Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics

Mimesis and Possible WorldsAuthor(s): Lubomír DoleželSource: Poetics Today, Vol. 9, No. 3, Aspects of Literary Theory (1988), pp. 475-496Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772728 .Accessed: 21/10/2011 04:24

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Mimesis and Possible Worlds

Lubomir Dolezel Comparative Literature, Toronto

I. Mimetic Semantics From its origins, i.e., the writings of Plato and Aristotle, Occidental aesthetic thinking has been dominated by the idea of mimesis: Fictions (fictional objects) are derived from reality, they are imitations/repre- sentations of actually existing entities. During its long reign, the idea has been interpreted in many different ways and, consequently, the term "mimesis" has accumulated several distinct meanings.' Undoubt- edly, these ambiguities can be resolved only by a careful theoretical and semantic analysis of the concept.2 My paper is intended to con- tribute to this analysis by constructing or reconstructing the theory of mimesis which underlies the praxis of modern mimetic criticism. This approach will prove useful for my specific and restricted purpose: to offer a critique of the popular mimetic phraseology and to propose a promising alternative to mimetic theories of fictionality.

Historians of all kinds have been involved in the search for actual

1. The most substantial reflections on "mimesis" can be found in commentaries on the foundational texts (cf. Else 1957: 12-39, 125-35; Dupont-Roc and Lallot 1980: 144-63; Zimbrich 1984). Ricoeur discovered in Aristotle's Poetics three meanings of "mimesis" (in the broad sense of "mimetic activity") (Ricoeur 1984: 45ff.; 54- 87). Spariosu has traced the concept to its pre-Socratic origins and concludes that there is "a functional distinction between non-imitative or pre-Platonic and imitative or Platonic mimesis" (Spariosu 1984: i). In this paper, I will repeat the common sin of modern times and neglect the pre-Platonic meaning. 2. Such an analysis is not advanced but rather hampered by shifting the focus of reflection from "mimesis" to "realism," an evasive move taken by many critics.

Poetics Today 9:3 (1988). Copyright ? 1988 by The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. ccc 0333-5372/88/$2.50.

476 Poetics Today 9:3

counterparts of fictional persons, events, places. Let me quote reports about three recent discoveries:

(a) The British historian Geoffrey Ashe (in association with Debrett's Peerage) published a book titled The Discovery of King Arthur (1985) in which he claims to have identified the "original Arthur" in a

fifth-century High King of the Britons called Riothamus.

(b) In Robin Hood: An Historical Enquiry (1985), the legal historian John G. Bellamy continues the centuries-long efforts to appre- hend the notorious outlaw. He finds a nineteenth-century hypoth- esis attractive according to which the prototype of Robin Hood was a valet to Edward II named Robert Hode. Historical proto- types of several other characters of the ballads are also identified.

(c) In January 1985, Albert Boime, professor of art history at UCLA, presented a paper to the annual meeting of the American Astro- nomical Society3 in which he claimed that the night sky of van

Gogh's famous painting "Starry Night" corresponds to the astro- nomical facts of June 19, 1889, when the painting was executed (at 4 a.m. local time, to be exact). The prominent swirl in the

painting was identified by Prof. Boime as a comet. This is the only liberty van Gogh took with the object of his mimesis; there was no comet in the sky of Provence on the critical night. Pursuing the matter, Boime concluded that the swirl derives from pictures of comets published in a 1881 issue of Harper's Weekly, a magazine regularly read by van Gogh during that period. Van Gogh's swirl is thus explained as a second-degree mimetic representation, an imitation of a picture of a comet.

Critics apply the same method as historians when they interpret fictional objects as representations of entities of the actual world. The theoretical assumption underlying this method can be expressed as a function which shall be called mimetic function:

Fictional particular P/f/ represents actual particular P/a/.4

Mimetic criticism follows this function by matching a legendary char- acter with a historical individual, a portrait with a real man, a fictional event with an actual occurrence, a fictional scene with a state of nature. Let us emphasize that the mimetic function is the core of a semantic

3. I summarize Boime's findings on the basis of a newspaper account. 4. The concept "particular" was specified by Strawson. A particular is an entity which can be identified by "individuating facts" (or "logically individuating descrip- tions"), i.e., facts (or descriptions) which are true of one and only one entity. The basic individuating fact of material bodies is spatio-temporal location (Strawson, 1959 esp. 9-30).

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 477

theory, a theory of fictional reference. From the aesthetic point of view, the mimetic function is neutral; it does not say whether the knowledge of the prototype enhances or hinders our aesthetic appreciation of a work of art.

Mimetic semantics "works" if a particular prototype of the fictional

entity can be found in the actual world (Tostoy's Napoleon-histori- cal Napoleon, a fictional story-an actual event). The real test of this semantics comes when we not only do not know who or what the pro- totype is but, more importantly, do not even know where to look for it. Where are the actual individuals represented by Hamlet, Julien Sorel, Raskolnikov? It would obviously be absurd to claim that, say, the fictional Raskolnikov is a representation of an actual young man who lived in St. Petersburg around the middle of the nineteenth century. No historical search, however meticulous, would produce such an in- dividual. The impossibility of discovering an actual particular behind

every fictional representation has forced mimetic criticism into an in-

terpretive detour: Fictional particulars are claimed to represent actual

universals-psychological types, social groups, existential or historical conditions. The mimetic function is radically altered into a universalist version:

Fictional particular P/f/ represents actual universal U/al.

