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    Structuralism, Language, and LiteratureAuthor(s): Sanford Scribner AmesSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Autumn, 1973), pp. 89-94Published by: on behalf ofWiley The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/428706Accessed: 11-08-2014 13:29 UTC

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  • 5/20/2018 Structuralism, Language, And Literature

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    SANFORD SCRIBNER

    AMES

    Structuralism anguage

    n d

    iterature

    STRUCTURALISM

    attempts

    to set

    up

    a

    grid

    or control on

    any

    situation or field

    of

    study

    in

    the effort

    to

    make

    it

    intelligible,

    on the

    assumption

    that its

    elements are

    naturally

    arranged

    in a

    system,

    however elusive. Rob-

    ert

    Champigny

    has noted that the

    structur-

    alist method can

    be

    applied

    to

    anything:

    kinship

    systems,

    social

    customs,

    trivial

    pop

    phenomena,

    or

    to

    any study

    of

    man

    in

    general.l Jean Piaget

    sees structure as a

    sys-

    tem

    of transformations

    maintaining

    or en-

    riching itself by different combinations of

    its own

    elements,

    without

    reference

    to

    any-

    thing

    outside

    its

    borders. Structure then ex-

    ists in its own

    right, independent

    of

    human

    formalizing

    or

    theorizing.

    While a structure

    is

    formed of

    elements,

    these

    are

    subordinate

    to

    the

    laws of

    the

    system

    which

    confer

    prop-

    erties

    of

    the

    whole distinct from

    those of

    the elements. In

    sum,

    a

    structure has

    the

    three

    characteristics of

    totality,

    transfor-

    mation,

    and

    self-regulation.

    2

    The tantalizing thing about structural-

    ism

    is

    the

    idea that

    men's

    thinking

    tries

    to

    get

    at what

    is

    independent

    of

    them,

    unex-

    pressed

    and

    unknown,

    which has

    been

    there

    all

    along,

    yet

    must be latent

    deep

    down in

    everyone,

    since men

    belong

    to the one

    world

    there

    is;

    unless

    they

    are to be

    located

    on one

    side of

    a

    dualism.

    Piaget

    recognizes

    that

    structuralism has

    recourse to

    some-

    thing

    like the forms of

    Plato

    and like-

    minded

    philosophers,

    though

    also

    includ-

    SANFORD CRIBNER MES

    is assistant

    professor

    of

    French

    at

    the

    Ohio

    State

    University.

    ing

    empiricists

    who

    appeal

    to

    syntactic

    or

    semantic forms.

    This takes for

    granted

    that

    the

    signifying systems,

    in which men

    live,

    seek

    to

    rest

    upon patterns underlying

    their

    thought.

    The hidden

    patterns

    supposedly

    enable

    men to

    participate

    in a

    language

    whose

    origins

    escape

    them.

    Alternative to

    the

    notion of a

    concealed

    reality,

    never

    certainty

    approached

    or

    reached

    like Kafka's

    castle,

    is the

    concep-

    tion of

    reality

    as

    pragmatically

    constructed

    on the basis of admittedly limited and fal-

    lible

    experience.

    Such

    reality,

    empirically

    arrived

    at,

    will

    differ in

    the

    traditions of

    different

    cultures,

    the

    methods

    of

    different

    scientists, artists,

    and

    philosophers.

    But the

    world-wide

    spread

    of

    the same

    technologi-

    cal

    processes

    and

    scientific

    discoveries tends

    to overcome

    differences

    in

    culture and even

    in

    language,

    as

    modern

    art,

    music, movies,

    literature,

    simultaneously

    come to

    universal

    attention. A kind

    of contractual

    agreement

    forms as to what is real. This is clearly not

    final but in

    constant

    flux.

    Science,

    relying

    upon hypothesis

    and

    test,

    is

    open

    to new

    breakthroughs

    and

    theories,

    requiring

    more

    or

    less revision of what

    had been taken

    for

    granted.

    As

    there has

    been

    general

    rejection

    of

    eighteenth-century

    rationalism

    and

    the con-

    ception

    of man

    as

    primarily

    a

    reasoning

    being,

    so there is

    considerable

    resistance to

    science in

    favor

    of all kinds of

    irrational-

    ism,

    mysticism,

    occultism,

    astrology,

    and

    psychedelic

    experience.

