Bullock. the Enclosure of Consciousness. Theory of Representation in Literature

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The Enclosure of Consciousness: Theory of Representation in Literature

Author(s): Marcus BullockSource: MLN, Vol. 94, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1979), pp. 931-955Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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The

Enclosure

f

Consciousness:

Theory

f

Representation

n

Literature

Marcus

Bullock

"Was fur

eine

Philosophie

man

wdhle,hangt sonach

davon ab, was

furein

Mensch

man

sei;

denn ein

philosophischesystemstnicht in

todter

Hausrath,

den

man ablegen

oder annehmen

konnte,

wie es

uns

beliebte

. ."

Johann

Gottlieb

ichte'

The usual

procedure

in undertaking

n

analysis

of representation

in art is to consider it as defined,before all else, by its polar re-

lationship

with

abstraction.

This

polarity s

made possible

in its

common or

uncritical form,

however, only

by a particular

metaphysics.

he simple opposition

of these two

depends

on the

presence

of a

world

which is manifest

n a

modality

considered

external

to

the system f

representation,

nd

on the

notion of

a

mode of perception

which s independent

of systems

f reference

altogether.

The

alternative iew s to set

the

concept'world'

more

philosophically

within he

systems

n which t is

expressed.

Particular ystemsmay thenbe discussed accordingto the way

that

concept figures

n

them,from

bstract

rders

of

signification,

where

it is not

a

determinant

of

meaning,

to

pre-critical

ife-

situation

usages

which

assume

reference

o a

transcendent

eality.

Artistic

epresentation

oes

not

correspond

to either

of

these,

and

therefore

nderstanding

t

correctly

equires

thatwe examine

this

MLN

Vol.94 Pp.931-955

0026-7910/79/0945-093101.00

?

1979byThe Johns opkins niversityress







932

MARCUSBULLOCK

foundation. One will of course begin such an enterprise from

the benchmark

of Jacques

Derrida's

critique

of metaphysics

with

regard

to the

theory f signs,

ince, despite

tssometimes

novelter-

minology,

t offers he

mostrapid and

direct

access to certain

nec-

essarypremises

more specifically,

hose concerning

the assimila-

tion

of ontology

to semiotics).

Nevertheless,

this procedure

will

open

up the field of

signification

o a new

series of possibilities

which curtail

at least

some of Derrida's

claims.

This approach

overcomes

a primary

roblem

for thequestion

of

representation n literaturepresentedby the differing rders of

sign

n

visual and literary

worksof

art. As

long

as we retain

the dea

thatthe world

we experience

is

a

"natural presence,"

that

s,

final

rather

han relative, here

will

be a difficultyn

bringing

hemedia

which

can

imitate

ppearances

intoconformity

ith

the

principles

governing

our grasp

of those which

refer to

them-

ia

arbitrary

codes.

If, on

the

other

hand, particular

deas

of the world

and

experience

are determinedor

constituted

ythe systems

f

refer-

ence

in

which

they ccur,

the differing

elationships o

meanings

n

"natural" and "arbitrary" ignification,nd the perceptionsthey

guarantee,2

may

be reconciled within

a

superordinated

body

of

principles

describing

he formation

nd

statusof

those ideas.

Mimesis,

n its uncritical

form, s

the secondary

imitation f a

"true"

order

of phenomena,

is the

"natural signification"

f

a "nat-

ural

presence."

That is to say,

t

contrasts

with

the

"arbitrary

ig-

nifier"

f language

in

bearing

a real resemblance

to its

object.This

resemblance

s incorrectlyosited

as

a relationship etween

objects,

however,

for

tstandsonly between

perceptions.

The

Taj Mahal

is

as absentfrom hand-sizedphotographof tas it s from he sound

of its

name. The association

is made

only

in

the

perceiving

con-

sciousness.Yet

there s

a

connection

there which,

within

hese re-

strictions,

merits

the

provisional

designation

"real." The consis-

tency between

them is called

in gestalt

theory a

"structural

isomorphism,"

nd because

it

implies

no more than

we wish

to

claim

for

t

here,we

shall

adopt

thisterminology

n

our subsequent

argument.

Wittgenstein's

duck-rabbit"3 emonstrates

that this

isomorph-

ism is not a unique, specificsignifying roperty,but a range of

permittedpossibilities

nd the exclusion

of

others.

Recognition

of

the

two-dimensional

hotographic

mage

as

signifying

he

monu-

ment

n

Agra

means

ascribing privilege

to

thatcorrespondance

rather than any other,

or to none

at all.

One

simply

makes

the







M L

N

933

reasonable

udgement that this s the

best candidate among those

objects which

could theoretically

ave produced

the same image.

Among other depletions,

as is easily

understood,the loss of

the

thirddimension means the loss of

definite cale

or orientation, o

that withoutother clues

one cannot,

for example, distinguish

be-

tween an

ellipse viewedfrontally,nd

a circle shown

obliquely.For

this reason,

the accretionof possible

meanings

for a visual image

depends

on actual or

theoreticalperceptionswhich

can conform

with

t.These are not instituted rbitrarily,

ut

"discovered."The

existence of interpretants or a pictorial mage among isomorphic

objects i.e.,

isomorphic

perceptionsof object and

image) is itself

resistance

to the arbitrarymultiplication

f its

meanings. The ac-

creted,or

in Derrida's term "sedimented," meaningsof a lexical

item would

appear to arise in a wholly

different

way, yet there is

nonetheless

a sense in which it, too,

is involved

in "discovering"

interpretants

ut of a ground of possibilities

whichconditions

nd

limits

ts

meaning.

Just

as one

can very rapidlyteach someone

familiarwith

such

signsand contexts hattheduck is also a rabbit, r make a drawing

in

Westernperspective

and lighting

omprehensibleto

a

subject

familiar

with

alternative onventions

n

somewhatmore time,

one

cannot, for

the

very

same reasons,

make the diagram visible

s

a

pyramidever. The structural

ifference

between the two percep-

tions is so great

that

if

it were broken down,

there

would

be no

possiblemeaning

n

seeing

at

all,

so

far as

recognition

f

figures

s

concerned. Furthermore,

this

resistance

to

the

expansion

of

meanings

s not relatedto cultural

determinants, ut stands

priori

as the possibility f visual consciousnessaltogether.

Similarly, ne cannot

nvent

word

for

a

colour

whichcannot

be

seen, nor for

a sensation that cannot be felt.

R.

G.

Collingwood

notes that differentanguages

are not related to

one and the

same

set

of feelings

ike his different uitsof clothesto one

and

the same

man.

If

there s no such

thingas an unexpressed

feeling,

here

s

no way of expressing the

same feeling

n

twodifferent

media....

An

Englishman

who

can

talk

French,

if

he reflectson

his own

experience,

knows

very

well that he feelsdifferently

hen

he

talks

a different ongue.... To be multilinguals to be a chameleon of

the

emotions.

Still

moreclearly

s it

true

that he emotions

whichwe

express

n

music can never be

expressed

in

speech

and vice

versa."4

Yet the

fact that we can learn and

use correctly

ther languages

without the loss of a

coherent personality, nd

that, despite

its







934

MARCUS

BULLOCK

notorious hortcomings, ood

translation

s

possible,

ndicatesthat

a

language

does

not

generate

meanings

out of

itself s an

enclosed,

self-sufficient

ystem,

but

'chooses' out

of a

common

ground

of

potentialities.

his

'ground'

is what

Collingwood

calls the "psychi-

cal

level" of

the organism.

t is

anterior

to consciousness, nd

ex-

teriorto language.

The formationof language, by

which is also

meant conscious

expression

of

all

kinds,

s the

process

n

which

"thatwhich

s raised

from the psychical

evel to the conscious level is converted

by the

work of consciousness from impressionto idea, from object of

sensation to object

of imagination" The Principles f

Art, p. 247).

When

a word is learned or

created,

the choice' takes the formof

a

discovery, or

admission nto consciousness

s

gained

only withthe

presence of a signifying oken or

"trace"

in

Derrida's usage).