This interpretive function characterizes the mainstream of mimetic criticism from Aristotle to Auerbach. The critical practice of Eric Auerbach's Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

(German original, 1946; English trans., 1957), a book which more than any other restored the status of mimetic criticism after the mod- ernist onslaught, is a rich source of examples of the universalist inter- pretation of fictional particulars:

Not only Sancho but also Don Quijote appear as persons representative of contemporary Spanish life.... Sancho is a peasant from La Mancha, and Don Quijote ... a little country squire who has lost his mind. (342f.) We are confronted in their boredom [the boredom of de la Mole's guests in Stendhal's Le rouge et le noir] by a political and ideological phenomenon of the Restauration period. (456) The novel [Madame Bovary] is the representation of an entire human exis- tence which has no issue. (488) There are passages in it [Zola's Germinal] which . . . depict with exemplary. clarity and simplicity, the situation and awakening of the fourth estate. (512)

If fictional particulars are taken as representations of actual uni- versals, mimetic criticism becomes a "language without particulars" (Strawson 1959: 214-25). It is logically equivalent to well-known sys- tems of universalist hermeneutics, such as Augustinian (with the inter-

478 Poetics Today 9:3

pretant of "divine history") or Hegelian ("type" as interpretant). The

specific interpretant of Auerbach's universalist semantics is secular his- tory, especially the changing forms of "everyday life." Through the application of the universalist mimetic function, literary fictions are transformed into categorized instances of actual history. Auerbachian criticism is a universalist interpretation of history based on fictions.5 The dubious epistemological foundation of this interpretive practice becomes especially obvious if we note that an Auerbachian critic per- forms a double operation. First, he selects an interpretive system (ideo- logical, psychological, sociological, etc.) and transcribes reality into its abstract categories; second, he matches the fictional particulars with the postulated interpretive categories. Since one and the same per- son performs both the categorization of reality and the matching of fictional individuals, we should not be surprised by the high ratio of "success" of universalist interpretations.

In Auerbachian criticism, fictional particulars, reduced to actual universals, disappear from semantic interpretations. Not surprisingly, many critics and theoreticians have been dissatisfied with such a se- mantics. What appeals to us, what we love or hate, in artistic represen- tations are concrete fictional persons in specific spatial and temporal settings, linked by peculiar relationships and engaged in unique strug- gles, quests, victories and frustrations.6 Without denying the signifi- cance of universalist interpretations for certain purposes of general and comparative literary studies, we must state emphatically that a semantics of fictionality which cannot accommodate the concept of fictional particular is seriously defective.

Is it possible for mimetic criticism to avoid translating fictional par- ticulars into actual universals? The answer is provided, in a surprising twist, by another best seller of mimetic criticism, Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel (1957). To be sure Watt, who is explicitly indebted to Auer- bach, practices universalist semantics (see, for example, his interpreta-

5. Here is a typical passage from Mimesis which flagrantly blends fictional and historical categories: "If we ask what it was that released the powerful inner move- ment in the people of the Russian works of the nineteenth century, the answer must be as follows: In the first place, the infiltration of modern European and

especially of German and French forms-of life and thought .... The process of

coming to terms [die Auseinandersetzung] was dramatic and confused. Observing as it is reflected [spiegelt] in Tolstoi and Dostoevski we clearly grasp the savage, tempestuous, and uncompromising nature of Russian acceptance or rejection of

European culture (sic!) [Wesen]" (465ff.; 523ff.). 6. According to Martinez-Bonati, "a world of individuals" is "the fundamental

compass of narrative." "That the symbolic meaning or the general truth of what is represented may occassionally transcend this compass in ultimate significance must not be allowed to obscure this basic phenomenon.... Cervantes' Don Quixote is not basically a type or symbol, but an individual" (Martinez-Bonati 1981: 24).

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 479

tion of Robinson Crusoe as a cross-breed between homo economicus and

Puritan). The core of his interpretive method is, however, revealed in formulations of the following kind:7

Defoe ... portrays the personal relationships of Moll Flanders. (111) We are given [by Richardson] a highly detailed description of Grandison Hall. (26) Fielding lets us into Blifil's mind. (263) We have not been taken [by Fielding] close enough to Tom's mind. (274)

Obviously, these interpretations preserve fictional particulars (Moll Flanders's personal relationships, Grandison Hall, Blifil's mind, Tom's

consciousness) but do not match them with actual entities (particular or universal). The statements of Watt's criticism are not instances of the mimetic function. Rather, they identify the source of represen- tation, specifically the author. We are told who portrays, gives us a

description of, lets us into, or keeps us out of, the mind of a fictional

particular. A new interpretive function obtains:

Actual source S/al represents (i.e. provides the representation) offictional particular P/f/.

Owing to an insidious semantic shift of the predicate, mimetic function is replaced by a pseudomimetic function.

I speak about pseudomimesis because the statements of a Wattian critic seem to express the mimetic relationship while, in fact, they do not. They do not derive fictional particulars from actual prototypes. Rather, they presuppose that fictional particulars somehow pre-exist the act of representation. There are (somewhere) Moll's personal rela-

tionships, Grandison Hall, Blifil's mind and Tom's consciousness and Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, having privileged access to them, report on them, describe them, withhold information about them or share their knowledge with the reader. A fiction writer describes, stud- ies, presents fictional characters just as a historian does with historical

personalities. In the Wattian perspective, the fiction writer is a histo- rian of fictional realms.