    Structuralism com-

    bines

    rationalism with

    a

    pseudo-scientific

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  • 5/20/2018 Structuralism, Language, And Literature

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    90

    romanticism.

    Thus it is

    the

    faith of

    Claude

    Levi-Strauss that elaborate

    grids

    or

    systems

    may

    begin

    to reveal

    an

    underlying

    struc-

    ture,

    though

    it

    continues to be elusive.

    In

    his

    autobiography

    Tristes

    Tropiques,

    he

    says

    he

    has a neolithic

    mind,

    because

    he

    admires so-called

    primitive

    cultures

    and

    languages.

    He is in

    awe

    of their

    sophistica-

    tion,

    and feels that civilization has

    impover-

    ished life

    by discrediting

    experience

    which

    does not fit a

    rigid

    standard of what is

    sanely

    thinkable.

    Here Levi-Strauss

    is akin

    to

    Benjamin

    Lee

    Whorf with his

    passionate

    interest

    in

    languages differing

    drastically

    from standard

    average European

    lan-

    guages, involving

    an

    understanding

    of the

    environment quite remote from that of

    Western

    culture.

    Whorf was

    fascinated

    by

    the

    capacity

    of

    the

    Hopi

    language

    of Ari-

    zona to make distinctions

    ignored

    in

    Eng-

    lish. He

    said,

    And

    every language

    is a vast

    pattern-system..

    in which are

    culturally

    ordained

    forms and

    categories by

    which the

    personality

    not

    only

    communicates,

    but

    also

    analyzes

    nature,

    notices or

    neglects

    types

    of

    relationship

    and

    phenomena,

    channels his

    reasoning,

    and builds

    the

    house of his

    consciousness. 3 He was struck by what he

    called

    the

    premonition

    in

    language

    of a

    vast,

    unknown world.

    It

    seemed

    to

    Whorf

    as

    if

    the

    personal

    mind ... were in the

    grip

    of a

    higher,

    far

    more intellectual

    mind

    ... . 4 He came

    to

    assume

    an

    intellectual

    structure beneath

    or above

    linguistic

    rela-

    tivity,

    making possible

    a

    brotherhood of

    thought

    which

    in the future could over-

    come

    the

    gulfs

    between

    widely

    variant

    ways

    of

    speaking

    and

    thinking.

    Peter Caws declares that structuralism's

    great

    contribution

    has been ... to claim

    once

    again

    for intellect

    a

    territory

    we

    had

    all

    but abandoned to

    the absurd.

    6

    This

    sug-

    gests

    that our real brother is not

    the alien-

    ated

    worker of Marx or

    the

    fragmented psy-

    che of Freud but

    the

    noble

    savage

    of Rous-

    seau's vision who

    has been buried

    within us

    under

    layers

    of

    excessively

    civilized

    reason-

    ableness,

    mistakenly

    taken to be Man.

    Levi-

    Strauss is

    impressed

    by

    the

    intransigent

    re-

    fusal of

    the

    savage

    mind to allow

    anything

    human (or even living) to remain alien to

    it.

    6

    Too much resistance to the absurd in

    SANFORD SCRIBNER AMES

    the

    concept

    of Man as the embodiment of

    reason has left

    unexplored

    whole territories

    which remain alien. The structuralist effort

    is to work out

    systems

    making

    sense of

    much that had been

    rejected

    as

    fanciful.

    Michel Foucault

    quotes

    in

    the introduc-

    tion

    to Les Mots

    et

    les

    choses a

    passage

    from

    Borgds (not

    identified but from the

    novel

    L'Alepha):

    This text cites

    a certain Chinese

    encyclopedia

    where

    it

    is written

    that animals are

    divided into:

    a) belonging

    to

    the

    Emperor,

    b)

    embalmed,

    c)

    tame,

    d) suckling

    pigs, e)

    mermaids,

    f)

    fabulous,

    g) dogs running

    free,

    h)

    included

    in the

    present

    classification,

    i)

    which

    behave like

    madmen,

    j)

    innumerable,

    k)

    drawn on camelskin with

    a

    very

    fine

    brush,

    1)

    et

    cetera,

    m)

    which have

    just

    broken

    their leg, n) which from a distance look like

    flies.