Ac-

cording to

the preceding ideas,

then, a meaning of any

kind

re-

quires

a

radical addition to

the

semiological

view of

a

structure

r

difference

within system f reference.Whether

t

s the sense of

a

word or

a visual

image,

it must

have the

power

to establish con-

sistency r coherence in the priorpsychicrealm,thebeing of the

organism beyond

its

consciousness.

This leads

to

the

important

conclusion

that the

limit

f

signification

n

general

is the demarca-

tionof a fundamental

iscontinuityetweenall that s

or

can be the

object

of consciousnessfor

given

cultural ondition

of the

subject,

and

a mode of being which

s absolutely xternal to

all conscious

knowledge, xperience or imagination.

It

will be noted

that

in

settingout this position

in the area of

tensionbetween

Derrida and

Collingwood,

t

s

impossible

to avoid

thecharge of "metaphysics f presence" in some form.We accept

this

here because,

while Derrida's critiquehas incontestable

orce

n

the

question of

signification, e leaves

the question of conscious-

ness without dequate consideration.

For this reason

he has to re-

sort to

an

extraordinarymeans to

account for the phenomena

of

concrete

human

arts

and

languages, namely the prophecy

of the

end of

this

"epoch."

On

the otherhand, Collingwoodgoes

much

further

n

claiming specificprior

identity nd accessibility

or en-

tities

t the

"psychical

evel"

than

may

be

tenable. That

is, however,

in no way necessaryfor the formulationpursued here in this at-

temptto clarify epresentation

nd a congruent theoryof

art.

Although

his

conception of

authenticitys subjectto some

dif-

ficulties s

we understand

t,

the mportance f having

such criteria

does appear verygreat. His procedure

in considering

conscious-

ness

as the function

f

an

organism

permits n associated

idea of







M

L N

935

dysfunction,

ermed corruptions f consciousness,"which

re

"the

malperformance

f the

act whichconverts

what

is merelypsychic

(impression) nto

what

is conscious (idea)"

(The Principles

fArt,p.

283).

For

Derrida,

such a

possibility isappears

within

free

play,"

for without

concept of "truth,"

he question

of admissable

and

inadmissable

meaningsretreats

from the

orb of the "real"-given

the

minimaldefinition

here of that

which s external

to, but

limits,

systems f signification-remaining

nly

n thatof the institution.

Shiftingvaliditywholly

nto

thatenclosure allows

a castrationof

language which leaves it withoutthe force to restrain"corrup-

tions."

There

is a certain ense

of liberation

nvolved n relieving

t

of

this

power

and

responsibility,

ut

from

Collingwood'spoint of

view,

facing the enormous

contemporary

corruptions

of con-

sciousness

presented

byEuropean

fascism,

hiswould be

regarded

as a pure loss

and

great

danger.

Though no

pretence can be

made to resolve

these issues,

or

propose

an adequate

theoryof consciousness,

t is appropriate

to

recognize

what large

questions

cast their shadow

over

the small

area we attempt o illuminatehere. Nevertheless,we lean on the

authority f Collingwood

to sustain

the idea of

that fundamental

discontinuity

etween consciousness

and

non-consciousness,

nd

it

will be subsequently ontended

in

this paper,

moreover,

hat art

is

the

history f

the movementof

this frontier,

nd that artistic

ep-

resentation pecifically

s the locus

of changes

in the "world"

con-

sidered

as

appearances.

In

the light

of this,

t is possible also to

reconsider

the division

betweenabstraction

nd representation

n art, positing

them

now

as reflecting hat between self-consciousness f the subject and

consciousness

of

the

other

as

object-a polarity

without

which

consciousness

s

notconceivable.

Abstraction

n

art s

the

recognition

and

clarificationf specific

lements

f theactivity

f consciousness5

in

its self-reflecting

hase before

it manifests

r touches

on 'the

world.' Artistic epresentation,

ringing

n

the

appearance

of the

world, concerns

what

is constituted s

'other,'

but

in

doing so,

it

makes theworld planetary

to

the solar position

of

the individual

subjectivity.

t

reveals or

reflects

heactivity f the

subject

n

creat-

ing it. Art, therefore,genericallypresents itselfas involved in

abstraction

n

that

t

is

not produced

as resting n

the

fixed objec-

tive truth

f

transcendent

eing,but as

relative,

perception

ndi-

visible

from

the subject.

An artistic mage

will always reveal

the

active

character or "emotions,"

o use Collingwood's

word)

of

the

subject.

Only

when the image

is removed from

the

domain of

art







936

MARCUS

BULLOCK

altogether, s wholly

informative'

ather

han aesthetic,s

itcaught

in the

fixity f

absolute

being and

a transcendent

world.

And it

should be noted

thatwhat s informative

an include

the

category

of fictive,' or

a

paradigmatic

fiction,

roposing

a

generalized

(or

'abstract'

n

the

alternative

ense)

udgement

of

the intersubjective

world,

need not figure

s

'art.'

II

The relationshiptermed structural somorphism'establishesa

particular

ituationformimetic

ignification,

or t

holds

between

signifier

nd

signifier

s well

as

signifier

nd

signified.

All repre-

sentations

of

a

given

visual

object

and the object

itself

re

com-

prised

within

certainform

of

unity.Also,

if

the

object is

an ar-

tifact, hough

usually

a void

and disregarded

point,

none

has

a

logical,

but only

a historical

priority

over

any other since,

for

example,

there

may

be no

certain basis for

deciding whether

a

drawingwas the

architect's

esign,

or

a pictureof

the completed

building.This is a pointof radical contrastwith the situationbe-

tween

meaning

and a word or synonyms

n

a

particular

anguage,

or

equivalents

n

different

anguages.

Such an element

of

realism'

in

meanings

s

consequently

zone

of resistance

o

the nominalism'

ofsemiology.

t

is

also

a

potential

bstacle

to

the territorial

laimsof

deconstructionism.

he isomorphic

lement,

we willendeavour

to

show,

s the

possibility

f

an alternative

tructure

f

signification

o

that f

the "instituted

race"

as determined

by

JacquesDerrida,

and

of "difference

within

a

structure

of

reference

where

difference

appears as such and thus permitsa certain libertyof variations

among

the

full terms."6

The alternative

tructure

foreseen here

does

not

reverse

he

expansionof

readings

n

virtue

f

this certain

liberty

fvariations

mong

the full erms,"

y

reinstituting

tighter

rule

of

law, butrather

delegates

thevariability

o a separate

sphere,

or

perhaps

it

would

be more descriptive

of

the situation

to

say

establish

separate

spherefor

the

mode

of signification

or

art we

wish

to

identifywithinrepresentation.

So-called

'natural signs,'

including the

iconographic,

set

a

theoretical imitto semiology,as Derrida notes: "We must then

conclude

that

only

the

signs

called natural,

hose

that Hegel

and

Saussure

call "symbols,"

scape

semiology

as grammatology.

But

they

fall a fortiori utside

the fieldof

linguistics s

the

region of

general

semiology" Of

Grammatology,.

45).

The

trace,

however,

s







M L

N

937

not restricted

n thesame way,

for these

oppositionshavemeaning

onlyafter he possibilityfthe trace" OfGrammatology,. 47). But

what we

questionhere is whether

meaning

n themimetic ignifier

in art answers

to theDerridean

formula

of "The absence of another

here and now, of another

transcendental

resent, f

another origin

of

the

world appearing

as such, presenting tself

as irreducible

absence

within hepresenceof the

trace

. ."

(p. 47).

That is

to

say,

we questionthe

idea that tsignifies

transcendental

bject.

If

we

accept the

positionthatthe world

s not a

manifestation f

its noumenal beingpresentto us as transcendentality,ut rathera

product

of signifyingtructures

romwhich t s not

separable, then

the question

of

how these structures ame

into existence offers

considerabledifficulties.

his

is an old objectionto the

semiological

viewoflanguage which

we revive

now, ookingback

in

particular

o

Benedetto Croce,

who argued

that anguage should

be conceived

not as a

sign,but"an image which

s significant,"

ecause "the sign,

wherewithman agrees

withman, presupposes language;

and when

it persists

n explaining language

by signs,

it is obliged to

have

recourseto God, as giver of the first igns-that is, to presuppose

language

in

another

way, by

consigning t to the unknowable."7

We

adopt

the view

thateven

thoughrepresentational

rt

such as

portraituremay

appear

to refer to

an

object,

it is

precisely

the

object

to which similarwork

which

was not art would be

referring

that the

work of art

occludes.