Pseudomimetic interpretations seem to dominate the practice of

contemporary mimetic criticism. In the most popular version of this criticism, a text-theoretical term replaces the name of the author in the position of the S/a/ argument. This kind of pseudomimesis is charac- teristic of the interpretive practice of Dorrit Cohn's well-known book Transparent Minds (1978). Cohn's is a study of mimesis as a textual pro-

7. I am concentrating on Watt's fictional semantics, leaving aside the dominant topic of his book, i.e., the mimetic history of literary fictions. It should be men- tioned, however, that the principles of his mimetic history are no more than a projection of the principles of mimetic semantics onto the time axis.

480 Poetics Today 9:3

cess, as a phenomenon occurring between literary texts and fictional entities. The source of representation is specified in terms of narrative genres or modes, narrative discourse types, stylistic devices:

Aschenbach's mind [in Death in Venice is] rendered largely by means of psycho-narration. (26) This story [Musil's "Die Vollendung der Liebe"] portrays the mind of a woman.... (41) The narrated monologue is a choice medium for revealing a fictional mind suspended in an instant present. (126) Chronological monologue ... directly quotes past thoughts and memories. (253)8

By focusing on the relationship between the literary text and the fic- tional world, Cohn has advanced contemporary fictional semantics. At the same time, her book reminds us that a text-theoretically based nar-

ratology does not provide an automatic escape from pseudomimesis. It does not make any difference whether the "describing," "portraying," "exploring" of fictional entities is assigned to an author or to a textual device or to a narrator. In all its variants, pseudomimesis is based on the presupposition that fictional realms in general and fictional minds in particular exist independent of the act of representation, awaiting their discovery and description.9 Pseudomimesis precludes the formu- lation and study of the fundamental question of fictional semantics: How do fictional worlds come into being?

Our analysis of the interpretive practice of three prominent crit- ics leads to the conclusion that mimesis as a theory of fictionality is

trapped in a double bind. If it insists on explaining all fictional ob-

jects as representations of actual entities, it is forced into a universalist frame of reference; fictional particulars are semantically interpreted by being eliminated. If fictional particulars are preserved, they are not

explained as representations of actual entities; they are taken as pre- existent and a source of representation is assumed to have recovered them. Neither universalist semantics, nor pseudomimesis succeed in their attempt to transcend the proper scope of mimetic theory given by the original mimetic function. These interpretive strategies either

substantially alter (in the case of the universalist function) or make vac- uous (in the case of the pseudomimetic function) the idea of mimetic

representation. To transcend the restrictions of mimetic theory, we must search for a radically different semantics of fictionality.

8. The narrative device as a source of representation is often replaced by the anthropomorphic "narrator": "Within the confines of third-person fiction . . . a narrator's magic power allows him to see into sleeping minds quite as readily as into waking ones" (52). "Hamsun's narrator [in Hunger] leaves his 'strange and fantastic mood' intact, merely recording it with ... seismographic accuracy" (156). 9. In this respect, pseudomimesis can be said to hark back to Leibnizian meta-

physics (see here page 488).

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 481

II. Possible-Worlds Semantics

My search for a non-mimetic semantics of fictionality was guided by the realization that the difficulties of mimetic theory arise from its ty- ing fictions exclusively to the actual world. All fictions, including the most fantastic ones, are interpreted as referring to one and only one "universe of discourse," the actual world. The mimetic function is a formula for integrating fictions into the actual world. Mimetic seman- tics is situated within a one-world model frame. A radical alternative to mimesis will be a fictional semantics defined within a multiple-world model frame. Mimetic semantics will be replaced by possible-worlds se- mantics of fictionality.10

The development of a fictional semantics based in the multiple- worlds frame is stimulated by a vital trend in contemporary logical and

philosophical semantics. Ever since Kripke (1963) suggested the "clas- sical" Leibnizian concept as interpretant of an axiomatic set-theoretic model of logical modalities, the entire system of formal logic has been

reinterpreted on the assumption that "our actual world is surrounded

by an infinity of other possible worlds" (Bradley and Swartz 1979: 2).11 During the 1970's initial attempts were made to formulate possible- worlds approaches to literary fictions (van Dijk 1974/75; Pavel 1975/ 76; Eco 1979; Dolezel 1979; cf. also Kanyo 1984).12

10. I am leaving aside Russell's well-known semantics, which treats expressions re-

ferring to fictional entities as "empty terms" (Russell 1905; 1919). Russell's theory of fictional reference is located within the one-world model frame and, therefore, is exposed to the same difficulties as mimetic semantics. There is also no need to discuss here the view that fictional texts are "self-referential" nor the various

pragmatic accounts that explain fictionality as a speech-act convention. Although these proposals have become popular in contemporary literary and philosophi- cal semantics, we must agree in principle with the criticism of these approaches expressed, respectively, by Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1982) and Cohen (1980: 162ff.). 11. It should be noted that, as a formal model, the possible-worlds frame does not require any ontological commitment. Pointing specifically to Hintikka's and

Kripke's proposals, a Soviet logician has emphasized that they should be taken

"simply as mathematical models of the corresponding logical calculi, without any philosophical interpretation" (Slinin 1967: 137). Outside of formal logic, however, the model cannot preserve ontological innocence. The ontological split has been

recognized by Adams who distinguished between the "actualist" and the "possi- bilist" versions of possible-worlds semantics. Possibilism treats all possible worlds as ontologically uniform; in actualism (a version of ontological realism), the actual world has a privilege of empirical existence while the other worlds are its possible alternates (Adams 1974). It seems that the actualist position is inscribed in Kripke's original model structure where one set (G) is singled out from the set of sets K (Kripke 1963: 804). 12. It is symptomatic that, during the domination of the one-world model, a Leib- nizian possible-worlds semantics of fictionality, outlined in the eighteenth century by Baumgarten, Breitinger and Bodmer (cf. Abrams 1953: 278ff.; Doleiel forth- coming), was practically forgotten.