    Foucault

    comments:

    In our

    astonishment

    at this

    taxonomy

    what

    strikes us with sud-

    den

    force,

    what,

    because of its

    setting,

    is

    presented

    to

    us

    as the exotic charm of an-

    other

    system

    of

    thought,

    is the limitation of

    our own: the stark

    impossibility

    of

    thinking

    such

    things.

    7

    Foucault

    predicts

    that the rational con-

    ception

    of

    Man will

    disappear

    like

    a

    face

    drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea.

    8

    This is

    not

    to

    be taken as

    a

    depressing pos-

    sibility

    but

    rather

    as

    marking

    the liberation

    of

    men,

    permitting

    them to

    exist more

    fully

    in

    the

    world,

    free from

    bondage

    to narrow

    reason. Men

    are still

    here,

    facing

    the same

    problems,

    with freedom to invest

    the sense

    of

    their

    being

    in

    the

    world,

    rivaling

    the

    enterprise

    of their

    unfettered distant

    ancestors,

    joining

    in

    the

    infinite

    possibili-

    ties of

    la

    pensee sauvage.

    The title of L6vi-Strauss'swork on struc-

    tural

    anthropology,

    La

    Pensee

    sauvage,

    should not

    be translated

    as

    savage

    or

    primitive

    thought

    but

    rather as

    untamed

    thought

    or natural mind.

    For

    him,

    men

    have been involved in

    the

    activity

    of

    mak-

    ing

    the world

    intelligible

    all

    along;

    but

    it

    is

    only

    in

    relatively

    recent times that

    they

    have become

    separated enough

    from their

    linguistic projections

    to ask Who is talk-

    ing?

    and

    To whom is

    talking

    or

    writing

    addressed?

    We are so bent on

    making

    sense and making ourselves understood that

    we

    define

    madness

    as

    the

    non-signifying,

    the

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  • 5/20/2018 Structuralism, Language, And Literature

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    Structuralism,

    Language,

    and

    Literature

    unthinkable.

    But

    overemphasis

    on rational

    Man

    may

    obscure

    a

    somnolent,

    persistent

    chance

    that we

    may

    not be forever

    exiled

    from non-rational

    insights

    into our

    strange

    being in the world. What we have called

    insane

    may

    not be

    unhealthy.

    It

    may

    be the

    divine

    madness of

    Plato,

    the

    inspiration

    of

    art. Foucault would

    rediscover

    and

    reap-

    praise

    madness.

    Roy

    McMullen calls

    it:

    Not the

    ignoble

    sickness seen

    by

    clinical

    eyes,

    but madness as

    an ancient kind

    of

    in-

    tuitive

    breakthrough-knowledge,

    with the

    animal

    shamelessness,

    violent

    truthfulness,

    poetic

    license,

    and

    holy

    aura it had for our

    ancestors retained

    in scores

    of Western liter-

    ary

    and

    pictorial masterpieces.

    9

    Interrogation

    of

    the

    mentally

    ill,

    those

    who

    can no

    longer cope,

    reveals

    the

    star-

    tling

    limitation of

    common

    language

    as

    communication.

    Jacques

    Lacan,

    the

    leading

    French structuralist

    psychologist,

    says:

    ...

    psychoanalysis

    has but

    one

    medium: the

    word of the

    patient....

    10

    Man

    appears

    to

    the structuralist

    as an uncertain

    refer-

    ence,

    or,

    to

    put

    it

    more

    drastically,

    an

    ab-

    sence.

    The

    attempt

    to

    apprehend

    him out-

    side his

    speaking, writing,

    and

    representing

    seems doomed to failure. What is unex-

    pressed

    is

    assumed

    to exist as

    latent lan-

    guage

    until

    it comes to

    light

    in

    expression.

    Then

    what comes

    through

    must have been

    imminent

    in

    everyone's

    pensee

    sauvage.

    Through

    the

    juxtaposition

    and

    superim-

    position

    of

    texts,

    languages,

    and cultures we

    have

    the best chance of

    understanding

    what

    it means to be men.