It

introduces

an element

that

does

not yetbelong to

what, within

he metaphysics f

presence, is

re-

garded

as the transcendentalworld,

or

the

world

as constituted

y

pre-existent

tructures by

which man

agrees with man."

That

which s represented n artwas not in the worldpriorto it; itwas

neither

an object,nor was

it even

in

the

knowledgeof the artist.

There

was nothing

knowablepreceding t

beyond

the activity fthe

artist

by

which

t

came into being.

It

can, however,

become

a ref-

erence to

an

intersubjective

orld conceived

as transcendent

f t

s

re-read we will

argue 'mis-read')as informative.

hat

is to say if,

for

xample,

the conventions

f

a

painting

re

interpreted

s

giving

the correct'version

of the way

the transcendent

world

manifests

itself

s presence to the eye,

it

will no

longer simply

occlude

the

object,but install tsmeaningin the role of object.Though itmay

producea change

in

the consistency

withwhich

we see

the

world,

t

will have become

a

transparent

eference,

hat

s,

an informative

representation

of it, restoringpriority

to

the

apparent object.

Then, and

only then,does it fall

ecurely

nto the demesne of

what







938

MARCUSBULLOCK

Derrida says of

the trace, the tokenby which

an entitys thought:

"The trace mustbe thoughtbeforethe entity. ut the movement f

the trace is necessarily

occulted,

it

produces

itself as self-

occultation" p. 47).

This leads very simply o the suggestion

that

what

deconstruction

econstructs

s not

the work of

art,

but

only

the informative

ext. n otherswords,

we are

arguing

that the

rep-

resentational orce

of a work of artas such is not towards

a trans-

cendental

object.

III

A

distinction

etween these two,

the informative nd aesthetic

artifact,which

s not ill-founded n

vulgar metaphysics, ut offers

genuine power

in

determining eadings-that is,

a

text-immanent

distinction-has hitherto proved

elusive. The argument of this

paper

is

that

the

deconstructive nalysis

of

textuality

as

in fact

brought uch

a concept to bay,even though

t remains tself aught

inthe negativedialecticof metaphysicsnd signifyingystems, nd

is therefore unable

to proceed

to the kill. While

it

is an ac-

ceptable though

not

a

novel

idea,

and

certainly lwaystimely,

hat

the notionsofworld

and

experience

are produced to

us by signifi-

cation,

t

s also true thatthe conception of

the trace as

propagated

in

deconstructive

riticism s neither

a revelationnor a discovery,

but a

veil

conjuring

up

the

effect

f simplicity eforethe complex-

ity f the activity

thides. That contemporaryriticism

hould make

a

pause

on the apparently afe ground

of this

simplicity

s natural

and understandable as a refugefromthe chaos and frustration f

past failures.

But it is

only pause,

a

hesitation,

refuge.

Before the complexities

f different

exts nd different inds of

texts, he contractedprocedure of

deconstructive eading reveals

itself s impotence.

t has made the

philosophicalexchangeof pur-

ity

n

place of power, remaining n

a condition of suspension

("In

the

deconstruction

f

the

arche,

one

does not

make a choice"

[Of

Grammatology,

.

62]),

in

order to

withdraw

rom he

self-deception

of

presence,

the fall

nto

metaphysics.

his fearful

paralysis

s not

necessaryfor therigorous clarity econstruction akesfor ts goal.

There seems tobe everyprobability

hatthere s a rich

armatureof

criteria

which

will

provide adequacy

in

criticalreading

without

passage through

the banned fieldsof metaphysics.

And

whether

t

is so

or

not,

the

necessity

hat

such

quarry should

be pursued is

absolutelyundeniable.

It

is intolerable

hat iterary oncernshould







M L N

939

maintainthisretreat, urrendering

he forceto determine a

good

workfrom great or a mediocreone, or among interpretationsell

a wise from foolishversion,

or distinguish

dmissiblefrom

nad-

missible riteria.

What is urged here is the

idea that such divisions

lie

in

characteristics

f the systems

f signification,may be

iden-

tified

n

their

specificfunctions nd evaluated according

to

them,

and thatsuch a position follows

directly rom

the correct udge-

ments f deconstructionism.

f the notion of

world s produced

out

of

signification,

nd not viceversa, this lso entails

the quite simple

possibility hat other modalities,

previously

defined against

the

naive idea ofworld, uch as fictiveness nd representation,re also

produced as

such out of language,

and this can be made determi-

nate by extending

and differentiating

he initialDerridean

argu-

ment.

That

being so,

the disastrous failuresof previous

critical

theories may

be circumvented.

Starting rom

the

primitive

osition of the

separationof

the

in-

formativefrom the artistic ext

as

practised

by vulgar parlance

within

ulgar

metaphysics,raditional pproaches

to

criticism

ave

proved astonishinglynconclusive

when supporting

theoretically

the generallypositivevalorization of art and literatureto which

they subscribe,

and which is held to

in

most

cultures.

That

the

problems are

implicit

n

this treacherous starting

point

can be

shown

by

examining hreefamiliar ariations

which

termhere the

sacred,

the

subtractive,

nd the

additive.

A

good

illustration f the

first s offeredbyPaul

Valery.

Delim-

iting non-poetic

discourse in "Au sujet du Cimetiere

Marin,"

he

writes: "L'essence de

la

prose

est

de

perir-c'est

'a

dire d'etre

'comprise'-c'est 'a dire, d'etre

dissoute, detruite

sans retour,

en-

tierement emplacee par l'image ou par l'impulsion

qu'elle signifie

selon

la conventiondu

langage.

Car la

prose

sous-entendtoujours

l'univers de l'experience

et

des actes-univers dans lequel-ou

grace auquel-nos

perceptions

et nos actionsou emotions doivent

finalement

se correspondre ou se repondre

d'une seule

maniere-uniformement.

L'univers pratique

se

reduit

a un ensem-

ble de buts."8The complement

of this is the non-paraphrasable,

non-transparent

se of language as an artistic

medium: "Les

pen-

sees enoncees ou suggereespar un textede poeme ne sontpas du

tout

l'objet

unique

et

capital

du discours-mais

les

moyens

qui

concourent egalementvec les sons,

les cadences,

le nombre et

les

ornements,

provoquer,

a soutenir

une certainetension

ou exalta-

tion,

engendrer

en nous

un monde-ou

une

mode

'existence-tout

harmonique."9

This presents iterature s a sort

of divine ntoxicant







940

MARCUS

BULLOCK

withvirtually o

intersubjective

imension

at all: "Mes

vers

ont le

sens qu'on leur prete.Celui que je leur donne ne s'ajuste qu'a' moi,

et n'est opposable

'a personne."'10

The second

view,the subtractive,

s particularly

well

exemplified

byErich Auerbach,

whose conception

of literature s

as a form

of

discourse

whose

singular

attainment

s to advance

closer

to the

qualities

of reality

than ordinarylanguage.

He comments

on

a

passage

fromMadame

Bovary,

This ordering

of

the psychological

situationdoes not,to

be sure,

derive

from

tandards

fromwithout,

but

from

within

he materialof

the situation

tself. t

is the

type

of

orderingwhich must be employed if the situation tself s to be

translated

nto language

without

admixture."1

Such a quality

of

writing,

what

he calls

"objective

seriousness,"

makes

the

fictive

more

real,more

true,

than thediscourse

of

everyday

ontingency

by

its abilityto purge

itselfof subjective

ntrusions.

The

theory

posits

an

adequacy,

whose

origin

is not

thematized,between

lan-

guage

and "world"

which

theartist

trives o quicken,

exploring

the

resources

of grammar

to substantiate

n ideal

transparency,

n-

closing

and manifesting eality

without

dmixture."