482 Poetics Today 9:3

The possible-worlds model frame offers a new foundation for fic- tional semantics by providing an interpretation of the concept of fic- tional world. It must be emphasized, however, that a comprehensive theory of literary fictions will not emerge from a mechanical appropri- ation of the conceptual system of possible-worlds semantics. Fictional worlds of literature have a specific character by being embodied in lit- erary texts and by functioning as cultural artifacts. A comprehensive theory of literary fictions will arise from a fusion of possible-worlds semantics with text theory. I want to prepare the ground for such a fusion by taking possible-worlds semantics both as a theoretical foun- dation of the semantics of fictionality and as a theoretical background against which the specific properties of literary fictions can be grasped.

Let me first formulate three fundamental theses of fictional seman- tics which can be derived from the possible-worlds model frame:

1. Fictional worlds are sets of possible states of affairs. The most impor- tant feature of the possible-worlds model is its legitimation of non- actualized possibles (individuals, attributes, events, states of affairs, etc.) (cf. Bradley and Swartz 1974: 7ff.). A fictional semantics derived from this model will accept the concept of fictional particular with- out difficulties. While Hamlet is not an actual man, he is a possible individual inhabiting the fictional world of Shakespeare's play. Rather than being deleted in the process of semantic interpretation, fictional particulars can be described and specified in their diverse properties and aspects.

If fictional particulars are interpreted as non-actualized possibles, the difference between fictional and actual persons, events, places, etc. becomes obvious. Everybody would agree that fictional characters cannot meet, interact, communicate, with actual people (cf. Walton 1978/79: 17). In the fictional semantics of the one-world model frame, however, this distinction is often blurred on the account of shared proper names. Possible-worlds semantics correctly insists that fictional individuals cannot be identified with actual individuals of the same name (cf. Ishiguro 1981: 75). Tolstoy's Napoleon or Dickens's London are not identical with the historical Napoleon or the geographical Lon- don. Fictional individuals are not dependent for their existence and properties on actual prototypes. It is irrelevant for the fictional Robin Hood whether a historical Robin Hood existed or not. To be sure, a relationship between the historical Napoleon and all the possible fictional Napoleons has to be postulated; this relationship, however, reaches over world boundaries and requires cross-world identification.'3

13. Hintikka's "individuation function" is a formal tool of cross-identification. It "picks out from several possible worlds a member of their domains as the 'embod- iment' of that individual in this possible world or perhaps rather as the role which that individual plays under a given course of events" (Hintikka 1975: 30).

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 483

The identity of fictional individuals is protected by the boundary be- tween the actual and the possible worlds.

As non-actualized possibles, all fictional entities are ontologically homogeneous. Tolstoy's Napoleon is no less fictional than his Pierre Bezuchov and Dickens's London is no more actual than Lewis's Won- derland. The principle of ontological homogeneity is a necessary con- dition of the coexistence and compossibility of fictional particulars; it explains why fictional individuals can interact and communicate with one another. A naive view which presents fictional individuals as a mixed bag of "real" people and "purely fictitious" characters is explic- itly refuted.'4 Ontological homogeneity epitomizes the sovereignty of fictional worlds.

2. The set of fictional worlds is unlimited and maximally varied. If fictional worlds are interpreted as possible worlds, literature is not restricted to the imitations of the actual world. "The possible is wider than the actual" (Russell 1937 [1900]: 66; cf. Plantinga 1977: 245). To be sure, possible-worlds semantics does not exclude from its scope fictional worlds similar or analogous to the actual world; at the same time, it has no trouble including the most fantastic worlds, far removed from, or contradictory to, "reality." The whole gamut of possible fictions is covered by one and the same semantics. There is no justification for a double semantics of fictionality, one for fictions of the "realistic" type and another one for "fantastic" fictions. The worlds of realistic literature are no less fictional than the worlds of fairy-tale or science fiction.'5

It is well-known that Leibniz imposed a restriction on possible worlds but this is a purely logical one: Possible worlds have to be free of con- tradictions (Leibniz 1875: III, 574; Loemker 1956: II, 833). Worlds that imply contradictions are impossible, unthinkable, "empty." Do we have to accept this restriction in fictional semantics? I will deal with this question in the last section of this paper. At the moment, I shall only note that, even if the possible-worlds model is restricted to the Leib- nizian universe, it provides a much larger space for literary fictions than the one-world model frame.16

14. The "mixed-bag" conception requires a double semantics for fictional texts, one for sentences about Pierre Bezuchov, another one for sentences about Napo- leon (cf. Pollard 1973: 61; Pelc 1977: 266). In reading fictional texts, we are expected to switch constantly from one mode of interpretation to another. 15. It has been observed that the same principle is valid from the point of view of the reader: "For the reader it is not easier to create and believe in the well- documented world of Zola than it is for him to imagine hobbits or elves; the imaginative leap into the novel's world of time and space must be made in both cases" (Hutcheon 1980: 78). 16. It might, in fact, appear that the possible-worlds model frame is so broad as to be of little interest for empirical study. We should recall, however, that, for a