    We are like archaeolo-

    gists studying

    the

    remains of

    bygone

    human

    life. We

    put

    a

    grid

    over

    languages,

    cultures,

    and individual testimony, spoken or writ-

    ten,

    and invent new

    semiological

    relations

    to

    interpret

    what we find. We cannot

    bring

    former

    life back

    any

    more than we can seize

    the absent

    author or

    speaker

    talking

    to us.

    It is

    always

    too

    late,

    even

    eyeball

    to

    eyeball

    in direct

    confrontation,

    to

    bring

    forth

    what

    is

    never there

    except

    as created in

    the

    signi-

    fying

    activity

    of

    language.

    It is

    possible

    to learn more about

    a lan-

    guage

    than those

    speaking

    it

    are aware of.

    We are all a little like Monsieur Jourdain

    discovering

    that

    he had been

    speaking

    prose.

    We

    know much more about some

    91

    past

    cultures,

    myths,

    customs,

    and

    arts

    than

    their

    possessors

    had the means to

    grasp.

    For

    the

    structuralists

    what we

    usually

    mean

    by

    knowing

    ourselves

    or

    others,

    in the

    present

    or the past, misses the point that knowing is

    doing.

    Although

    we start out as archaeolo-

    gists,

    we end

    up

    as fellow artists or creative

    analysts,

    joining

    our

    predecessors

    in

    ques-

    tioning

    and

    creating

    the world

    according

    to

    our

    representations

    of it.

    If

    the traces

    of

    past

    activities are to make

    any

    sense,

    they

    must make it to

    the

    living.

    While

    the

    past

    is

    steadily

    constructed

    and

    reconstructed on

    the basis of the

    present,

    the

    past

    can be

    experienced only

    here and now. When the

    notion of

    complete

    and irrevocable

    history

    is

    given

    up,

    then each of us

    in

    turn is the

    other to whom

    the world with its train of

    past cultures must

    appear.

    When we detect

    or create structures of

    relationships

    that our

    ancestors could not have been aware of in

    their

    languages, myths,

    or

    literatures,

    it is

    we

    who

    must

    struggle

    with

    the

    questions

    which

    they

    raise.

    Questions

    about the

    application

    of struc-

    turalism

    to

    the

    world, life,

    or

    reality

    in

    gen-

    eral come to a most

    interesting

    focus

    in

    lit-

    erature. It is frequently charged that struc-

    turalists

    get

    more out of a text or a

    myth

    than

    could be there

    according

    to

    empirical

    evidence,

    the

    history

    of a

    period,

    the life

    and

    times of an author or

    artist.

    The

    challenge

    of

    structuralism to tradi-

    tional

    academic

    literary

    criticism has been

    eloquently

    put

    by

    Roland

    Barthes,

    who

    is

    generally

    regarded

    as head of the

    school

    known

    as

    La

    Nouvelle

    critique.

    He is cur-

    rently

    director

    of

    a

    seminar on the sociol-

    ogy of signs, symbols, and representations

    in the Ecole

    Pratique

    des Hautes Etudes

    in

    Paris. Like other

    structuralists,

    he is en-

    gaged

    in

    creating

    and

    bringing

    into

    the

    open

    what

    they

    suppose

    to be the anterior

    language

    which

    makes communication and

    literature

    possible.

    His concern

    is not with

    a

    message

    but with

    what

    system

    or

    structure

    makes

    messages

    available.

    In

    his

    view,

    the

    critic chooses a

    critical

    language appropri-

    ate to the

    work

    in

    hand and

    to his

    ap-

    proach, to impose as a grid over the text,

    enabling

    him to

    develop

    one

    of

    the

    possible

    senses

    out

    of an

    unknown

    number. The

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    92

    critic

    builds a model

    over the text and

    then,

    in

    exhaustive

    ransacking

    of unities and rela-

    tionships,

    accounts for

    all the

    signifying

    ele-

    ments in

    the work in

    terms of his construct.

    The critic, in front of a work, is analogous

    to men

    trying

    to

    understand the world.

    Work and world

    ask to be

    projected

    and

    given

    depth

    by

    human

    structuring

    activity.

    The

    job

    is to

    make a valid

    model.

    What

    matters is not

    what

    critical

    language

    is im-

    posed,

    but the

    rigor

    with

    which it is

    ap-

    plied.