Althoughtheformer fthese approaches does setart outsidethe

naive

presence of

the world,

t does so

in

a waywhich

rests

on

a

purenegativity.

t attempts o

cast no light

n the

"univers

de

buts,"

norconsider

the extent

to which

commonground

in

the language

used

forexpression

interrelates

he two

spheres.

Such

a

theory

s

clearly not

applicable to

a

representational

function

for

art.

The

Auerbachviewdoes

not separate

such a

function rom

he

ordinary

referential

se of

language, and

this notonly

restson

an uncritical

concept of the real,'but leaves untouched

the

question

of how

that

is to re-appear

in the expressive

medium.The

difficulty,

hat s to

say,

lies

in

the veryword

'mimesis,'for

if

there

is

to

be any

true

consistency

n

its applicationto

visual

and literary

rt

forms,

here

has to be

some gesture

towards

explaining

how

a

painting

and

a

novel

are both performances

f the same

process.

The thirdtheory,

he

additive,depends

on the relationship

of

form

o content.

t

claims,

n

plain

terms, hat

there

are qualities

n

thefeatures

f particular

iterary

enres

whichbring

a 'plus'

to the

paraphrasablesense.A commonvariant aught o schoolchildren s

thatcharacters f

form,balance,

harmony,

tress, ension

and

res-

olution elevate or develop

'literal' meanings-the

old

idea of

rhetorical

dornmentand

enhancement.

This

has a

tendencyto

gravitate

owards

the opinion

of Valery.

A more interesting

nd

radical version

is propounded

by Ms.

Barbara

Herrnstein

Smith







M L N

941

who,

in

her

book

Poetic

Closure, oes

make a

real attempt

o con-

front he issue of representation nd mimesis.

Accepting

that language

cannot

resemble

the seen world

as

a

painting

may, she

restricts

iterary

anguage to

the imitation

of

what

it does resemble,

namely

"ordinary"

anguage.

Her thesis

s

that iterature

onsists f

"a-historical"

tterances

whichendeavour

to

represent

"historical"

ones,

i.e. those conditioned

(at

least

hypothetically)

y the

time and circumstances

f a

real context.

Though

this reduction

has the contemporary ppeal

of resolute

pessimism,

he

problems

it

seeks

to evade reassertthemselves

l-

most tonce. She says, Language, inpoetry,s used mimetically.t

is

used

moreoverin a

characteristic

imetic

manner to suggest

as

vividly s

possible or

necessary)

hatvery

historical

ontextwhich

t

does

not

n

factpossess.

That

is,the poem

represents

..

a total

ct

of speech."

2

Which

is to

say

that literature s visualized

here

as

being articulated

across

two stages of

signification,

ne

repre-

sentational,

and

the other

referential.

The poem

proper,

then,

considered

as a

sign,

s to efface

tselfbefore

a double

absence

in

order

to

recover

a

meaning

in

full

presence.

Moreover,

the poetic

function

i.e. mimetic)

s restricted

olely

to the recovery

of the

absentcontext,

which the poem

must

arry.

.

on

itsown

back"

p.

18).

The passages

which

attempt

o illustrate

his

n Ms. Herrnstein

Smith'sbook are evidently

misargued,

for she

claims

that Herrick's

"Upon a

child that dyed,"

and Shakespeare's

sonnet

129 ("Th'ex-

pense

of

spirit

n a waste of shameis lust/in ction . .")

respectively

"represent"

n epitaph

and a sermon.

That is,they

make recover-

able those originaltextsas theywould have appeared in context.

Since both genres

may

occuras historical

iscourse

n

written orm,

a

hypothetical

riginal

would surely

be more

recoverable

if

re-

ported

ntact ather

han transmuted

nto

poetry.

The

latter s not

a

sermon whose identity

s secured by being

recast

n

sonnet form,

but

rather the reverse,

a

sonnet

in

which

certain features

of

a

sermon

(or

similaradmonitory

discourse) appear

in

a

condition

alienated from

hat

context.

And

it

s worth

dding

that he

herself

notes

thisalienating

effect

f form

when

she saysthat

"one

of the

most ignificantffects fmeter or,morebroadly, fprinciples f

formal

structure)

s

simply

to inform

the

reader

that he is

being

confrontedby

poetry

and not by

something lse

. . . the constant

presence

of

meter

n

the poem

continues

to

maintain

a

clear

dis-

tinction

etweenpoetic

and non-poetic

discourse"

p. 24).

As

long

as she remainsfocussed

on

the signified

object

in

this







942

MARCUS

BULLOCK

way,

her

reasoning

also

failson a

further

ount.

In

common

with

mostthinking ased on speech-act heory, he leavesliteraturewith

purely

secondary

status,

dependent on

the natural

illocutionary

utterance and

unable to

exceed

it in

meaning.

Even

if

formal

structure

did

open

up

a full

transparency

nd

make

a

historical

utterance

recoverable

"with ts contexton

its

back,"

that

would not

be

an

adequate

function

for a

literary

work.

We

do not

ask

that

a

van

Gogh

painting

f a

field

n

Provence

should

render

theplace

so

that

t

is

"just like

being there."

Whateverwe do ask

of

it,

we de-

mand

no less

froma

literary

ext.

Auerbach points out that the world described by Flaubert is

banal

and

worthless,

"charged

with

misunderstanding,

vanity,

futility,

alsehood, nd

stupid

hatred"

Mimesis, .

489). Yet

there s

value and

fascination n

its

representation. But

what the

world

would

reallybe,

the

world

of the

intelligent,'

laubert

never

tells

us;

in

his book

the

world

consists

of

pure

stupiditywhich com-

pletely

missestrue

reality, o

thatthe

latter

hould

properly

not be

discovered

n

it

at all;

yet

t

is

there;

it

is

in

the author's

language

which

unmasks

the

stupidity

y pure

statement;

anguage

thenhas

criteriaforstupiditynd thusalso has a partof thatreality f the

'intelligent'which

otherwise

never

appears

in

the

book"

(p.

489).

Objections

have

already

been

raised

to terms like

"pure

state-

ment,"

"true

reality"and

the

implied

reality

and

finality f

the

"world

of the

intelligent,'

but

within

his

s

a

correct

perception,

for

t

s indeed

not

the

presence

of

the

transmitted

eality

whichthe

work

of

art

produces,

but

"a

world

viewed"13

n

its

character

of

view, of

act, not

of

object.

That is to

say,

as

indissolublefrom

the

consciousnesswhichcreates t. Itsmeaning,therefore, as no part

of a

hypothesized

transcendentality

waiting

perception,

but

the

work, he

visible

ext, s the

manifest

ortion

ofan

act

of

conscious-

nesswhose

content s

accessible, n

a

quite

characteristic

ense,by ts

recognition

s

such, or

its

"re-enactment,"n

Collingwood'sterm,

by another

consciousness.

The

division

between

an

informative

nd

artistic

ext

now be-

comes

the

distinction

between the

mode

in

which a

purported

transcendent

presence

"by which

man

agrees with

man" is

mediated, nd that nwhichconsciousnessmediates tself. hat this

should

be

so

can,

congruent

with

he

preceding

arguments,

nly

be

rendered as

the

function f

the

medium, and

as

immanent

to the

characteristics

f

expression in

it.

In

examining the

nature

and

tenure of

this

demarcation

against

the

phenomena of

signification

in

all

systems,

he

role

and

portent of

literature

relative

to

lan-







M L N

943

guage, and

the

conditionof

the

possibilityf

each,

willnecessarily

undergo a completereconsideration.

IV

In our progress

around

this ssue,

we

now come upon our

own

tracks,

or we

returnto the

question,adumbrated

at the

outset,

of

the way n which

mimesis

s set apart

from

bothartistic

epresenta-

tionand

reference

within

n arbitrary

ode.

Certainly, t

is indis-

putable that

not all that s

mimetic s

art. There

is a mimetic

le-

ment in informative illustrations, architectural and technical

drawings,maps

and

diagrams,which

varies

from

predominant

to

partial

n

the

signification

f

the objects,

but they

are generically

exterior to art.

What differentiates

map

from an aerial

photo-

graphshowing

he same

place

at the same

scale

is theadmixture

of

arbitrary

nd schematic

omponents

to

increase

the degree

of

in-

formation.