484 Poetics Today 9:3

While imposing a logical restriction on possible worlds, Leibniz left

open the variety of their designs. He stipulated different "laws" ("gen- eral order") for different possible worlds. The laws of nature are just a special case of possible orders, valid in the actual and the "physically possible" worlds (cf. Bradley and Swartz 1979: 6).17 A general order determines a possible world by operating as a constraint on admissibil-

ity: only such possible entities are admitted into the world as comply with its general order. Thus, the set of all possibles is split into "many different combinations of compossibles" (Leibniz 1875: III, 572-76; Loemker 1956: II, 1075ff.). In this perspective, a fictional world ap- pears as a set of compossible fictional particulars characterized by its own global, macrostructual organization. Structure and specificity are

complementary aspects of the worlds' individuation. The macrostructural conception of fictional worlds has proved most

fruitful for literary semantics (cf. Dolezel 1985). Here, I cannot go into the identification of the diverse global constraints which can be im-

posed on fictional worlds nor the description of the resulting variety of world structures. I shall just give one illustrative example. It has been

pointed out that modalitites (modal systems) can operate as macro-

generators of fictional worlds (Greimas 1966; 1970; Dolezel 1976). By considering alethic modalities (the system of possibility, impossibility and necessity) in this role, we can generate not only the well-known natural and supernatural worlds but also the up-to-now unnoticed hy- brid world.18 This example indicates how "fictional world" defined as macrostructure of compossible fictional particulars becomes an oper- ational concept of literary analysis.

3. Fictional worlds are accessible from the actual world. Possible-worlds se-

mantics legitimates the sovereignty of fictional worlds vis-a-vis the ac- tual world; at the same time, however, its notion of accessibility offers an explanation of our contacts with fictional worlds. The access re-

majority of semantic problems, a restricted set of relevant possible worlds can be determined (cf. Hintikka 1975: 83). 17. "Worlds may differ from the actual world not only in number and quantity [of their elements] but in quality. Other worlds might have other laws of motion .... Every causal law, in fact, (though not Causality itself) might have been different" (Russell 1937 [1900]: 68). 18. It has been proposed (Dolezel 1984) that the world of some of Kafka's fictions

(e.g., "The Metamorphosis" or "A Country Doctor") is a hybrid world. It is inter-

esting to note in this connection Austin's opinion recorded by Berlin. When asked if the hero of "The Metamorphosis" should be spoken of "as a man with the body of a cockroach, or as a cockroach with the memories and consciousness of man," Austin replied: "Neither ... In such cases we should not know what to say. This is when we say 'words fail us', and mean this literally. We should need a new word. The old one just would not fit" (Berlin 1973: 11). Austin did not notice that the old word hybrid fits this new case of problematic identity.

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 485

quires crossing of world boundaries, transit from the realm of actual existents into the realm of fictional possibles. Under this condition, physical access is impossible. Fictional worlds are accessible from the actual world only through semiotic channels by means of information

processing. The actual world participates in the formation of fictional worlds by

providing models of its structure (including the author's experience), by anchoring the fictional story to a historical event (Wolterstorff 1980: 189), by transmitting "brute facts" or cultural "realemes" (Even-Zohar 1980), etc. In these information-transfers, the actual-world "material" enters the structuring of fictional worlds. Literary scholars have stud- ied intensively the participation of "reality" in the genesis of fictions. Possible-worlds semantics makes us aware that the actual material has to undergo a substantial transformation at the world boundary: it has to be converted into non-actual possibles, with all the ontological, logi- cal and semantical consequences. We have already noted this conver- sion in the special case of fictional individuals; actual-world (historical) persons are allowed to enter a fictional world only if they assume the status of possible alternates.

In the reception of fictional worlds, access is provided through liter-

ary texts which are read and interpreted by actual readers. The read-

ing and interpretation involves many different procedures and de-

pends on many variables, e.g., the type of reader, his style of reading, the purpose of his reading, etc. The details of the access procedures will be revealed only by studying actual reading and interpretation activities. Here, let us just note that, thanks to semiotic mediation, an actual reader can "observe" fictional worlds and make them a source of his experience, just as he observes and experientially appropriates the actual world.19

The need of semiotic mediation in the access to fictional worlds

explains why fictional semantics has to resist all attempts at "decenter- ing," "alienating" and by-passing the literary text. A theory of reading which annihilates the literary text blows up the main bridge between actual readers and the universe of fictions. The reader of such a the- ory isolated in his narcissistic self-processing is condemned to lead

19. Using the example of dramatic performance, Wolterstorff claims: "To regard us as watching the dramatis personae-that is just confusion. ... It is not the case that I saw Hedda shoot herself, since in that world [of the drama] I don't even exist, and so can't see Hedda .... What I can see is someone playing the role of Hedda" (Wolterstorff 1980: 11 Iff.). Wolterstorff denies the actual spectator access to fictional worlds precisely because he does not recognize actors as semiotic mediators. Walton, also ignoring semiotic mediation, has to make the implausible assumption that the reader/spectator is both actual and fictional (Walton 1978/79: 21ff.).

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the most primitive mode of existence, existence without imaginary possible alternatives.

When speaking about semiotic textual mediation, we already invoke a specific feature of literary fictions which points outside possible- worlds semantics. I do not claim to have exhausted the theoretical

potentials of this model but it does seem that, at this point, we have reached the limits of its usefulness.

III. Specific Features of Fictional Worlds of Literature I suggested earlier that the possible-worlds model frame is appro- priate for providing the foundations of the theory of literary fictions but that it cannot substitute for such a theory. If we do not want to turn the possible-worlds model into a collection of theoretically use- less metaphors, we must perceive the limits of its explanatory power with respect to cultural artifacts. Specific features of fictional worlds of literature cannot be derived from the possible-worlds model of formal semantics; yet they can be identified only against the background of this model frame. I shall indicate only three such features:

1. Fictional worlds of literature are incomplete. This property of fictional worlds has been widely recognized (Lewis 1978: 42; Heintz 1979: 90ff.; Howell 1979: 134ff.; Parsons 1980: 182-85; Wolterstorff 1980: 131-34). Incompleteness is a manifestation of the specific character of literary fictions since the possible worlds of the model frame (in- cluding the actual world) are assumed to be complete ("Carnapian") logical structures. The property of incompleteness implies that many conceivable statements about literary fictional worlds are undecidable.