    For

    Barthes,

    traditional

    literary

    criti-

    cism is a

    mixture of science and

    magic.

    The

    assumption

    has been

    that,

    if we know

    the

    life and

    times of an author

    we

    can,

    accord-

    ing

    to

    conventional

    psychological,

    bio-

    graphical,

    and historical

    data,

    discover

    what

    contributing

    factors

    were transformed

    into

    literature. Inventions or

    transforma-

    tions of

    reality

    which

    cannot be

    accounted

    for are

    assigned

    to the

    creative

    powers

    of

    Racine,

    Proust,

    whoever

    it

    might

    be-in

    short,

    to

    magic.

    Barthes

    maintains that this

    magical

    ap-

    proach

    cannot

    begin

    to

    exhaust the

    possi-

    bilities of a

    work.

    This

    ignores

    the

    prob-

    lems raised

    by

    the

    transformation

    of

    lan-

    guage into literature. For Barthes, litera-

    tures exists as a

    meta-language,

    a

    parasitical

    language,

    which

    cannot

    denote

    the real but

    only

    suggest

    it.

    Literature

    doubles

    reality.

    Barthes

    says

    that

    literature is ...

    deprived

    of all

    transitivity,

    condemned

    ceaselessly

    to

    signify

    itself at

    the moment when it

    wants

    only

    to

    signify

    the

    world. Literature

    then is

    an

    immobile

    object, separated

    from the

    world which is

    in

    process

    of

    realizing

    itself.

    ... In

    sum,

    literature does not

    permit

    the

    world to walk, but allows it to breathe. 11

    The

    opposite

    of

    literary

    is

    transitive lan-

    guage,

    used to

    change

    the

    world. For a

    me-

    chanic

    a car is

    not the

    advertiser's

    image

    of

    prestige,

    success,

    or

    sex,

    but an

    object

    to be

    worked on for a

    livelihood. The

    language

    of

    the

    mechanic,

    the

    scientist,

    or

    the revolu-

    tionary,

    used

    in

    his

    occupation,

    is

    not

    myth-

    ical

    but

    practical

    designations

    for action

    upon

    the world. In

    the classical

    period

    of

    French

    literature,

    language

    was

    felt to

    be

    transparent,

    as

    Boileau

    put

    it.

    What was

    clearly conceived would be clearly ex-

    pressed,

    with

    varing

    degrees

    of

    ornamenta-

    SANFORD SCRIBNER AMES

    tion.

    For

    the

    classical

    writer,

    to continue

    Barthes's

    metaphor, language

    walked with

    the

    world and with

    universal consciousness.

    David Funt

    amplifies

    the classical

    idea:

    The traditional view of literature sees the

    subject (mind)

    as a

    plenum

    which

    expresses

    itself

    in

    the medium of words.

    ...

    If

    the

    language

    is

    sufficiently

    transparent

    and

    if

    the reader's

    literary

    vision is

    adequate,

    he

    ought

    to

    perceive

    the secret of the

    work

    which

    lies

    in the

    subject

    hidden behind

    the

    language.

    Another

    way

    (the

    critic's)

    of deci-

    phering

    the

    author's

    secret

    is to

    circumvent

    the work

    itself

    and to

    study

    the author's life

    and

    environment.

    12

    For Barthes

    also the

    subject

    exists as an

    absence, but his blank silence makes

    possi-

    ble a

    plurality

    of

    senses,

    a

    multiplicity

    of

    creative-critical

    interpretations.

    Language,

    as we know

    it in modern

    times,

    is no

    longer

    transparent

    but dense and

    opaque,

    each

    word a realm of

    signs

    with life of its

    own.

    Barthes seems to be

    saying

    that

    literay

    lan-

    guage

    cannot walk with

    the world

    except

    in

    bad

    faith,

    by assuming

    that words

    are

    empty

    and

    neutral vehicles filled

    by

    a

    spe-

    cific or universal

    reality

    or idea

    which

    they

    designate. When the signification of lan-

    guage

    is

    seen to be

    limited,

    having

    a

    kind

    of

    necessity

    or

    essential

    quality

    that

    de-

    forms its

    factual

    content,

    the result is

    myth.

    For

    example,

    white stands

    for

    purity,

    red

    for

    danger.

