungen für eine temachischen Semiotik Kosmologiseher Mythen") as fascicule 49 (June 1981); part of this article, with an entirely different introductory part, appeared in Communication & Cognition, XIV, 1, 1981, 99-131 (Luk De Vos: "Tekst als Ken(re)konstruktie van Observatie. Omtrent Westerse Wetenschap en Maya-Quiché Kosmologie"); some filmic and philosophical parameters, directly related to the science theoretical platform of the 'temachic construction', were developed in the following articles: Luk De Vos: "Theologie of Ideologie? De Retoriek van de Wetenschap in de Westerse Maatschappij", Restant, VIII, 2, Spring 1980, 106-119; Marc Holthof: 261-273; Marc Moens: De Wetenschappelijkheid "De Stand-In", ibid.,

van Literatuurtheorieën. en hun Verhouding tot

De Evolutie van Methodologische Konstrukties de Kognitieve Dimensie van Teksttheorieën,

Antwerp, University of Antwerp 1980, 51 pp. (mimeo), to be published as a special issue of Antwerp Studies in Literature-, Luk De Vos: "Strategieën van de Science-Fiction Film. Ideologie en Praktijk", De A n d e r e Sinema, II, 22, October 1980, 10-17 & 21 (part I ) ; ibid., III, 25, January 1981, 12-18 (part II) (to be continued); Marc Holthof: "Fotografie en Beeidideologie", ibid., III, 23, November 1980, 26-29 (part I ) ; ibid., III, 27, March 1981, 10-14 (part II) (to be continued); Ann Leblans: Walter Benjamin. Vollkommenheits-

anspruch als Kernelement einer Methode zur Besprechung des Benjaminschen Vollkommenheitsanspruchs, Antwerp, University of Antwerp 1980, 301 pp. (esp. pp. 24-31). Forthcoming are the following contributions: Luk De Vos, Marc Holthof & Mark Moens: "It's All in the Head. Art as a Cognitive Strategy of Ideology Consolidation. The Case of Zardoz", in: Lars Aagaard-Mogensen, Nelson Goodman et al.: Art in Culture, Dordrecht, Reidel/Ghent, Communication & Cognition

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DIALECTICS AS IDEOLOGY 1981-1982; Luk De Vos & Marc Holthof: "The Death of P e r c e p t i o n ; D i a d e t i c s and Universe C o n s t r u c t i o n " , Antwerp Studies in Literature, 1982; Luk De Vos: "Rhetoric, Ideology, World C o n s t r u c t i o n " , Zagadnienia Rodzajow Literackich, XXV, 1983; Luk De Vos & Marc Holthof ( E d s . ) : Χ, 2, 1982; Luk De Vos Filmsemiotiek, a s p e c i a l i s s u e of Restant, ( E d . ) : Een Strop voor Judas. Wetenschapsteorie, Semiotiek, Litera­ tuurwetenschap. Naar een minder Dualistische Benadering, Antwerp 1981 (December) .

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