Using the popular issue of the number of Lady Macbeth's children as his example, Wolterstorff has succinctly justified this interpretive prin- ciple: "We shall never know how many children had Lady Macbeth in the worlds of Macbeth. That is not because to know this would require knowledge beyond the capacity of human beings. It is because there is nothing of the sort to know" (Wolterstorff 1980: 133; cf. Heintz 1979: 94).20

If incompleteness is a logical "deficiency" of fictional worlds, it is an

important factor of their aesthetic efficiency. Empty domains are con- stituents of the fictional world's structure no less than "filled" domains. The distribution of filled and empty domains is governed by aesthetic

principles, i.e., by a writer's style, by period or genre conventions, etc. Several recent studies in literary semantics have revealed the aesthetic

significance of incompleteness. Thus, for example, I have indicated

20. According to Lewis, answers to such "silly questions" as "what is Inspector Lestrade's blood type" would doubtless fall into the category of neither true nor false statements (Lewis 1978: 43).

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 487

(Dolezel 1980a) how the incompleteness of fictional characters reflects the stylistic principles of Romantic narrative; specifically, the focus on a physical detail surrounded by emptiness provides the impetus for a symbolic reading of this detail. Pavel has observed that "authors and cultures have the choice to minimize or to maximize" the "unavoidable

incompleteness" of fictional worlds; he has suggested that cultures and

periods of a "stable world view" will tend to minimize the incomplete- ness, while periods of "transition and conflict" tend to maximize it (Pavel 1983: 51ff.). Ryan (1984) offers a triadic typology of fictional worlds on the same foundation; her proposal is especially stimulat-

ing in demonstrating how the types can be generated in a graduate emptying of the domains of the complete world "model." Ryan's most

complete world, the world of realistic fiction, has been a puzzle to fictional semantics. Now we are beginning to realize that its reality- like completeness is nothing more than an illusion "destined precisely to camouflage [its] blanks" (Dallenbach 1984: 201). Realistic fictional worlds do not differ from other fictional worlds in kind but only in

degree of semantic saturation.21

2. Many fictional worlds of literature are not semantically homogeneous. We have claimed that fictional worlds are formed by macrostructural con- straints which determine the set of their compossible constituents. At the same time, however, we can easily discover that many fictional worlds manifest a complex inner semantic structuring. Such worlds are sets of semantically diversified domains integrated into a structural whole by the formative macroconstraints. The lack of semantic ho- mogeneity is especially prominent in the fictional worlds of narrative literature.

A prime example of the semantic partitioning of narrative worlds is provided by agential domains. Every fictional agent forms his own domain constituted by his property set, his relation network, his belief set, his action scope, etc. (cf. Pavel 1980). If there is just one agent in the world-as in Hemingway's story "Big Two-Hearted River"- this agent's domain is equivalent to the fictional world. In the more common case of multi-agent worlds, the fictional world is a set of agential domains held together by the macrostructural conditions of the agents' compossibility.

I have already mentioned that modalities represent an important formative macroconstraint of narrative worlds. Modal structuring yields a variety of homogeneous, as well as unhomogeneous, narrative

21. If the "filling-in of gaps," postulated by phenomenological theories of read- ing (cf. Iser 1978), applies to the empty domains, it is a reductionist procedure. Fictional-world structures, richly diversified in their incompleteness, are reduced to a uniform structure of the complete (Carnapian) world.

488 Poetics Today 9:3

worlds. Thus, for example, the world of realistic fiction is an alethically homogeneous, i.e., natural (physically possible) world; on the opposite pole, an alethically homogeneous supernatural (physically impossible) world (the world of deities, demons, etc.) can be conceived. A mytho- logical world, however, is a semantically unhomogeneous structure constituted by the coexistence of natural and supernatural domains. The domains are divided by sharp boundaries but, at the same time, are linked by the possibility of cross-boundary contacts.

The case of the mythological world demonstrates that semantic un-

homogeneity is a primordial feature of narrative-world formation. A fictional world of narrative has to be a complex set of diversified do- mains to accommodate many different possible individuals, states of affairs, events, actions, etc. This semantic complexity leads some crit- ics to view narrative fictional worlds as miniature models of the ac- tual world. Such a view, however, is misleading. Semantic complexity is a prime manifestation of the structural self-sufficiency of fictional worlds.

3. Fictional worlds of literature are constructs of textual activity. Having char- acterized fictional worlds as sets of non-actualized possibles, we have identified their general ontological base. We have left unspecified the characteristics which differentiate fictional entities from other non- actualized possibles. Hamlet is a different kind of possible individual from the present king of France.22 We have to assume that a special operation is needed to transmute non-actual possibles into fictional entities, to assign fictional existence to possible worlds.

The first, Leibnizian version of the possible-worlds semantics of fic-

tionality has suggested one solution to this problem. According to this view, possible worlds acquire fictional existence by being discov- ered (cf. Dolezel forthcoming). This explanation is based on Leibniz's

assumption that all possible worlds have a transcendental existence (in the divine mind) (cf. Stalnaker 1976: 65). Thanks to the power of his

imagination, the poet gains a privileged access to these worlds, as the scientist using his microscope gains access to the invisible microworld.