The

photograph,

though

more mimetic,

s not

neces-

sarily loser to

art

by

thattoken.

n thecase

of maps

and technical

drawingswe can identify rammars f referencebywhichthe sig-

nificance

f what

s

seen depends

on a

separate code.

Yet even

in

the

most

uncurtailedoptical

correlation,

he most

thoroughgoing

of 'natural'

signs,

we findthat

as long as

we

are

presented

with

n informative

bject,

therule

governing

tsmeaning

is

transparency,

nd

the principle

on

which

it

is

constructed

s

equivalent

to

a

'grammar.'

In

his

essayon the

Renaissance

development

of linear

perspec-

tive,

On

the

Rationalization

f

ight,William

M. IvinsJr.

ndicates

hat

the establishmentfa purelyopticalrelationship etweena picture

and its

object

has

had

a historical

igificance

n

fields

far removed

from

rt.

"From

being an

avenue of sensuous

awareness

for

what

people,

lacking adequate

symbols

and adequate grammars

and

techniques

for

theiruse,

regarded

as

'secondary

qualities,'

ight

has

today

become

the

principle

venue of

the sensual

awareness

upon

which

our

systematic

hought

about

nature

is based." 4

Scientific

description

nd

classification,

s well as

technology,

equired

"sym-

bols,

repeatable

in

invariant

form,

for representation

of visual

awarenesses, nd a grammarof perspectivewhichmade itpossible

to

establish ogical

relations

not only

within

he

system

f

symbols,

but

between

the

system

nd

the

forms

nd locations

of

the

objects

that

t

symbolizes"

Rationalization

f ight,

. 13). Opticality,

hough

rooted

firmly

n

what

we

consider

nature,'

becomes

a

grammatical

principle

when

it

opens

itselfup

to use

as something

wherewith







944

MARCUSBULLOCK

man

agrees

with

man"

in

the

universe of

purposes.

Its referent

s

placed

in the intersubjective ealm,effacing tself s a relation to

what

theworld really

ooks like,' to what

it really s.' (And there-

fore,becoming

transparent,

t "is necessarily

cculted, t

produces

itself

s self-occultation"

Of

Grammatology,

. 47]).

This

absolute or

invariable

logical

relation

is only an

artificial

construct,

art

of Western

culture, however. It guarantees

"itera-

bility," public

anguage

in

which

mages

are

made

and

interpreted

and repeated.

For a number

of reasons,

such as the exclusion

of

movement nd the technical mpossibilityf reproducingnatural

light-value

ratios, t can

never

be a complete equivalent

to what

even

a theoretical ye sees,

a "mechanical copy of

a retinal mage,"

while

in

reality ny

act of vision

is accompanied

by

the appurte-

nance

of a full ndividual

subjectivity.

o the extent

that painting

frees

itselfof

non-opticalsemiological

elements,and extends

in

significance

eyond

the terableopticality

f a grammatical

elation

to

itsobject,we

can say t represents

n 'act of seeing.'

If t makes no

claimto iterability,o

intersubjectivity,

o

invalidate

divergentrep-

resentations,oaver a form f correctness, privilege nrelation o

the object,

but only to

bear appropriateness

to

an act of

vision of

the author,

then clearly

t

does not signify

transcendental

bject

in

the

same way

a grammatical

epresentation

oes.

What

then

is

the

structure

f

the

work

of art'srelationship

with

the

portrayed

bject?Rudolf Arnheim,

n his

work pplying

gestalt

theory

othis opic

n

painting,

escribes

t

as

arisingby

a

process

n

which the artist

reads

off"

a

configuration

f

lines, spaces,

tones,

forces, ensities,

nd tensionsfrom heperceptual

object,

nd

finds

an "isomorphic" onfigurationnhis workingmedium.The factors

determining

heconfiguration

n eithercase will

not ordinarily e

pure

opticality, or

the plastic

imitations f the

physicalmedium

used. Cezanne

interpreted

heperceptual

object

n terms f simple

three-dimensional

geometric

solids,

whereas

van Gogh

saw

dynamic

ines

and curves,for

example. This demanded

in each

case a differentway of

handling

paint and the brush.

Arnheim tates

hat the

form

lement,which

s

so prominent

n

highly

bstract rt,

s indispensableand

exactly f

the same kind

n

anynaturalistic epresentation hat deservesthe name of art. On

the other

hand

... perceptual

observation

contributes

even to

highly

stylizedwork.

When a

South Sea islander

paints the sea

movedby

the

wind as a rectangle triped

with

blique

parallel ines,

essentials

of

the model's

visual structure

are

rendered

in

a







M L

N

945

simplified,but entirelyun '-symbolic'manner. Albrecht Direr's

highlynaturalistic tudies of a hand, a face, a bird's wing are works

of

art

only

because the

innumerable trokes

nd

shapes formwell-

organized,

even

though complex, patterns, thus presenting an

abstraction

that

interprets he subject. The two types of repre-

sentation re nothingbut the extremeends of a scale that llows all

possible stylesof

art

to

be

arranged

in a

sequence leading from

pure geometricalform through all degrees of abstractness o ex-

treme realism."115But we note a distinctionwhich he does not

specify, amely hat he SouthSea islanderdoes notneed to make an

observationof

his

own for his formalized representation.He re-

peats a formula,

n

observationmade at the beginningof the artis-

tic

period

in

which he works. For that particular act he is a

craftsman16

nd

notan artist er e. At thesame time,many aspects

of

Direr's

work

may

be identifiable s schematic

epetitions,

rawn

from earned traditionor derived from others' innovations, nd

therefore raft lements by the same criterion.

Art,when trueto itsessence, is 'original'

in

that

t establishes a

relationshipbetween medium and meaning which is not prefig-

ured

in

any code. On

the

other

hand it

alwaysfunctions

n

relation

to

a

code

which

t

both

exceeds and then extends. ts

place

is at the

fringeof

a

grammar, a public, learned

and

repeatable systemof

referencewhich makes perceptionspossible within he uniformity

of

purposes.

As we

noted,

a

painting by

an

artist

opens up pos-

sibilities

or derivativework

which s

not art,

but

craft,

he

applica-

tion of principlesof reference to which

the

unique

and

original

interpretation f artistic ensory awarenesses is constantly ssimi-

lated. The symbiosisbetween artist and grammar is a necessary

part

of

both.

The artist

annot function

n

a

vacuum,

but

only

from

the basis of

firmly onstitutedground,

a

genre,

a

tradition,

cul-

ture. And every element of these, in turn, originated with

the

assimilation f

an

act

by

which the inchoate

darkness

of

raw sense-

affects s transmuted nto the

light of meaning,

of

patterns,

on-

stants

nd structures.

A

work

of

art, then,

stands

n

relation

to

ordinary'

or

grammat-

ical reference

s

potential o

act. The latter

s

therefore ependent

on thepriorestablishment fthispotential, nd itfollows n conse-

quence

that he

charge

of

"parasitism"

made

against iterary

ses

of

language

which

affronted

Derrida

in his

paper

on

Austin

"Signa-

ture, Event, Context," Glyph [1977], 172-97) may be made still

more dubious than in his misunderstanding f it. Our argument







946

MARCUS

BULLOCK

here implies that

the situation s in

fact reversed.

The history

f

language, or any grammaticality,s a code, proceeds by its con-

tinuousexpansion

in potential, nd

the events of

this

history,

n-

cludingthe theoretical

rigin

as the firsthistorical

vent,

all bear

the

structure fworks of

art.17

The

interest nd importance

attached

to artof all

kinds has no

primary

elation

to the significance

f the portrayed

bject-is

not

informativer communicative-but

only to the

expansion

itbrings

to our capacityto

perceive

and make meaning

n

the world,

which

is to say,

to create

or expand the world

altogether

s an entity

or

human consciousness.

V

The determination

f an

artistic tterance

s opposed

to a 'nat-

ural'

one,

or the distinction

etween

an aesthetic

nd an informa-

tive

text,

can be expressed with

regard to the

use

of

language

by

separating

ts

function

nto the phases

of medium'

and

'code.'