    If the

    meta-language

    of

    literature is to

    avoid

    becoming myth,

    and

    escape

    the doom

    of

    pretending

    to mirror a

    reality

    it

    cannot

    change,

    then a

    subject

    which

    in fact is ab-

    sent must

    appear

    as a

    question,

    a

    proposal.

    Literature must provoke the maximum res-

    onance

    in

    what Maurice

    Blanchot

    calls

    l'espace

    litteraire

    around it.

    Barthes ob-

    serves: One could

    say,

    I

    believe,

    that

    litera-

    ture is

    Orpheus climbing

    up

    from the un-

    derworld.

    As

    long

    as it

    goes

    forward,

    while

    knowing

    that it is

    leading

    someone

    (the

    reality

    which is

    behind),

    it

    pulls

    little

    by

    little

    away

    from

    the

    unnamed,

    breathing,

    walking,

    and

    directing

    itself

    toward

    clarity

    and

    sense.

    But

    as soon

    as

    language

    turns

    around toward what it

    loves,

    there is

    no

    longer anything in its hands but a named

    meaning,

    that is to

    say,

    a

    dead

    meaning.

    13

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  • 5/20/2018 Structuralism, Language, And Literature

    6/7

    Structuralism,

    Language,

    and Literature

    Barthes declares

    that,

    for

    literature to

    sig-

    nify only

    itself when

    it wants

    to

    signify

    the

    world

    (which

    is

    always

    in the

    making),

    de-

    scription

    must be left

    open,

    written in

    am-

    biguous terms,

    which

    will let

    the

    meaning

    leak

    through (fuir).

    A

    writer's

    language

    can be

    creatively

    completed

    in

    various

    worthwhile

    con-

    structs. In structuralism a

    positive

    situation

    is

    one

    in which an

    ongoing,

    unceasing

    con-

    quest

    of the

    intelligible

    is

    possible

    in the

    practice

    of the

    signifying

    activity. Language

    is

    not innocent or neutral. When

    it

    pre-

    tends

    to be universal and

    transparent,

    when

    it

    aspires

    to be

    exclusive,

    it

    becomes

    mythi-

    cal.

    David Funt, in discussing this problem

    with

    reference to

    Barthes,

    shows

    that

    the

    supposed

    neutral

    universality

    of classical

    literary

    language

    was in fact the

    property

    of

    a social

    class,

    namely,

    the

    rising

    bourgeoi-

    sie. After

    1880,

    perhaps

    beginning

    with

    Flaubert,

    writers

    became aware

    of different

    ecritures or

    ways

    of

    writing

    available to

    them.

    They began

    to choose their

    languages

    consciously.

    Flaubert is mentioned

    by

    Funt

    as

    deliberately

    choosing

    the

    language

    of the

    bourgeoisie, while Sartre took that of the

    Left,

    and

    Camus came as close as

    possible

    to

    the absolute

    neutrality

    of l'ecriture

    blanche.

    Taking

    the

    conscious

    responsibility

    of mak-

    ing

    a

    choice,

    which cannot

    be

    avoided in

    any

    case,

    is to

    recognize

    the

    multiplicity

    of

    ecritures which are not

    mutually

    exclusive.

    A

    writer,

    deliberately

    choosing

    one or an-

    other

    for

    his

    purposes,

    will

    be aware that

    it

    is

    one

    of

    many

    possible approaches

    to

    the

    world. This

    gives

    him

    the

    advantage

    of

    turning into foils the possibilities not

    chosen.'4

    Literature for Barthes

    would seem to be

    an

    open-ended sign language.

    Neither the

    author,

    the

    content,

    nor the literal charac-

    ter of

    the

    language

    is of

    primary

    interest,

    but rather

    the

    Eurydice

    that

    literature can-

    not turn

    back to or

    even name. The

    signifi-

    cation of

    literary

    structure can be ana-

    lyzed

    in

    the creation

    of

    logical

    models

    which

    try

    to

    grasp

    how

    writing

    transforms

    language

    and

    points

    toward an

    unexpressed

    proto-language. Literature is not the text

    itself but its

    fissures of

    ambiguous

    song

    93

    which

    keep

    coaxing

    Eurydice

    from the

    un-

    derworld.