Existing as non-actualized possibles in transcendental obscurity, fic- tional worlds are publicly displayed in poet's descriptions.

Contemporary thinking about the origins of possible worlds is not bound by the metaphysical assumptions of Leibniz's philosophy. Possi- ble worlds are not discovered in some remote, invisible or transcendent

22. The difference is revealed by Linski's "test": "Though we can ask whether Mr. Pickwick was married or not, we cannot sensibly ask whether the present king of France is bald or not" (Linski 1962: 231; cf. Woods 1974: 14). Of course, nothing could prevent the present king of France from becoming a fictional individual if he were transferred from logical examples into fictional texts.

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 489

depositories but are constructed by human minds and hands. This ex-

planation has been explicitly given by Kripke: "One stipulates possible worlds, one does not discover them by powerful microscopes" (Kripke 1972: 267; cf. Bradley and Swartz 1979: 63ff.). The construction of fictional possible worlds occurs, primarily, in diverse cultural activities

-poetry and music composition, mythology and story telling, paint- ing and sculpting, theater and dance performance, film making, etc.

Many semiotic systems-language, gestures, motions, colours, shapes, tones, etc.-serve as media of fictional world-construction. Literary fictions are constructed in the creative act of the poetic imagination, in the activity of poiesis. Literary text is the medium of this activity. With the semiotic potentials of the literary text, the poet brings into fictional existence a possible world which did not exist prior to his

poietic act. In this explanation of the origins of fictional worlds, constructional

texts are sharply differentiated from descriptive texts. Descriptive texts are representations of the actual world, of a world existing prior to any textual activity. In contrast, constructional texts are prior to their worlds; fictional worlds are dependent on, and determined

by, constructional texts. As textually determined constructs, fictional worlds cannot be altered or cancelled, while the versions of the actual world provided by descriptive texts are subject to constant modifica- tions and refutations.23

We have emphasized the crucial role of the poet's imagination in the construction of fictional worlds of literature. Literary semantics, however, is concerned primarily with the semiotic medium of world construction, with the literary text. Constructional texts can be called fictional texts in the functional sense: they are actual texts with the potential of constructing fictional worlds. However, the role of the fictional text does not end with its serving as the medium of the poet's constructive activity; it is also the semiotic means for storing and transmitting fictional worlds. We have already mentioned that fic- tional worlds are publicly and permanently available in fictional texts. As long as the text exists, its world can be reconstructed at any time in the reading and interpretive activities of potential receivers. From the viewpoint of the reader, the fictional text can be characterized as a set of instructions according to which the fictional world is to be recovered and reassembled.

The crucial link between fictional semantics and text theory now

23. Radical constructivism obliterates the distinction between world description and world construction, proclaiming all texts world-constructing and all worlds dependent on texts (cf. Goodman 1978; Schmidt 1984). For a criticism of this "semiotic idealism," see Savan (1983).

490 Poetics Today 9:3

becomes obvious. The genesis, preservation and reception of fictional worlds depend on special semiotic capacities of fictional texts. For a

theory of literary fictions, it is especially important to pinpoint the tex- tual capacity which can be credited with the genesis of fictional worlds. I have suggested earlier (Dolezel 1980b) that this world-constructing capacity can be identified if literary texts are interpreted in terms of the Austinian theory ofperformative speech acts.24 Austin has stipulated that performative speech acts carry a special illocutionary force; be- cause of this force, the utterance of a performative speech act under

appropriate felicity conditions (given by extralinguistic conventions) produces a change in the world (Austin 1962; 1971; cf. Searle 1979: 16ff.; Urmson 1979). The genesis of fictional worlds can be seen as an extreme case of world-change, a change from nonexistence into (fictional) existence. The special illocutionary force of literary speech acts that produces this change is called the force of authentication. A non-actualized possible state of affairs becomes a fictional existent by being authenticated in a felicitously uttered literary speech act.25 To exist fictionally means to exist as a textually authenticated possible.

The theory of authentication assumes that the force of authentica- tion is exercised differently in different literary text types (genres). In the particular case of the narrative text type (see Dolezel 1980b), the force of authentication is assigned to the speech acts originating with the so-called narrator. The narrator's authority to issue authenticat-

ing speech acts is given by the conventions of the narrative genre.26 The mechanism of authentication is best demonstrated in the case of the "omniscient," "reliable," authoritative Er-form narrator. What- ever is uttered by this source automatically becomes a fictional exis- tent. Other types of narrators, such as the "unreliable," "subjective" Ich-form narrator, are sources with a lower degree of authentication

authority. Since fictional existence depends on the act of authentica- tion, its character is, ultimately, determined by the degree of authority

24. A link between literature and performatives was already perceived by Barthes:

"Writing [in the sense of ecriture] can no longer designate an operation of record-

ing, notation, representation, 'depiction' (as the Classics would say); rather, it des-

ignates exactly what linguists, referring to Oxford philosophy, call a performative" (Barthes 1977: 145). Barthes did not go beyond this passing remark. 25. If we want to express the authenticating illocutionary act by an explicit per- formative formula, we could suggest the prefix: Let it be. 26. It is true that the actual source of all speech acts in narrative is the author. In the narrative text itself, however, there is no author's discourse. By a generic con-

vention, discourses of the narrative text are assigned to different fictional sources

(the narrator, the acting characters). It is a commonly accepted principle of narra- tive theory that the narrator cannot be identified with the author. For this reason, the so-called sayso pragmatics of fictionality which relies on the author's authority (Woods 1974: 24ff.) is misdirected.