To

workfromthisposition,we say that a mediumis definedhere as

that

by

which

experience

is manifest

o

us as subjects,

nd a

code

is

defined

as

thatby whichwe perceive

t as members

ofa community

of competent

users.

Where

this

touches on representation,

he

former

xperience

is called

appearances,

the

latter

s the

world.

A

code

is the

system

by

virtue

of

which a term

s a sign;

a medium

providesthe ocus

foran

image which s significant.

he terms

n a

code

are

instituted,

heir force

s their

comprehension

within

he

body

of thesystem,

which must distinguish

more or less

absolutely

between its membershipand alien entities.A medium is always

explicitly

ecoming,

and exclusion

is

only

a 'not

yet'-a

task

out-

standing

ratherthan a violation.

That an immanentl8

heoryof

reading is possible on

this basis

now

stands

very

close to demonstration.

The characteristic

move-

mentof literature

which

s to be identified nd

rendered

open to

public

discourse

n

criticism

s the

broachingof that code/medium

perimeter.

The

reader must observe the way

that

language,

in

order

to become the medium of

representation,

dequate

to the

contentof experienced subjectivity,must move across the line,

alienating

tself

from

transcendentality.

nd

the

first

tep

in

pro-

ducing

a critical heory ut of thiscriterion

s to show

that

n

a

full

work of

art

this

negative

s

accompanied by

a

positive,

realign-

ment

n

a

positive

mode

where characteristic

meanings

arise with

sufficient

tability

nd

accessibility

o

ustify

use of the word.







M L N 947

The question of alienationof language

by the particular orms f

literaturehas already been raised by the quotation from Barbara

HerrnsteinSmith. The base-line of this dea is set out clearly for

examination by the exercise, repeated

in

several recent critical

works, ftaking n 'ordinary'prose passage and printing

t

with

he

typographic conventions of poetry. Examples occur

in

E. D.

Hirsch's Validity n

Interpretation,'9

ean Cohen,20 and in Ms.

Herrnstein mith'sown book On theMargins fDiscourse.2'We cite

one

fromthe last

in

full:

AlbertMolesworth,

Eighty-sevenears ld,

Owner

f

thenation's argest

And most rosperous otato

arm,

Died yesterday

At

his home

n

Idaho.

He left

no

survivors.

There should be general agreement,

albeit grudging n certain

quarters,

thatthere s

a surplus

of

portent

which thistext

acquires

that

t

would not have

had

in

its

ntended

place

and function s a

minornewspaper tem.Nor is this imply

question of extra care in

reading.

A

newspaper reader anxious to glean any

hint of infor-

mation about the market n arable land

or potatoes mightweigh

each word

minutely.Nor,

in

all

probability,

s

it

simply

that

one

'reads into'

the

text

hings

thatare not

there' because

one is

duped

about the nature of the writing. f it appeared withoutfurther

indication

n

a volume of verse

by

a

well

known

poet,

this

might

be

arguable.

But

armed with

full

knowledge

that

t is

'only'

an

indif-

ferent

ewspaper article, ven

if

one attempts

o

resist,

discernible

resonance or atmosphereasserts tself

which t would

be

pointless

to

disregard.

t would be

prudent

to

defer

the ntrusion

f the term

'meaning,' however.

We would

suggest

that the

kind

of features

o

which

we tend to

refer

n

order

to

account for this

tmosphere

are

in

factthe

points

wherethispassage falls hortofmeaningand falls hortofbecom-

ing poetry.One

notes

sequences

of sounds which have

a

rhythmic

identity,

certaincoherence

in

the

repetitions

f

vowels

or conso-

nants, he

poignant

solation

of

the

final hree lines,' or

the mutual

reflection f

the

name

"Molesworth"

nd

the

image

of

potatoes

as

undergroundwealth, tc. etc.

Yet

the

temptation o exaggerate

the







948

MARCUS BULLOCK

significance

of

these

phenomena

should be resisted. These

are

qualities

f the words,but not meanings.

As Valery

indicates

in

his account

of prose,

qualitieswhich lie

outside

the

intention

re made invisible

n

the

comprehension

of

ordinary language.

The rule-governed process

by

which

the

meaning s construed

determines hatthe presence

of the

arbitrary

sign be repressed as

negligible.

In

the disruption

of

standard

linearity

bove, that

process s arrested.The installation

f

a factor

without rammatical

ontent

verthrows hehierarchy

f the code,

and the ban fades which held the language user spellbound and

blind

to the medium's

full haracteristic.

ll thathas been achieved

in

the cited

example, however,

is that the repressive

activity f

public,

rule-governed

anguage use has been

suspended,

and

the

arbitrary

nd

extraneous

features

of that text now

obtrude. But

they

re only rbitrary nd extraneous.

They

have not been

drawn

into

thecoherencewhich a perceptual

act

alone can give them.

Meaning is to

be

distinguished

from pleasing

uniformities

nd

correspondences

such

as

may

occur

by

chance,

or

by principles

of

simplecausality n a naturalobject. It lies outside the Kantian no-

tion

of beauty

as

Zweckmdfligkeit

hne

Zweck.

But at the same time,

we are

interested

n

a

dimension which

goes beyond

intention

n

the prosaic sense.

Wittgenstein,

n

his obsession

with fixing

an-

guage

as a rule-governed ctivity,

rites

nterestingly

n this

point:

Suppose

someone

aid: every amiliar ord,

n

a book

for

xample

actually

arries

n

atmosphere

ith

t

n our

minds,

'corona'

f

ightly

indicated

ses.-Just

s

if

ach figure

n

a painting

ere

urroundedy

delicate

hadowy

rawings

fscenes, s

it

were

n

another

imension,

andinthemwesawthefiguresndifferentontexts.-Onlyetus take

this

ssumptioneriously -Then

we see that t

s not adequate

to ex-

plain

intention.

For

f t

s like his,

f

hepossible

sesof a word

do float efore s

in

half-shades

s we

say

or hear

t-this

simply oes

for

us.

But

we com-

municate

with

therpeople without nowing

f

they

have this

xperi-

ence

too.

(Investigations,

p. 181e)

But the question of

what we everknow about

other people's

expe-

rience

is

always present

in

language,

as

Wittgenstein

ecognizes.

What we observeifa person uses thewords red' and 'green' cor-

rectly,

s thathe knowsthe rules of

that anguage

game, whereasa

colour-blind

person

apparently

does not. We do

not

know

what the

experience

of each

is,

only that,

n

the

former

ase,

it

agrees

with

our own to

a

degree

functionally

dequate

forthe

contingencies

f

the

ordinary public

sphere.

Yet there are uses of colour

not re-







M

L N

949

stricted or determined

in

this way. Consider for example the

opening of Nietzsche's poem Venedig:

Ander Brucke tand

Jungst

ch n

brauner

Nacht.22

We

do

not

udge

fromthis that all

competent

users

of the

Ger-

man language would have arrivedat the same word for that night,

as

theymightfor a particularwooden table top. On

the

contrary,

one

suspects

that

Nietzsche

was

the only one. The poet,

it

seems,

has exceeded the grammarof that word, and broken the rule. Yet

there s no doubt thathe has made a meaning available. The night

is not simply

n absence of

daylight, egistered

n

black' or

'dark,'

but responded to as a particularconjuration of inner feeling. ts

visible uality s not appealed to as such. "Braun" is not used

in

the

capacity

of

colour nearlyso much as for that special dimension

Wittgensteinmistrusts,

he

"corona"

of inner

evocations.

The

im-

portance

it

has for the whole

poem

can

be seen as

the text con-

tinues:

Fernher amGesang:

goldner ropfen uoll's

fberdie zitternde lache

weg.

Gondeln, ichter,

Musik-

trunken chwamm's

n

die Dammerung inaus...

MeineSeele,ein Saitenspiel,

sang sich,

nsichtbar

eruhrt,

heimlich in Gondellied azu,

zitternd orbunter eligkeit.

-Horte jemand

hr

u?23

The objective situationdescribed, though a littlemore interest-

ing perhaps than the passing of Albert Molesworth, s not equiva-

lent to

the

meaning of

this

poem.