    Though

    we

    may

    never see

    her

    face,

    we know

    she

    is alive in the sketches

    and

    models we make of

    her,

    prompted

    by

    what the internal structure of

    a

    work

    pro-

    poses

    as absence. This absence

    justifies

    in-

    ventive

    criticism,

    since there is

    no fixed

    ori-

    gin

    or

    point

    of reference for

    a creative

    work.

    Such

    an

    approach puts

    life and

    dyna-

    mism into both literature and

    criticism.

    Racine's

    Andromaque

    and

    Phedre are

    not

    stuck in their creator's mind back in

    the

    seventeenth

    century. They

    are created

    anew

    for each

    age

    and each critic. When we

    rigorously

    apply

    contemporary

    critical lan-

    guages

    to

    Racine,

    we see new

    dynamics,

    new interrelations in his works, new signs.

    Our

    Phedre and

    Andromaque might

    be un-

    recognizable

    to

    Racine, but,

    without

    life

    of

    their

    own,

    could

    they emerge,

    could

    they

    be

    conjured up again

    and

    again

    in

    different

    forms

    by

    different

    spells?

    This seems to be

    the

    idea behind

    Barthes's controversial

    book,

    Sur

    Racine.

    Applying

    his

    approach,

    let

    us see if there

    is life now in Racine's

    signifying

    activity,

    so that we can

    fit

    his

    creations

    into

    the

    present

    where alone

    they

    can come to life.

    Thinking

    of

    literature as

    proposal

    or

    sign

    to be

    completed,

    soliciting

    further creative

    activity,

    almost

    putting

    criticism on

    equal

    footing

    with the

    work,

    is

    exciting.

    We are

    no

    longer

    groping

    in

    the

    dust

    for

    clues to

    reconstruct

    the truth. We

    recognize

    that

    linguistic

    constructions have a

    timeless life

    of

    their own. The

    silence around them can

    resonate with new

    significance.

    Then

    the

    study

    of

    literature calls

    back

    again

    those

    ageless ladies, Eurydice, Phedre, and Andro-

    maque,

    to come down

    the

    runway

    in

    hith-

    erto

    unimagined

    costumes.

    McLuhan has

    suggested

    that

    the French

    have

    overemphasized

    the structuralist

    sys-

    tem which

    made French

    style.

    He thinks

    more stress

    should be

    put

    upon

    content,

    making

    for

    richness and

    variety, though

    ob-

    scuring

    underlying

    structures. He

    says:

    ...

    it would

    be

    interesting

    to

    study

    literature as

    a

    struggle

    between

    self-immobilizing

    themes

    and

    structures and

    the

    pull away

    from such

    themes toward a greater variety of response

    to the world and

    to

    language.

    15

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  • 5/20/2018 Structuralism, Language, And Literature

    7/7

    94

    Mikel Dufrenne

    challenges

    the

    claim

    of

    structuralism

    that

    meaning

    is

    only

    contex-

    tual,

    with no

    reference

    to

    objects.

    He

    says

    that,

    after

    dispensing

    with

    objects,

    the

    argu-

    ment consists only in the relationships of

    their

    empty places

    ...

    the

    meaning

    is

    in the

    relations,

    not

    in the terms

    which

    are related

    ... the

    system

    is

    presented

    and

    deployed

    according

    to a

    timeless

    history

    ...

    outside

    human

    initiative,

    language

    does

    the

    think-

    ing

    in

    our

    stead ...

    in

    short,

    man

    dies

    that

    the

    system

    may

    live....

    In structuralist

    crit-

    icism,

    a work

    is

    considered

    exactly

    as

    a

    formal

    system

    is considered

    by

    the

    logician:

    the work is

    taken

    as

    language

    and

    criticism

    as

    meta-language.

    16

    Dufrenne

    says

    that if the work is consid-

    ered

    an

    autonomous,

    closed

    system,

    a dis-

    course

    not

    spoken

    by

    anyone,

    the

    conse-

    quence

    is

    that a work is

    not to

    be

    explained

    by

    reference

    to its

    author,

    his

    life and

    in-

    tentions,

    or

    by

    the historical

    context.

    The

    genesis

    of

    a work is

    ignored.

    The umbili-

    cal cord is cut

    which ties

    a work to

    the

    writer

    and

    through

    him to the

    world.