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 491

of the authenticating source. The theory of authentication leads us to acknowledge different modes of fictional existence correlated with the different degrees of the text's force of authentication. Thus, fic- tional existence is not only determined but also manipulated by the

authenticating narrative act.

IV. Self-Voiding Texts and Impossible Fictional Worlds The illocutionary force of a performative speech act is activated only if its particular felicity conditions are met. If a breach of any of these conditions occurs, the act is "null and void"; no change in the world is produced. A different kind of failure of the performative act is

self-voiding. A performative utterance is said to be self-voiding if it is abused, if, for example, it is issued insincerely (Austin 1971: 14ff.). Like the breach of felicity conditions, self-voiding deprives the speech act of its performative force.

I consider the concept of self-voiding highly important for the

theory of fictional narratives. It offers an explanation of diverse non- standard narratives of modern literature which arise, in fact, from a cultivation of performative failure. The authenticating act of fictional narratives is abused in many different ways by not being performed "seriously." I shall present two examples of such abuse:

(a) In skaz narrative, the authenticating act is abused by being treated with irony. The skaz narrator engages in a non-binding game of

story-telling, moving freely from the third to the first person, from a lofty to a colloquial style, from the "omniscient" to the "limited knowledge" posture. Skaz has been extremely popular in Russian fiction, especially since it was established by Gogol (cf. Ejchenbaum 1919).

(b) In self-disclosing narrative ("metafiction"), the authenticating act is abused by being "laid bare." All procedures of fiction-making, particularly the authentication procedure, are practiced overtly as literary conventions. Self-disclosing narrative has achieved great popularity in modern literature (the "nouveau roman," John Barth, John Fowles) and has been very attractive to critics (cf. Hutcheon 1980; Christensen 1981). It is a radical manifestation of the power of literature to generate aesthetic effects by flaunting its hidden foundations.

Both the skaz and the self-disclosing narrative are self-voiding; in both, the authenticating act loses its performative force. Fictional worlds constructed by self-voiding narratives lack authenticity. They are introduced and presented but their fictional existence is not defi- nitely established. Self-voiding narratives are games with fictional ex- istence. On the one hand, possible entities seem to be brought into

492 Poetics Today 9:3

fictional existence since standard authentication procedures are ap- plied; on the other hand, the status of this existence is made dubious because the very foundation of the authenticating mechanism is re- vealed as mere convention. Ultimately, it is impossible to decide what does exist and what does not in the fictional worlds constructed by self-voiding narratives.

In the case of self-voiding narratives, the fictional world's lack of authenticity is due to a disturbance affecting the authenticating act. The roots of the disturbance are pragmatic, although its presence is manifest in the text's semantic features. However, a disruption of the fictional world's authenticity can also be achieved by a purely semantic strategy. Impossible fictional worlds, i.e., worlds that include inner con- tradictions, imply contradictory states of affairs, are a case in point. O. Henry's story "Roads of Destiny" is an example of such a world structure. Its protagonist dies three times in three different ways. Since all the conflicting versions of his demise are constructed by the author- itative narrator, they are all fully authentic. They exist in the fictional world, juxtaposed, unreconciled, unexplained. Ultimately, it is impos- sible to decide which version of the event is a legitimate constituent of the fictional world. Impossible worlds are no less an abuse of fiction-

making than self-voiding narratives. In this case, however, the authen-

ticity of fictional existence is denied by the logico-semantic structure of the world itself. Literature offers the means for constructing im-

possible worlds but at the price of frustrating the whole enterprise: the fictional existence of impossible worlds cannot be made authentic. The Leibnizian restriction is circumvented but not cancelled.

The close link between the lack of authenticity and the impossibility of fictional worlds is confirmed by narratives in which both the prag- matic and the semantic disturbance operate. Such a double manoeuvre undermines fictional existence in Robbe-Grillet's novel La maison de rendez-vous (The House of Assignation).

Robbe-Grillet's text certainly constructs an impossible world, a maze of contradictions of several different orders: a) one and the same event is introduced in several conflicting versions; b) one and the same place (Hong Kong) is and is not the setting of the novel; c) events are or- dered in contradictory temporal sequences (A precedes B, B precedes A); d) one and the same fictional entity recurs in several existen- tial modes (as fictional "reality" or theater performance or sculpture or painting, etc.).27 Like 0. Henry's "Roads of Destiny," La maison de rendez-vous constructs several incompatible alternate plots or plot

27. The "mixing" of different modes of existence seems to be a universal feature of modern art; its explicit demonstration is the cubistic collage which incorporates real objects in paintings (cf. Hintikka 1975: 246).

Dolezel * Mimesis and Possible Worlds 493

fragments (cf. Ricardou 1973: 102ff.). In Robbe-Grillet's case, how- ever, the impossible logico-semantic world structure is coupled with a pragmatic flouting of the authenticating narrative act. The act of

world-constructing is tentative, unfinished, crumbling into a series of frustrated attempts. As a result, the text of the novel is a sequence of drafts, with recurring cuts, new beginnings, corrections, deletions, additions, etc. La maison de rendez-vous is a self-disclosing narrative of a most radical type, an overt demonstration of fiction-making as a trial-and-error procedure.28

Robbe-Grillet's novel reconfirms the ultimate impossibility of con-

structing a fictionally authentic impossible world. This undertaking necessarily leads to the ruin of the very mechanism of fiction-making. Literature, however, turns this destructive process into a new achieve- ment. Fiction-making becomes overtly what it has been covertly: a

game of possible existence.

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