The

lights,

water

and

music of

Venice

are communicated

grammatically

s

part

of the intersub-

jective

realm.

So is the

nformation

hat the

speaker

was

there, ang

along silentlynd trembledwithdelight.Any romantically-minded

tourist

ould write

verse

to his

fiancee

on the back of

a

postcard

saying

much the

same

about himself.

But

at the centre

of it is a

perceptionmade byNietzschewhich sunique tohim and the act of

writing

t.

This is

only

there

historically,owever,

not as

any

kind of

intrinsic

resence

n

the verbal artefact.

t is

not iterable

nor acces-

sible

n

full o

anyone, ncluding

he author

at a

separate

time.

And

although

t

s said to

be

the

core

or

origin

of the

poem historically,

t

is

not

the

meaning either.







950

MARCUS

BULLOCK

The concept

of meaningcan only

mply

ccess, butwe must

ask

what is made accessible by combining the words "braun" and

"Nacht,"

or by associating

that

combinationwith the

remaining

configuration

f the text.

What we do not

claim for

that is the

interior

tateof

FriedrichNietzsche,

but the

expansion of our

own

interiority.

he originalperception

whichconstituted

he writing

of

the

poem

has

drawn on the

capacities

latent n the signifying

system

o realize itself

for the

poet

in

his verbal

structure.What

each reading

does

is to

construe

complementarynterior

vent

from

it, and each of

these events,

ven for the same

reader on separate

occasions,mustbe theoretically nique. At the same time, his nfi-

nitely

xtended

family f readings

engendered

by a single text

s

not haphazard.

There is

a characteristicrocedure

ofgeneration

t

its heart.

VI

A

word

is not mimetic

ike a picture,which

hares

n

the

percep-

tual characterofits subjectmatter exhibits 'structuralsomorph-

ism'with t).

It is the

signal

of

homologous perceptions,

nd the

signal

alone.

A

painting

of a brown table will most typically

se

brown

pigment,whereas

the word brown'

used to describe

it

has

no colour.

It is simply he

token or

markofa resemblance

between

the

optical sensation

and all others we have

learned

to

enclose

in

thatform f unity.

But the domination

of

the

sensationby

the code

is

not

complete.

t

is

alive

in

the subjective

onsciousness

nasmuch

as

it is

capable

of

registering

orrespondences

which

lie outside

those prefigured n the rulesof thegame. The pointsof excess are

what

we call

metaphors. That

is to

say,

true

metaphors

s

opposed

to the

ossified condition

into which it

may

settlethrough

the

in-

stitution

f an

agreed

function

for t in the system

f differences

defined by grammar.)

But

there

s also

an

equally

vital moment

n

the functioning

f

a

word

whose force s systematically

kinto that

of

metaphor but does

not detach

itselffrom the code

by

direct

controversion.

t lies

logically

within

he bounds

of 'conventional'

meaning,but

this does

not exhaust it

in the configuration

f

the

text. t is to be read pastthat point,past the limitations f thesign

as pure difference

whose significance

s

determinedas

a

logical

function

n

the

word-game

of

grammar.

This is the procedure

which yieldsthe

meaning

of Nietzsche's

imagery

even where

it

is

not metaphoric

in

the

same sense

as

"braune

Nacht," .e.,

a

unique presentation,

ut either drawing

on







M

L N

951

the common

coin of romantic

phrases (e.g.,

"meine

Seele, ein

Saitenspiel") or completelyconformable to conventional usage

("uiber

die zitternde

Flache weg"). The instances

of

conventional

poetic

formulae re interesting

n this

regard

because they

have

to

be brought

back

from he moribund state

towardswhich

they

tend

with continued

use,

for they cannot

be thrown

against

familiar

expectation

the

way

"braun"

is. The commonplaces

"goldene

Tropfen"

and "trunken

schwamm's"

describingthe

song are so

close

to

public

property

thatreturning heir meaning

to a

valid

poetic

impactdemands

a strategywhere

the reader

is induced

to

break away fromthe conventional ead-traceto whichhe is har-

nessed, ust

as much

as withordinary

usages.

This strategy,

nd the

degree of determinate

meaningrecover-

able

in

the

resulting

text may be set

out as the principles

of

an

alternateword-game,

he operations

of writing

nd reading

n what

we

defined

as

language

in its

modality

f

medium.

The old

structuralist

radition

of arbitrariness

f

the sign,and

meaningas

difference

within

pure system f

differences

s radi-

cally excluded

here.

Words

are revealed

in

this phase

of

their

working

s essences. The creationof expressionslike Nietzsche's

"braune Nacht" necessarily

enders

an available meaning,

ecause

they

reflect

perceptual

connections

n the

quality

of words as

es-

sences.

The

word

n this

modality,

o

quote

Benedetto Croce again,

figures

as

an image which

is significant-that

s, a

sign

in

itself,

and therefore oloured,

sounding, singing,

articulate"

Essence

f

Aesthetic,.

52). Like

the

forms,tones and

textures

used by

the

painter,

they may

be

combined

according

to their

mmanent

po-

tentialto realize correspondanceswhichdo not,as Wittgenstein's

objection

would suggest, go

only

for

us,'

but in

principle

for all

users

of the

language.

A

combination

not made by an

act of

perception n

the

linguistic

medium,

e.g., arrived

at by chance or

a failed

attempt t expres-

sion,

does not

qualify

nd is

in

theory istinguishable

rom ne that

does.

At

the same time

a failure

of reading

is possible

in

each

situation-a

meaning

may

be claimed

where

only

its absence

has

been

found

a

corruption

f consciousness),

r

an

activeconnection

not realized. The statusof these failures s precisely quivalentto

those

n

other

art-forms.

ying

priori

utside ogic,they

annot

be

overcome

logically,

ny

more

than failure

to

recognize

the duck-

rabbit mage

in

one or

both of its references.

The task

of criticism

consists

n

the

same process

as that

by which

one would

secure

reading

of that mage-the

enumeration

of contributing

eatures







952

MARCUS BULLOCK

and

the introduction

f

context.

But the criterion

f truth n the

completedact,as in the actofthe work's nception, s in its nterior-

ity. old based on value-the

value implicitn the being

of interior-

ity tself,

which is

to

pursue,

maintain,and expand

its own

exis-

tence.

The object

of this alternative

anguage-game s

ultimately ot

to

produce agreement,but

to navigate

course betweentwo dangers.

On

the one side is the Scylla

of

ordinaryusage,

the realm of

dead

and

shipwrecked

metaphors like

'black mood' and

'sweet sound'

which

have been drawn nto the

code,

given ogical standing.These

meaningsare now public,part of theworld, alienated from their

historical

rigin, where they were subjective

and

unique. On the

other side is the Charybdis

of private

and inaccessibleassociation,

knowableonly to the speaker,

and veiled

even to him outside the

momentof its utterance.

This would

be the conditionof H6lder-

lin's ate poetry,when the

continuity

f his experiencesand identity

had collapsed.

The special

situationof breakdown

is obviously

highly omplex,

but one

can venturea general udgement

in this

sense

on a

poem

such

as "Hdhere Menschheit":

Den Menschenstder Sinn

ns nneregegeben,

DaB sie als anerkannt

as BeBrewdhlen,

Es gilt

lsZiel, s istdas wahreLeben,

Von

dem sich

geistiger

es Lebens

Jahre

dhlen.24

Although,

n

the context

of the

poet's

other work,

this s

by

no

means without

nterest,

ne is also aware that he

nner condition

of

theutterance, he

full dimension of

interiority,s not expressed

in

the

linguistic

tructure.

ts aura ofmelancholy

s

that

of

the verbal

husk of an illumination.The condition ofmadness itself s explicit

here,

because one would

not

n

principle

doubt that

there was such

a

companion

to

the writing.

Yet it was not realized

as

a

full

con-

scious

entity

n

the

expressive

medium,

and

that

failure

s the fail-

ure

of consciousness

tself,

he

incapacity

o build a

continuity

f

inner

experience

which constitutes he personality

of the

indi-

vidual. The writer

ccordingly igns

his

work "Scardanelli"

during

this

period

and

dates

it

apparently

at random across several cen-

turies, nto the past and the future. t proceeds from a stranger,

lost

n

obscurity,

nto

whom

Holderlin himself an gain

no

insight.