    17

    It

    is instructive

    to examine

    the

    mechanism

    of

    objectified

    thought,

    but Dufrenne

    holds

    that structuralism cannot stand alone with-

    out

    leaving

    problems

    which it

    does

    not and

    cannot

    raise,

    which

    more

    empirical

    think-

    ing

    must take

    up.

    Works

    cannot

    be

    signifi-

    cant

    in and for

    themselves.

    Their

    meaning

    must

    be

    for

    someone,

    by

    referring

    to the

    world.

    Champigny

    adds

    that structuralism

    would be

    more

    interesting

    if it could estab-

    lish

    a

    hierarchy

    of

    aesthetic

    accomplish-

    ment,

    showing

    that some

    patterns,

    rhymes,

    motives,

    or sounds

    are more

    appealing

    than

    others. He thinks the hope of literary study

    is to

    assign

    values.18

    The

    rejoinder

    of structuralists

    to

    Duf-

    renne

    would

    presumably

    be

    that,

    while

    lit-

    erature

    may

    be

    considered

    a

    closed

    sys-

    tem,

    it

    is a

    system

    of

    signs

    which

    perpetu-

    ally

    solicit

    the invention of

    completions.

    It

    SANFORD

    SeRIBNER

    AMES

    is

    very

    well to collect

    facts

    concerning

    a

    work's

    author

    and its

    genesis,

    if we

    admit

    that this

    cannot

    begin

    to exhaust

    the

    possi-

    ble

    meanings

    of a

    work.

    Empirical

    data

    may

    be

    reassuring

    but cannot

    be the

    umbil-

    ical cord

    that

    ties a

    work to

    the world.

    There

    is no

    fixed

    point

    of reference

    to

    which literature

    can

    be

    pinned,

    no truth

    that

    can

    plumb

    it.

    An author

    sets

    in motion

    a

    signifying

    dynamism,

    which is

    a

    question

    launched

    by

    his

    writing.

    Barthes

    says

    that literature

    merely

    asks,

    What

    do

    things signify?

    He

    thinks

    that

    literature

    never

    gives

    the answer.

    He

    main-

    tains that no

    literature has

    ever

    answered

    the

    question

    it

    asked,

    and that

    this

    makes

    literature what it is: the frail language

    which

    men

    place

    between

    the

    violence

    of

    the

    question

    and

    the silence

    of the

    missing

    answer.

    1

    Robert

    Champigny,

    Lecture

    at

    Ohio

    State Uni-

    versity,

    May

    1970.

    2

    Cf.

    Jean

    Piaget,

    Le Structuralisme

    (Paris:

    Presses

    Universitaires

    de

    France,

    1968), pp.

    6-8.

    Benjamin

    Lee

    Whorf,

    Language,

    Thought,

    and

    Reality (The

    M.I.T.

    Press,

    1969), p.

    252.

    4

    Ibid.,

    p.

    257.

    6

    Peter

    Caws,

    Structuralism,

    Partisan

    Review

    35

    (1968):

    91.

    B

    Ibid.,

    p.

    90.

    7Michel

    Foucault,

    Les Mots et

    les

    choses

    (Paris,

    1966), p.

    7.

    8

    Ibid.,

    p.

    398.

    9Roy

    McMullen,

    Michel

    Foucault,

    Horizon

    (Autumn

    1969),

    11: 37.

    10Jacques

    Lacan,

    Ecrits

    (Paris,

    1966),

    p.

    866.

    U

    Roland

    Barthes,

    Essais

    Critiques (Paris,

    1961),

    p.

    264.

    David

    Funt,

    Roland

    Barthes

    and the

    Nouvelle

    critique, JAAC

    26

    (1968):

    337-38.

    18

    Barthes,

    p.

    265.

    14

    Cf.

    Funt,

    p.

    337.

    15

    Marshall

    McLuhan,

    Conversations

    with Mc-

    Luhan,

    Encounter

    (June 1967),

    p.

    232.

    16

    Mikel

    Dufrenne,

    Esthetique

    et

    philosophie

    (Paris,

    1967),

    pp.

    132-33.

    7

    Ibid.,

    p.

    133.

    8

    Champigny,

    Lecture,

    May

    1970.

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