The

madness

of

Hdlderlin

s

the darkness

of an interiority hich

cannot

reach

itself,

even from

moment

to

moment. The

com-

prehension

of literature

s

the

light

of culture

and

history,

he

continuity

which fills

out

temporality.

t

prepares

the

possibilities







M L N 953

of interiority

laborated

in

the enclosure

of one

mind and time,

and guaranteed as illumination f another.

Universityf

Oregon Eugene)

NOTES

1

Johann Gottlieb

Fichte,Sdmmtliche erke, .

G. Fichte,ed. (Berlin: Verlag von

Veit und Comp, 1845), Bd. I, p. 434.

"What

kind

of

a

philosophy

man will choose depends, therefore,

n what

kind

of

a person he is, for a philosophical

system s not a lifelesshousehold

object

which one can put

down or take up just as we please...."

2 Closing

the discussion

ppended

to his

"Structure, ign,

and

Play,"

n The Struc-

turalist ontroversy,

d. R. Macksey & E.

Donato (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins

University ress, 1975),

Derrida says: "Now

I don't knowwhat perception s

and

I don't believethat anything

ike perception

xists. A] perception

s

precisely

concept,

a

concept

of an intuition r of a

givenoriginating

rom he

thing tself,

present

tself n its meaning,

ndependentlyfrom anguage,

from

he

system

f

reference....

whatever trikes

t the metaphysicsf which

have spoken strikes

also at the very onceptof perception" p. 272).

3 Ludwig

Wittgenstein,

hilosophischentersuchungen/Philosophical

nvestigations.

English text

ranslatedby

G. E. M.

Anscombe

New York:

Macmillan

Company,

1953), p.

194.

4 R. G.

Collingwood,

The Principles f Art, London:

Oxford UniversityPress,

1938), p.

245.

5 The questionssurrounding

bstractionwould

be reasonablyregarded as more

complexand extensive

han

representation,

nd therefore

re avoided here.

At

the same

time,

we

recognize

that

an

understanding

of

representationmust

necessarily

e incomplete

without hisdimension.The relationship

uggested s

far

from

unusual

in

art

theory, orexample Rudolf Arnheim

ays: "Two oppo-

site pointsof departure are needed; on the one side the stimulusmaterialof the

object,

and on the

other,form,

he

indispensable

precondition

f visual

under-

standing.

Perceiving s well as representing

thingmeans finding

form

n

its

structure.

The patterns

of 'nonobjective'art,

if

considered from

the

point

of

view of the world of natural

things, re extremely

bstract.They

reduce the

representation

f realityto a visual equivalent

of the universal physical

and

psychological

orces

hat underlie nature

and

life

and of their

nterplay.

n

this

way they

xpress harmony nd disharmony,

ominance and

coordination, on-

trast

nd

similarity,movement

nd rest, quilibrium

nd

disequilibrium

nd

so

forth. rom the

opposite point

of

view,

however,

hat

s,

from

he

point

of view

of

form,

the basic

nonobjective

patterns

are not

abstract.

They

are the

very

elements

of visual

comprehension,

the

building-stones

f

the

composition

the

artistcreates in order to representthe structure f the world in the way his

temperament

makes

him

see

it."

Towards

PsychologyfArt, Berkeley:

Univer-

sity f California Press, 1966),

p. 39.

6

Jacques Derrida, Of

Grammatology,

rans.

GayatriChakravortySpivak (Balti-

more:

Johns

Hopkins University ress, 1977),

pp. 46-47.

7 Benedetto Croce, The Essence

of Aesthetic,

rans. Douglas Ainslie (London:

Heinemann, 1921), pp. 52-53.







954

MARCUSBULLOCK

8

Paul Valery,

Varieti

II, (Paris: Gallimard,

1936),

p. 61. "The essence of prose

is

to perish-that

is to

say, be 'comprehended'-that

is to

say, to

be dissolved,

destroyedbeyondrecall,entirely eplaced by the image or the motivewhich t

signifies ccording

to linguistic

onvention.

For

prose always

impliesthe

uni-

verse of

experience

and acts-the

universe in which,

or thanks o

which-our

perceptions nd

our actions

or emotions

must

ultimatelyorrespond

to or reflect

one another

n the same

way-uniformly.

The practicaluniverse

an be

reduced

to a collection

of purposes."

9 "Au sujet

du

Cimetikre

Marin," op.

cit. p. 63.

"The thoughtsexpressed

or

suggested by a

poetictext re

in no

way thesole and

pre-eminent

bjects

of

its

discourse-but

means

which

merge equally

with hesounds,

cadences,

metre nd

ornaments

o stimulate

nd sustain certain

ension

or

exaltation,

o elicit n us

a

world-or

mode f existence-which

s

completely

harmonious."

10 "Commentairede Charmes,"op. cit.,p. 74. "My poems have the meaningwhich

is

ascribed

to them.

That which

I give them

is appropriate

only

for

me, and

cannot

be used

to

contradict nyone

else."

11

Erich Auerbach,

Mimesis,

rans.Willard

R. Trask (Princeton:

Princeton

Univer-

sity

Press, 1955),

p. 485.

12

Barbara Herrnstein

mith,

oeticClosureChicago: University

f

Chicago

Press,

1968),

p. 17.

13

Stanley

Cavell

discusses

cinema

as an art form

n

the

ight

f

this dea

inhisbook

The World

ViewedNew

York:

Viking,1971).

14

William

M. Ivins

Jr.,On the

Rationalizationf Sight,

2nd

ed. (1928), (rpt.

New

York:

Da

Capo

Press, 1973),

p. 13.

15 Rudolf Arnheim,Toward PsychologyfArt Berkeley:University f California

Press,

1966), p.

39.

16

This indicates raft

n

the sense

defined

by

R. G.

Collingwood

n his

Principlesf

Art.

17 It would appear

that there are

several historiesof

a language

in addition to

expansion

directly

raceable

to literary

ntroductions,

rom major

shifts f

the

"Grimm's Law" type, to

refinements

f logical

significance

by philosophical

critique,

r

coinages

made to name new developments

n

the

materialor

institu-

tional

fields.Nevertheless,

t s

altogetherpossible

that

'literary'

spect could be

found to play

a role even here, though

this

would

involve

some considerable

discussion to

establish

clearly.

18 See Of Grammatology,. 160:

.. .

transcendenteading ... that search for the

signified

which

we here

put

in

question,

not to annul

it,

but to understand

it

within

system

o which such

a

reading

is

blind."

19

E. D. Hirsch,

Validity

n nterpretation

New

Haven:

Yale University

ress, 1967),

p.

95.

20

Jean

Cohen,

Structure

u

langagepoitique

Paris:

Flammarion,1966), p.

76.

21

Barbara

Herrnstein

Smith,

On

the

Marginsof

Discourse

Chicago:

University

f

Chicago

Press, 1978),

p.

67.

22

Nietzsche'sWerke

d.

VIII

(Leipzig:

Alfred

Kroner, 1919), p.

360.

"On thebridge

I

stood

Just a brieftime past in a brown night.

23

From

far off came

singing:

In

golden

drops

it

welled

Across

the

trembling

urface.

Gondolas, lights,

music-

Drunkenly

t swam

out

into the dusk ...







M L N

955

My

soul,

a lyre,

Invisiblymoved,sang itself

In secrecy

n

accompanying

gondolier

tune,

Trembling

n the

full

colours

of bliss.

-Was there anyone

who listened?"

24

Friedrich

Hdlderlin,Sdmtliche

erke,

d.

II

(Stuttgart:

W. Kohlhammer:

1951),

p.

290:

"Higher

Humanity"

Meaning

to men

is inwardly

given,

That they

hould

know

and

choose the

best,

It is the

goal, it is

true

living,

In which

themindful

ount life's

years.

Bullock. the Enclosure of Consciousness. Theory of Representation in Literature

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